2445 Four Films with Roger Moore as James Bond

It was in December 2012 and January 2013 that I viewed all the James Bond films in sequence breaking off from reporting the experience before Live and Let Die, the eight film and the first with Roger Moore who portrayed the character tongue in cheek throughout and was in my judgement the weakest Bond performer although his first film with $7 million budget is recorded as netting $161,8 million which explains why he went to reproduce the role time and time and time again.

Although based on an Ian Fleming book the film was created in the style of the Black exploitation drug culture genre which had become fashionable at the time and there are many racial references and stereotyping which we will not see today or hopefully ever again. The film is set in Harlem, New Orleans and a fictitious Caribbean Island with Bond on the trail of a Mr Big who turns out to be a Dr Kananga dictator of the Island where he grows heroin and where he has been flooding the market with free stuff to put his rivals out of business via his chain of Filet of Soul restaurants. He has killed three agents on his trail.

Kananga ‘s virgin girlfriend, Solitaire. has the power to read tarot cards (Jane Seymour) with unerring accuracy until James gets his hands on her, that is. Bond’s female CIA contact is in fact a double agent working with the dictator and she is killed to stop her telling James the truth after he also got his hands on her.

In New Orleans Bond finds himself about to be eaten by crocodiles in the backwoods and there is a great speed boat race which also involves the local tobacco chewing Sheriff J W Pepper played by Clifton James and who is to appear in another Bond film later.

On the Caribbean island the couple, that is Bond and Solitaire have to encounter voodoo and escape from a shark tank but they outwit Kananga who explodes after a shark pellet is forced into his mouth. They still have to escape the evil designs of Kanaka’s henchman Tee Hee Johnson who has an artificial pincer hand although the film has an ambiguous ending as sitting on the front of the train is voodoo man Baron Samedi another Kananga henchman. Bond’s CIA friend Felix Leitner also has a role in the film. There are some good images , including the last but the film did not lead me to waiting eagerly to see the next or to having any WOW factor moment and only rated about 5 to 6 on my Bond rating scale

The ninth film is The Man with the Golden Gun with Christopher Lee as the Man Scaramanga, Britt Eckland as the Bond girl and Hervé Villechaise as Nick Nack Scaramanga’s height challenged manservant creative accomplice. The film also cost $7 million in 1974 to make with box office totals down to under $100 m at 97.6.

A golden bullet with 007 is received at M16 and is correctly regarded as a challenge to Bond. Her finds that a character called Scaramanga has a Golden Gun made for him and gives up his normal duties to go privately go in search of the challenger.

Bond traces the supply of golden bullets via a belly dancer in Beirut to Macao and Hong Kong and a night club casino run by the Man’s mistress, He finds that the bullet has taken him away from his assignment involving a device to help solve the energy crisis and that this device has now come into the possession of Scaramanga and M and Q have their headquarters in the wreck of British ship in the harbour with Bond ordered to kill Scaramanga and retrieve the device.

Scaramanga is taking over the business of a Thai gangster and although he manages to retrieve the device all his good work is muck up by his stupid assistant Britt Eckland. In a car chase in Bangkok he encounters and is assisted by an on holiday with his wife Sheriff J W Pepper. Bond discovers that the golden bullet was in fact sent by Scaramanga’s mistress because she has been taken as a child and forced to work as a prostitute and wants to kill her employer. She dies.

Bonds assistant Miss Goodnight (Eckland has landed herself in the trunk of Sacramanga’s car which transforms itself into a plane, taking the girl and Nick Nack to his private Island hideaway.

Bond uses a tracking device with Goodnight to locate the island where he finds that the villain is using the energy device for a high tech solar powered plant which he wants to sell to the highest bidder.

The opening of film reveals Scaramanga with the help of Nick Knack using a area of mirrors and projections, The Fun House, to kill off a challenger for a large sum of money. It is now Bond’s turn to go head to head with Scaramanga in his Fun House where outwits the villain killing him. Ms Goonight continues much things up and pushing a henchman into a pool of liquid helium she caused the energy device to explode and blow up the island. The couple manage to escape in junk after another encounter with Nick Nack. The film involves an Asian agent in Hong Kong and Bangkok who ahs his mobile HQ in a train and has attractive daughters assisting, Lois Maxwell played the role of Miss Moneypenny for the 9^th of 14 times.

