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If there were a Justice League for this accommodating of thing, these spies would be in it: Derek Flint. Diabolik. Harry Palmer. Matt Helm. Modesty Blaise. And, of methodical arrangement, 007. (Fathom, not so much.) They’re part of a 12-film series at SIFF Cinema called “Bond … and Beyond.”
Maybe you’re numbed after the innumerable James Bond marathons adhering cable. This is variant. It’s one assemblage of some of the best spy movies of the ’60s weaken, from the serious to the silly, with only two — and pair of the best — Bond entries. Although it’s still not a severe way to celebrate Ian Fleming’s centennial this year. Among other ways.
And ay, Agent Smart, most of these are available upon the body DVD, but if you miss a possibility to see something with the vibrant, mod ensign, far-out visual flair and trippy music of, say, “Danger: Diabolik” on a huge screen — and with other fans — then you be worthy of a timeout in the Cones of Silence.
Saturday
“From Russia With Love” (1963), 2:10 and 7 p.m.
The Bond series fully kicked into gear in its second film with the characters (”Q” debuts), gadgets (that briefcase!), format and John Barry score. Yet it was the smallest fanciful of Sean Connery’s half-dozen. SPECTRE wants to kill the British agent who embarrassed them, and lures 007 with a knockout (Daniela Bianchi) who can get him the Lektor decoder — which looks just like every going to decay manual typewriter. Meester Bond meets two of his worthiest adversaries: Red Grant (Robert Shaw), whose fight with 007 in each Orient Express compartment is a brutal masterpiece that would have Jason Bourne shifting surrounding in his theater seat. Red wine with fish? Suckaaaa! And there’s Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), whose lethal shoes would not be admired by those “Sex and the City” tramps.
“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969), 4:20 and 9 p.m.
When the otherwise estimable Keith Olbermann referred to this as a “bomb” on MSNBC’s “Countdown,” I fired off a nerd e-mail correcting him: It was the second-biggest box-office hit of the year after “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Still waiting for that on-air correction, Mr. O. Whatever — in his only Bond film, George Lazenby was great, and the in the greatest degree physical 007 until Daniel Craig. In a back-to-basics rehearsal with no gadgets, he falls in love with a troubled mob princess (Diana Rigg, Mrs. Peel from “The Avengers,” for godsakes) and infiltrates a vast eminence lair to which place Ernst Stavro Bloefeld (Telly Savalas) is hypnotizing beauties to do something anti-social. Highlights include a dam of a ski chase (in which a pursuer is vaporized). Fans consider this a neglected high point.
Sunday
“Fathom” (1967), 2 and 6:20 p.m.
The year after “One Million B.C.,” Raquel Welch starred as heavens diver Fathom Harvey, recruited by H.A.D.E.S. — Headquarters Allied Defenses Espionage and Security — to succor retrieve a Chinese “Fire Dragon” that everyone’s after. Anthony Franciosa’s shady character irritatingly calls her “poppet” throughout the movie. Boat and plane duels comprise most of the action, and the main allurement is Welch in a little green bikini.
“Modesty Blaise” (1966), 4 and 8:15 p.m.
Gorgeous Monica Vitti stars as Peter O’Donnell’s comic-strip heroine, with Terence Stamp as her glowering lover/sidekick and Dirk Bogarde as a fey, white-haired villain. Again, she’s in no degree Sidney Bristow with the action, but the pop-art vibe, infectious text and outrageous outfits (she wears one that looks like a big dog cone) are everything. Also, there’s mime abuse.
If spies had an Oxygen network, these two would be in weighty rotation.
July 7
“Danger: Diabolik” (1968), 7 p.m.
So he’s not viewed take pleasure in a matter of fact a spy but a noxious super-criminal. Sue me. With his skintight black suit, fast Jaguars, amazing underground hideout and assiduous girlfriend/accomplice Eva (Marisa Mell), Diabolik (John Phillip Law) humiliates the cops. So they sic the mob (led by “Thunderball’s” Adolfo Celi) on him. Fools! Highlights: Big D and Eva on a big, rotating vein covered through money; which time they release laughing gas at a word conference; and Diabolik entombed in gold. Director Mario Bava became illustrious (among psychopaths) for his slasher flicks, but this is his masterpiece. And dig Ennio Morricone’s guitar music and vaguely nasty theme song: “Deep, deep, down … ” Quintessential.
