CLICK TO PLAY At the 2010 United States Sailboat Show in Annapolis, MD, TheSailingChannel interviews Edson Marine President, Will Keene. Will demonstrates Edson's break through product, the Edson Wheel with Clutch & Brake. For sailing yachts with autopilots the helmsman can clutch out the wheel, removing its fly wheel effect, dramatically decreasing the load on the autopilot. This is especially useful on yachts with dual wheel systems. The wheel also includes a traditional brake to lock the steering system. Watch free and paid how-to sail and maintenance videos on TheSailingChannel.TV. https://www.thesailingchannel.tv/how-to-sail-instructional-videos/ Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY After entering the Caribbean from the Panama Canal, cruisers Bob and Kaye stop at a commercial shipyard to get some repairs done on "Bettie's" keel. There they get an opportunity to watch the age-old craft of wooden boat repair alongside modern fiberglass and ocean going freighters. Join cruisers Bob and Kaye on their many adventures in "Cruising with Bettie: L.A. to the Bahamas," a 51-minute cruising life-style video. This is a fast-paced documentary, with gorgeous photography, that will give you a first hand look at the cruising lifestyle. Over 10,000 miles passed under Bettie’s keel since Bob and Kaye left Los Angeles in 2004. They sailed down the west coast to Panama, through the Canal, east to Cartagena, Columbia then north to Honduras and east across the Caribbean to the Bahamas. Available on Sailflix Vimeo on Demand Download-to-Own $9.99 | Streaming Rental $4.99 https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/559621800/0/thesailingchannel Bob Steadman was a highly acclaimed Hollywood cinematographer. Sadly, Bob past away several years ago. His last Hollywood gig was as technical consultant to the Director of Photography on the feature, Body of Lies directed by Ridley Scott and starring Leonardo de Caprio and Russell Crowe. Check out Bob Steadman's screen credits on the Internet Movie Database. Bob's First Mate, Kaye is a Hollywood costume designer. Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Ice Blink is a film by Gregory Roscoe, Seaworthy Productions, Falmouth Maine. Life as a Canvas is a chapter from Ice Blink, a remarkable PBS documentary about a conventional family of five living a very unconventional life afloat. In this clip, Jaja and Dave Martin discuss why they chose a cruising lifestyle for their family over a conventional one ashore. Follow Dave, Jaja and their crew of three children from their beginnings aboard a 25-foot day sailor circumnavigating the globe to their most recent voyage on a 33 foot steel sloop to the Arctic, then on to their current homeport in Maine. Available on Vimeo on Demand https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/559621792/0/thesailingchannel Download-to-Own $9.99 | Streaming Rental $4.99 Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Thesailingchannel.TV brings you Capt. Jack's Cruising Tips. In this tip, Capt. Jack demonstrates how to maintain a pocket between your mainsail and jib to balance the sails for best performance. A 58-minute video of 30 Cruising Tips by Capt. Jack is available at https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/559335316/0/thesailingchannel as a Download-to-Own: $9.99 | Streaming Rental: $4.99 | DVD: $19.95. 2-DVD Set includes both Cruising Tips and Singlehanded Docking & Sailing Captain Jack Klang holds a 50 ton USCG Master license, power and sail. He has a way of showing how things work so anyone can understand. Capt. Jack's tips are a must if you want to learn sailing basics, or just brush up for the coming season or your next charter. All Sailing Videos Just $2.99 or Less. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Preview for 52-minute how-to sailing video. U.S. Coast Guard certified skipper, Capt. Jack Klang, combines innovative classroom models with real world sailing situations to explain the skills and techniques required for singlehanders to dock with confidence in any wind or current, trim cruising sails for power and speed, and retrieve a mooring alone. In a bonus segment, Capt. Jack demonstrates how a crew of two can fly, trim, and retrieve an asymmetrical spinnaker, making light air cruising faster and more fun. The QuickTime Video Download is "Chapterized" so you can easily reference different sections, just like a DVD. Purchase at Vimeo on Demand Download $9.99 | Streaming Rental $4.99 Purchase the 2-video set: Sailing Instruction with Capt. Jack that includes Cruising tips and Singlehanded Docking. Download for just $15.99. Purchase 2 DVD-US set: Singlehanded Docking and Sailing Instruction: $29.95 plus S&H. Sailing Documentaries from $2.99. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY J Class - St. Barths Bucket 2013. Five magnificent and gigantic J Class sloops race in the St. Barths Bucket Regatta. Beautifully photographed by Onne van der Wal and edited by Halsey Fulton with on boat, boat-to-boat, crew comments, and aerials. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV. Sailing Documentaries from $2.99. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Don Street Sailors' Knots From Don Street Sailors' Knots. Filmed in Martinique aboard Iolaire, his 46 ft engineless wooden yawl, master sailor Don Street teaches you and your crew everything you need to know about sailors' knots and more in just 50 minutes. Don starts by covering 8 basic knots then adds more advanced knots like the rolling hitch, fisherman's bend, and tow boat hitch. With a down to earth style, he teaches you how to tie each knot and most importantly, when to use it, making a sometimes difficult subject easy and pleasurable. First Don demonstrates at normal speed then he shows you a slow motion close up that makes the knot's path easy to follow and learn. Don also covers proper line handling, dock line throwing, sail stops, halyards, and how to repair a chafed rope. Don gives you the critical knot and line handling skills every skipper should know. Available at https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/557582044/0/thesailingchannel Streaming Rental $4.99 | Download-to-Own (mp4) $9.99 DVD US $29.95 | DVD INTL $39.95 (includes S&H) Get The Complete Street - all 5 Don Street Videos for just $49.95 Available at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thecompletestreet Sailing Documentaries from $2.99. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Don Street Antigua Race Week 1985 Preview From Don Street Antigua Race Week 1985. A one hour award-winning documentary by Charles Croft which lets you share the intense sailing action aboard Don Street's 80 year old, 44 foot, engineless yawl, "Iolaire" during Antigua Sailing Week, 1985, Iolarie's final appearance in one of the world's top sailing events. Built in 1905, Don had sailed and raced "Iolaire" throughout the Caribbean for forty years while he developed his famous Imray-Iolair charts and the first comprehensive cruising guides that opened up the Caribbean to modern sailors. Antigua Sailing Week races became an annual event for Street and Iolaire since the first regatta in 1957. In 1985, Street decided to retire Iolaire from racing and they both went out in style, finishing only 5 points out of first place at race week's end. This award-winning documentary shows you what Caribbean racing was like in its golden years when the skippers all new each other and racing was more fun than business. Available at https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/557582042/0/thesailingchannel Streaming Rental $4.99 | Download-to-Own (mp4) $9.99 Get The Complete Street - all 5 Don Street Videos for just $49.95 Sailing Documentaries from $2.99. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY A film by Rob & Dee Dubin U.S. - Canada lakes cruising with Gary Jobson as your host. Cruise from the Great Lakes to Utah including Canada's Georgian Bay, Lake Superior's Apostle Islands, Lake Michigan's Traverse Bay, and Utah's Lake Powell. From the Sailing Quarterly Video Magazine series. Your cruise starts in the North Channel of Canada's Georgian Bay. Located on the north coast of Lake Huron, this rugged cruising ground features forested shorelines and scattered islands. Onboard an ODay 35 sloop, we take brisk daysails to picturesque anchorages. Next we're off to Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands National Lake Shore, a collection of 22 pine-covered islands, mostly undeveloped. We provision in Bayfield, a quaint town that is the gateway to cruising the Apostles. Using mostly line of sight navigation, we island hop through this remote archipelago featuring dramatic north woods scenery. Our next stop is Traverse Bay in northern Lake Michigan. In Traverse City, we meet expert sailing instructor and charter skipper, Captain Jack Klang, who acts as our guide on a chartered Morgan 38. The area features two bays with numerous islands, inlets, harbors and small towns to explore. Clear waters, and a northern landscape of alternating rolling fields and forests greet the cruising sailor. Our final segment is a family cruise on southwest Utah's Lake Powell. This man-made lake offers a desert landscape with 1900 miles of meandering shoreline for trailer boaters. Lake Powell features warm waters, sandy beaches and dozens of canyons for both water and onshore exploration. (D6Z) Check out more Sailing Quarterly destination and how-to videos ABOUT SAILING QUARTERLY Produced in the late 1980's, Sailing Quarterly Video Magazine's 24 one-hour programs set the standard for sailing television. It's content represents over 200 years of sailing knowledge from its hosts and presenters such as Gary Jobson, Don Street, Tristan Jones and John Rousmaniere. We've taken individual stories, and grouped them under instructional categories and cruising destinations. The complete series includes nine instructional volumes, eight destination volumes, and the 24 original SQ one-hour programs. This is timeless content that will benefit every sailor, racer or cruiser. Presented by TheSailingChannel.TV. Browse our VOD collection Join our eNewsletter for news and discount offers. Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY A Video Series with John Rousmaniere Based on his famous book and hosted by the author, this award-winning instructional DVD series is now available as a Digital Download. As the old salt says, "rocks don't move." Though made nearly 15 years ago, Rousmaniere's milestone series teaches basic sailing techniques handed down by generations of sailors. A must for newbies and a solid reference for those who want to freshen up their sailing skills. "Will help Sailors be more confident and even enjoy sailing in heavy weather." - Gary Jobson. New sailors may want to begin with Volume V, Sailing Daysailors. This video provides a great introduction to the principles and mechanics of sailing, which is much easier to grasp and understand sailing a small boat. You can then apply these basic skills to larger craft and having a solid foundation for the sailing skills presented in the other four volumes. View trailers for each volume. New sailors may want to begin with Volume V, Sailing Daysailors. This video provides a great introduction to the principles and mechanics of sailing, which is much easier to grasp and understand sailing a small boat. You can then apply these basic skills to larger craft and have a solid foundation for the sailing skills presented in the other four volumes. The five program series includes: Vol I: Cruising Under Sail Vol. II: Heavy Weather Sailing Vol. III: Safety At Sea Vol. IV: Sailboat Navigation Vol. V: Sailing Daysailors About John Rousmaniere As one of the sport's most acknowledged authorities, John Rousmaniere has covered more than 30,000 miles of blue water and written fifteen books about the sea and sailing. Yacht Racing and Cruising World Magazine awarded Rousmaniere its Medal of Achievement for his Contribution to Yachting. Presented by TheSailingChannel.TV Browse our VOD collection Join our eNewsletter for news and discount offers. Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY TRAILER Lin Pardey resides on a picturesque island along New Zealand's coast. Recently, New Zealand TV filmed Lin as she reminisced about her sailing career with husband, Larry. Lin and Larry Pardey are among America's (and the world's) most knowledgeable and recognized cruising sailors. During their 40 plus year career, they sailed over 200,000 miles, including two circumnavigations east to west and west to east aboard two self-built, wooden, engine-free cutters under 30 feet. Authors of a dozen books, countless magazine articles, and co-creators of five cruising documentaries, Lin and Larry have shared their sailing experiences with tens of thousands around the globe prompting many to take up sailing and live the dream of the cruising lifestyle. The Pardey's motto is "Go simple, go modest, go small--just go". Check out the Pardey Offshore Sailing 5 Video Series. Presented by TheSailingChannel.TV rowse our VOD collection of destination and how-to sail videos. Join our eNewsletter for news and discount offers. Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO WATCH FREE TRAILER This video takes on the challenge of simplifying celestial navigation. Buckley gives the viewer just enough concept but sticks primarily to the procedure, like a chef explaining the steps in a recipe. Buckley demonstrates the following steps: 1. Take a Sight of the sun with your sextant. 2. Get your Geographical Position from the Air Almanac. 3. Select an Apparent Position along a line of latitude. 4. Refer to the Sight Reduction Tables to draw a Line of Position. 5. Plot your Exact Position. Purchase the Download and Streaming Rental at Vimeo on Demand. ABOUT WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. William F. Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator, founder of National Review magazine, host of the long-running political TV show, Firing Line, and author of more than fifty books. He was also a passionate and experienced sailor. For more, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley_Jr. Check out the Celestial Navigation Simplified on TheSailingChannel.TV Presented by TheSailingChannel.TV Browse our VOD collection Join our eNewsletter for news and discount offers. Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

