Colonel Rodriguez

Honor Blackman, dressed as a housewife, is standing, looking anxious, in front of her curtained kitched window.

Episode 40
Saturday 30 May 2020

– A journalist? I hope you haven’t come to write lies about us.
– Well, that’s a difficult question, Colonel, because what is truth to me could be lies to you.

This month, our guard of honour continues with an episode of Danger Man from 1960, in which the glorious Honor Blackman stars as the wife of a journalist falsely accused of espionage. Will the eponymous Patrick McGoohan be able to save him from the clutches of the opportunistic Colonel Rodriguez? And, more importantly, can he do it in less than 25 minutes?

See the episode

You can catch up with the episode on YouTube. In fact, huge numbers of Danger Man episodes have found their way there.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we promise never again to release a Bondfinger episode longer than twenty-five minutes.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 0:42:39 · 41.13 MB · Recorded on Friday 29 May 2020

Danger ManHonor Blackman

The Arrow of God

Honor Blackman and Roger Moore are standing outside in the garden at night. Both are formally dressed. They are looking at each other.

Episode 39
Saturday 2 May 2020

– Well, well. The Saint, no less. I know a great deal about you.
– I’m flattered.
– Don’t be. I follow your exploits with extreme distaste. That article about you in The Times last Sunday was the most nauseating thing I’ve seen in print.
– Tried reading your own columns?

This month, our tribute to Honor Blackman continues as we revisit the earliest days of Rogertainment with the seventh episode of The SaintThe Arrow of God. A gossip columnist and blackmailer has been murdered, but who is the perpetrator? Richard, with his history of embezzlement? Peter, who can’t stop cheating at tennis? Nathan, with his dubious parentage? Or James, with his dark, bigamous past?

See the episode

You can catch up with the episode on Dailymotion for the time being.

After that, you can buy it on Amazon Prime Video in the US, and as a DVD box set containing all the black and white episodes in the UK and in Australia.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, then some day, when we realise how much you care for us, we’ll reciprocate.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 0:58:44 · 56.57 MB · Recorded on Friday 1 May 2020

Honor BlackmanThe Saint

The Mauritius Penny

A tight closeup photo in black and white of Honor Blackman's face. Her hair is wild and she looks tense, as if she's just seen something.

Episode 38
Saturday 11 April 2020

You didn’t really think you could take over this country with a few fanatics in fancy dress.

This month, we celebrate the life of Honor Blackman, who died this week at the age of 94, by watching one of her early episodes as Cathy Gale in The Avengers. In this episode, The Mauritius Penny, Mr Steed and Mrs Gale team up to defeat a gang of murderous dentists and stamp collectors who plan to overthrow the British government and install a fascist dictatorship decades before that sort of thing became fashionable.

See the episode

In the US, you can buy episodes of Series 2 of The Avengers on Amazon Prime Video. In the UK, Amazon will let you import a Region 4 box set from Australia, oddly. While in Australia, it seems that Series 2 is impossible to buy. Baffling.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll find you a British Guiana 1856 four-cent black with four perfect margins. (Psych!)

Download · Open in new window · Duration 1:01:00 · 58.75 MB · Recorded on Friday 10 April 2020

Honor BlackmanThe Avengers

The Talented Husband

A black and white photo of a very young Roger Moore wearing a lovely suit, descending the staircase of a suburban house.

Episode 37
Saturday 21 March 2020

Thank heaven for English theatre bars. We’ve had two acts of this play, complete suffering both onstage, and off.

This month, we head back to the earliest days of Rogertainment with the very first episode of The Saint (1961), in which Roger Moore teams up with a future Bond girl, the glittering Shirley Eaton, to thwart a serial wife-killer who will one day control every computer in the galaxy. Or something. It’s all a bit confusing really.

See the episode

You can catch up with the episode on YouTube for the time being.

After that, you can buy it on Amazon Prime Video in the US, and as a DVD box set containing all the black and white episodes in the UK and in Australia.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll buy you a pint from the barrel — warm, flat, nourishing and very British.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 0:59:18 · 57.12 MB · Recorded on Monday 2 March 2020

Sixties Spy-fi ShitThe Saint

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

A young blonde woman in a white dress with a white hat, Dick Van Dyke in a white suit and a boy dressed in white are all sitting in a lovely wooden boat. There is a forested hill in the background.

Episode 36
Wednesday 25 December 2019

I don’t trust a man who makes toys in a land where children are forbidden.

It’s Christmas, and to celebrate we’re heading back into James Bond territory by watching a film produced by Albert Broccoli, based on a novel by Ian Fleming and a screenplay by Roald Dahl. It’s like You Only Live Twice with a much nicer car, and we love it: it’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

See the film

Buy the Blu-ray of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

It’s also available on iTunes and Google Play.

You can find some links and photos that we mention in this episode by going to its shownotes page.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll marry both your father and his newfound wealth and we’ll all be happy and blond together for the rest of our lives.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 2:33:09 · 147.20 MB · Recorded on Friday 20 December 2019

Christmas Special

The Girl Who Was Death

A young woman wearing a white suit is standing next to her expensive white sportscar and putting on a white hat. Behind her is an old-fashioned toolbooth.