The Spy who Love me cost $14 million to make in 1977 and amassed $185.4 to get the commercial aspects of the series back on track. The film was acclaimed as the best Roger Moore Bond and nominated for three Academy awards but without success.

A British and a Russian nuclear submarine disappears and we the audience learn that they are drawn into a massive super tanker floating dock where the crew are taken prisoner. Bond is having some R and R in an Skiing Cabin in Austria when he is summoned and where he is pursued by a small army of Russian agents who he evades by ski jumping off a mountainside opening a union jack parachute. He kills one of the agents.

He earns that someone has acquired a super submarine tracking system and he and the Russians go in pursuit in Egypt with a ‘Son et Lumiere’ production among the pyramids the setting for a mini adventure involving his Russian counterpart Anya Amasova, They are told to join forces by Walter Gotell as head of the KGB and Bernard Lee as M. Geoffrey Keen debuts as the Minister of defence in a role he continues for five films with Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny and Desmond Llewelyn as Q and his technical tricks. The couple have their first encounter with Richard Kiel as Jaws one of the great Bond characters.

The couple work out that the man behind the submarine thefts is Curt Jurgens as Karl Stromberg who plans to trigger World war III by using the submarines to fire missiles at Russia and West and create a new underworld water civilization and which enables the latest Q car to be used as sports car which also becomes an under water craft. The pair become a couple after Bond saves her from the character Jaws but later she promises to kill him when their mission is over discovering that the agent Bond killed in the Austrian Alps was her boyfriend. The couple visit Stromberg at what appears to be his under water home but later they find that he has an extraordinary underwater Atlantis type of community which can rise above the sea bed to above the water level

The couple board a third nuclear submarine which is captured and in turn they are captured and separated. Bond manages to first rescue the crews of captured Russian, USA and British submarines and then cleverly reprogrammes the two missiles so instead of heading for Moscow and New York they destroy each other’s other submarines. Why the villains only launched one rocket from each submarine remains a fortunate puzzle.

Bond rescues the Russian girl, and Kills Stromberg in the process and they also appear to kill Jaws. The couple escape as the Atlantis is destroyed, The couple are seen having an intimate relationship by their superiors while Jaws escapes from the shark tank. I regarded this film as OK than good and certainly did not merit Academy recognition despite its popularity at the box office.

While most of Roger Moore Bond films have become a hazy blur of miscellaneous images, Moonraker did register because of he final sequence in which Jaws and his girl friend escape the disintegrating space station back to earth, safety, and life happy ever after together. This 1979 film marked the beginnings of major expenditure on the films with $34 million but with continuing high reward at over $210 million box office returns

A Drax Industries Moonraker space shuttle on loan to the United Kingdom is hijacked in mid-air and Bond is called back from R and R to investigate. On his homeward journey Bond is sent flying out a plane by none other than Jaws but survive by taking the parachute from the pilot and Jaws lands into a circus tent..

　

Bond proceeds to the Drax Industries shuttle-manufacturing complex where he meets the owner of the company, Hugo Drax, and henchman Chang. Bond also meets an astronaut, Dr. Holly Goodhead and survives an assassination attempt via a centrifuge chamber. Bond is later aided by Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour, as he finds blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice. Bond then foils another attempt on his life, using a hunting shotgun to shoot a sniper.

Upon discovering that Dufour assisted Bond's investigations, Drax has her killed. Bond then heads for Venice where he again encounters Goodhead and there is a splendid is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen. He discovers a secret biological laboratory, and by accidentally poisoning the scientists there, he learns that the glass vials are to hold a nerve gas deadly to humans, but harmless to animals. As yet he does not know how this is to be used,

Chang attacks Bond and is killed, but during the fight, Bond finds evidence that Drax is moving his operation to Rio de Janeiro. Rejoining Goodhead, he deduces that she is a CIA agent spying on Drax. They promise to work together, but quickly dispense with the truce. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, as the only evidence of the now-empty laboratory, giving it to M for analysis, who permits him to go to Rio de Janeiro under the pretence of being on leave.

