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Ever
since Sean Connery first donned his Saville Row suit to become one of the
best loved characters in film history, there have been film-makers ready
to copy or spoof him. From ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Austin
Powers’, to ‘True Lies’ and ‘I Spy’, James
Bond has inspired a host of imitators and satirists to create some of the
most memorable comedies and action films around. How do we categorise the
varying attempts to take the flavour of James Bond and derive something
new from it? One could argue that anything featuring a lone hero, living
life in the fast-lane, fighting against global conspiracies and with a penchant
for the ladies, is Bond inspired, since that sort of action film arrived
only after the first appearance of Fleming’s hero in ‘Dr No’
(1962). Basically, however, there are those films that try to copy the Bond
format to the letter, those that take some part of the Bond films and expand
upon it - and the odd film that actually purports to be part of the official
series.
Of the films that seem to be copying Bond, the most popular has to be the
trilogy of films created by and starring Mike Myers as Austin Powers - ‘Austin
Powers: International Man Of Mystery’ (1997), ‘Austin Powers:
The Spy Who Shagged Me’ (1999) and ‘Austin Powers In Goldmember’
(2002). As take-off’s on the spy genre go, they are spot on, with
Powers being awoken from thirty years of suspended animation to deal with
his 1960’s adversary Dr Evil (also played by Myers). The first film’s
fantastic 60’s feeling was superbly evident, as was the 70’s
feeling for ‘The Spy Who Shagged Me’. However, the steam had
run out of the series a little by the time of ‘Goldmember’,
with most of the humour derived from a great set of cameos from some top
flight stars.Earlier Bond had been copied in films such as the bizarre Italian production ‘Operation Kid Brother’ (1968) which went to the extreme of having Sean’s brother Neil Connery playing 007’s younger sibling. A lot of the stars from the official series seemed to get in on the joke, as the film also stars Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell (M and Miss Moneypenny) as well as Adlopho Celli (who was in ‘Thunderball’), Daniela Bianchi (‘From Russia With Love’) and Anthony Dawson (one of the bad guys from ‘Dr No’).
In
one episode of TV show “The Simpson’s”, Homer takes a
job with the Globex Corporation, owned by Hank Scorpio who wants to take
over the world. Unfortunately Homer gets in the way when a heavily Scots
accented secret agent tries to foil Scorpio’s plans. Other TV series
have also featured Bond spoofs, but none have gone as far as the “Star
Trek” spin-off “Deep Space Nine” which paid homage to
007 with the episode ‘Our man Bashir’. When a computer accident
transfers all of the lead characters identities into a holographic simulated
spy-novel, the entire episode becomes a fantastic re-creation of a 60’s
film - so much so that for legal reasons the episode cannot be repeated
in the states!The Leslie Nielsen film of 1996, ‘Spy Hard’ features Nielsen as Dick Steele, agent WD-40 who must prevent General Rancor from destroying the world with a missile he is hiding at his secret base. The film is stuffed full of bad jokes (some of which work, and some which don’t) and the writers went on to be part of the writing team (along with the Wayans brothers) of the two ‘Scary Movie’ horror spoofs.
One
of the earliest Bond competitors was actually devised by the character’s
literary creator, Ian Fleming, when he helped an American TV producer to
dream up “The Man From UNCLE”. Arguably one of the greatest
shows of the 60’s and definitely the best American spy show, it blended
tongue-in-cheek humour with action and adventure and came up with an end
result that was extremely entertaining. Featuring Robert Vaughn as Napoleon
Solo, David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin and Leo G Carroll as their boss Mr
Waverly, the agents of the United Network Command for Law Enforcement fought
bravely against the enemies of peace and particularly the forces of THRUSH.
The series lasted from 1964 to 1968 during which time the agents also gave
Bond a run for his money in no less than five big screen adventures; ‘The
Spy with My Face’ (1965), ‘The Spy in the Green Hat’ (1966),
‘One of Our Spies Is Missing’ (1966), ‘One Spy Too Many’
(1966) and ‘The Karate Killers’ (1967).Unfortunately, most good things don’t last, and by the third year the series had become so silly that watching those episodes is not much fun at all. Even though the series was cancelled mid-way through its fourth season, that didn’t prevent a 1983 return in the made for TV movie ‘The Return of the Man from UNCLE’, which even featured George Lazenby as a tuxedo clad spy driving an Aston Martin. I wonder who that was supposed to be?
Later, big screen films such as ‘Our Man Flint’ (1966) and ‘In Like Flint’ (1967), starring James Coburn, took the Bond format literally - 007’s adversaries SPECTRE even get a mention in these films. In the first film, the world’s intelligence agencies find that their agents are being killed off at an alarming rate. To save the world from a mad scientist who wants to take over with the aid of an earthquake machine, they call in Flint, the world’s greatest secret agent. In the second film, Flint is again called out of retirement when his old boss finds discovers that a group of women are trying to take over the world through brainwashing in all the beauty salons they own.
Coming
more up to date, Arnold Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron got in
on the act with ‘True Lies’ (1994). However there is a twist
here, secret agent Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) goes home at night, after
saving the world, to his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter (Eliza Dushku)
who know nothing of his exploits… Last year, we had Jackie Chan donning
a tux to give us his martial arts version of a super spy in ‘The Tuxedo’.
Here, Chan plays a chauffeur working for a very “Bond-like”
spy (played by Jason Isaacs) who ends up standing in for him and wearing
a technological marvel of a suit that gives its wearer some amazing powers.Another film from last year featured a popular action hero actor launching himself into the genre, when Vin Diesel starred in ‘xXx’ (2002). Billed as a new type of secret agent, Diesel played Xander Cage with Samuel L Jackson as his boss. The producers seemed to want to pull the carpet out from under the feet of the latest Bond film, ‘Die Another Day’ (also 2002), but although the film was a great spy thriller it was, in the end, just another copyist.