Episode 35
Tuesday 10 December 2019

I love you madly. I love the way the hair curls on the back of your neck. You’ll make a beautiful corpse. I’m going to do you the honour of letting you die superbly.

This month, we’re watching The Prisoner (1967), more specifically its weird antepenultimate episode The Girl Who Was Death. So while Nathan puts the children to bed, James does some ball-tampering, Brendan drives around on the ceiling, and Richard enters a deadly alliance with the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. No, we don’t know what’s going on either.

See the episode

As usual, it’s temporarily possible to watch a version illegally uploaded to YouTube. But why not buy the entire series on Blu-ray? It’s strange and fascinating and the film transfer looks amazingly beautiful. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll tuck you in bed and read you a violent and upsettingly incomprehensible bedtime story.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 0:56:56 · 54.84 MB · Recorded on Friday 6 December 2019

Sixties Spy-fi ShitThe Prisoner

Modesty Blaise

A young red-haired woman in a light-blue dress is sitting on the floor in a room with psychedelic black and red wallpaper. To her left is a red wrought-iron spiral staircase.

Episode 34
Friday 1 November 2019

– Oh, I’m sorry about the explosion. It doesn’t happen every day.
– I don’t come every day.

This month, we’re watching the camp 1966 spy-fi classic Modesty Blaise, starring a very attractive Italian lady, Dirk Bogarde and Bernice off Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. There’s diamond smuggling, spycraft and racist comedy Arabs, but it’s mostly all there to get in the way of the lovely location work in Amsterdam and Italy and the upsettingly psychedelic wallpaper.

See the film

No one seems to want this film on their streaming services or digital stores, for some reason, but you can still buy it on Blu-ray or DVD. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll consider rewatching this film until we undertand it enough to make up a funny and relevant promise to put in the show notes.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 2:07:44 · 122.81 MB · Recorded on Friday 1 November 2019

Sixties Spy-fi Shit

Five Miles to Midnight

Five people are standing in an expensively decorated old room. From left to right: Tony Curtis in a vinyl jacket, an older man who is kissing a woman's hand, Roger Moore standing in the background, the woman, who is Joan Collins with a massive hairdo, and a middle-aged man with a moustache who is wearing a crumpled suit and a dark shirt.

Episode 33
Saturday 14 September 2019

– Where do these guns keep coming from?
– I get ’em wholesale.

This month, we’re watching The Persuaders! Season 1 Episode 17, Five Miles to Midnight, in which TV’s Roger Moore and sometime lady saxophonist Tony Curtis team up with Joan Collins to smuggle some guy out of Italy, accompanied by a series of excellent jokes written by Terry Nation.

And in the process, we answer the age-old question, “What did Tony Curtis call Joan Collins during the production that got her so annoyed?” Over and over again, I’m afraid.

The upsetting Joan Collins interview to which Richard refers can be found here.

See the episode

Well, no one has taken down the illegal copies of this that are up on YouTube, so why not try watching it here.

Otherwise — and this is the course of action we recommend — buy the Blu-ray box set of The Persuaders. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll overlook that time you destroyed a hotel bar on the Côte d’Azur and send you on a series of groovy adventures instead.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 1:01:42 · 59.40 MB · Recorded on Friday 13 September 2019

The Persuaders!

The Ipcress File

Michael Caine, wearing black-rimmed glasses and a suit,  is standing in a supemarket aisle with another man in a suit.

Episode 32
Sunday 11 August 2019

– The Americans have put a tail on Palmer.
– Have they? How very tiresome.

This month, we head back in time to 1965. While James Bond is in the Bahamas enjoying some painfully slow underwater harpoon fights, Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is having a much more prosaic time spying for the Ministry of Defence, trying to locate a kidnapped scientist. That is, until the psychedelia kicks in.

The Ipcress File was produced by Bond producer Harry Salzman. The score was by our very own John Barry, and the production designer was our beloved Sir Ken Adam.

See the film

Buy the Blu-ray of The Ipcress File. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

It’s also available on iTunes and Google Play.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll have you over for dinner and cook you some delightful foreign muck with capsicums in it.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 1:55:02 · 110.87 MB · Recorded on Friday 2 August 2019

Sixties Spy-fi Shit

The Girl from Auntie

A young woman is sitting with her feet up on an instrument panel covered in switches and dials. She has a pistol in her hand.

Episode 31
Saturday 6 April 2019

– Steed! I thought you were an old lady with a bale and knitting needles.
– They do say I take after granny.

This month, we go back to Richard and Brendan’s first love — 1960s spy-fi classic The Avengers. Brendan has taken up knitting, James is achieving better living through self-help books, Nathan is wondering why Graeme Garden left his computer here, and Richard is relaxing in a leotard and a giant birdcage. Watch out, everyone: it’s The Girl from Auntie.

See the show?

The Girl from Auntie is the 17th episode of Season 4 of The Avengers. It’s a bit hard to find now, to be honest, but the existing episodes have been released on boxed sets and can be found on your local version of Amazon. It can’t be watched online, alas. I’ve tried.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on iTunes, we’ll knit you a lovely bungalow.

Download · Open in new window · Duration 0:59:35 · 57.36 MB · Recorded on Friday 5 April 2019

Dame Diana RiggThe Avengers