KINO SUMMER SALE

Temptation has rolled across the radar this week with the announcement of Kino Lorber's summer sale. Spy Vibers can now save a whopping 50-70% off their entire catalog, plus free shipping on orders over $50! Details here. Here are just a few of the classics Kino has released on DVD and Blu-ray that would be a great addition to any Spy Vibe library: OSS 117 five film collection, Modesty Blaise, The Outer Limits, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Coronet Blue, Planet of the Vampires, The Pink Panther cartoon collection, The Inspector cartoon collection, Girl on a Motorcycle, Fritz Lang's Spies, Fantomas, Billion Dollar Brain, and Thunderbirds feature collection. Enjoy!

Selected Spy Vibe Posts: Beatles Pac-Man, Spy Vibe Radio: Jerry Cotton, The Invaders, 007 Horowitz Book Tour, McGoohan/Prisoner Event at Elstree, The Prisoner Interviews Vol 1, British Underground Press, Interview: Fab4 Mania, Bond Cocktail Book, Bond at Bletchley, Spy Smasher, Spy Vibe Radio: Peter Gunn, Agent Zero M, New Prisoner Comic, Dr. No Villains Edition,  Spy Vibe Radio: Danger Diabolik, Dr. No 60th, Oy-Oy-Seven, Spy Vibe Radio (UFO), Cold War Comic Strips, Thunderball Event, Mission to India, Mort Walker Celebration,  Peter Wyngarde Celebration, Batman 66 Exhibit, Prisoner Fifty Event, Ian Fleming Publications 2017-2018, Interview: Ed Hulse Pulp, Avengers Audio Drama, Interview: Callan At 50, Interview: Playboys, Spies, Private Eyes, TWA Returns, Spy Vibe Radio 8, Interview: Ryan Heshka, Mid-Century Modern Schulz, Agent Werewolf, Mata Hair Exhibit, Johnny Sokko 50th, Interview: Trina Robbins, Eddie Izzard, The Prisoner Capt Scarlet 50th, Hugh Hefner R.I.P., Jack Good R.I.P., Interview: Shaken Not Stirred, Callan 50th, Spy Vibe Radio 7, The Prisoner 50th Event, Spy-Fi Event, Kaho Aso 007, Two Million, Bo Diddley, Carnaby Pop, Le Carre Events, Billy Bragg Skiffle, Elvis 68, Jack Kirby The Prisoner, Casino Royale Concert, Review: The Prisoner Vol 2, Interview: The Prisoner Essential Guide, Maud Russell Mottisfont, Spy Vibe Radio 4, Batman Gallants, Adam West R.I.P., Village Triangle, Roger Moore R.I.P., Spy Vibe Radio 3, Sgt Pepper 50th, Satanik Kriminal OST, 60s Overdrive, Make Love in London, Spy Vibe Radio 2, Spy Vibe Radio 1, James Bond Strips, Propaganda Mabuse, Interview: Police Surgeon, XTC Avengers, 1966 Pep Spies, Batman Book Interview, Exclusive Fleming Interview, Avengers Comic Strips, Robert Vaughn RIP, UNCLE Fashions, Thunderbirds Are Pop!, Interview: Spy Film Guide, Lost Avengers Found, The Callan File, Mission Impossible 50th, Green Hornet 50th, Star Trek 50th, Portmeirion Photography 1, Filming the Prisoner, Gaiman McGinnins Project, Ian Fleming Grave, Revolver at 50, Karen Romanko Interview, Mod Tales 2, Umbrella Man: Patrick Macnee, New Beatles Film, The Curious Camera, Esterel Fashion 1966, Exclusive Ian Ogilvy Interview, 007 Tribute Covers, The Phantom Avon novels return, Ian Fleming Festival, Argoman Design, Sylvia Anderson R.I.P., Ken Adam R.I.P., George Martin R.I.P., The New Avengers Comics, The Phantom at 80, 007 Manga, Avengerworld Book, Diana Rigg Auto Show, The Prisoner Audio Drama Review.

