CLICK TO PLAY Heaving To From Don Street's Streetwise Tips Vol.1 by Sailing Quarterly. In this clip, Legendary skipper and sailing author, Don Street shows you how to quickly "park your boat" at sea so you can rest and regroup in rough weather. In his full 56-minute how-to sailing video, Don covers: Heavy Weather Preparation and Sailing Tactics; Foredeck Work; Mainsail Flaking Systems; Sail Repairs; Navigation; and Jibe Prevention. For more Don Street sailing tips, check out Don Street's Streetwise Tips Vol. 2. Available at https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/557582046/0/thesailingchannel Streaming Rental $2.99 | Episodes $0.99 Download-to-Own (mp4) $12.99 | Episodes $2.99 DVD US $27.99 | DVD INTL $34.99 (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 Practicing Heaving to from the Pardey Offshore Sailing Series Larry Pardey talks about the importance of practicing heaving to before you set off across an ocean. Heaving to allows you to park your boat at sea in any weather so you and your crew can rest, eat, and make repairs. Practicing heaving to includes becoming familiar with setting up your para-anchor and other gear at the dock so you know how it all works and you can check that all lines are running clear. Then you should practice heaving to underway, preferably in at least 30 knots of wind. Larry's comments are followed by some historic footage of the Pardey's sailing with a very nice classical 12 string guitar background. The Pardey Offshore Sailing Series consists of all 5 Pardey videos as downloads or DVDs at a package discount price. The videos include Get Ready to Cruise, Get Ready to Cross Oceans, Storm Tactics, Cost Control While You Cruise, and Cruising Has No Limits — over 6 and a half hours of blue-water sailing instruction and adventure from two of the world's most experienced cruising sailors. Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Sail Trim & Performance Sailing with Gary Jobson From the popular Sailing Quarterly Series, this 66 minute how-to sailing video, features America's Cup champion Gary Jobson covering all aspects of sail trim that will help you improve the performance of your boat whether you race or cruise. Gary takes you aboard a variety of sailboats from Solings to Maxis, demonstrating how to use your sails to get the most out of your boat's performance. Detailed graphics show the finer points of adjustments. Watch now and get your boat out in front. Topics include Mainsail trim, Headsail trim, Spinnaker trim, Spinnaker sets and takedowns, Downwind mainsail trim, Light air racing upwind and downwind, and Trimming for performance. (R1Z) Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Racing Tactics with Gary Jobson A video by Rob Dubin with Gary Jobson. From the Sailing Quarterly Video Magazine library. In this 59 minute how-to sailing video, America's Cup champion Gary Jobson covers the racing tactics and technical skills you and your crew need to improve the performance of your boat in both fleet and match races. Gary takes you aboard a variety of sailboats to provide hands-on lessons. He uses animation and graphics to visualize concepts like wind shear and starting techniques that will help you get your boat out in front. Topics include the Role of the Tactician... Tools and Tactics for Reading the Wind... Tuning up your boat and crew... Starting tactics... Mark Roundings... Match Racing... Instruments & Polars... Target boat speed... and Tactics for Offshore Racing. Racing Tactics with Gary Jobson also available as a download and DVD at www.thesailingchannel.tv/sailing_quarterly/r2z/ Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Boat Maintenance DIY with Gary Jobson A video by Rob Dubin with Gary Jobson. From the Sailing Quarterly Video Magazine library. Hosted by America's Cup Champion, this 76 minute how-to sailing video contains a wealth of expert information about boat maintenance for the do-it-yourselfer. Topics include: DIESEL ENGINE MAINTENANCE & TROUBLE-SHOOTING including periodic checks and how to troubleshoot common problems. Taught by engine experts from Mastery Engine Center, Florida, using floor model engines and graphics for hard to see details. HOW TO CLEAN A WINCH What products to gather before you start, how to disassemble, clean and reassemble to keep your boat's winches working smoothly. RIGGING CHECKS FROM MASTHEAD TO DECK Find trouble spots before fittings and shrouds break. FIBERGLASS REPAIRS Step-by-step instructions from filling the holes to polishing the gelcoat. HOW TO FIX A MARINE HEAD Step-by-step instructions on assembly, on repairs and maintenance so fixing the head is no longer such a dreaded task. VARNISHING Step-by-step instructions on varnishing to keep your boat's brightwork shining. All practical and well explained procedures that you and your crew can use to keep your boat in tip top shape. Download to your computer, tablet, and phone for onboard use. See how to do it yourself. Learn about your boat and save money. (M1Z) Boat Maintenance DIY with Gary Jobson is also available as a download and DVD at http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/boat-maintenance-diy/ Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