In Rio, Bond meets his Brazilian contact Manuela. Drax hires Jaws to finish Chang's job of eliminating Bond. Bond meets Goodhead at the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, where they are attacked by Jaws on a cable car. After Jaws' car crashes he is rescued by an unlikely partner called Dolly , and the two fall in love his bringing about a major change in his character and motivation.

Bond and Goodhead played by Lois Childs are captured by henchmen, but Bond escapes and reports to an MI6 base in Brazil and learns that the toxin comes from a rare orchid indigenous to the Amazon jungle. Bond travels the Amazon River looking for Drax's research facility and again encounters Jaws and other henchmen. Bond escapes from his boat just before it hits the Iguazu Falls, and finds Drax's base. Captured by Jaws again, Bond is taken to Drax and witnesses four Moonraker’s lifting off. Drax explains that he stole the Moonraker because another in the fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond is reunited with Goodhead; they escape and successfully pose as pilots on the sixth shuttle. The shuttles dock with Drax's space station, hidden from radar by a cloaking device.

Once on board the station, Bond and Holly disable the radar jamming cloaking device, resulting in the US sending a platoon of Marines to intercept the now-visible space station. Jaws captures Bond and Holly and brings them to Drax.

Drax plans to destroy human life by launching fifty globes containing the toxin into the Earth's atmosphere. Before launching them, Drax also transported several dozen genetically perfect young men and women of varying races, to the space station. They would live there until Earth was safe again for human life; their descendants would be the seed for a "new master race". Bond persuades Jaws and Dolly to switch their allegiance by getting Drax to admit that anyone not measuring up to his physical standards would be exterminated and Jaws attacks Drax's guards.

A laser battle ensues both inside and outside the space station, in which Drax's guards and his master race are all killed. During the battle, Bond shoots Drax with a cyanide-tipped dart, then pushes him into an airlock and ejects him into space.

In order to destroy the three already launched globes and return to Earth, Goodhead and Bond use Drax's personal shuttle - at the same time observing Jaws and Dolly escape from the disintegrating space station. I thought this was the better of the Moore Bonds.

　

　

2444 Young Morse series Endeavour and another Italian Police Inspector Nardone plus Our Girl a young woman joins the British Army

The best of recent TV has been Endeavour a prequel to Morse and Lewis featuring the young Morse as a Detective police constable moving from the Met to Oxford following his good work in the pilot which was shown two years or more ago and before the most recent series of Lewis which has come to an end.

I had planned to do a piece of the last series of Lewis but other events overtook me There is just opportunity to record again that after a hesitant start and uncertainty on my part I thought Kevin Whalley did an excellent and credible as the Detective Inspector together with his university educated priest in the making sergeant. The series ends with Kevin retiring from the force and his sergeant decides against putting in for the post and leaving he force as well.

I thought the first of a four two hours programmes in this first series of Endeavour was good but the second shown last Sunday 21^st April was a brilliant portrayal of a young man in the process of becoming Morse senior. He possessed the creative intellect to see what others cannot and the drive and ambition of youth to go it alone, question authority and follow up his intuition. He is yet to acquire the experience and skills usually honed from having undertaken slow methodical policing as well as acquiring a detailed knowledge of the law,

Shaun Evans plays the Young Morse, the young man who failed to complete his Oxford degree but who maintains links singing in a University Choral group. His champion is Detective Inspector Fred Thursday played by Roger Allam who sees the potential in Morse and in the first episode uses him as a drive assistant much to the anger of the Sergeant usually allocated the task and who understandably is resentful and a thorn in his side. Some one else who is not a fan of young Morse is Chief Super Reginald Bright with another excellent characterization by Anton Lesser. The daughter of John Abigail Thaw plays the editor of the Oxford Mail Dorothea Frazil.

In both the openers the 2013 series two deaths which appear unconnected form the basis of the detective mysteries. A secretarial student dies and a doctor is shot while in an area where his presence is unexplained. The initial trail leads to a family where its head is a scientist who assisted in the creation of the Atom bomb in the USA and is now an Oxford Don with echoes of Strangers and Brothers and a recent Foyle episode. He receives threatening letters and there is anti nuclear protests with the credits both of which are red herrings in relation to solving the deaths.