Black Widow will be the first of Marvel's superspies to get her own movie (preceding Shang Chi by a year), and today Marvel released the first trailer. And it looks pretty cool! I'm honestly surprised about how many images come directly from the various Black Widow comics over the years. Clearly, the character's first standalone film will contain some flashbacks to Natasha Romanoff's early days as a child raised to be a KGB assassin in Moscow's infamous Red Room. Scarlett Johansson has played the role in seven Marvel movies (most recently the all-time box office champ Avengers: Endgame), but this will be her first solo feature.


If you want to play catch-up on the comics and see where some of those images in the trailer come from, there are some collections out there that make that possible. (And even more are due next year in the lead up to the movie!) Three beautifully prodcued Marvel Premiere hardcovers collect this secret agent's most essential adventures in matching volumes. Black Widow: The Sting of the Widow presents the character's first appearance (in a silly costume in an issue of Iron Man) and earliest solo adventures from the early Seventies, after she'd gotten an Emma Peel makeover, ending up in the black catsuit with which she's still most closely associated. These early Black Widow comics will surely be of interest to collectors and hardcore fans, but casual fans looking for a great introduction to the character are better off picking up the second volume in the series, Black Widow: Web of Intrigue first.

Black Widow: Web of Intrigue offers an excellent primer on the character containing some of her classic appearances from the early Eighties, including an excellent comic drawn by my second-favorite spy artist (after Steranko), Paul Gulacy.  (Look for a cameo appearance by Michael Caine!) Black Widow: Web of Intrigue contains this and several other seminal tales of the red-haired Russian superspy. A third volume, Black Widow: The Itsy Bitsy Spider collects a pair of Marvel Knights stories from the late Nineties (including one by Queen & Country scribe Greg Rucka).