The
last category, films that actually seem to be part of the official series,
are thankfully not too plentiful. The first was the little seen original
screen appearance of 007. Not in the film ‘Dr No’, but in a
1954 American TV play of ‘Casino Royale’. Although not actually
a spoof, there are plenty of differences between this Bond and the one we
have come to know and love – not least the fact that he is American.
There have only been two films that have actually tried to be part of 007’s
world. 1983’s ‘Never Say Never Again’ was a straight re-hash
of the story from ‘Thunderball’, and was most notable for the
return of Sean Connery to the role after a twelve year absence. The other
film is a much more mixed-up affair, the film version of ‘Casino Royale’.
Played strictly for laughs, it features David Niven, Woody Allen and Peter
Sellers - all playing different versions of 007.There are so many other films and TV series that could be mentioned in an article like this (‘Carry On Spying’ anyone? The “Get Smart” TV series or ‘I Spy’ (a cool TV series and a slightly less cool recent film), but the latest also looks like being one of the best. ‘Johnny English’ is about a new breed of spy - and one that’s totally inept. Produced by Universal Pictures and Working Title Films, ‘Johnny English’ stars Rowan Atkinson as an accident-prone MI7 agent on a mission to rescue Britain’s crown jewels and save the country (and the monarchy) from a Machiavellian French business magnate. The film also stars John Malkovich (soon to be seen in ‘Ripley’s Game’) as the scheming Sauvage and Ben Miller (‘The Parole Officer’) as Johnny’s sidekick Bough. Making her feature film debut as special agent Lorna Campbell, the object of English’s desires, is Natalie Imbruglia who, before making two hit albums in the last four years (the first Left of The Middle went double platinum), starred in the Australian soap opera “Neighbours”. Directed by Peter Howitt (‘Sliding Doors’, ‘AntiTrust’), the screenplay was partly written by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade who also wrote two Bond films - ‘The World Is Not Enough’ (1999) and ‘Die Another Day’ (2002).
It has become custom within the movie business to adapt successful ventures from other mediums (books, plays and TV series) into film projects. ‘Johnny English’ may be one of the first to adapt a film version from a commercial.
Between
1992 and 1997, comic actor Rowan Atkinson was featured in a series of Barclaycard
commercials playing a somewhat accident-prone spy. It was at that time Atkinson
got the idea about making a feature film based on the character from the
television advertisements. “Those commercials, even though they were only sixty-seconds long, had a movie feel to them. They were elaborate and atmospheric with very high production values. They just felt like a mini-movie, so it seemed logical to make a maxi-movie.”
Having collaborated with Atkinson several times, producing ‘The Tall Guy’ in the ‘80s and ‘Bean’ in the ‘90s, Working Title were looking for another joint feature project with him.
A few years elapsed between the completion of the television commercials and the actual start of the film project, entitled ‘Johnny English’, during which time its star and the Working Title producers were kept busy by a myriad of separate projects. Eventually, screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were commissioned to write the script (In addition to the pair’s experience with screenwriting in various genres, their expertise within the spy genre was highly regarded). Wade and Purvis worked on the script for two years before leaving the project to work on the Bond film, ‘Die Another Day’. Screenwriter William Davies was brought on board to continue to hone the work and smooth the transition from television commercial to page to the big screen.
Atkinson
was very involved from the beginning. “I helped to guide the scriptwriters.
I was in on the ground floor, as they say. Johnny loves being a secret agent
so much that he oversteps himself. He always thinks that he’s better
at something than he actually is. He’s the sort of person who, in
a hurdle race, would clear the first hurdles extremely well, but he’d
be waving at the crowd and he would trip and fall on the last hurdle. It’s
the last 10 percent of his activity which is fatally flawed”.Atkinson also felt Australian songstress Natalie Imbruglia brought just the right note to the proceedings.
“She fitted in well was a delight to work with. The important thing about all the casting apart from Johnny English is the dynamic between English and whatever character he is playing against. There is a lovely relationship between the slightly tense but over-confidant English and that sort of languid evil that John Malkovich brings to Sauvage. In the same sense it is that dynamic that Natalie brings - a kind of crisp common sense. It is a good contrast to this man who likes to be rather theatrical and Lorna is not at all theatrical”.
With script, cast and crew in place, ‘Johnny English’ started principal photography in July last year, shooting for fourteen weeks at Shepperton Studios and on location in London, St Albans, and Monte Carlo.
During the course of filming, Atkinson and Imbruglia got involved in their own stunts. Supervised by stunt co-ordinator Paul Jennings, Atkinson found himself parachuting and completing almost all the driving stunts in the Aston Martin DB7 Vantage. Lastly, he had to spend hours suspended from a cable from the ceiling of St Albans Cathedral (posing as Westminster Abbey) while filming the climax of the movie.
Atkinson explains, “I’m certainly not someone who insists on doing his own stunts in order to say that I do my own stunts. I was very keen, however, to do as much of the stunt driving as I could, as I love cars. But there was a scene which I would not have been seen dead doing. Luckily, I have a very good stunt double, Rob Inch, who had to be suspended over the roof of Canary Wharf, staggering along the top and lurching right over the edge. And the camera comes right over the top of him and looks down past him to the ground. It’s a fantastic shot. Rob later told me he was terrified, and I thought, ‘If you’re terrified, there is certainly no point in me even considering a stunt like that”.
‘Johnny English’ is in UK and Ireland cinemas on April 11th.