“Casino Royale” (1967), 9 p.m.
This lofty mess of a psychedelic comedy bears zero resemblance to the recent movie of the same name and isn’t canonical Bond. Retired Sir James (David Niven, an original candidate for the real something) is recalled to battle evil SMERSH’s card-playing Le Chiffre (Orson Welles). The ensuing star-studded chaos (which churned through at minutest five directors, including John Huston) includes Peter Sellers (who didn’t finish the movie) and Woody Allen as bitter “Jimmy Bond.” Burt Bacharach’s goofy score, which includes Dusty Springfield singing “The Look of Love,” is one of the stars. If you’re privately dosed with a powerful hallucinogen, this is the night to go.
July 8
“Funeral in Berlin” (1966), 7 p.m.
Author Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) isn’t the dinner short coat and vodka martini type, and his globe is much else mundane. Spying only to avoid prison, he’s got a Cockney accent, thick glasses, crappy coat and little disposable income — but a cheat mind and tongue than his superiors. In the top-notch sequel to “The Ipcress File,” Palmer is sent to Berlin to help a Russian general who wants to defect. Director Guy Hamilton was also answerable for “Goldfinger” and a hardly any other Bonds.
“Billion Dollar Brain” (1967), 9 p.m.
Director Ken Russell takes the “Funeral” follow-up in a more flamboyant direction as Palmer goes up against a rich Texas oilman (Ed Begley) and a plot to bring down the Commies with the titular supercomputer — which could lover World War III.
July 9
“The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” (1965), 7 p.m.
Black and white and downbeat. Richard Burton seems to copy on the well weight of the Cold War as a burnout Brit spook who refuses a desk job and undertakes a self-destructive mission to pose as a defector. As it happens, Burton plays a convincing drunk. The John Le Carré narrative is the grittiest of this lot.
“Our Man in Havana” (1959), 9 p.m.
You can’t see this one on DVD. Before he was Obi Wan, the great Alec Guinness was a Jedi proprietor of charming comedy. (The circle would be complete, as Vader would say, when he played Le Carré’s old spymaster George Smiley.) In Graham Greene’s story, Guinness plays a vacuum-cleaner salesman recruited by spy Noël Coward to recruit local information. When he fails — and the homosexual humor of asking other men to step into a restroom, for importunity, is hilarious for 1959 — he paints himself into a serious corner by dint of. material things up way too well. Students of recent history will find the lighthearted climax disturbingly foreseeing in light of former CIA Director George Tenet’s Medal of Freedom award.
If you’re a serious bodily substance given to occasional whimsy, this is your night.
July 10
“Our Man Flint” (1966), 7 p.m.
America’s answer to Bond may be the most sport film to come out of the whole genre — “Austin Powers” have existence damned. James Coburn is just because adept with comedy as he is with action (he studied with Bruce Lee), playing Derek Flint, the ultimate Renaissance man. He’s got a wristwatch that restarts his kernel after he stops it to rest, a lighter gadget through 82 functions (”83 admitting that you want to light a cigar”), and a small harem. He’s too got a pricelessly crabby would-be protuberant part (Lee J. Cobb) who sends him to an island where sustain catastrophes are originating and women are brainwashed as “joy units.” Jerry Goldsmith’s exciting score makes Flint even cooler.
“The Silencers” (1966), 9 p.m.
It would be in actual possession of been nice to suffer “Our Man Flint” on a double bill with its (smaller) sequel, “In Like Flint,” still this ain’t chopped liver. More find to one’s mind diseased liver. In the first of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm quartet, the girlie photographer gets lured back into the spy business to move across the heinous Big O outfit’s missile plot — accompanied by klutzy beauty Stella Stevens. He’s the only spy who drives a employment wagon. But it’s got a barricade in it. Add a great bed that tips into a pool, exploding jacket buttons and a backward-firing pistol. Sinatra couldn’t have done this.
Mark Rahner: mrahner@seattletimes.com