My two favorite modern-day Widow storylines have yet to receive the hardcover treatment, sadly, but are available in a pair of out-of-print trade paperbacks. (They'll also, happily, be collected in a new single volume next year!) Richard K. Morgan's Black Widow: Homecoming and Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her put the focus on espionage above superheroics and are among the very best Marvel spy stories of this century. Other recent Widow stories include Black Widow: Deadly Origin, Black Widow and the Marvel Girls, Black Widow: The Name of the Rose and Black Widow: Kiss or Kill. Most of the character's adventures with Daredevil from the 1970s are included in Essential Daredevil: Volume 3. as well as the color Daredevil Epic Collection: A Woman Called Widow.

It's here! The trailer we've been waiting so long for! And our first lengthy look Daniel Craig in action as James Bond since SPECTRE in 2015. (I'm a little surprised at how direct a sequel to that movie No Time To Die appears to be.) Check it out:

The spy genre has lost a Great today. The Guardian reports that Honor Blackman has passed away at the age of 94, "of natural causes unrelated to coronavirus." It's crushing to lose two of the key Bond Girls in a matter of months, Blackman's death coming on the heels of Thunderball's Claudine Auger in December. And while she will probably be best remembered for her definitive portrayal of Pussy Galore opposite Sean Connery in Goldfinger, Blackman's mark on the spy genre is far greater. For me, she'll first and foremost always be Cathy Gale, John Steed's first regular female partner on the UK TV classic The Avengers.

Cathy Gale was ultimately overshadowed by Steed's more famous subsequent partner, Emma Peel (played to perfection by another future Bond Girl, Diana Rigg), but Gale's and Blackman's place in television history cannot be overstated. Cathy Gale was television's original badass, leather-clad female spy, paving the way not only for Mrs. Peel, but for Honey West (producer Aaron Spelling was inspired to create the show by Avengers episodes he saw in England, and reportedly first offered the role to Blackman, who turned it down), The Bionic Woman, Alias's Sydney Bristow, and every other leading lady of espionage to throw an attacker over her shoulder, as well as non-spy heroines like Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Quite simply, there had never been an action-oriented female protagonist on television before Honor Blackman's groundbreaking performance. She changed the game. In part, this was due to Blackman inheriting scripts that had been originally written for another male partner for Steed (following his first season foil, Ian Hendry's Dr. David Keel), which were hastily rewritten for her, but kept the character involved in the action in a way women hadn't been previously on TV. But in a larger part, it was due to Blackman's undeniable and very physical presence: she played Cathy as a woman definitely not to be trifled with! And she learned judo for the role, impressively dispatching stuntmen twice her size on a regular basis on episodes that were at the time taped live. Her obvious talent even led to the publication of a book, Honor Blackman's Book of Self-Defense.

Prior to playing Cathy Gale, Blackman was known for glamour more than ass-kicking. But she'd already racked up a pretty impressive roster of spy roles. Foremost among them was a regular role on the 1959-60 ITC wheel show The 4 Just Men (review here), in which she played Nicole, secretary to Paris-based Just Man Tim Collier (Dan Dailey). That was a series very much of its time in all respects, so Nicole was no Cathy Gale, but Blackman nonetheless imbued her with the quick wit and spark that would later define her more famous character alongside her martial arts skills. She also made pre-Avengers appearances on other ITC series like The Saint, Danger Man,  and The Invisible Man, as well as U.K. spy and detective series like Top Secret (sadly lost), Ghost Squad, and The Vise, while also turning up in spy movies like Conspirator (with Elizabeth Taylor), Diplomatic Passport, and the original 1953 TV movie version of Little Red Monkey (penned by wartime BSC spy Eric Maschwitz and adapted two years later into a feature film version). Other notable film roles during this period include Jason and the Argonauts (1963), the Eric Ambler-penned Titanic drama A Night to Remember (1958), the Dirk Bogarde suspense drama So Long at the Fair (1950), and the Hammer noir The Glass Tomb (1955). Following the international success of Goldfinger, Blackman surprisingly didn't make many more spy appearances. The notable exceptions were the superior 1968 Goeffrey Jenkins adaptation A Twist of Sand (a movie in dire need of a Blu-ray or at least DVD release!), opposite Deadlier Than the Male's Richard Johnson, and a 1983 TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence mystery The Secret Adversary. In the late Nineties, Mike Meyers dreamed of getting Blackman and Connery to play Austin Powers' parents, but that didn't happen and Michael Caine ended up playing his dad. While not playing spies, though, Blackman continued to have a robust post-Bond career, including a re-teaming with Connery in the 1968 Western Shalako, a pair of 1970s cult horror movies, Fright ('71), and Hammer's final genre flick of that incarnation, To the Devil a Daughter ('76), opposite Christopher Lee, and, more recently, a very memorable comedic turn in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). She also continued to make her mark in television, too, with recurring or starring roles on Doctor Who, The Upper Hand, and Coronation Street, and guest appearances in Columbo, Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible, Midsomer Murders, and New Tricks.