His daughter is married to the GP who is killed and she cares for the child of her younger sister, portrayed as an unstable young women who has been placed by the family in an expensive care institution before being allowed to leave and move to London. Later it is revealed that the doctor befriended the sister and is the father of the child which he has financially supported giving the mother a 10 shilling postal order each week which she cashes at a local post office paying in half a crown to a saving’s account for the son.

Morse is attracted to the girl who offers herself as a means of gaining his attention and company but he behaves in a professional way but their bonding as friends means that he forgets to undertake a record check which shows that she has committed a crime of violence when in the care unit. Morse is put back on general duties by the Chief Superintendent and the girl charged and kept in custody despite Morse protesting her innocence. This is confirmed while in custody as a Vicar whose bicycle was discovered at the scene of the Doctor’s murder is also murdered. The vicar like Morse is an expert on crosswords and it is only late on that Morse works out the clue left in the form of the numbers of form hymns left on display for the next service.

I can no longer remember the details the full details of the plot but the guilty man is the father who runs the post office, protecting his son who frustrated and bored with his expected life assistant is father after the death of his mother has been earning an income selling drugs obtained from the GP. The young man has supplied the secretarial student not knowing that she had a medical condition where the combination led to her premature death. The vicar is killed because he comes in on the scene where the post master is killing the GP

Morse also discovers that the scientist has accepted a post in the USA taking his widowed daughter and the grandson with them. Morse uses his newly acquired knowledge of the law to prevent the child being taken out of the country and in the final scene he sees off the girl reunited with her child on a coach to London thus commencing his career tendency to fight for the underdog and take an unconventional approach. The episode is called Girl

The first two deaths in the second episodes Fugue only appear connected because of references to the last words of different operas which Morse discovers. However early on I worked out who the villain was because of the similarity to another a story vaguely remembered. In that story a patient assumes the identity of a psychiatrist who he has killed. In this programme a psychiatrist comes forward to offer his assistance and who suggests someone else, someone who does not exist, a former patient who he suggests could be the killer.

It is however the editor of the local newspaper who remembers the case of a 15 year old boy who murdered his mother in a horrific way because of a phrase used at the time and then repeated in the present cycle of crimes which includes four of five planned murders and where the killer kidnaps a child to keep the authorities occupied while he carries out her fourth. The memory of the editor is a name and a residential location which unmasks the killer and his adopted identity,

he then kidnaps the sister of a talented but emotionally unstable concert pianists as another diversion so he can trap the intended victim - Inspector Thursday as a stand in for the Detective Inspector responsible for his previous capture and imprisonment. because of the opera connections. The others killed were witnesses and the judge.

Morse is brought back from general duties to assist and during the episode he receives a surface tummy flesh wound and prevents the killing of Thursday although in fairness it is Thursday whose fearless action prevents his own death.

Young Morse is given the opportunity of meeting Thursday wife, young adult son and daughter when he collapses from exhaustion. The episode is full of glorious music from grand opera and Morse is shown to have vinyl copies of the music plus the libretto’s from boxed editions. Albeit a single man in a well paid job I am nevertheless surprise that he was able to afford what would have been expensive items, The photography of Oxford at sun rise and sun set was also gorgeous. Despite his heroics and cleverness he is returned once more to general policing duties.

There has been so much great television over past months that I have struggled where to begin but the best single programme has been Our Girl first broadcast a month ago 24 March 2013 with an outstanding performance by Lacey Turner as the young Eastender good time loser, the eldest of a struggling large family with an out of work family in a estate flat who finds in the army a surrogate family. Contrary to some critics I thought depiction of training realistic and unlikely to lead to a increase in recruitment for the film proved that determination and grit is not sufficient to make a career in the modern army. True it offers an opportunity to those who have failed at school or find getting a job which satisfies difficult to impossible but without having qualities which need to brought out the majority of young people will not make the combination of quick thinking, common sense, courage, and physical ability required.

Staying up late one evening I came across yet another Italian cops and robbers series Inspector Nardone, six stories and 12 episodes over all became must see viewing. The story is set in Milan just after the end of the second World War and features the Inspector Nardone who has moved to the north from the South with a very traditional southern approach to policing, to woman and life generally, but he also is prepared to adapt to the demands placed by the development of a ruthless criminal gang and to undertake the job in hand regardless of the status, wealth and power of those involved. In this respect he can be described as a forerunner of Inspector Montalbano and the Inspector in Romanzo Criminate. He brings together the best talented young men and operates in a creative but also professional way.

