Mondo Bizarro

December 4 2025

A FAB IDEA

Recent news story of attempted New Zealand jewel theft is hard to swallow but absolutely true.

In Auckland, New Zealand, police have charged a man who several days ago attempted to steal a $19,000 Fabergé Egg locket commemorating the egg that appeared in the 1983 James Bond adventure Octopussy. The thief was no master criminal—he simply swallowed the locket and tried to walk out of the jewelry store. Cops responded within minutes of being called and arrested the thirty-two-year old thief, so far unidentified, while he was still on the premises. As of yesterday, when this report hit the wires, Auckland police inspector Grae Anderson had told media that the locket hadn’t yet been recovered. We thought three days was about the max something could remain in the digestive tract, but don’t quote us—we’re not doctors, we just pretend sometimes.

We can be pretty decisive when the occasion requires. If we owned the store we’d have simply punched the thief over and over in the gut until he vomited. Not something you want to see at a swanky jewel seller, and we’d probably have ended up hit with a personal injury lawsuit, but it still seems like an expeditious way to save the locket from a trip through someone’s filthy digestive tract. The item is made from eighteen karat yellow gold and green guilloché enamel, features sixty white diamonds and fifteen blue sapphires, and opens to reveal a small gold octopus set with two black diamond eyes. So with all its nooks and crevasses—plus the chain—the fact that it hasn’t shown up means it could be stuck. Worse, it might never be made completely shit free again without damaging it. But we’re not jewelry cleaners either.

Here’s what we do know, though. Rich collectors have paid out the wazoo for items as bizarre as Lee Harvey Oswald’s dirt encrusted coffin, Marilyn Monroe’s chest x-ray, artist Marc Quinn’s macabre cast of his own head made from frozen blood, and Eva Braun’s magical panties. Therefore, the high end collector’s market being what it is, we think that because it was swallowed by a hapless thief, the Octopussy locket will probably increase in value—permanently embedded fecal molecules and all.

Update: It finally showed up six days after being swallowed.

New Zealand, Auckland, Octopussy, Roger Moore, James Bond

Hollywoodland

December 23 2023

BOND RESTRUCTURING

Diamonds are forever, but Connery wasn’t.

Sean Connery made as many appearances in sixties and seventies tabloids as just about any celeb of his time period, so here he is again in an article promoting his role in Diamonds Are Forever, which would premiere just a couple of weeks after this December 1971 National Police Gazette hit newsstands. we talked a bit about the source novel for the film, and author Ian Fleming’s troubles with his publishers. It’s interesting, so check here if you wish.

In Gazette, Connery speaks of his futile struggle to portray James Bond as a balding hero, and quips about making his stylist thin his wigs so there was almost no point in wearing them at all. Connery said about Bond’s aging, “No one is immortal—not me, not you, and not James Bond.” It was a commendable sentiment, but naïve. Seems as though Connery didn’t realize United Artists had already branded Bond well beyond the point where the character was tethered to any concept of aging.

The studio proved that when it brought the much younger Roger Moore on the scene for 1973’s Live and Let Die. Moore would later give way to Dalton, who gave way to Brosnan, who gave way to Craig, as Bond himself remained eternally forty-ish through the passing years. Elsewhere in the Gazette you get a report on the hash capital of the world, the world’s greatest racing systems, and the usual assortment of random beauties in bathing suits. All that, plus hashish toasted cheese, below.

Police Gazette, United Artists, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Claudine Auger, James Bond, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Lana Wood, Daniel Craig, drugs, tabloid

Vintage Pulp

June 27 2023

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Live fast, die young, and leave a terribly damaged corpse thanks to James Bond.

As with Shaft a few days ago, we can’t add much new to the longtime assessments of 1973’s Live and Let Die. We wouldn’t discuss the film at all except that the posters were the work of illustration wizard Robert McGinnis. However, in light of our Shaft examination, there’s an angle we can take: Live and Let Die was the first Bond movie to be clearly influenced by the diversification of Hollywood, becoming the first to include numerous black cast members in speaking roles. Since most participants in a Bond movie are there to get killed, including, often, all but one of the women he sleeps with, the rules didn’t change even with the diversified cast. This leads to head villain Yaphet Kotto suffering perhaps the most brutal death in the franchise, and hottie Gloria Hendry departs for the hereafter too, which is criminal, in our view. But their participation was a landmark and gives Live and Let Die, even today, a different feel and look than the usual Bond fare.