Her early fame from The Avengers brought her an unlikely career milestone in 1990 when an infectious novelty single she had recorded with Patrick Macnee in the early Sixties, "Kinky Boots," became a dubious Top 10 radio hit at Christmastime. Some have described it as "embarrassing," but as far as I'm concerned both of those stars had enough infectious charisma to pull it off even if they're not really singers! (I'm also partial to the B-side, "Let's Keep It Friendly," about the characters' platonic relationship on the show.)

Blackman has also had a successful theater career, including productions of "The Sound of Music," "My Fair Lady" and "Cabaret," and a couple of touring one-woman shows. It was one of these performances that brought her into my out-of-the-way neck of the woods when I was in high school in the mid-Nineties. I took in the show, which was amazing, and then managed to meet her backstage. Blackman was the first Bond celebrity I'd ever met, and she did not let me down. She seemed genuinely happy to meet with fans, and gladly signed a Goldfinger trading card for this starstruck teen while regaling me with stories from her days on The Avengers. She even weighed in with a decidedly non-PC answer on a debate I'd been having at the time with a friend about whether Bond and Pussy's roll in the hay was truly consensual. "Darling," she told me, eyes sparkling, "it was Sean Connery. Any woman would have wanted it!"

That sparkle remained ever-present as she remained a public figured right up to the end, always reliable for some media appearances whenever a new Bond movie came out. She never turned her back on the franchise, or publicly showed any resentment for the "Bond Girl" label that followed her throughout her career. She also continued to be a cheerleader for The Avengers, despite having left the series just before its transition to film and color... and the American broadcast that cemented its global fame.

In Blackman's final episode of The Avengers (after her Goldfinger casting was already public news), Steed bade farewell to Cathy Gale with a typical request of a favor, beginning, "And as you're going to be out there anyway, pussyfooting along those sun-soaked shores..."

"You thought I might do a little investigating," she finishes, knowing him all too well. She demurs, asserting her well-earned right to a vacation. "You see I'm not going to be pussy-footing along those sun-soaked shores," she corrects her partner, "I'm going to be lying on them." Pussyfooting or lounging, Honor Blackman has certainly earned her trip to those sun-soaked shores. While more terrestrially, the modern spy genre forever owes her an enormous debt. Blackman was a true trailblazer, who transformed the role of women in the spy genre from femme fatales who relied exclusively on their sexuality to equal participants in the action, undaunted by superior force and unmatched in combat skills.

Deadline reports that an English language version of the international hit French spy series The Bureau (Le Bureau des Légendes) is in the works. Per the trade, Paris-based Federation Entertainment, the production company behind the series, "said that negations are underway for remakes of The Bureau in both the U.S. and South Korea." The original French version airs in America on cable network Sundance, and has found great success in markets all over the world. It stars Mathieu Kassovitz (Haywire, Munich), and Bond villain Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace) came aboard in the fourth season.

Deadline reports that Marv Films (Matthew Vaughn's UK-based production company) "is plotting 'something like seven more Kingsman films' as part of the company’s expansion plans." That's... ambitious! But other spy franchises have certainly sustained that many or more. At least one of those seven films is expected to be a spinoff centered on the American spies (including Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges) introduced in the second movie, Statesman. If previous plans mooted by Vaughn are still in effect, another is likely to be a third and supposedly final movie about the characters from the first two films, Eggsy (Taron Edgerton) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth), said to close out that trilogy. 

The next Kingsman movie we see will definitely be the WWI-set prequel The King's Man, long in the can and delayed by the global pandemic. That's currently slated for February, but likely to change again. It stars Harris Dickinson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Tom Hollander, and Daniel Brühl. With a cast like that an an exciting new time period less well mined by other spy franchises (and even a more serious tone judging from the trailers), I'm hopeful some more of these upcoming Kingsman films are sequels to The King's Man. Perhaps Dickinson and Fiennes will get as many movies as Edgerton and Firth.

According to Marv Group CEO Zygi Kamasa (per the trade), the company also has a Kingsman TV series in the works. 

Theodore J. Flicker's 1967 James Coburn satire The President's Analyst is one of my very favorite spy movies. (It's also Coburn's best spy movie... Sorry, Derek Flint.) When describing it to people, I always say that the comedy holds up surprisingly well today... sadly. America is still facing many of the same social  issues Flicker sent up over fifty years ago (from institutional racism to monolithic Big Tech), and it's easy to imagine a remake. Now, Paramount is imagining one... with The Daily Show host Trevor Noah on board to produce and potentially star. According to The Hollywood Reporter, former Obama White House staffer Pat Cunnane will write the script. The premise, about a psychotherapist burdened with all of the President's top secret stresses, will obviously be familiar ground for him! According to his publisher, Cunnane served as "President Barack Obama’s senior writer and deputy director of messaging at the White House, where he worked for six years in many roles."