Early on like the two other Inspectors he forms a relationship with an influential woman who provides sexual favours to those who can afford her “High Maintenance” lifestyle although in this stance his relationship remains professional and it is another member of the team he assembled who becomes infatuated and then obsessed, despite the fact that she marries a wealthy older man who gives her a night club to manage.

Nardone quickly establishes a relationship with the manger of a firm and finds her wish for individualism difficult to cope with but they marry and have a child together with the next hurdle when as the child grows up his wife takes a job in a car selling firm. As with the other two series mentioned this programme combines the tacking of individual crimes with the development of relationships within the team and their relationships with others.

One of the relationships is between Nardone and a journalist photographer with both continuing to assist each other of the subsequent decade. The relationship is not corrupt but there are breaches of ethical standards which should not be tolerated in this post Leveson era.

As with Romanzo Criminale the youngish Inspector has an elder assistant whose experiences becomes pivotal when he is gunned down into a coma by the young villain whose capture becomes the focus of the series. Because of the success in bringing down a leading citizen friend of the local police Chief, Nardone successful team is broken up through promotions to other parts of Italy. Each has a significant story to tell. One is obsessed with studying to become a lawyer and also the search for a Fascist who betrayed his family and the love for daughter of landlady.

The individual eventually tracks down the mother of the fascist who has left the country and when later the man returns the police officer relies that killing him makes him no different and resorts to using the law. The girl becomes pregnant by a boyfriend and the police officer decides to accept the young woman and child and hen is further disappointment when child’s father returns and girl goes off again. However she returns and they marry and he passes the exams to become a magistrate

Another a former fascist has become an excellent driver a is provided with vehicles which can out chase those acquired by the criminals. I am not sure if it he or the other young member of the team ( one of whom becomes the forensic specialist and is engaged to be married) who also becomes obsessed by the former prostitute. He does not go ahead with the marriage despite beginning to sleep with the young woman and I think it is he who eventually married the other woman and who abandons her high maintenance lifestyle for a meaningful relationship.

All three now established officers in their thirties return to Milan and reform as a group after their elder colleague appears at deaths door. The man is single having decided not to marry a young woman because of the demands of his work when younger. It emerges that although the woman married and had a child the girl is his and the woman, never stopped her original love something which the man she married understood and accepted. The woman has now died but the girl reappears and having found her true father is horrified when he decides that he must return to duty as part of the original successful team. She cannot cope with this and goes off and when he goes in search of her she cannot be found. It is then revealed that she has gone off to train as a police woman. Another story line which I believe was later taken up in the Swedish series of Wallander in relation to his daughter in TV version..

There are many twists and turns including a real; threat to the ife of Nardone before the team are able to capture the villain who has caused so much harm to the city. The series ends on this high note and I presume was not resurrected and as a consequence I for one felt satisfied with a sense of completeness and good feeling rounded off but which had otherwise been what I felt a very realistic portrayal of the times and what policing would have been like.

Our girl trains as a medical assistant and after qualifying goes out to Afghanistan. Her father rejects her after she turns down the offer of marriage from someone who an provide him with fresh start employment after the accident which led to his unemployment and general hostility to the

world. Her former female friends also reject when she is not prepared to slip back into her former ways of heavy drinking and casual sex. She overcomes the disappointment when her parents fail to attend the passing out parade after basic training although her mother finds a way of having a brief meeting before the girl goes overseas. The film ends with the return of a coffin with military honours and flowers made out into Our Girl. It is not our girl in question where both parents are relieved and proud when she returns home.

The critic who reported this as a recruiting film for the army must have been watching a different edition. A memorable acting performance and a memorable film.

2443 Film of the month Elles, a New Wizard of OZ prequel as well as Prequels for Spider Man and Men in BLack plus Four Brothers and Jane Fonda as a granny

  

I looked forward to watching Peace Love and Misunderstanding which starred Jane Fonda as the former hippie, commune living, free love mother who refused to change her approach to life and relationships as she grows old .

