UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - Sean Connery - 6-Film Collection -- in 4k UHD (6 Viewers)

[Osato]

I will never forget Virna Lisi coming up and out of the cake towards the beginning in the ballroom when she first sees Jack Lemmon in How To Murder your Wife. She would have been a good choice.

Started it last night funny film. Had no idea she was connected to 007…

 

[Wes Candela]

The closest we will ever had on screen as Fleming's character is Mr. Connery in From Russia With Love.

View attachment 254645

I agree, wholeheartedly with that statement

 

[Osato]

A casting question for serious Bond colleagues. I haven't thought about this since the release of Diamonds Are Forever. Because Natalie Wood comes to mind with the upcoming release of Splendor In The Grass, I had always thought of her at that time as a good choice for the role of Tiffany Case after seeing how wonderful she looked in Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice.

I was born a few years after the film came out so I’m the wrong one to ask. I love the film the way it is and cast!

Several years ago I visited Vegas and saw many 007 filming sotes. The gypsum plant was probably
My favorite. They were very nice too.

 

[Wes Candela]

After previewing Dr, Russia, Gold… These are mighty achievements

In my eyes very very happy with what I'm seeing and hearing. I don't know that I'm going to try to purchase it yet since I've scratched my itch by watching, but
The production shines with each film, (I've waited to put on Thunderball… Well, I've waited until I'm allowed to borrow that one)

But each of the three first bonds looks amazing

I prefer the original soundtrack to each versus the Dolby Atmos tracks. Nothing against Atmos, I just like the Fidelity that's been retained in the original master audio tracks.

There is this huge trade off in my mind and ears with listening to the original Master soundtrack on a 4K disc and listening to Dolby Atmos mix

For older films, because Dolby Atmos rolls off the high end of their audio, you lose Fidelity.
May not be a big deal to most people, but for me, it bothers the hell out of me.

On the other hand, they do accentuate the LFE channel and low end of the soundtrack, but they clip the high end

I know they’re trying to do some noise reduction but the second you do that to a soundtrack you’re cutting off so much important information for the ears I think Just a random complaint and preference statement

 

[ScottRE]

Hey Josh - If you're unable to snag a set through Amazon, the 007 Store does still have them in stock. It is a bit more expensive than Amazon at $166, but at least it's an option and certainly cheaper than eBay. I, too, was less than thrilled with the artwork on the steelbooks when they were announced, and I almost bought the regular set instead. But now that I have the steelbooks in hand I'm very happy with the set and so glad I bought them!

https://007store.com/en-us/products...y-collection-steelbook?variant=54253126320513

Silly question.... Does anyone know of the site accepts Visa gift cards as payment? I got one for Father's Day and this would be the perfect way to spend it.

 

[Wes Candela]

Silly question.... Does anyone know of the site accepts Visa gift cards as payment? I got one for Father's Day and this would be the perfect way to spend it.

That would be a great way to spend it Scott, sorry just saying because I have no clue if they take Visa. That’s such a good idea… I don’t know why I didn’t ask for it myself.


Dammit

 

[Mikey1969]

A casting question for serious Bond colleagues. I haven't thought about this since the release of Diamonds Are Forever. Because Natalie Wood comes to mind with the upcoming release of Splendor In The Grass, I had always thought of her at that time as a good choice for the role of Tiffany Case after seeing how wonderful she looked in Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice.

She could have play the Tiffany Case of the last third of the film where her character was reduced to a bikini-clad bimbo needing Bond to rescue her in the very protracted finale, but I don't think she would have as effective as Jill St. John in the first two-thirds of the film where she showed actually some grit and intelligence and had a great chemistry with Sean Connery.

 

[mskaye]

Osato, I've pondered this many times. I know the schedule was frightful but if you only have to work 6-7 months on a film with two years in between and having everything at your fingertips, why not? Turned down 5 million dollars for Live And Let Die.

You're thinking like a fan and not like the actor and the human being that has to spend 6-7 months on a complicated production on location that revolves around YOU. That's a lot of pressure and an incredibly LONG time to be on a film set and then there's the endless world publicity and promotional tours. Sean HATED that. Pressure is a privilege as the saying goes but Sean felt he wasn't being compensated fairly. And it wasn't only about the money for Sean. When he wasn't doing Bond he was working with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Ritt and Sidney Lumet. Bond was not a challenging role for him any longer (and let's face it, it depends on physical presence and charm but it's not the last word in psychological depth.) It's light entertainment. But he was done. He wasn't only after a paycheck and I admire him for that. He did Diamonds for the money and yeah it's fun film. He seems only slightly engaged in it (and trust me, a slightly engaged Sean Connery performance is better that 90% of actors when fully engaged.) What this led to were some absolutely memorable films performances in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I'm not counting NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN among those.