On the eve of Killing Eve's series finale (airing this weekend), Deadline reports that "producer Sid Gentle Films is in early stage development on [a] spin-off, though it hasn’t got a greenlight yet." The spin-off (for BBC America and AMC Networks) would focus on Fiona Shaw's character, Carolyn Martens... but not as the cool, commanding spymaster we met in the show's first season. Instead, the potential spin-off would focus on her early days with MI6. From what we know of her history on the show, that could be incredibly compelling! Presumably such a series would focus on her time on Russia Desk and in Moscow during the waning days of the Cold War, when she recruited a crucial asset. I'm not so interested in this potential series because of its Killing Eve connection (though I do love that show's wit and tone and performances, and it would be nice to see them continue), but because of its setting. We don't see many Cold War era series, and when they do come along, I'll always be watching! It would be particularly cool to see one set in the late 80s with that focus. The Americans of course reveled in its 80s setting, but that was focused on Soviet agents undercover in America. A show about a British agent operating in Moscow at that time would be very different! 

AIP’s Vincent Price vehicle Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was one of the first Sixties Bond parodies I ever heard of, long before I actually saw it. In a way, that was a good thing, because it afforded the movie years to percolate in my imagination, growing far beyond a potential it could possibly live up to when I finally saw it. Ultimately I was bound for disappointment, because, let’s face it, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a far better title than it is a movie. But because of all those years that it lived in my mind as pure potential, I went into it for the first time after college (during college I had tried in vain to track down a 35mm print to program on campus) with a pre-built nostalgia, and nostalgia is a wonderful—and possibly essential—cushion for a movie like this. If you remember it from your childhood, you’ll probably enjoy it more than it deserves to be enjoyed. And the same can be said if you’ve somehow approximated such a nostalgia like I did. But even after that lengthy apologia for liking the movie, I have to admit that I only really like certain parts of it. Most of it is pretty bad.

Made at the height of the Sixties (and here I’m grudgingly conceding that that phrase, which I usually use very positively, can also have negative connotations), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a as much a blend of what was popular then as those Seltzer and Friedberg “parody” movies (usually with “movie” in the title) were in the early 2000s. (Though to be fair it’s a lot better than those!) And since it was made by American International Pictures, it’s a blend of its time that particularly reflects that studio’s output. Therefore it’s as much a parody of their two bread-and-butter genres—Frankie and Annette beach movies and Poe-inspired Vincent Price horror movies—as it is of James Bond. While I’m indifferent to beach movies, I do love those Poe movies… so I’m not being an espionage chauvinist when I say that the only bits that really work are those inspired by the spy craze. And even then the hit-to-miss ratio is probably 50/50... at best.

Appropriately, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine opens with one of the strangest title sequences of any Sixties spy movie. Under a rather great and undeniably infectious theme song performed by the Supremes (available on the stellar Ace Records Sixties spy theme compilation Come Spy With Us), instead of the Bond-style credits most spy spoofs opted for, Bikini Machine treats us to Claymation, courtesy of Gumby creator Art Clokey. And the entire Claymation sequence is built around the stupidest thing in the whole movie: a pair of stupid gold elf shoes with little bells on their pointed toes that Price’s character wears to justify his name, Dr. Goldfoot. I’m aware that I just used the word “stupid” twice in that sentence, but that’s because these shoes are seriously stupid. I don’t know whose idea they were, but I sure am glad that Ken Adam wasn’t struck by a similar necessity to equip Gert Frobe with jingling golden thimbles.

After the titles, we meet an attractive robot woman (Susan Hart) in a trenchcoat and fedora walking through the streets of San Francisco. We learn that she’s a robot woman through a series of stupid gags (there’s that word again… are you detecting a pattern?), like a car crashing into her and getting wrecked (because she’s metal, get it??), or two bank robbers escaping and crashing into her and getting knocked down (because she’s metal!), then shooting her full of holes with no discernable result (because… you’ve figured it out by now, haven’t you?). Then we meet Frankie Avalon being annoying in a restaurant and sporting a really annoying helmet of hair. (Uh-oh. There’s another word that bore repeating twice in one sentence!) The robot woman comes in and drinks a sip of his milk and then spouts out gallons of the white stuff (all from that one sip, apparently) through the “bullet holes” in her body. (John Cleese would recycle the same questionable gag years later in that Schweppes commercial on the original Licence to Kill VHS.) Despite her leakage, the holes (which aren’t visible) don’t seem to have damaged her mechanics one bit, and in minutes she’s successfully picked up Avalon and is heading back to his apartment with him.

Avalon is Craig Gamble, a bumbling agent of Secret Intelligence Command (or SIC, which I think is supposed to pass for a joke) who decorates his walls with a picture of Sherlock Holmes, apparently for inspiration. The robot woman is named Diane, and she talks with an annoying put-on Southern accent and, we and Gamble soon come to learn, wears only a gold lamé bikini underneath her fashionable spy trenchcoat! (The latter makes up for the former.) But what made her pick him?