DR. GOLDFOOT BLU-RAY

Deal alert: Fans of zany spy yarns from the 1960s that feature bikini-clad fembots have struck gold! Both Blu-ray editions of the Dr. Goldfoot movies starring Vincent Price have reached an all-time low cost of $15.99 each. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was released in 1965 and co-starred Frankie Avalon. This first addition to the series was directed by Norman Taurog, best known for making the 1960s musicals with Elvis Presley. Check out the claymation title sequence, complete with catchy theme song by The Supremes, on Youtube here. Movie details from Amazon: "Beware! This band of bikini-clad cuties are licensed to kill... with comedy! Featuring screen icon Vincent Price (The Oblong Box, Dr. Phibes) in his most unusual and amusing role of his career and Frankie Avalon (The Million Eyes of Su-Muru), with cameo appearances by Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck, this sex-ational spy spoof is thrill-packed fun. Deranged Dr. Goldfoot (Price) has a dream... of taking over the universe! So the mad scientist invents a machine that builds sultry, bikini-clad sex sirens, whom he programs to seduce the world's wealthiest men into signing over their fortunes. But when Secret Agent Craig Gamble (Avalon) learns of Goldfoot's evil plot, he knows he must destroy these gorgeous gold diggers before losing his heart and quite possibly his life to the hottest assassins ever built! Norman Taurog (Blue Hawaii) directs the fun-filled sci-fi comedy co-starring Susan Hart (War-Gods of the Deep), Dwayne Hickman (Cat Ballou) and Fred Clark (Sunset Blvd.). Special Features: Audio Commentary by Film Historian David Del Valle and Filmmaker David DeCoteau, Animated "Bikini Bots", Image Gallery, Trailer, Gallery."

Vincent Price returned to make Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs in 1966, this time under the unexpected helm of Italian horror maestro, Mario Bava. Fabian co-starred, along with comedy duo Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. Details from Amazon: "Horror legend Mario Bava (Black Sabbath) directs this hilarious sequel to Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine featuring international superstar duo of Ciccio and Franco (Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, War Italian Style). The great Vincent Price (Madhouse) is back as Dr. Goldfoot and no man is safe from his army of irresistible bombshell robots... not even N.A.T.O. generals! Goldfoot's gorgeous robots are loaded with lovemaking explosives. Their mission: ignite war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Goldfoot is one general shy of global domination and with the ravishing Rosanna (Laura Antonelli, Malicious) as his secret weapon; it's just a matter of time. Now, it's up to secret agent Bill Dexter (Fabian, Thunder Alley) to keep the general and the world safe from the diabolical Dr. Goldfoot and his sexy robots. Special Features: Audio Commentary by Film Historian David Del Valle and Filmmaker David DeCoteau, "Black Sabbath: Trailers From Hell" with Mick Garris, "Girl Bombs" Image Gallery, Trailers for Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, House of the Long Shadows." Although the Goldfoot films didn't quite reach the level of James Coburn's Flint and other spoofs made during the Spy Boom, they are quite fun and charming- often due to Vincent Price, whose fun performances, along with some cool set designs, keeps me coming back to revisit every few years or so. They are definitely silly, but recommended!

Selected Spy Vibe posts: Spectre Advanced Poster, Honor Blackman at 90, UNCLE School, Ian Fleming Memorial, Radiophonic Exhibit, Portmeirion Photos, Doctor Who Exhibit, Farewell Steed, Pussy Galore Returns, Diana Rigg birthday, Sherlock at 221B, Invisible Agent, Saint Interview: Ian Dickerson, Saint Doppelgänger, Fleming's Typewriter, Rare Fleming, Fleming's Music, Ian Fleming's Japan, Jim Wilson Corgi Interview, Fantomas Design, Jeremy Duns on Bond, John Buss interview, Avengers Season 5 Titles, Saint Volvo, Mod Tales Interview, Agente Secreto Comics, Danger Man Comics 2, Danger Man Comics, John Drake Comics, Der Mann Von UNCLE, Golden Margaret Nolan, Man From UNCLE Rocksteady, Pussy Galore Calypso, Cynthia Lennon R.I.P., Edward Mann Fashion, Leonard Nimoy Tribute, Shatner at 84, Bob Morane series, Thai Bond Design, Bond vs Modernism, Art of Modesty, Tokyo Beat 1964, Feraud Mod Fashion, Green Hornet Manga, No 6 Festival, Avengers Interview: Michael Richardson, Ian Fleming: Wicked Grin, Jane Bond Hong Kong Records, Ryan Heshka Interview, Comics Week: Man From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E., Comics Week: Archie, Comics Week: Robots, Comics Week: Cold War Atomic, Comics Week: SPYMAN, Comics Week: Jimmy Olsen, Shakespeare Spies: Diana Rigg, Shakespeare Spies I, Rodney Marshall Avengers Interview, Richard Sala: Super-Enigmatix, Cold War Archie, Playboy Bunny Interview, The 10th Victim Japanese and Kindle, U.N.C.L.E. Japanese Books, Trina Robbins Interview, Catsuits, Batman '66 Green Hornet Interview: Ralph Garman Ty Templeton.

SPY SPOOFS TONIGHT

Our fellow C.O.B.R.A.S. site Double O Section has alerted us to a special spy event tonight on Turner Classic Movies. TCM will be airing a fantastic lineup of fun spy flicks, including Our Man Flint, the Matt Helm movies The Silencers and Murderer's Row, Carry On Spying, and the wonderful Vincent Price movies, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine and Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs. I wish we could all be in the Spy Vibe lair to watch these together. What are your favorite spy spoofs? More details about tonights program at Double O Section here. 

