Monday, January 16, 2012

Brtain (for Britain)

Along with the British music invasion of the early 60s, the United States—and the rest of world—was introduced to the greatest fictional spy of all time, James Bond. So far there have been 22 films (with one on the way), all produced by the Broccoli family. (Plus two others, but we’ll let those be.) Along with his partner, Harry Saltzner, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli started producing the Bond films because he was friends with Ian Fleming, author of the Bond novels. This, of course, explains why Albert Broccoli produced the not-nearly-as-successful-as-the-Bond-films Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

While inventor Caratacus Potts and spy James Bond may seem at odds with each other, just think of the women: Truly Scrumptious and Pussy Galore. Oh yeah! One person from the Bond films that Broccoli did not bring along with him to make Chitty was Maurice Binder to do the opening credits. Hmm, wouldn’t that have added an extra dimension...? Today's typo was found eight times in OhioLINK, making it a "low probability" one on the Ballard list.

(Broccoli photo, July 2005, from Wikimedia Commons. Unfortunately, the story I had heard of the vegetable being named after the family appears not to be true.)


Brian Dahlvig