Because of this lifestyle her daughter Diane has cut herself off from her mother who has had no contact with her now teenage grand children. When Diane who works as a lawyer in Manhattan learns that her husband wants a divorce after finding someone else she is devastated and decides to turn to her mother who continues to live her lifestyle at Woodstock with a group of former hippie friends.

The teen age vegetarian peace loving daughter is attracted to a young man who turns out to be butcher while the teenage son films and records their lives to make a film about the nature of present USA society and the world and those who believe and try to live differently. Diane also grows close to a man who works with hands as a carpenter and is also a singer until she learns that the man was one of her mothers many lovers.

As the film progresses Jane celebrates a pagan rite with her women friends which at first only alienates the daughter more reminding of all the situations when she was faced with different men in their home as she grew up and the ideas of her mother which was determined to protect her children from. The film has a good feeling ending with mother and daughter reconciled the grand daughter appreciating the positive aspects of the young man and the brother winning with his film entry and the daughter also re-establishing relationship with the older singer carpenter. Life of course is not like this and I remained unclear what was the purpose of the film which overall disappointed. However I enjoyed the performance of the now elder Jane Fonda, such a long way from Barbarella!

However I was unexpectedly impressed by Elles starring Juliette Binoche and this is my film of the recent month of film experiencing. The film is directed and co written by the Polish Malgorzata Szumowska. Juliette plays a journalist in Paris undertaking research for an article on female student prostitutes. The two students who agree to be interviewed are nothing like what she expects and finds that they fearless, unashamed and in control. Instead of she having an effect on the young women they have a profound effect on and the relationship with her husband and two sons with everything coming to a head at a dinner party for her husband’s boss his wife and another colleague.

Juliette is disturbed by all she learns, not just the response of two girls to having sex with strangers, usually old enough to be their fathers if not older, but she learns of the men who talk openly about their lives, their work and usually their wives and families. This brings home that the men are ordinary leading ordinary lives look usually trying to recapturing the sexual excitement of their youth no longer satisfied by domestic sex. However there are dangers to as one of the girls is beaten up by a client.

Their experience has the effect on getting Juliette to reflect on her own sexuality and which in turn has a disturbing impact on her husband and their relationship becomes threatened. The film is more than a dramatised documentary and I thought revealed many insights about adult relationships in general. The two young women student prostitutes also gave first rate performances as did her husband and the two sons.

　

I took someone to see Oz the Great and Powerful, in 3 D who had never seen the medium before at the 02 Millennium Dome,

We were both impressed by the story as well as the production. The Wizard of Oz is not just one of the important films of my childhood but in the final years of her life my mother enjoyed seeing the film together with Return to Oz and a programme the making of the film and its history on video tape at the home where she was resident.

The film is set 20 years before the Wizard of OZ and also commenced in a black and white prologue in which we come to know of Oscar Diggs who works in Kansas as a magician always on the run from the husbands and parents of women he flirts with as well as angry crowds when he is unable to fulfil promises of magic. He has to escape in a hot air balloon which like the subsequent story, is sucked up into a tornado and finds himself in the land OZ.

Here he becomes embroiled in a battle between two sisters the Good and the Wicked Witches. The films has all the ingredients of the Wizard of Oz with Munchkins, flying baboons, a poppy field which sends anyone entering into sleep and various other characters. The colouring and visuals are both gorgeous and stunning.

The core of the film is how Diggs uses his skills as magician to create a projected holographic image of himself after he is believed dead in order to defeat the wicked witches and regain the Emerald city, and free the Munchkins from domination. Thus he becomes the Wizard of Oz choosing to stay in the land with the Good Witch rather than return to earth. The films includes the use of a Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and Tin Man plus references to the original stories and subsequent films. I though it was engaging and not overlong, a criticism made by Dr Mark Kermode, The story ended in such a way that a sequel is possible,

I had seen Four Brothers before 27^th March 2013 but only remembered this after the film commenced having watched because of the inclusion of Blue Blood’s detective Mark Wahlberg who I had not realised had become such an established film actor before inclusion in the series about the New York Police Department.