CLICK TO PLAY Jean-du-Sud in HD Trailer A film by Yves Gélinas NOW IN HD. 100 Minutes. Professionally scanned from a pristine 16mm print to 1920x1080 full HD. Rent / Buy at https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/99136944/0/thesailingchannel Update for FREE if you previously purchased the SD version on Vimeo. TheSailingChannel is honored to offer what many consider to be the finest sailing film ever made. Jean-du-Sud is a two-time winner of the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Larochelle Sailing Film Festival as well as eight other international film awards. Both English and French versions included. This 16mm feature-length documentary celebrates the filmmaker's 28,000 mile single-handed circumnavigation through the roaring forties and around Cape Horn aboard his Alberg 30 sloop. Shot in 16mm color film with sync sound, Jean-du-Sud puts you in the cockpit: Yves speaks as he would to a fellow crew member. Unless you do it yourself, this is as close as you'll ever get to a solo circumnavigation. Jean-du-Sud in HD is also available as a HD Download, Blu-Ray disc and DVD at http://www.thesailingchannel.tv OTHER CLASSIC 16 MM DOCUMENTARIES IN HD… Beyond the West Horizon - Eric & Susan Hiscock's 1959-61 circumnavigation. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/beyondthewesthorizon 600 Days to Cocos & the Galapagos Islands - Gene & Josie Evan's 1973-75 voyage to remote islands. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/600days The Sailing Podcast speaks with Yves Gelinas about the re-release of his classic sailing movie 'With Jean-du-Sud around the world' in High Definition (HD). Yves also discusses the Cape Horn windvane, a self-steering device he first designed to meet his needs while sailing solo around the world and has since sold to thousands of ocean sailors. 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 film by Rob & Dee Dubin Take four U.S.-Mexico West Coast cruising adventures: San Francisco Bay, the Sea of Cortez, the Channel Islands, and Ensenada, Mexico. Hosted by America's Cup Champ and sailing commentator, Gary Jobson. From the Sailing Quarterly Video Magazine series. Your voyage begins with a cruise of San Francisco Bay from the Golden Gate Bridge to remote coves far from the city's center. Next, sail south to Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Enjoy a crewed charter that takes you to the villages and islands of this rugged and beautiful cruising ground. Returning to southern California sail to the uninhabited Channel Islands. Explore the diverse flora and fauna on Santa Cruz Island, often referred to as the Galapagos of the North. Complete your West Coast cruise with a one-day flotilla sail from San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico. Tour this popular cruising destination and the surrounding countryside. Finally, cast off for the picturesque Todos Santos islands and a flotilla raft up before sailing home. (D5Z) Watch the Extended Trailer. 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 film by Claire Roberge and Guy Lavoie.A human adventure meeting the indigenous people of the North. Join Claire and Guy aboard their steel-hulled sailboat, BALTHAZAR as they sail 7000 nautical miles from Gaspé, Quebec Canada to Alaska's Bering Sea via Greenland and the legendary Northwest Passage. Purchase or rent the full 81-minute documentary on Vimeo On Demand. Version française incluse. Un film documentaire de Claire Roberge et Guy Lavoie. Une aventure humaine qui rencontre les peuples indigènes du Nord. Rejoignez Claire et Guy à bord de leur voilier à coque d'acier, BALTHAZAR alors qu'ils naviguent à 7000 milles marins de Gaspé, au Québec, en passant par la mer de Béring en Alaska par le Groenland et le légendaire passage du Nord-Ouest. TESTIMONIALS: "Brilliant, your movie, impeccable, intelligent and very relevant story. I learn a lot, thank you" -- F. Rousseau “A movie to be seen! Thank you, it is really a great privilege to witness this great adventure. You shared it with a big generosity." -- M.R. Lepage ABOUT CLAIR, GUY, & BALTHAZAR After spending 7 years building their 10.5 meter sailing vessel, Claire Roberge, Guy Lavoie and their 2 daughters, Joelle and Chloe set off in September 1999 on a 5 year circumnavigation. Crossing 3 oceans the family sailed to 34 countries. Ten years after their return, Claire and Guy set off once more, this time to take on the mystical Northwest Passage - Canada's Arctic archipelago linking the North Atlantic with the Pacific. 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