Check Spy Vibe for recent posts about our fiendish villains archive, WWII spy Krystyna Skarbek, recycled James Bond covers, interview with Fu Manchu author William Maynard,  Man From UNCLE manga. new James Bond omnibus, Orson Welles the Shadow, rare Piero Umiliani Kriminal soundtrack, new Beatles Yellow Submarine game, James Bond audio book re-issues, Mid-Century Modern in Peanuts, Ralph Byrd Dick Tracy, my review of SKYFALL and more. Spy Vibe is now on Pinterest! Check out our image archives and follow us here.

Ian Fleming on Spy Vibe: recent posts include Ian Fleming Music Series links: Noel Coward, Whispering Jack Smith, Hawaiian Guitar, Joe Fingers Carr, new Ian Fleming Catalog, discovery of one of Ian Fleming's WWII Commandos, James Bond book covers, Ian Fleming's Playboy interview for Kindle, Spy Vibe's discovery of a rare Ian Fleming serialization, Fleming's Royal gold typewriter, Ian Fleming's memorial address, and our Ian Fleming image archive link here.

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BO WEEK: THE DUCHESS & LIBERATION

Spy Vibe continues to look at Bo Diddley in the early-mid 1960s. As a fan who listened to Bo's music without seeing film footage until recently (thank you, YouTube), I was really inspired by the television appearances we looked at last week. I never realized that Bo shared the stage with a cool, guitar-playing hottie! Bo is rather like The Avengers' John Steed of Chess Records. In the largely male-dominated world of Blues and Rock n Roll, the very manly Bo Diddley cooked up a hot stage act by adding a female guitarist, Lady Bo, to share his spotlight. The Duchess replaced Lady Bo and took up the space-age guitar in 1962. Together, she and Bo pounded out the Bo Diddley beat for shows like Shindig!, Hollywood A Go Go, and the Big TNT Show.


Spectropop celebrates The Duchess: "Lending her inimitable style to the grooves (and sleeves) of 1962's "Bo Diddley & Company" and 1963's "Bo Diddley's Beach Party" albums, she accompanied him on his first tour of England that same year, where her guitar prowess created a stir equaled only by that of her skin-tight gold lamé cat suit. Asked by one dauntless investigator how she managed to get into it, [The Duchess] responded by pulling out an over-sized shoehorn. Eric Burdon later immortalised her in the Animals' "Story Of Bo Diddley".


Like the women of The Avengers, The Duchess presented an interesting juxtaposition of strength (rocking out with cool confidence) and objectification (hot chick with guitar). Maybe objectification is too strong a word? Like Blackman and Rigg, I think she presented a healthy balance- an individual who was both equal partner and keeper of their own sexual power.

Seeing those performances by Bo and The Duchess got me thinking about the cultural climate of the times. There were big changes for young men and women in the early 1960s. The birth control pill was approved by the FDA in 1960. Hugh Hefner's Playboy was moving into its second decade and continued to represent a revolution away from the post-war family/suburbia ideal. Hef's company grew with the times, celebrating a sophisticated singles' life through a chain of clubs and new ventures into TV (party-style talk shows) and an annual jazz festival. It was rather like the Roaring 20s, with similar images of hot music, flapper girls, and new contraception. Liberated young adults (and their dollars) in the early-mid 1960s generated cultural trends in all areas of the Arts. For women, it was a time of both freedom and continued objectification.

Spy Vibe faves Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg from The Avengers stood out as strong, individual role models. The creators of The Avengers thought to have Blackman dress more like a man for the action scenes (she did many indoor scenes in her black underwear). Her leather gear serendipitously brought both action-agility and kinky eroticism. Courreges' white moon boots and mini skirts of the mid-1960s offered a similar juxtaposition of space-age toughness coupled with exposed-thigh titillation (a style that became a Go Go dancing uniform). Lady Bo, The Duchess, and The Avengers may symbolize a kind of liberation, certainly in comparison to the bikini voyeurism of, say, the playful Dr. Goldfoot films. I don't know what Bo's motivations were to first invite Lady Bo and The Duchess on stage. Maybe he was inspired by Les Paul and Mary Ford? I doubt that he was thinking of feminism as much as he wanted to heat up his stage act. Regardless of how these ladies got to the spotlight, Bo's female guitarists were ahead of their time.

In this clip from Hollywood A Go Go, Bo and The Duchess perform a song that sums up the plot of most early Rock movies, "Let the Kids Dance!" Keep your eyes on those Go Go dancers. We'll take a closer look at them next. B&W Photo from Getty Images.