A woman appears to have been randomly killed as a witness to a robbery at a local convenience store and this brings home the four brothers, former adolescents in trouble adopted by the woman who managed an open house of local waifs and strays. The four track down the two men who carried out what emerges to have been a deliberate killing. They execute the killers without learning who paid them.

Attention focuses on one of the four when it is found that he used previously unknown to the others life insurance money to pay off a local villain.. He explains that because the three others had left he had been responsible for the foster mother’s bills and that he used some of the insurance money to payoff the gangster who was holding up work by his construction company.

The bothers are then attacked by mobsters with one of the four killed but one of the assassins reveals the identity of villain and it is discovered that the mother filed a police report about the way the villain was operating, a report which disappeared because the policeman involved was in the pay of the mobster.

More by accident than design they manage to unmask the rogue policeman who is gunned down by other force members. They then plan the execution of the mobster. The surviving brothers face a hard time in custody but despite beatings are not broken and released they return and repair the badly damage home of their adopted mother and return to live together with their women folk in the family house in honour off the woman and their murdered brother. A class B movie which we now call TV movie.

Now for two adventure films, with the first like OZ a prequel to the Spider Man films, the Amazing Spider Man 2012. Against all expectations I thoroughly enjoyed this film which sets out to explain how and why Peter Parker became Spider Man

Peter grew up with his uncle, the excellent actor Martin Sheen and his wife after his parents have been killed in a plane crash. He had been taken to stay with the relatives after the family home had been ransacked because his father had been working on how to combine human and animal DNA as a way of curing major illnesses, in a throw back idea to Oh Lucky Man perhaps?

Peter who is a bullied weakling at school and then High school, has no chance with the girl he fancies, the daughter of a senior policeman but then discovers a secret diary of his father in which he has noted down his major discovery, a formula which solves the problem of combining the DNA in such a way to achieve the objective. He finds that the man with whom his father collaborated is now in charge of a successful major research corporation and he finds a way to gain entry posing as an Intern where he meets up with the police chief’s daughter who has a part time job at the company’s HQ laboratory..

Without realising what is involved Peter finds the project where the former partner has been pressurised to bringing forward the research which involves spiders. Peter is bitten by a processed spider at the wrong (or right) time and his body is transformed with the ability to move like a spider and with a dramatic increase in physical power. Unfortunately Peter then shares the secret formula with the partner whose boss pressurises him to use the project on humans not knowing about what has happened to Peter and when the partner refuses he is fired.

The partner then uses the formula on himself to regenerate a previously severed limb however this is only the first stage to a transformation into a human attacking giant lizard with ideas which threaten the whole of humanity.

Meanwhile at High School Peter has found it difficult to control his strength and athletic abilities but does begin to date the police chiefs daughter, eventually reveals that he is also Spider man. At first Peter uses his power to prevent a crime but on realising his potential he commence to help the police who condemn his involvement as a vigilante and he becomes their target. Refusing to give up the work he creates the second skin disguise familiar to everyone as Spiderman and also how to create and use super strength thread into the ability to create webs and links enabling him to move through the city at great speed,

The situation comes to a head when first the lizard creature creates havoc on a bridge but Peter saves the son of a tower crane driver as their car is about to topple off the bridge, a crucial development when later other crane men help Peter to move across the city to prevent catastrophe. This is after Peter has been captured by the police and the chief discovers that this is the boyfriend of the daughter. He lets Peter escape after learning that the daughter is in great danger and that Peter may be able to save her. Peter is able to stop the humanity threatening disaster with the help of the police chief who losses his life but makes Peter swear he will have no further contact with his daughter. This breaks both hearts and eventually girl visits demanding to know why she has been rejected and then correctly guessing that he has been persuaded by her father not to have contact. Peter agrees to the request because he failed to prevent the death of his aunt and understands that he will have to live alone to continue his at times dangerous activities.

Returning to High School Peter reveals to the girl that he is a failure at keeping promises and meanwhile in a prison cell a shadowy figure asks the former partner if he has revealed to Peter the truth about the boy’s father. The reply is no thus heralding the next film!

The second adventure film is Man in Black 3. I enjoyed the first in the series with the great Tommy Lee Jones as the senior specialist operator with the ability to wipe memories with a Dr Who type of hand gadget. He partners the young Will Smith and this film is primarily about how the relationship became established.