CLICK TO PLAY A Video Series with Michael Briant A 6-part video series by Michael Briant Join British bluewater sailor and TV Director, Michael Briant as he sails to exotic destinations from the Caribbean to Asia aboard his 1980 Moody 36 center cockpit sloop, Bambola. ******************************************** Available with a SailFlix.com subscription. Buy or Rent with Vimeo On Demand ******************************************* Begin your journey sailing from Trinidad to Panama, stopping at seldom visited locales in the southern Caribbean. Next, transit the Panama Canal into the Pacific and sail on to the remote Galapagos islands. Continue across the south Pacific to the Marquesas and Tuamotus. Then explore Tahiti, Bora Bora, and the Cook Islands of French Polynesia. Complete your south Pacific crossing by visiting Sydney, Australia then sailing north along the east coast through the Great Barrier Reef and around the top of Australia to Darwin. Finally, make a tropical 500 miles passage to West Timor, gateway to Indonesia and the Indian Ocean. Contemporary and Classic Sailing Documentaries and How-To Videos. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

Ten years after Don sold her, at 0200 on July 26, 2019 - Don's 89th birthday, Iolaire was underway in heavy weather. She was sailing dead downwind in the Spanish Balearic islands along the northeast coast of Ibiza. Reports state that an inadvertent jibe caused her to head inshore, pile up on the rocks, and sink ending her 114 year old career. In this video podcast from Don's two volume how-to set: Streetwise Tips, Don demonstrates three different ways to rig a preventer that will stop an accidental jibe of the boom when running well off or straight down wind. CLICK TO PLAY. DON STREET VIDEOS Over the years Don has been involved in the production of five major sailing videos in which he passes on his decades of seamanship knowledge. Iolaire is featured in two of these: "Antigua Race Week 1985" and "Transatlantic with Street". Three others contain dozens of how-to sailing tips: "Streetwise 1 & 2, and Sailors' Knots & Line Handling. You can stream Don's videos, and purchase Downloads and DVDs with a SailFlix subscription. You can buy or rent individual Don Street videos through Vimeo On Demand. MAIN BOOM FOREGUY/PREVENTER Over a half century ago, when Don purchased Iolaire in St Thomas, he realized that the large, heavy main boom (leftover from her gaff rigged days) could be a real widow maker in an inadvertent jibe. Don insisted that whenever sailing broad off, the crew rig a main boom foreguy/preventer. This was often a difficult and dangerous job. After testing various methods, Don developed a foreguy/preventer that the crew could easily rig with no one going FORWARD of the mast. WATCH THE VIDEO then read Don's detailed instructions. ALWAYS rigged when sailing broad off or dead down wind, Don's foreguy/preventer kept crew and Iolaire safe throughout Don's ownership. IOLAIRE HISTORY "Iolaire" is a Gaelic term that translates in English as “white-tailed sea eagle”. She was designed, built and launched by Harris Bros, UK in 1905. Iolaire was the only 100 year old plus yacht that had been in continuous commission since she was launched; cruising and racing during both wars, as she was Irish owned and based. In her early years, Iolair was raced and cruised by several prominent skippers of the R.O.R.C (the UK's Royal Ocean Racing Club). For full specifications and history of Iolaire, visit the Classicsailboats.org Iolaire registry page.. IOLAIRE AND DON STREET Beginning in 1957, Don Street owned and sailed the 46 foot yawl for 52 years cruising, chartering, racing, and exploring the eastern Caribbean with family, friends and his Grenadian crew. Don skippered Iolaire across the Atlantic seven times between the United Kingdom and the Caribbean, and eight times up and down the Thames River - all without an engine. The knowledge he gain from these voyages resulted in hundreds of articles, three books, and his all inclusive Guides to the Eastern Caribbean and the Atlantic's Cape Verdes islands. Don also created the highly popular Imray Iolaire Charts to the Eastern Caribbean, which opened these waters to regular cruising sailors for the first time. Learn more about Don Street and Iolaire. Brought to you by TheSailingChannel.TV