 

[mskaye]

She could have play the Tiffany Case of the last third of the film where her character was reduced to a bikini-clad bimbo needing Bond to rescue her in the very protracted finale, but I don't think she would have as effective as Jill St. John in the first two-thirds of the film where she showed actually some grit and intelligence and had a great chemistry with Sean Connery.

I think you have that reversed. Regardless, that role would have been a step down or backwards for her in every way.

 

[Malcolm R]

Silly question.... Does anyone know of the site accepts Visa gift cards as payment? I got one for Father's Day and this would be the perfect way to spend it.

If they take Visa credit cards, you should be able to use a Visa gift card. You may not be able to make a split payment, such as if your GC has $100 and the total cost is more than that. I know Amazon does not allow this on their site. You have to be able to pay the entire amount of the purchase with the GC. You can't use the $100 then pay the balance with a different card.

 

[Osato]

You're thinking like a fan and not like the actor and the human being that has to spend 6-7 months on a complicated production on location that revolves around YOU. That's a lot of pressure and an incredibly LONG time to be on a film set and then there's the endless world publicity and promotional tours. Sean HATED that. Pressure is a privilege as the saying goes but Sean felt he wasn't being compensating fairly. And it wasn't only about the money for Sean. When he wasn't doing Bond he was working with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Ritt and Sidney Lumet. Bond was not a challenging role for him any longer (and let's face it, it depends on physical presence and charm but it's not the last word in psychological depth.) It's light entertainment. But he was done. He wasn't only after a paycheck and I admire him for that. He did Diamonds for the money and yeah it's fun film. He seems only slightly engaged in it (and trust me, a slightly engaged Sean Connery performance is better that 90% of actors when fully engaged.) What this led to were some absolutely memorable films performances in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I'm not counting NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN among those.

Or it would’ve / could’ve ended / craiged the series…

A new ending for Diamonds;
Bond dies but kills blofeld. Tiffany drives off with their new daughter in the Aston Martin with we have all the time in the world playing.

Crowd goes wild.

 

[Jack P]

The existence of Q Branch and Bond being a car nut aren't mutually exclusive. That's a weird blanket statement to make. The gadget cars in the films are hardly the only gadgets that Q Branch supplied. There's no reason that Bond has to be a mechanical idiot.

I didn't say he had to be a mechanical idiot. My point is that showing him that way after establishing an antagonistic relationship between himself and Q starting in "Goldfinger" would have made the idea of him being so overly mechanically minded come off as jarring to the audience which got used to his bemused disdain for the gadgetry. That antagonism with Q was a pure film invention since as I said, the character is only an incidental background one in the novels.

 

[JoshZ]

He wasn't really a gourmand, either. That's Young again more than Fleming.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Fleming writes in exhausting detail about all the meals Bond eats and exactly how they were prepared to meet his standards.

I'd be all over a more accurate version of the Fleming character minus some of the bad parts like the racism,

The closest we will ever had on screen as Fleming's character is Mr. Connery in From Russia With Love.

I just finished reading From Russia with Love and then watching the movie. I am absolutely agreed that this movie is the most faithful adaptation from Fleming to screen. The story follows most of Fleming's plot-points, and many of the most iconic scenes from the movie were taken off the page.

With that said, I think the movie is an improvement over the book in a number of respects, not the least of which is its toning down of the racism and homophobia. Even aside from that, the literary Bond is a fairly terribly spy and a worse detective. (I noted this in earlier books as well.) In the novel, he fully buys Tatiana's ridiculous story about falling in love with him from photographs and wanting to defect West to be with him, and hardly questions it at all - for no reason other than that she's a pretty girl, and therefore must be incapable of deception.

In the movie, Bond is immediately skeptical of this story, and though he humors her and plays along, he never actually believes it.

Likewise, Bond in the book misses or willfully ignores numerous clues about the Russian plot to kill him. Movie Bond is a lot smarter and more clever.

That Russian scheme also doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense in the book. They hand over a legitimate top-secret decoding device and pass over numerous opportunities to kill Bond. Fleming only gives the thinnest of excuses for this.

The story comes into much better focus in the movie, which introduces SPECTRE as a third-party trying to play the Russians and the Brits against one another and steal that decoder for themselves. The Red Grant character only appears at the very beginning and very end of the novel, but the movie keeps him in play all along, tailing Bond and acting to make sure he doesn't get killed too early, because Bond is important to SPECTRE's plan.