SPY KIDS: BACK IN TRENCH COATS

SPY KIDS: BACK IN TRENCH COATS
Secret Squirrel found its fun Spy Vibe elements in conventions like lethal gadgets- a spy squirrel with a machine gun cane? Now that's 1960s surreal thinking! Episodes showed up on a recent DVD release of classic 60s cartoons and I enjoyed revisiting this dangerous little rodent. But as I started to look at other spy-related programming for kids during that era, I found that they all offered the same basic package: nitwit comedy cloaked in a throwback to hard boiled crime fiction- the trench coat. As we saw on Spy Vibe earlier this year, it was the peeling off of these drab macs that helped give 1960s spies a fashionable boost over their private eye counterparts. Bond's tux hidden under the tight wetsuit! Yet, the trench coat endured throughout spy fiction and remains a catch-all symbol for sneaky intentions (no connection to "dirty mac" stories here- we're PG13). 1960s London counter-culture centerpiece, Barry Miles, said that there was a major turning point in the early-mid 1960s when the cash-earning baby boomers started to come of age. To paraphrase, he said that before the shift, young people all dressed to look like middle-aged people. But after the shift, everyone started trying to dress like young people. So when Cold War spies became popular entertainment, we saw examples of productions embracing the youth-generated curve of that shift. Great examples were The Avengers with those kinky leathers and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. with Mod outfits and miniskirts. In the comedy productions, especially those made for kids, there was a slightly middle-aged approach that downplayed the sexuality and expressiveness that otherwise was a great part of 1960s liberation. Instead of cartoon characters in wild new fashions, the form was watered down for mass consumption and took on the trappings of the older generation. Replace the stubble and Fedora of the private eye with sunglasses and a gadget and you've easily turned the symbol of the 1930s-1950s "gumshoe" (Philip Marlow, Sam Spade) into the symbol of a "spy-in-disguise." Luckily overcoats were more popular back then- maybe a trench coat spy might have had a chance of blending in with the commuters!



There are two claims to the invention of the trench coat, but Burberry certainly has a firm hold on the garment's history. They originally began producing long coats to protect officers from the elements during the Boer War in 1895. A few modifications and wars later, the jacket began to evolve closer to its modern image during WWI, when it was dubbed the "trench coat" as officers wore them in the first trench battles. I'm sure that there are scholars of pulp fiction, Black Mask magazine, etc who could trace when the jacket became indelibly linked with crime fiction. Early pulps pictured private eyes dressed in the look we all associate with Bogart's portrayals of heroes by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. 1965's Secret Squirrel even borrowed from the Bogart lexicon by giving him a sidekick based on Peter Lorre! The WWI aviator's version of the trench coat showed up in European intrigue films, like Fritz Lang's Spione (1928). The trench coat look swept into fashion, and was acculturated for rush hour workers; men and women throughout the decades standing on metrolpolitan train platforms. As Hugh Hefner's sexual revolution took hold in the 1950s and beyond, he was in many ways rebelling against that grey flannel suit/raincoat lifestyle. Bond and the spies that followed in his wake ran with the young crowd in sexy, thin gear. But for kids and spy comedy? It was keep on the baggy side of life.



Imagine we were producing the major spy comedies targeted for younger viewers during the spy boom. We are like Mr. Briggs or Mr. Phelps of the Impossible Missions Force, flipping through our portfolio of secret agents: Boris Badinov (Bullwinkle), Secret Squirrel, Max Smart and Agent 99 (Get Smart), Cool McCool, Fred Flintstone (Man Called Flintstone), Lancelot Link, MAD's Spy Vs. Spy. They all have the outfit. Even the bungling Inspector Clouseau (Pink Panther) had the right wardrobe to face international intrigue, as did other spoof-film characters played by Doris Day (Glass-Bottomed Boat), Fabian (Dr. Goldfoot), and others. The comedy-spy characters of the 1960s clearly had the same tailor. Just as Bond baddies dressed "Nehru," this batch came from Central Casting with one requirement- wear a trench coat. The costuming and storytelling did not alter much among this group. They didn't have great style. But the characters made us laugh and remain important to 1960s spy culture (and the contemporary spin-off market). In some cases, like the bikini-wow Dr. Goldfoot films, the trench coat reads as a kind of "straight man" symbology in the comedy. What most of these productions lacked in fashion, they made up for in fun gadgets- a theme taken up years later by another trench coat-wearing crime/comedy firgure, Inspector Gadget.

The one major spy character for adults in the 1960s to actually look right in a mac was Michael Caine's Harry Plamer (The Ipcress File). Somehow his working bloke's portrayal brought authenticity to the jacket. It read more as ubiquitous than iconic; character-driven rather than cartoony.

To step into the Swingin' 60s side things, check out Spy Vibe's PEELING OFF THE TRENCH COATS. And because I love getting The Beatles into any discussion if possible, check out The Dirty Macs, a one-off 1968 band that included John Lennon, Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchell, and Eric Clapton!