The answer comes back at Dr. Goldfoot’s lair, where we meet the diabolical mastermind and his sidekick, Igor (occasional Elvis cohort Jack Mullaney). While Vincent Price deserves an iconic entrance in any movie he makes, it’s kind of undercut here by those stupid gold shoes, which really are quite stupid. (Have I mentioned that?) I am not a production designer, nor a fashion maven, but I am confident I could have designed much better gold shoes for the same purpose. And regular readers will know that I am not given to making such claims. Anyway, it transpires at Goldfoot HQ that the idiotic Igor programmed poor Diane to go after the wrong man. While Gamble hasn’t got two pennies to rub together, she was supposed to be seducing Avalon’s beach buddy Dwayne Hickman, as millionaire playboy Todd Armstrong. (As either an inside joke or laziness, Hickman’s character is named after Avalon’s character in Ski Party, and Avalon’s Craig Gamble is named after Hickman’s character from that movie.) To Igor’s credit, the two actors do look a lot alike (in a very generic Sixties heartthrob way), and that fact actually makes the movie a little bit confusing. The fact that Gamble turned out to be a secret agent was just bad luck—or bad scriptwriting. Luckily Dr. Goldfoot can operate Diane by remote control, and he’s able to reprogram her to suddenly walk out on Craig and set off to lay a trap for Todd.

Diane’s trap for Todd involves bending over and pulling her trenchcoat far enough aside to expose a glimpse of that golden behind as she pretends to inspect a flat tire. It also involves Dr. Goldfoot somehow taking remote control of Todd’s car, and driving him backwards until he sees Diane. (Dr. Goldfoot possesses a magical universal remote long before its time, and uses it primarily for making cars drive the wrong direction and various things blow up. He also threatens people with it a lot, though I’m not sure if he’s threatening to blow them up or to reverse them.) One glimpse of Diane, however, is enough to make Todd forget that it might be a little suspicious and just a tad weird to find yourself suddenly pulled backwards by an unseen force while driving. Their meeting also offers the movie’s choicest bit of dialogue—and, yes, it’s every bit as sexist as you would expect/hope for from a movie called Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

“Thank heavens you came along, darling, I’m completely flat!” declares Diane as she opens the front of her trenchcoat.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” replies Todd, ogling her gold bikini-clad breasts jutting out of the London Fog.

So what’s all this about? Well, sadly all of Dr. Goldfoot’s ingenuity is expended on a simple gold digging scheme. Diane is supposed to get millionaire Todd to marry her and then make him sign over power of attorney to her (which is of course the same as signing it to Dr. Goldfoot). Honestly, I find it a little disappointing that Dr. Goldfoot has the ingenuity and the wherewithal to build perfectly human-looking robots and universal remotes that control anything, and yet the best scheme he can come up with is gold digging. Why not aim higher, Dr. G? Why not strive for world domination? (Well... that's what sequels are for!)

Anyway, Igor’s error with the target has accidentally tipped off an agent of SIC to the mad doctor’s big gold digging plot. Fortunately for Dr. Goldfoot, though, he’s not a very good agent.

Gamble’s code number is only Double O and a half. “Why they won’t even let you carry a gun until you get a digit instead of a fraction!” yells his boss and uncle, Uncle Donald (genuine comic genius Fred Clark, of Zotz! and Hammer's Curse of the Mummy's Tomb). Donald’s not really in any position to berate his nephew, though, because he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer himself. When Igor shows up in his office dressed in what looks like a Sherlock Holmes Halloween costume (deerstalker and Inverness cape) claiming to be SIC director Inspector Abernathy, Donald believes him despite Gamble’s protestations.

The gags in this movie are mostly lame (as opposed to lamé), and recycled for the hundredth time. When an upper file cabinet drawer is closed, a lower one pops out knocking someone on the head. A beautiful girl robot is mis-programmed (Igor!) and starts talking like a Brooklyn gorilla. When Igor tries to spy on his boss using a periscope, Dr. Goldfoot splashes some ink on the top end giving Igor a black ring around his eye from the viewer. (Actually, that one's still kind of funny.) Even the spy-specific jokes tend to fall flat a lot of the time. Igor shows Dr. G a new attaché case (pronounced the American way, not the British “attachee”) with its own From Russia With Love-style gadgetry. What surprises does it have in store?  Would you believe a fist with a boxing glove that pops out and punches someone when they open it? (Neatly and obviously accomplished by situating a stuntman underneath the table the case is set on, easily able to reach through a hole in the table and the case.)

While the jokes often fall flat, highlights come in the form of random outbursts of go-go dancing, whether from Dr. Goldfoot’s bikini girls (whose default mode seems to be set as “go-go,” befitting their gold bikini costumes) or in nightclubs. (There’s a odd number from a band all dressed up as Fred Flintstone credited as Sam and the Apemen and accompanied by—you guessed it—go-go girls. But for some reason the go-go girls aren’t dressed in fur bikinis, just regular bikinis.)