I get the sense that, in cranking out a new novel every year during his holiday schedule in Jamaica, Fleming didn't plan his stories out in too much detail before he started writing. His plots feel like he was mostly just winging it, starting with a general idea of what he wanted and then seeing where it took him.

At least in the earliest few movies, the screenwriters seem to have put more effort into tightening and generally fixing some of Fleming's lazy writing. Of course, that would change as the series went along and the scripts got more outlandish.

 

[Reed Grele]

For From Russia With Love fans, there's a very interesting interview on YouTube:

Lotte Lenya, 1979 TV Interview, Schuyler Chapin​

There's a funny moment at about the 34 minute mark of her experience purchasing a sweater at Saks Fifth Avenue. And her role as Rosa Klebb is mentioned at about the 51 minute mark.

Her entire career is quite fascinating.

 

[Sultanofcinema]

Sean Connery was in NYC promoting Outland in 1981. He was dining at the "Russian" Tea Room (of all places for this to happen). Lotte Lenya walked in with some guests and Ms. Lenya walked up to his table and lightly kicked him in the ankle. "one day we must invent a faster working venom".

 

[ColbyCo82]

Hey Josh - If you're unable to snag a set through Amazon, the 007 Store does still have them in stock. It is a bit more expensive than Amazon at $166, but at least it's an option and certainly cheaper than eBay. I, too, was less than thrilled with the artwork on the steelbooks when they were announced, and I almost bought the regular set instead. But now that I have the steelbooks in hand I'm very happy with the set and so glad I bought them!

https://007store.com/en-us/products...y-collection-steelbook?variant=54253126320513

I have the set ordered through Amazon but I’m wondering if my order will ever be filled at this point. Debating if I should cancel Amazon and go this route.

 

[sbjork]

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Fleming writes in exhausting detail about all the meals Bond eats and exactly how they were prepared to meet his standards.

Yes, he does -- and it's a different level of cuisine than what he ended up eating in the films. Not a caviar connoisseur who can tell where it was harvested. Fleming just liked going into vivid detail about whatever interested him, and food preparation interested him. This is also the Fleming who went into pages of detail about the game theory behind rock-paper-scissors. Which now that I think about it is another difference, because the Bond of the books was a gamesman like Fleming, and while the Bond of the movies plays games, he mostly just wings it and gets by on charm and luck alone. (Well, okay, he still cheated at golf.) And as much as I love Casino Royale, the explanations about poker in that are a little cringeworthy. Craig's Bond was a punter at poker who won only because he's Bond. Fleming would have wanted a rational explanation.

 

[Richard Kaufman]

We’re working on the restoration of a very interesting silent that in some ways is the progenitor of the Murder She Wrote series.

One of the major characters is a “mammy” type, which is fine. But after a few minutes you start wondering if she’s being played by a white actress in blackface.

We won’t censor, but must be aware that someone - and one never knows who - will be offended.

So…

Do you give a warning? I’m beginning to think “let it ride.”

The main character is also probably a lesbian, although the topic is never touched.

Wonderful 1924 production.

"Disclaimer" is the wrong word. Modern audiences NEED these things to be put into context or they just stop reading or watching. They have no patience for things we took for granted and simply eject themselves from the experience because it's so distasteful.
I was having a conversation yesterday with a friend, who's just turned 40, about the new 4k Bond box. He hates Connery's Bond because he treats women so despicably and he's such a vicious thug. Of course, I think Connery is the best Bond. I remember when "Man with the Golden Gun" came out and people were shocked when Roger Moore smacked Maude Adams and roughed her up. It was so out of character for his version of Bond, but it was de rigueur for Connery.
As far as blackface, whether it's put into context or not (and I'm a big Jolson fan), it's almost impossible to watch.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I have the set ordered through Amazon but I’m wondering if my order will ever be filled at this point. Debating if I should cancel Amazon and go this route.

I suspect that the Amazon orders will be filled. The certificate that comes with the set says limited edition of something like 15,000 and there’s no way Amazon has sold that many copies of it yet. My guess is that it’s a matter of having the manufacturer assemble and package the next batch. It’s unlikely that they made all 15,000 copies at once.

 

[tenia]

Sound mix mistakes on Dr No Atmos track :

"Disclaimer" is the wrong word. Modern audiences NEED these things to be put into context or they just stop reading or watching. They have no patience for things we took for granted and simply eject themselves from the experience because it's so distasteful.

It's much more complex than this, especially because "modern audiences" is not an homogeneous mass of people with similar reactions to similar things.
I'm almost 40, and prefer to know what I'm in. It's not vital for me, but I like it better. If it can be done through a 20 seconds introduction text panel, so be it.