– 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.
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.
Recorded on Friday, 2 August 2019 ·
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– 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)
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.
Recorded on Friday, 1 November 2019 ·
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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.
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.
Recorded on Friday, 6 December 2019 ·
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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.
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.
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.
Recorded on Monday, 2 March 2020 ·
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– Well, it’s going to be a lovely day.
– Why not, it was a lousy night. Where were you? I left a message for you at midnight.
– Chasing a bag of peanuts.
This month, our Kate O’Marathon commences with a 1968 episode of The Champions, in which Miss O’Mara does some light shoplifting in the hope of scoring some deadly crack for the weekend, and the four of us team up to use our slightly racist superpowers to stop her.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll use our psychic powers to help you escape from the hotel room they’ve got you locked up in so that you get the chance to score whatever stuff you need to get through the next agonising week.
Recorded on Friday, 31 July 2020 ·
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Oh, I discovered then, nothing beats a good lashing. (Mind your head.) Take India. You can have a good ten inches overnight there. You know, one should never fear being wet.
This month, we commemorate the death of Sean Connery by revisiting the first nail in the coffin of his movie career, the 1998 film The Avengers, starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman as crude robot replicas of John Steed and Mrs Peel, who go up against the wet sporran of Connery’s single most villainous role, Sir August de Wynter — a man who selflessly tries to provide the population of Great Britain with something interesting to make small talk about.
See the episode
Despite all this, The Avengers is not a bad-looking film. You can almost certainly find it — or a completly different film of the same name — on one of your streaming services. And the DVD is sort of still available (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
– I might try singing an antidote note.
– Then do it!
– Oh, but that’s three octaves above high C! Nobody’s ever done it before! My voice would be gone! I’d rather die!
Holy Peripheral Relevance, Batman! This month, the Dynamic — er — Four have pursued patron-saint-of-the-podcast Joan Collins to Gotham City, where she makes a surprising guest appearance in an episode of Batman as the mesmeric Lorelei Circe, whose voice has an uncanny power over heterosexual men. (Fortunately we’re all very neatly tucked and wearing the Bat-Earplugs for this one.)
See the episode
As Brendan says towards the end, Batman is available for streaming on Amazon Prime in the US, but not in the UK or Australia. There is, however, a beautifully mastered Blu-ray box set available. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
– You’re not the first person to pass through my hands, Stirling.
– I never thought I was.
– They all broke eventually.
– I’ll try and spoil your record.
This month, James finds himself drugged, sweaty and trapped in a prison cell with a wastepaper basket and no visible means of escape, while Richard insistently questions him about the identity of the mysterious Renfield or something. Meanwhile, Brendan and Nathan flap about uselessly outside. It sounds like a job for The Champions.
See the episode
You can watch this episode for free on DailyMotion, for the time being. The whole series is also available on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video (in some regions).
– I see. Oh! Are you going to tie me up?
– You bet I am.
– Well, I don’t mind, really, but may I fix my face before I die? It’s in such a mess.
This month, we’re joined by Steven B from New to Who to investigate the theft by some puppets of the blueprints for a new atomic weapon. Inevitably, Lady Penelope gets tied to a bomb or something, and we have mere moments to locate her before she is completely exploded. The sets are lavish, the hardware is impressive and the eyebrow lifts are the most expensive and time-consuming eyebrow lifts until Rodge takes over as Bond. Thunderbirds are go, in The Man from MI.5.
See the episode
The episode is available for purchase through various online retailers, but it is currently available in full on YouTube.
– Actually, I wanted a word or five about the old Groupee,
official magazine you know, I’m acting as PRO.
– From the HQ?
– BHQ.
– On TTR?
– JJV. seconded from RHB.
– Oh really, how’s the GCM?
– A-1.
– MY?
– 50 PPR.
– Downgraded to 007, eh?
This month, Steed and Mrs Peel are joined by John Le Mesurier, while we are joined again by Steven B, ably assisting us as we investigate various military bigwigs with improbable facial hair, who appear to be leaking valuable secrets to our enemies. Meanwhile, Diana Rigg’s Spotlight photo is getting one hell of a workout. Which is impossible to object to, really.
See the episode
As is now well established, Series 4 of The Avengers is also available in a lavish Blu-ray box set. Which is how we watched it. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