Price himself camps it up to the extreme (surprise, surprise), parodying his own other AIP performances and even donning costumes from a few of them at times. To that end, the movie becomes more and more of an AIP in-joke as it proceeds (complete with an Annette Funicello cameo), and eventually Gamble and Todd end up in Dr. Goldfoot’s torture chamber, getting a tour that includes portraits of all his illustrious forebears (again bearing certain resemblances to famous Price roles past) and lots of familiar torture implements. It’s poor Todd who ends up strapped down beneath the swinging pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum.

But then, in its final act, something unexpected happens. The movie becomes… really fun! The undisputable high point of the film is the fifteen-minute-long final chase through the streets of San Francisco in which the heroes and villains keep changing vehicles. It’s accomplished mostly through obvious rear projection, but the San Francisco scenery is quite real. The heroes (Gamble and Todd) start out in a gadget-laden Cadillac spy car whose gags include inflatable seats that inflate when you don’t want them to and a steering wheel that switches sides between the driver and the passenger at inopportune moments. The villains start out in a motorcycle and sidecar that become detached in the course of the chase and eventually manage to re-attach themselves. When Dr. Goldfoot uses his magic remote control device to blow up their spy car, the heroes swipe a red convertible (a Sunbeam Alpine, like Bond drove in Dr. No), and when the motorcycle and sidecar end up smashed on the front of a train, the villains (their faces coated in black soot, just like a cartoon character’s after surviving such a collision) appropriate an E-Type Jag. Eventually the heroes are on a bicycle while the baddies commandeer a San Francisco cable car—and manage to drive it right off its tracks and all over town! By the end the good guys are in a boat on a boat trailer careening wildly down San Francisco’s steep hills. It’s all pretty fun, really, in a typically zany way.

The end titles feature those stupid gold shoes again (though not Claymation this time), performing a disembodied dance (accomplished simply—and effectively—enough with a dancer dressed all in black dancing in front of a pitch black background) alongside gold bikini-clad go-go dancers—and similarly disembodied writhing gold bikini tops and bottoms. (That’s actually a really cool effect!) All of which handily beats (and makes up for) the Claymation opening in my book.

Even though Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine leaves things open for a sequel with Dr. Goldfoot and Igor surviving their cable car crash (and subsequent bombardment by gunboats) and turning up on the plane winging our victorious heroes off to Europe, the end credits instead tout the next beach movie, The Girl in the Glass Bikini. Which kind of brings us back to this movie’s title. Say it out loud to yourself. Think about it. Based on that title more than my (or any) review, I suspect you already know if this movie is for you or not.

Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell addresses whether or not he'll replace Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the iconic action franchise Mission: Impossible.

Feyres empathy, bravery, and unique diplomacy with magical creatures make her an ideal High Lady in Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses.

FX's new series American Sports Story features a robust and relevant soundtrack full of 2000s hip-hop classics and collegiate fight songs.

The FDA continues to take creative and flexible approaches to address access to critical medical products in response to COVID-19. Researchers at academic institutions, non-traditional manufacturers, communities of makers, and individuals are banding together to support and fill local and…

Data Gumbo’s Blockchain to be Used to Secure 3D Printing of Parts Yesterday industrial blockchain firm Data Gumbo announced a contract with Norway-based deep tech company Fieldmade. The Norwegian company delivers 3D designs so that its defense and energy clients…

5 Ways 3D Printing is Cooperating with Blockchain The convergence of 3D printing and blockchain technology is creating a landscape ripe with innovation, offering new possibilities across various industries. Here are five significant ways these two technologies are cooperating: 1.…

Big Buck Bunny is a short animated film by the Blender Institute. It is made using free and open source software.

The new Rollins Museum of Art building planned for Winter Park received a $750,000 national grant and approval of the building's design.

Bach Festival Society of Winter Park: Reviews of "Pursuit of Peace" and "The Spiritual" concerts by Orlando Sentinel arts critic Matthew J. Palm.

See what upsets people and what occasionally makes them happy

Americans under 30 are the only age group where a majority think the military has a negative effect on the country. Younger Americans are also likelier to say the military doesn’t make the world safer. And fewer than one in five of us under 35 say they’re “extremely proud” to be American — compared to half of those 55 and over.

Modern warfare spans from cyberspace to outer space. As a result, our military’s strength depends heavily on those with diverse backgrounds.

See what upsets people and what occasionally makes them happy

Bond investors have sent Treasury yields significantly higher in recent weeks even as the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates.

See what upsets people and what occasionally makes them happy

Maxwell: The convention meeting market is shrinking. But Orange County continues to spend money to expand its money-losing center