On Friday Paramount dropped the trailer for the second most anticipated EON Production of 2020, The Rhythm Section! The Rhythm Section has been delayed several times (first when star Blake Lively suffered an on-set injury), but here's proof that it's finally really coming... and it looks great! While an adaptation of Mark Burnell's 1999 spy novel would be something for spy fans to be seriously excited about anyway, it's even more exciting because it hails from Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson's EON Productions, the producers behind the James Bond movies. While EON has been venturing outside the realm of 007 lately, this marks their first new foray into the genre that defined them—and that they defined, under the auspices of first-generation Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. And it's not only a new EON spy movie; it's potentially the start of a new, female-fronted EON spy series! (Burnell wrote four Stephanie Patrick thrillers.) Will Lively end up being the Sean Connery of a long lasting Stephanie Patrick film series?

The books are quite good, and remind me of a female Callan. Like Callan, Stephanie ends up working as an assassin for a particularly unpleasant boss in an ultra-secret branch of British Intelligence. And like Callan, she doesn't do this work by choice. Instead she's forced into it by that unpleasant boss. But she's also got very personal motivations (motivations he ruthlessly manipulates) for her initial mission: an opportunity to get revenge on the terrorists responsible for the death of her parents and siblings. Burnell's book is very dark and very serious, and judging from this trailer the movie will be true to that tone. In fact, the movie (directed by Reed Morano and scripted by Burnell himself) looks quite faithful to the book overall, though it's obvious that the ending has been changed, which was pretty much a given. (The villains' plot in the '99 book had eerie similarities to 9/11, which simply wouldn't play in today's world.) And it looks great!

The first of two major EON spy movies coming out next year, The Rhythm Section opens on January 31, 2020. It stars Blake Lively (The Age of Adaline), Jude Law (Spy), Raza Jaffrey (Spooks/MI-5), and Sterling K. Brown (Black Panther).

It looks like this time, Paramount's decades-held hopes of making a movie out of Tom Clancy's epic saga Without Remorse are really going to happen! Last month, Variety reported that Jamie Bell will join the previously announced Michael B. Jordan (playing frequent Clancy hero John Clark) in the movie from director Stefano Sollima (helmer of the very Clancy-esque Sicario: Day of the Soldado). Bell will play a familiar character from the Tom Clancy universe, CIA Deputy Director of Operations Robert Ritter. Henry Czerny memorably essayed the role in 1994's Clear and Present Danger, in which Willem Dafoe played Clark.

Today, several more actors joined the cast, making this Without Remorse more and more of a reality! (Forgive my incredulity. It's just hard to believe this movie is finally happening after literally decades of development!) Deadline reports that Luke Mitchell (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys For Life), Cam Gigandet (Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden), Jack Kesy (12 Strong), and Todd Lasance (Spartacus) are all signing on as members of Clark's SEAL team. Nearly all of them have played special forces operators before. Additionally, Jodie Turner-Smith (The Last Ship, The Neon Demon) has been cast as a potential love interest for Jordan.

According to the trade, "Without Remorse is the origin story of John Clark, played by Jordan, a Navy SEAL-turned-CIA ops officer, who seeks revenge after his girlfriend is killed by a Baltimore drug lord." That sounds more or less like the novel, so if this capsule summary comes from the studio (and not just a Deadline writer Wikipedia-ing the book), then perhaps we can expect a fairly faithful adaptation. What I'm guessing we won't get is a period piece. I doubt Clark will serve in Vietnam in this version; I suspect they'll make it contemporary. (This was the plan back when Tom Hardy was supposed to play Clark in a series intended to cross over with Chris Pine's intended Jack Ryan franchise.) Paramount are very eager to launch a new film franchise with this movie, already eyeing Clancy's Rainbow Six as a follow-up. Also unclear is whether there will be any crossover with Amazon's Jack Ryan TV series, which hails from the same producers. The Clark character has been kept out of that series so far because of the percolating film franchise, but that doesn't necessarily preclude a cameo from John Krasinski in Without Remorse....

Without Remorse is slated to open September 18, 2020.

