"Goldeneye" (1989)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The man with the golden pen. We are the Spy Fi Guys, and this is GoldenEye, the Secret Life of Ian Fleming. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to the Spy Fi guys. So I apologize to the universe for that. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Yes. Wow. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Justice for Denis M. Is it though? I laughed, and then I heated myself for laughing. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Welcome to Spy Fi Guys, where we cover spy facts, spy fiction, and everything in between. I'm Christian. [00:00:37] Speaker B: And I'm Zach. [00:00:39] Speaker A: So this is actually our 151st episode, including microdots, dead drops, and author interviews. And so we're going to cover Goldeneye 1995, the Pierce Brosnan starring film. Great video game. Wait, no, we're not. No. Instead, we are covering GoldenEye, the Secret Life of Ian Fleming from 1989. Starring. Starring Ivan Lannister himself. Yes, that's right. Oh, goodness. I just blanked on his name. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Charles Dance. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Charles Dance. Thank you. Thank you. I gave Mac the option between this and another movie about Ian Fleming called spymaker, starring Jason Connery, Sean Connery's son. And you decided on this one? [00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I said to myself, surely the one starring an actual professional actor and not Sean Connery's son is gonna be better. [00:01:34] Speaker A: Well, let's find out. So this is based on the book the Life of Ian Fleming by John Pearson, who also wrote a fun book. Sorry, I haven't gotten around reading it. But he also wrote a fun authorized biography of 007, like so, which makes a fun duology. So I kind of want to read one and then the other, because he weaves Ian Fleming into James Bond. If James Bond were a real person, he weaves it in, then I want to read it, and I'll see how much they actually took from that book, because this is an interesting one. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm curious how they handle the sliding timeline of the James Bond universe. [00:02:07] Speaker A: They don't. They don't really. The book's called Was it James Bond the authorized biography of 007? 1973. So this is when so had shot Roger Moore. It was the time of his second film, so man with Golden Gun. So it was feasibly. Especially since Roger Moore was older than Sean Connery, it's still the same person. There's less of a sliding timeline. [00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't cause as much of an issue. [00:02:29] Speaker A: It's an interesting one. It's. James Bond is a real person, but they create a reason for him to have the novels based on him and. But he's still acting as a real agent. It's fun. That is not what this episode is about, though. This is about the movie well, TV movie, where did this get released? [00:02:47] Speaker B: It does say TV movie and IMDb and in the version that we had, they had ITV or something in the corner. I didn't ask where Christian got the video and he didn't tell. [00:02:59] Speaker A: I can neither confirm nor deny. I think this was released on like DVD somewhere though. Oh, it was Anglia tv, which is now known as itv. Anglia, the ITV franchise holder for the east of England. So yeah, that's who made this. So let's start out with our synopses. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Plot synopsis. Yes. So as always, spoilers somehow, if there's spoilers for this movie that you don't want to know, it begins right here with our poetry, plot synopsis. I will start with our haiku for Goldeneye 1989. Secret agent aim. In Ian's mind, Bond is born, finds love and marriage. I feel like that covers the movie, but that just in case you did some more, here is The Limerick for Goldeneye 1989. Ian choked when he came through the breach. He's much better at writing and speech. In the war he's got schemes, but in peace he has dreams to live out his life on the beach. [00:04:05] Speaker A: Very good, very good. [00:04:07] Speaker B: Thank you. And then here is the semi official IMDb plot summary. Fact based biography of James Bond, author Ian Fleming. The film focuses on his wartime exploits and romantic adventures which ultimately led to his creation of the super spy. Why do they call it a biography? It's not a biography. Stop it doesn't say where he was born or who his parents are or any of that stuff. [00:04:31] Speaker A: You know what does address a lot of that stuff? The other one, Fleming, the Man who Would Be Bond. Which I'm going to compare these two endlessly, probably. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Wait, is that the one with Jason Connery? [00:04:42] Speaker A: No, that is our very first episode of Spy Fi, guys. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that's right. How much memory do you have of that? [00:04:50] Speaker A: Quite a bit, actually. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I have very little. [00:04:53] Speaker A: All right, so we start off with someone driving into goldeneye. It's Noel Coward, who's a. Is he director? [00:05:01] Speaker B: I think he was a writer. [00:05:03] Speaker A: He's a playwright, composer, director, actor and singer. So yes, I was right. [00:05:07] Speaker B: And the music is vaguely James Bond sounding. However, it's off to cuff start. So our cut of this, it just looks old. The footage just looks old. Okay. It looks like you're watching it on a British TV screen in the 1980s. Looks like it was filmed in the 70s. And also the sound. I don't know if this is just me being lazy. I could not understand what they Were saying there was no subtitles, there was a bunch of sound mixing issues, so I didn't know who half the characters names were. But the beginning is off to a good start. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So we have, yeah, Noel Coward and Fleming's wife Anne driving into goldeneye. I don't want to say Connery. Fleming's estate in Jamaica. And like they're being told, stand back. We're filming a documentary and Fleming's being interviewed. I feel like I've seen this interview before, at least in clips or bits. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Possibly. It might be a famous one now. [00:06:07] Speaker A: I will say, as opposed to. Oh, Howard Stark. What's Dominic Cooper? Cooper, yes. Charles Dance looks like Fleming. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, they nailed it on that. He looks like the real life Fleming. Really? [00:06:19] Speaker A: Well, Dominic Cooper maybe got his spirit, but. But not his look. Definitely not this interview. [00:06:25] Speaker B: He has a bunch of very cool lines and he comes off as one cool cat. I'm not going to give them away because some of them I have for favorite quotes, like he's totally in control and he's got a good answer for everything. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And he denies being involved with the Secret Service. And then he's like, oh, there's this one time, and we cut back to during the war where he arrived in New York and his assignment is to kill a man in cold blood. There's a Chinese assassin and his old friend Ivor Bryce is going to help him find the Chinese assassin. He gets off of an airboat. That is one of the things like I want to ride an airboat. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah. That's much more feasible than a lot of stuff that James Bond does. [00:07:03] Speaker A: I was supposed. So I was supposed to have a conference up in Vancouver and they do airboat tours, but of course this conference would have happened in June of 2020, so that trip got canceled. So still. Still on my bucket list. Ride an airboat. [00:07:19] Speaker B: Yep, there's that. [00:07:20] Speaker A: We also have Bill Stevenson here who was working with the oss. We get Fleming at a firing range and he an okay shot, but you know, Stevenson tells him you need to kill shot. [00:07:36] Speaker B: So Christian, did you remember this whole thing where he has to kill somebody? Because it seemed familiar to me and I'm sure it was from the Dominican Cooper show. [00:07:45] Speaker A: I have that note as well. Yeah. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Did anything in this movie surprise you? [00:07:51] Speaker A: Maybe. We'll see as we go through it again. But yeah, some fun is in a dive bar. They're gambling there's someone who can count the entire six card shoe in baccarat. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Wow, interesting. If only they had done something with that, right? [00:08:04] Speaker A: Now you just see Bryce with his winnings. Afterwards, Fleming's walking around and he, like, spots the chat, the Chinese assassin, who also spots him. The Chinese assassin has a flask hidden in a cane. You're on a dive bar. Why would you are you just don't want to pay for more drinks, so you just can drink it out of there? [00:08:26] Speaker B: Pretty much. [00:08:27] Speaker A: But yeah. The assassin leaves, Fleming follows. We don't see what happens. He's coming, coming back to Bryce. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Maybe he tails him to where he lives, presumably. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Fleming is loading up a ppk, and the Chinese man, he's cut over to where his apartment is or his hotel room. He's doing a handstand in his room. [00:08:47] Speaker B: Is this racist? This seems racist. [00:08:50] Speaker A: A little bit. Some Orientalism here. [00:08:54] Speaker B: I did like, though, in this part where it's waiting because a lot of spyware is just waiting. And they've covered that pretty well. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Fleming's practicing his draw. There's actually a very identical scene in the novel of Casino Royale where they describe him doing the same thing. Fleming's in a taxi and he gets stopped by a cop because someone gets killed on the street in New York City. [00:09:17] Speaker B: Again, what? [00:09:19] Speaker A: Like, I don't know. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Get something with this. Is the idea that the Chinese assassin killed him? [00:09:24] Speaker A: No, I don't know if that's the implication or not, but I was like, why? What is this doing here? [00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't get it. [00:09:29] Speaker A: He goes into a building and up the elevator. Stevenson, I think Ivor Bryce are across, watching me across the way. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Did you see the clerk called? The clerk of the hotel called somebody. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:09:41] Speaker B: He's like. He says something like, he's here. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. And he goes all the way up to room 1007. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Womp, womp. [00:09:51] Speaker A: So he gets the Chinese assassin at gunpoint. And Stevenson appears next to him, says, you gotta kill the guy. And he can't. He can't pull the trigger. [00:09:59] Speaker B: That's right. [00:10:00] Speaker A: So Stevenson then takes the gun and shoots at the assassin, who's doing a lot of flips. So many. [00:10:06] Speaker B: This also seems racist. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Yes. You know, this reminded me of that was the similarly racist with the Hong Kong assassins from License to Kill. Remember, randomly. [00:10:17] Speaker B: That'S a cut. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Who are just ninjas, even though they're Chinese. Right. We find out that he's actually on their side. He's on loan from Hong Kong police. [00:10:28] Speaker B: Okay, question, though. So did they know that Fleming wasn't going to kill him? Or was his gun loaded with blanks? Or was the idea he was going to Dodge it. [00:10:37] Speaker A: Definitely be shot him. I don't know. I don't know what the idea was. [00:10:42] Speaker B: Well, they say he could dodge bullets or he wants to dodge bullets. [00:10:46] Speaker A: Oh, guess maybe that's what it was. I don't know. That seems. That's ridiculous. [00:10:50] Speaker B: I mean, Christian, what. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Do you. [00:10:52] Speaker B: Do you think that any of this actually happened in real life? [00:10:54] Speaker A: I think there's some version like. Okay, so I'm trying to remember. Oh, let me see if I can go back into our episode on Fleming. What? Because there. This happens in Fleming. [00:11:08] Speaker B: That might be the story Fleming tells people, but doesn't mean it really happened. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Or he's heard about this test, came up with a story that he took it to. It's in part because he wanted to go on a mission. And so they. All, right, you have to do this test. So the same thing happens, though. It's. He can't do the mission, he can't shoot the guy. And in that case, I think we're. We're probably. It's probably blanks or. Or something, but here, real bullets. So we go to, you know, a bar, back to a bar where they're. They're having martini, shaken, not stirred. Fleming needs a favor. They need access to a German submarine, complete with. With codes. And we hear that Lucky Luciano might be able to help you. Did this name ring any bells to you? [00:11:53] Speaker B: No. Wait, is it in the series as well? [00:11:57] Speaker A: Real life? In real life? [00:11:59] Speaker B: In real life, no. [00:12:01] Speaker A: Okay. Do you have any idea who this guy is? [00:12:04] Speaker B: Well, I looked him up for Spy Fact versus Fiction. [00:12:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:07] Speaker B: I did, too, but I did not know who he was before the series. [00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I've been to the Mob Museum in Vegas, and I, you know, done a little reading on the mobs like Lucky Lucian. This is an interesting one. [00:12:17] Speaker B: Well, Christian, it's interesting, but it's also frustrating. Fleming, our main character, just pays this guy, and a U boat just appears in Jamaica. Like, show me how he did it. That's the interesting part. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I don't know. But yeah. So he, like, meet him in prison and says he can assist him in the delivery to Jamaica, and all he wants is a vacation in Venice when the war is over. He doesn't want to be released because the war is happening, but in prison, he's safe. He's got alcohol, he's got entertainment. [00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, he's got it all covered. [00:12:47] Speaker A: We cut back to London, where we follow a messenger on motorcycle going into Naval Intelligence. This is Marianne, who's going into Godfrey's office. Godfrey Being the equivalent of M. Fleming's boss. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Fleming famously based M on him. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah, in part. And so Godfrey tells Marianne to fly in Fleming and seems to have a personal connection to Fleming. Did you remember this? So this character has a completely different name in Fleming. Man. Who would be Bond? Mario Wright, played by kind of. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Remember. Yeah, I kind of remember a blonde woman that he works with. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So I don't know why they changed her name here to Marianne. So Fleming's at a club. He's trying to get secrets of Nazi prisoners of war. I'm pretty sure this was in Fleming, too, where he has two prisoners of war and brings them to a restaurant or something. [00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. But who should be one of these prisoners of war? [00:13:42] Speaker A: Oh, my God, it's Blofeld. Christoph Waltz. [00:13:47] Speaker B: I think you mean Hans Whatever. From Inglourious Basterds. [00:13:51] Speaker A: That too. [00:13:52] Speaker B: But also, it's gonna go down in history for. Yes. [00:13:56] Speaker A: You know, for a spy podcast for James Bond fans, he'll be Blofeld. Although some people have referred to him as Bro Feld because he's blonde's foster brother. [00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that sucked. I remember that. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Christoph Waltz. I was like, wait, I was watching. And I was like. And just. He was surprised to see him. I didn't realize he had done English roles this early. [00:14:18] Speaker B: 35 years ago, he's still playing a Nazi. Nothing's changed. Sorry. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Some people get typ cast, and also we have, you know, an o' Neill here who is, you know, Fleming's future wife, but here just his lover, the Mater Decall Scotland Yard. Fleming takes care of it and says, you know, no, I'm Naval Intelligence. [00:14:37] Speaker B: So, yeah, he dismisses him in a very cool way. I like that. [00:14:40] Speaker A: And in the car ride home, so Anne is in on this whole thing, and she's trying to get the information out of the two Nazis. Instead, one tries to kiss her, the other spits at her, and she slaps them both. [00:14:52] Speaker B: So it doesn't work, in other words. But he gets the girl. Ian at least does. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, he drops off Ann at home, and he realizes he's being followed on a motorcycle. It's Marianne. They kiss. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Yeah. My note is Yowza. [00:15:06] Speaker A: Yep. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Things escalate. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Yes. And then Godfrey tells Fleming he has to go to Jamaica because there's a U boat here. [00:15:15] Speaker B: They tell Marianne, go get Fleming. [00:15:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:19] Speaker B: The whole party scene. Then she follows him, then he follows her, then they sleep together. Then eventually he shows up for work, presumably hours later, and nobody's even mad at anybody. [00:15:31] Speaker A: Well, this Is middle of the night. [00:15:34] Speaker B: You know, but like everybody's at work, presumably in the middle of the night. It was very strange. I was trying to figure out when everything was happening. [00:15:41] Speaker A: So he also gets a present from the Americans. Colt 76 automatic, for help. His help with his memo, which we talked about in Fleming, how he wrote a memo that outlined the function of the CIA, which he denied in the beginning of this movie when he's being interviewed. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Yeah, of course he did. [00:16:03] Speaker A: And then. So back in his flat, Fleming is posing with the gun. And here's a noise, it's Anne, she tells him that her husband's been killed in the war. [00:16:15] Speaker B: Yeah, this is confusing because then she gets a husband later, I thought, yeah, she does. [00:16:19] Speaker A: So she gets married again. Not Fleming, because he doesn't want to get married. This is. Yeah, this is all coming back to me from Fleming, the man who would be bombed now. Now he's in Jamaica with Ivor Bryce and they give a toast to Lucky Luciano, who somehow got them a submarine. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Every time they're in Jamaica, there's steel drums so that you know, you're in Jamaica. [00:16:39] Speaker A: He asks Bryce what his post war plans are. I don't remember what Bryce says he wants to do, but Fleming says he wants to buy a place in Jamaica and he wants to write the spy story to end all spy stories. And he even has an idea for the name and shows him a copy of the Birds of the West Indies written by ornithologist James Bond. [00:17:00] Speaker B: He's just sitting right there. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, to be picked up. Yeah, yeah. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Knowing Fleming, he probably engineered this whole conversation. He had the book waiting there to be like, hey, let me homo brag for a minute, where I figured out what I want to do. [00:17:14] Speaker A: So they're to inspect the U boat and the Admiral, who's there, was told he has to wait for Fleming to before he can do it. And he's told that Fleming has to swim out to take a look at it. They don't want to get any of the locals involved. So it's just gonna be him and Bryce. [00:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah. The Admiral's overweight, so there's some jokes about that. And they're wearing short shorts, which I found very amusing. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So they get into the U boat and they're looking for the naval codes. Back on the shore, the Admiral is getting sloshed. [00:17:45] Speaker B: It's great. They're constantly drinking. It's like Mad Men. And not just the Admiral, everybody in. [00:17:51] Speaker A: The background, the U boat. I was like, is it diving, sinking? What's going on here. Yeah. And we see very choppily edited, like, interior of the submarine. I was getting some Mission Impossible Final Reckoning vibes. [00:18:06] Speaker B: Not nearly that exciting because they're in. [00:18:09] Speaker A: More confusing than exciting. [00:18:11] Speaker B: There you go. Yeah. But they do get the code. Ultimately. [00:18:14] Speaker A: They got what they're looking for. They get slightly chewed out by the Admiral. [00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah. This is where the excitement level of the movie just plummets. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Yep, yep, Unfortunately. And then they are talking about their lives on the boat. This is where we get the hint that not only is M based on Godfrey, but also based on Fleming's. He called his mother M. Yeah, that's right. [00:18:35] Speaker B: There's a line here where someone says, this place is dangerous. I was like, really? [00:18:39] Speaker A: I do not remember that. So we cut over to a piano recital and for some reason I was like, who is playing the piano? Is it relevant? Is it like Mrs. Fleming, Ian's mother? No, it's just some random person. But Anne is there and she's talking with her friend Louilia about who to marry. Ian or Desmond Esmond, her other lover, now that she's. Her husband's dead. And like I said, Ian doesn't want to get married. But we go over to a dance club where Anne is with Fleming and tells Fleming that she's going to be marrying Esmond. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Even though Ian is the most sought after. Sought after man of his generation. [00:19:16] Speaker A: Yep. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Wow, that is quite the clam. And she loves him too. Ugh, it's so sad. I'm almost feeling some emotions here. Sorry, Christian, I'm just gonna say, after the Yubo part, this movie just becomes so slow. It just feels like a TV movie. [00:19:35] Speaker A: I mean, it is a TV movie. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but we've seen some decent TV movies. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Fleming's at the office, he's flirting with Marianne, sends her out for cigarettes, and then she sees a bombed out building and is trying to help some kids and then gets caught in a bombing. [00:19:51] Speaker B: That's sad. [00:19:52] Speaker A: That's it again. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And then Ian is mad in the next part. He's mad. Not only that, as I called her, blondie died, but he's also like all these rich people with their martinis while people are dying. And I was like, dude, look in the mirror. You're like the ultimate rich douchebag. [00:20:10] Speaker A: Yes, but he's actually doing something. [00:20:13] Speaker B: Well, how do you know these guys aren't doing something too? Like, you don't know, Are they in the Navy? [00:20:18] Speaker A: Are they in naval Intelligence? He's doing. He's actually doing something. [00:20:21] Speaker B: Maybe they're building sprockets for bombers, right? I mean, like. Like, Ian Fleming is, like, literally the most privileged person you could think of. Don't judge other people. Also Christian. Yeah, he's serving in the war effort, but it's not like he got his legs blown off or something. Like, let's keep things in perspective, right? [00:20:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:39] Speaker B: He works in an office, and he goes on free vacations to Jamaica, and he sleeps with a bunch of his co workers. [00:20:44] Speaker A: Okay. All right. [00:20:45] Speaker B: It's not exactly the Vietnam War is what I'm getting at. [00:20:47] Speaker A: All right, well, I'm good, but I'm just gonna push back and say that he. He has more contributions to naval intelligence than is actually realized. Like, like gambling Italian agents or. There's always all these stories that you hear, and those are the ones repeated as, oh, this was his wartime. In terms of the planning of things. There's a novel or an off. A biography of him by. I think it's Nicholas Shakespeare, which is a big, big book. I've read bits of it, but it goes to that. He actually had a big influence on naval intelligence in the war, like, not from a realistic standpoint of real intelligence work, not just the flashy, fun stories. So I'm gonna push back something. [00:21:32] Speaker B: I mean, it's true he did more to defeat the Nazis than I ever did. So. Thank you for your service, Ian. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Anyways, yeah. Anne and Esmond come to give their condolences to. Back at the office. There's a new Admiral Godfrey's gone now. The admiral from Jamaica who dates Ian. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah, he's a bean counter. He's upset about all the money he has been spending on random stuff. [00:21:56] Speaker A: So he cuts back on all Fleming's ideas and eccentricities and basically says, your war is over, so you're done. [00:22:03] Speaker B: Which is fortunate because now the war is over, or at least we never see it again. [00:22:08] Speaker A: So back in his office, Ian Fleming puts up his plans for his Jamaica house. And we see Victory in Europe or VE Day. And Fleming, you're watching a newsreel in a theater to convince Anne to come back with him to Jamaica. We see Fleming arriving at goldeneye. He tries to do some writing, but I think he's at a bit of writer's block, so instead he goes for swim. And then Noel Coward comes over, who's his neighbor, comes with his mail. We see a letter from Anne. He's writing to Anne about James Bond and Casino Royale, his. You know, his idea for his book. Fleming goes swimming, and he sees a beautiful woman emerge from the water who smiles at him. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Just like in Dr. No. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Yeah. They walk off hand in hand. There's a romantic montage. And then immediately afterwards, a plane arrives with Anne. [00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess the idea is the womanizing doesn't end just because he's in Jamaica. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Anne is painting while Fleming writes. And then Anne's friend asks if he's ever killed a man. He says he didn't. I was like, I'm sorry, what is this? [00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I was like, I'm sorry, who are you? [00:23:17] Speaker A: Friend who was there before of Lolia, always Other, also known as Lil. Who, like, was talking with her at the. At the piano recital, basically. Ed's got one friend, seemingly. [00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Well, it's a perfect screenplay. You only need one person to do the friend questions. [00:23:35] Speaker A: So Flemmy is called back to London, where we see Esmond is in an office. And we find out that Anne's pregnant. But it's not Esmond's. It's Fleming. He's told, you shouldn't see her again. [00:23:46] Speaker B: She's married to someone else, too. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. To Esmond. Yeah. [00:23:50] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:51] Speaker A: Then we get Fleming going to his seemingly his annual physical where he tells him that he. He smokes 70 cigarettes a day and drinks a half a bottle to a bottle of spirits. And these are. These are taken from, like, Casino Royale, from, like, Bond's described habits. He gets very flirty with the nurses. One of them, at least one of them is making eyes at him and he's told he needs to cut back on all these things and, you know, otherwise he's going to be dead. We cut over to Anne in a hospital where. And Fleming comes to visit. Esmond's there, too. And Esmond very coldly tells Fleming, you know, your child lived eight hours. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Yikes. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Scary stuff. And we have yet another conversation about marriage, as if you aren't sick of them yet. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah. But Ann says she's getting divorced. And we get. This is a weird scene. [00:24:40] Speaker B: Yeah. That mustache suddenly appears out of nowhere. Yeah, I like it. [00:24:45] Speaker A: And. And Fleming are in bed. Fleming is tied up, like, by, you know, his hands and feet are tied to the bedposts. [00:24:53] Speaker B: They say something like. Just like James Bond would do, right? [00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Unless, like, I think the implication is supposed to be he's getting tied up by a villain, but not. I don't know, I just wrote Sex. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Game and moved on with my life. [00:25:07] Speaker A: Well, here's what makes it weird. So he proposes as this is going on, and her friend is just outside. [00:25:12] Speaker B: The door, like, just waiting for them to be done. [00:25:16] Speaker A: Right. She's, like, all dressed up, and then she decides, inexplicably decides, to come into the room. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Well, she's sick of waiting for them, so. [00:25:26] Speaker A: Yeah, but what does she think she's gonna see? The door. The walls are not thick. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Something she can't unsee. Could have been worse. [00:25:35] Speaker A: Yeah. She's like, what? And she, like. And he's stuck in the. They can't get the nuts off, so she asks him for her lighter to burn the leg of the rope to cut it. [00:25:47] Speaker B: So awkward. [00:25:49] Speaker A: What is this movie? [00:25:51] Speaker B: So this is where you turn on the movie, Kristen? [00:25:53] Speaker A: No, this is just more of. What is this movie. So they have a small church wedding. Noel Coward is singing a jaunty tune while they're burying their daughter, seemingly. [00:26:05] Speaker B: That was crazy. That was crazy. Yeah. Hey, at least this is interesting. At least it brings you out of your almost sleep. [00:26:13] Speaker A: So they. They cut back to the interview, briefly, which is the flaming device Fleming hears from his publishers, and that, you know, and the rest is history. We get someone coming into goldeneye, and it is James Bond, the ornithologist, and Fleming, you know, invites him to look around GoldenEye and actually gives him a signed copy of his own book. [00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fine. [00:26:35] Speaker A: Then we see the Odeon Theater in Jamaica where they're showing Dr. No. We get Sunset as Fleming and Anakin as our TV movie ends. [00:26:45] Speaker B: Thank goodness. What a movie. Spy fact versus spy fiction. All right, so now it is time for our spy fact versus fiction. Which of us is gonna get to do Lucky Luciano? [00:27:00] Speaker A: You can do it. All right, so I've got something on Ivar Bryce. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Okay, so this Lucky Luciano guy was an Italian gangster, started in the Five Points Gang, instrumental in the development of the national crime syndicate, which I've never. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Heard of, otherwise known as the Commission. [00:27:17] Speaker B: But I love it because it reminds me of the Crime Syndicate of America. That's what they should have called it. He's considered the father of the Italian America Mafia. In 1936, he was tried and convicted for. This is scary. Compulsory prostitution. Oh, I don't like the sound of that. And running a prostitution racket. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison. But he struck an agreement with the U.S. department of the Navy through his associate in the Jewish mob named Meyer Lansky. You ever heard of him? [00:27:46] Speaker A: The name sounds familiar. [00:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard of him. Because of the Jewish angle. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:51] Speaker B: So anyway, in 1942, the ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, was concerned about German and Italian agents entering the country through the New York waterfront. So they made a deal where he would send them information and provide intel and promised no dock worker strikes during the war as well. And then, in preparation for the 43 Allied invasion of Sicily, he provided the US military with Sicilian Mafia contacts, known as Operation Underworld. Now, this is all according to Wiki, by the way. The value of his contribution to the war effort is highly debated. In 1947, a naval officer discounted the value of how much he did. And the enemy threat to the docs Luciano allegedly said was manufactured by the sinking of the SS Normandy in New York harbor, which they talk about in the movie. As you may recall, the official investigation of the ship found no evidence of sabotage. On January 3, 1946, as a presumed reward, Thomas Dewey, the district attorney, commuted his pandering sentence on condition that he not risk deportation to Italy. He accepted the deal. Luciano did. Although he was a US citizen and not subject to deportation, he eventually ended up dying in Italy. [00:29:02] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:29:03] Speaker B: So that's Lucky Luciano. They didn't have anything about the U boat, so I assume that that's made up. Maybe you have something I don't, but. [00:29:10] Speaker A: I'm curious now because I need to read that book, the Life of Ian Fleming. And I wonder how many of these stories just pulled out of there. [00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So I had one question for this movie, Christian. I only had one and I didn't answer it, which is why it's the place called goldeneye. [00:29:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:29:28] Speaker B: Do you know? [00:29:29] Speaker A: I do, actually, but we'll get to that because I've got a few things before that. Do you have any other Spy Fact versus Spy Fiction. [00:29:35] Speaker B: Odeon is a chain of cinemas. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:29:38] Speaker B: I didn't know that. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:29:39] Speaker B: And then finally, the Birds of the West Indies. I wanted to know, like, was it literally just sitting there in a conversation with his buddy and according to Wikipedia, it says no. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Well, so he did own a copy of it and he like it is. He said that it's, you know, his bible. He was a birder. And so for the. When he was in the West Indies, he had a copy of it always. Yeah, yeah. [00:30:02] Speaker B: So Flomi once said in a Reader's Digest interview, I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest sounding name I could find. And James Bond was much better than something more interesting like Peregrine Carruthers. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure, an anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a government department. So that's what I have for spy fact, just as fiction. [00:30:20] Speaker A: All right, I'm Sure. I've mentioned it before that I do own a copy of Birds of the West Indies. I've read through it. It's about all the birds. So whenever I do actually make it to the Jamaica, I'm gonna have to bring it with me. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Nice. [00:30:34] Speaker A: All right, so I've got something on Ivor Bryce, who I've heard mentioned before. And I was. I knew he was a friend of Fleming's. I didn't realize he was actually involved in, like, Intell. This is from Spartacus Educational and their section on British history, as in spies and spymasters. So 1917, Bryce met Ian Fleming and his brothers on a beach in Cornwall, and they later went to Eton College together. And during the Second World War, Bryce worked for William Stevenson, the head of British. The British Security Coordination, bsc, which was based in New York City. He was involved with intelligence and then later became based in Jamaica. During the Second World War, he ran dangerous missions into Latin America. Fleming visited him a couple of times there, as mentioned. And he's the one who actually got Fleming his land to build GoldenEye. Now, the gun that Fleming received from the OSS in this movie, he said it's a Colt 765 automatic, which is a gun that Fleming owned. But the actual pistol that he received from, you know, Bill Donovan was a.38 police positive Colt revolver, not, you know, an automatic, but a revolver. And it actually had the inscription for special services. Yeah. So they got the gun wrong, but they got the idea right. So goldeneye Resort. It is the original name of Fleming's estate on Oroc Besa Bay, Rockabessa Bay, the northern coastline of Jamaica. This is from wikipedia. As of 2010, the property operates as Goldeneye Hotel and Resort, consisting of Fleming's main house and several cottages, and continues to host celebrities resorts. It's ranked as one of the most exclusive hotels in Jamaica. If you stay there, you can actually stay in his villa, basically. You can also get to see his writing desk. [00:32:26] Speaker B: So do you think you're gonna try to do it? [00:32:29] Speaker A: Oh, one day, maybe when I'm retired. A long time from now. It cost a bit of moolah, although various people like David Zyritsky, I think, just had a big Bond event down in goldeneye. So you can. It is possible to do it, and if you make friends with staff, I know you can. If no one's staying in the Fleming villa, you might be able to get a peek inside and see the desk where he wrote goldeneye Writh wrote the bomb Bond films. So Fleming has claimed a number of different origins for GoldenEye, including Carson McCullough's 1941 novel Reflections in a GoldenEye. And there was also Operation GoldenEye, which is a World War II era contingency plan that Fleming developed in case of a Nazi invasion of Gibraltar through Spain. But, yeah, so Fleming wrote all of the Bond novels here in no Time to Die. Bonds were. So it wasn't actually filmed in goldeneye, but it was sort of modeled after that same kind of vibe. All right, now, one of the things that bugged me about this movie, one of the historical things in terms of timeline wise, because many things bugged me about this movie, is when he started writing Casino Royale. And this is also from Wikipedia. It was mentioned multiple times that he'd wanted to write a spy novel in his life. But according to Wikipedia, this has a bunch of sources for this. He didn't actually start writing it and start coming up with the ideas until 1952 before his wedding. So, like, I think we talked about this in Fleming that, you know, it wasn't until he started to get anxious about his wedding that he started to sit down and actually write it. So there wasn't, you know, something he was actively working on beforehand before, you know, he even got, you know, proposed to Anne and all that sort of stuff, which is wrong here. And I think we covered Birds of the West Indies, or you did. So I think that's what I got for spy fact, for spy fiction. [00:34:19] Speaker B: Favorite quotes. Okay, so next we have our favorite quotes. The movie as a whole was not great, but I did think it had a lot of good dialogue. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, I've got two quotes. How many you have? [00:34:33] Speaker B: Yeah, just then. [00:34:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I got. And these are both from Fleming. A secret agent is the one person in the world who will never tell you he's a secret agent. And then once you enter the secret world, you may leave it, but it never, ever leaves you. [00:34:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You like the dramatic ones, I like the funny ones. [00:34:51] Speaker A: What do you got? [00:34:52] Speaker B: So for me, I have his handler says, if you kill him, I'll take you on vacation. And if he kills you, I'll pay for the funeral. That's good. There's a part where M is talking to Marianne and she says, I think he's in bed. He says, let's leave Fleming's bed out of this. [00:35:09] Speaker A: That is actually pretty good. [00:35:10] Speaker B: That was pretty good. She says to the equivalent, bunny penny, we're playing golf. What's your handicap? And she says, you, Commander. See some of this? They give the audience what they want. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:21] Speaker B: There's a part where Ann says to Ian, you're very drunk, Ian. And Ian just kind of looks at the camera because he seems perfectly fine. And then finally, towards the end, her friend asks him, can I ask you a personal question? And he says, certainly not ratings. All right, so now it's time for our ratings. On a scale of 1 to 10 martinis, 1 being even worse than Avengers 1998, and 10 being even better than Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol, how would we rate Goldeneye 1989? I guess I'll go first. [00:36:01] Speaker A: Sure. [00:36:02] Speaker B: So it's actually off to a pretty good start. Although it looks and sounds old, like there was some action and they keep things going. And sure, Charles Dan looks and acts a lot like Ian Fleming, so that was off to a good start. But then once the U boat is over, the movie just becomes so slow. It's just people talking. It's like a Masterpiece Theater or some, like, British costume drama where, like, nothing happens and then the movie just sort of ends. I like the stuff on Jamaica, but, yeah, yeah, like, I don't know. It's just pretty below average. So I'm gonna give it a 4 out of 10. You could certainly do worse, but you could do a lot better. [00:36:42] Speaker A: So this. Oh, my God, this. This is not a movie. It's not even. Barely even a TV movie. It is a series. There's no plot, there's no driving thing in this entire movie. It's just a series of vignettes of his life. [00:36:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's the trouble with making movies based on people's lives. Like, movies have an arc, a beginning, a middle and end. [00:37:01] Speaker A: Fleming, the man who would be Bond. So just to distinguish it from Fleming, the man, Fleming, the man who would be Bond, that had an arc. It had characters. You had a developing, you know, process to it. You had, you know, you had progression. Characters didn't just rant. They appear and then disappear and never to be seen again or maybe pop up again. But you kind of forget, wait, who is this? Even though it's only an hour and 45 minutes long, it just seems so long and dull and, you know, like, yes, I. I really. I enjoyed Charles Dance. Other than, you know, Christoph Waltz, he's the only named actor that I can, you know, recognize here. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah, dull is the word for it. [00:37:37] Speaker A: Obviously, with a real life, people don't generally have arcs, but that's why it's based on a true story, not always the true story of things. And so you could do something. Like I said, Fleming did something with it. And it's just plumbing. The man who would Be bomb, that is. And it's just. It was bad. It was bad. Three out of ten martinis. Two of those being for Charles Dance, one being for Christoph Waltz. Being there. It was just. It was bad. [00:38:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, as someone who loves true stories, you can fluff it a little bit and it won't bother me. But a true story, you can keep it true and still keep it interesting if you know what you're doing. Not that I know. Not that I could do any better, but I could do better than this. I bet. [00:38:18] Speaker A: However, it is not the worst adaptation of, you know, Fleming's life. [00:38:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:38:25] Speaker A: And I won't tell you which one is because I want to cover it later. [00:38:30] Speaker B: Wow. Interesting. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But with that. This is part three of our James Bond interlude. We started off with the Octopussy, then we had our dead drops below seven row to a million. We had this and. But we're cooking up something for James Bond Day this year. [00:38:48] Speaker B: That's right. [00:38:48] Speaker A: So thank you all for joining us. You can find us on social media at the Spy Fi Guys, on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and Instagram, and our merch [email protected] until next time. I'm Christian. [00:38:59] Speaker B: And I'm Zach. [00:39:01] Speaker A: And we are the Spy Fi Guys signing off. Thank you for listening to the Spy Fi Guys. If you enjoyed our podcast, please be sure to give us a five star rating on itunes. The theme song from this podcast is Mistake the getaway by Kevin McLeod from Incompetech.com licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0. Films, books and television shows reviewed by our podcast are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders and no infringement is intended. [00:39:34] Speaker B: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements or opinions expressed expressed in this podcast are personal and belong solely to the participants. They do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the participants may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity. Unless explicitly stated, any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual. 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