On other fronts, Live and Let Die seems like the movie in which Bond stuntwork kicked into high gear, beginning a push that would soon extend beyond the bounds of earthly physics. The speedboat chase produced a then-world record aerial leap of 110 feet. On the acting front, newcomer Roger Moore displayed even at the outset of his Bond journey some of the cheeseball tendencies that would eventually take over his later portrayals, but it works fine. He was probably one of the best looking actors in the world in 1973, and while he doesn’t have a chiseled physique, he’s still everything and a free refill. We consider Live and Let Die to be one of two good Moore outings as Bond, along with The Man with the Golden Gun. It’s certainly worth a watch, even if you’ve already seen it. And if you want to have a really fun night, watch it back-to-back with Shaft.

Live and Let Die, Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jayne Seymour, Geoffrey Holder, Gloria Hendry, Robert McGinnis, James Bond, poster art, cinema, movie review

Femmes Fatales

October 4 2020

EXPLOSIVE SEX

For me, at least, this thing brings to mind making love, not war.

Barbara Bach has had three distinct periods of fame. The first was as an actress in numerous Italian movies during the late 1960s and the entire decade of the 1970s. Her second stage came when she starred as Anya Amasova in 1981’s James Bond adventure The Spy Who Loved Me. It was the third Bond outing for Roger Moore, and the last before he stopped taking the character seriously and began smirking and mugging his way through the movies. Not that we disliked it. The smirky Moore was fun. Bach became globally recognized in that film, as all Bond girls do.

Her third stage of fame was as the wife of one of the most recognized men in the world—Ringo Starr of the Beatles. Mixed into all of that were a few American movies, and one of them was a 1980 comedy called Up the Academy, from which the above promo photo came. The movie arrived on the heels of a string of successful comedies like Animal House that slayed at the box office, but Up the Academy bombed with critics and ticket buyers. We absolve Bach of any blame, though. We haven’t seen Up the Academy, but we have zero doubt she was one of the best things in it.

Up the Academy, The Spy Who Loved Me, Barbara Bach, Ringo Starr, Roger Moore, James Bond

Femmes Fatales

May 26 2018

GUN SMITH

Madeline as hell and not going to take it anymore.

British actress Madeline Smith takes aim in this promo image made when she was filming the James Bond movie Live and Let Die. It’s probably her best known role. She played Miss Caruso, an Italian agent who tumbled into bed with Roger Moore during the opening of the film. The photo is from 1973.

Live and Let Die, Madeline Smith, James Bond, Roger Moore

Intl. Notebook

May 17 2018

A JOBERT WELL DONE

Redhead risks serious sunburn to get a base tan.

Belgium’s Ciné-Revue is one of the best film magazines of the mid-century era. It’s also one of the hardest to scan. Not only do the pages need to be scanned in halves and joined via computer, but the tiny text makes lining the halves up a real challenge. We didn’t think about that when we bought a stack of these in Paris several years back, and now the sheer effort involved causes us to doubt we’ll ever get them all uploaded.

But we managed to carve out a few hours, so today we have this issue from May 1975 with French actress Marlène Jobert doing a little topless boating on the cover, hopefully well slathered in sunscreen. She also features in the beachy center spread wearing even less clothing, but the real star of this issue is Bette Davis, who receives a career retrospective with shots from seemingly every movie she ever made. You also get William Holden, Jane Birkin, Dominique Sanda, Sidney Poitier, Sophia Loren, Rita Hayworth, Agostina Belli, a feature on Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, and much more, in forty-plus scans.

Intl. Notebook

November 15 2015

LET’S REVUE

Ciné-Revue's clever mix made it one of Europe's longest running celeb magazines.

This issue of the Belgian magazine Ciné-Revue was one of our treasures from last year’s trip to the Saint-Ouen flea market in Paris. Inside you get too many stars to name (and too many pages to scan), but the highlights are Marlon Brando, Susan Denberg, Marilyn Monroe, and Nadja Tiller. On the cover is British actress and pop singer Minnie Minoprio, who during the early 1970s starred in several films, all considered obscure today. But that was Ciné-Revue‘s m.o.—giving equal exposure to both lesser lights and the biggest stars.