In a great profile in Saturday's New York Times promoting his new novel Agent Running in the Field, author John le Carré  reveals that his sons' production company, The Ink Factory, are plotting an epic new TV series about his most famous character, spymaster George Smiley. "According to le Carré," asserts the article's author, Tobias Grey, "The Ink Factory now plans to do new television adaptations of all the novels featuring Cold War spy George Smiley - this time in chronological order. 'That means that if you actually go back to the first big conspiracies in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, you've got to consider how Smiley ages and how young he was at that time,' le Carré says. That would mean finding an actor who can play younger than the Smiley incarnated by Gary Oldman in the film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Le Carré says that his sons are interested in casting the British actor Jared Harris, whose performance they all admired in the recent TV mini-series Chernobyl." Harris (The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Allied), interestingly, was originally cast in Tomas Alfredson's 2011 le Carré  adaptation Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as Circus (MI6) chief Percy Alleline, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, in which he played Professor Moriarty. Toby Jones took on the Alleline role, and embodied the character perfectly. Besides Oldman, Smiley has been played in the past by Denholm Elliott, James Mason, Rupert Davies, and, most memorably, Alec Guinness in two famous BBC miniseries.

A new miniseries version of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold was first announced back in 2016 as a follow-up to the hugely successful le Carré miniseries The Night Manager. Le Carré worked with the producers and writer to crack their take on the material, and that work led him to write a whole new sequel to the book, A Legacy of Spies, but did not yield a series. Instead, The Little Drummer Girl (2018) proved to be the next le Carré miniseries, but work continued on The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Now, apparently, that project has grown in scope and morphed into this one. I've long craved a long-form TV series about le Carré's Circus, devoting a season to each book and dropping in the short stories from The Secret Pilgrim at the appropriate historical moments and, most crucially, finally giving us a television version of the (to date unfilmed) middle book in the Karla trilogy, The Honourable Schoolboy. This sounds like it could turn out to be exactly that! (Though hopefully they'll begin at the real beginning with Call For the Dead, and not The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.) It's a most tantalizing prospect!

Read my George Smiley Primer here.

EW shared the first teaser today for Bravo's upcoming reality competition series Spy Games. According to EW, the show "features 10 contestants living together in a large house and attempting to gather intel on their fellow players while competing in challenges designed by three former spies, alumni of the CIA, Secret Service, and FBI. Players will be eliminated until one remains to claim a $100,000 prize." Apparently the format is in some ways based on a real-life World War II-era scheme known as Station S, "in which civilians were recruited and relocated to a 'remote estate' to be trained as spies." Spy Games, which is hosted by model and martial artist Mia Kang, premieres on Monday, January 20, 2020, at 10/9c. I tried to embed the video, but Bravo's own awful, awful video platform (which is really quite terrible) automatically plays a Real Housewives promo instead. So check out the trailer here.
Thanks to Jeff for the intel alert!

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.

Wow! We're so close to the release of a new Bond movie now that a new James Bond theme song has been released into the world! Listen for yourself to Billie Eilsish's title track to the twenty-fifth EON 007 movie, No Time to Die. Eilish recently won all the Grammies, pretty much, and performed at the Oscars. It seems pre-ordained that this track will shoot to the top of the charts. Eilish reportedly wrote the song with her brother, Finneas. Hans Zimmer composed the film's score.

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.

It's a real spies' reunion for the miniseries version of Ben MacIntyre's superb non-fiction book A Spy Among Friends! Nearly everyone involved has some serious spy experience on their resume--and many of them have worked together before. It's no wonder the book has attracted such an array of veteran talent; for my money it's a strong contender of the best spy biography ever. MacIntyre uses the close friendship between the notorious double agent Kim Philby and loyal MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott to frame the story of the notorious Cambridge spy ring that shook the foundations of British Intelligence--and the Cold War at large. 

This week MGM has ramped up the campaign for Daniel Craig's long awaited and highly anticipated fifth James Bond movie, No Time To Die. And as fans are painfully aware, this is actually the film's second campaign. No Time To Die had a whole advertising campaign back at the beginning of this year leading up to a hoped for April release, including many posters and even the much publicized, chart-topping release of the movie's excellent theme song by Billie Eilish. But, as we all know, the global pandemic came along and the April release was scrapped. Since then the film has been set for a November release, though even that has been uncertain given the unpredictable nature of the novel coronavirus. Now it certainly looks like EON, MGM, and distributors United Artists and Universal are doubling down on that November release! The date is proudly proclaimed across this brand new poster (frankly a little uninspired compared to the less typical previous campaign's 1-sheet) and in the brand new second trailer. And it's quite a trailer! As far as I can recall, this marks the first time a Craig Bond movie has had this kind of text tagline: The mission that changes everything begins! 

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.

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