And of course the obscurities were usually required to get naked, justifying their positioning on the covers and in the centerfolds. Monika Käser, who you see below, is a perfect example. We can find nothing about her. Her only moment in the spotlight—insofar as we can determine using the internet to research her—seems to have been the photo below. But Ciné-Revue‘s formula worked—it began publishing in 1944 and is still around today (though the days of centerfolds are gone). This issue hit newsstands today in 1973.

Musiquarium

September 18 2012

MUSIC TO SPY TO

We’ve got something special up our sleeves.

Above and below are the front and rear sleeves of four Japanese soundtrack pressings for the 1960s James Bond films Thunderball, From Russia with Love, You Only Live Twice, and Goldfinger. The themes were sung by Tom Jones, Matt Munro, Nancy Sinatra, and Shirley Bassey respectively, and pictured along with Sean Connery you see Bond beauties Claudine Auger and Shirley Eaton. Ms. Eaton, as wrong-place wrong-time Jill Masterson, had the dubious honor of being suffocated under a coating of gold paint, certainly one of the most infamous deaths of any Bond femme. We think these sleeves are great, and if you agree and want to see a lot more excellent 007 soundtrack art, check our previous posts here, here, and especially here.

On a related note, the Bond franchise’s fiftieth anniversary is next month, and in honor of the occasion former star Roger Moore, along with co-stars Britt Ekland and Richard Kiel, are touring around England with a Blu-ray box set of all the films, which are stored inside a gold case that is in turn comfortably riding in one of Bond’s preferred vehicles, an Aston Martin DBS. Actors, auto, and discs are visiting some of the iconic locations of the Bond series in advance of the release of the next film, which is entitled Skyfall. You can read more about all that here.

Japan, Thunderball, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, James Bond, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Britt Ekland, Richard Kiel, Shirley Eaton, Claudine Auger, Matt Munro, Nancy Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, cinema, album art

Musiquarium

November 19 2009

BOND MARKET

Nobody does art better.

James Bond soundtrack albums and singles, with production art covers, plus paintings by Frank McCarthy, Robert McGinnis and others.

Dr. No, Diamonds Are Forever, Thunderball, Live and Let Die, Man with the Golden Gun, From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger, Frank McCarthy, Robert McGinnis, James Bond, John Barry, Art Farmer, Shirley Bassey, Nancy Sinatra, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, album art

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 11

1962—Canada Has Last Execution

The last executions in Canada occur when Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin, both of whom are Americans who had been extradited north after committing separate murders in Canada, are hanged at Don Jail in Toronto. When Turpin is told that he and Lucas will probably be the last people hanged in Canada, he replies, â€œSome consolation.â€

December 11

1964—Guevara Speaks at U.N.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, representing the nation of Cuba, speaks at the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. His speech calls for wholesale changes in policies between rich nations and poor ones, as well as five demands of the United States, none of which are met.

December 11

2008—Legendary Pin-Up Bettie Page Dies

After suffering a heart attack several days before, erotic model Bettie Page, who in the 1950s became known as the Queen of Pin-ups, dies when she is removed from life support machinery. Thanks to the unique style she displayed in thousands of photos and film loops, Page is considered one of the most influential beauties who ever lived.

December 10

1935—Downtown Athletic Club Awards First Trophy

The Downtown Athletic Club in New York City awards its first trophy for athletic achievement to University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger. The prize is later renamed the Heisman Trophy, and becomes the most prestigious award in college athletics.

December 10

1968—Japan's Biggest Heist Occurs

300 million yen is stolen from four employees of the Nihon Shintaku Ginko bank in Tokyo when a man dressed as a police officer blocks traffic due to a bomb threat, makes them exit their bank car while he checks it for a bomb, then drives away in it. Under Japanese statute of limitations laws, the thief could come forward today with no repercussions, but nobody has ever taken credit for the crime.

December 9

1965—UFO Reported by Thousands of Witnesses

A large, brilliant fireball is seen by thousands in at least six U.S. states and Ontario, Canada as it streaks across the sky, reportedly dropping hot metal debris, starting grass fires, and causing sonic booms. It is generally assumed and reported by the press to be a meteor, however some witnesses claim to have approached the fallen object and seen an alien craft.

December 8

1980—John Lennon Killed

Ex-Beatle John Lennon is shot four times in the back and killed by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman had been stalking Lennon since October, and earlier that evening Lennon had autographed a copy of his album Double Fantasy for him.