When Will Smith as was a young boy, played by Josh Brolin his father, a military/policeman, was killed during the capture by Jones of a notorious criminal Boris the Animal, the last of a vicious race of Boglodites and who is then imprisoned in secure unit on the moon with forty years passing. Unfortunately with the help of an expendable lady friend Boris escapes and commences to cause havoc on the planet.

The consequence of the escape is that Boris finds a time travel device which enables him to change history so it is Jones that is killed and Boris is able develop his plan to conquer earth. Finding that his partner is dead long ago understandably unsettles Will Smith who attempts to seek answers from his boss Emma Thompson. He works out what has happened and also goes back in time to the point just before the death of his father and the capture of Boris by Jones. Jones has also returned knowing that that this time he has to kill Boris and prevent the alternative reality from developing. For the change in history to work the two must work independently of each other.

In this they are both successful but Will learns the truth about the death of his father and how Jones wiped his memory of the event and then raised him as his son out of the debt of gratitude he felt for the boy’s father. As with the first two Men in Black films there are various creatures extraordinaire from other planets about which the majority of the population are oblivious and several good actions sequence with the film a tongue in cheek approach yet with emotionally charged moments. It is good fun but I enjoyed Spider man more.

2442 North Korean War of words and actions, Boston Marathon Horror and a new Member of Parliament for South Shields

It is now three weeks since returning from the visit to the Midlands and with the return to school after the Easter holidays the weather has changed for the better. I have finished reading and writing about the Cruel Sea, participated in a NHS Patient Led Assessment of a Hospital facility despite misgivings about the process and purpose, voted to elect the new Labour Member of Parliament for the constituency of South Shields and spent the past four days delivering leaflets for the successful candidate moving on to Postal Vote reminders yesterday. I had planned to be out again today Sunday 21^st April 2013 but on waking after a good long sleep decided I should rest and undertake some writing as well as some TV shows.

There have been two distant developments which potentially affect the people where I live, my family and others that I care about and which could affect their lives long after I have ended my self awareness.

The first event has been in the Far East and the position of North Korea and its comparatively young Stalinist type of totalitarian dictator although there is no pretence of socialism or communism with the state organised as a military dictatorship where political dissent is not tolerated and those who cannot be re-educated sent with all members of their families irrespective of their ages to large zones of hard labour and executed if they attempt to escape.

Three things appear to govern this country with resources to develop for the benefit of all its people on similar lines to the position of South Korea- the division between North and South and where the two countries remain officially at war since the ending of the hot war in 1953; the hatred of Japan which occupied the whole country between 1910 and Japan’s defeat in the Second World War; and the poverty of the majority of its people with starvation conditions when the harvest fails.

North Korea has one of the biggest standing armies in the world and is the country where all adults are required to undergo military training and remain reservists. The development of military weapons is the country’s first priority and they have nuclear weapons, presumably with the help of China and they are developing rocket technology, presumable again with Chinese help and possibly Russian technical assistance in the past.

Under their first dictator there was some progress in achieving comparative stable political relations with eh South through the creation of a industrial and manufacturing zone at the border run on a commercial basis employing some 50000 North Koreans and about 1000 others from South Korea with the products exported and bringing in substantial funds although the North Korean employees continued to received the standard state wages.

When their dictator died he was in effect deified and his grandson appointed the successor. Since then the West, presumably through the USA and South Korea and the workers allowed over the border, plus students and others allowed to travel outside the country have become the targets and possibly agents for regime destabilizing and regime change. China, Russia in particular and possibly Japan through cross cultural family links may also be participating in the attempt to bring the kind of changes we have seen in the former leaders of the Communist dictatorships. This is all speculation

Whatever the actual reasons for the belligerent talk and actions coming from North Korea, the consequence is that the leadership of North Korea has sealed its border, placed its army on alert at the border, commenced to test long distance rockets and commenced a war of words with what appears two intentions. The first to stop all attempts to change the regime and the second to get financial assistance to enable economic development on the basis of the present military and political totalitarian dictatorship.

The USA and South Korea having indicated a willingness to engage in meaningful talks which the South Koreans want to be approached with respect and acceptance of their regime. In reality we are now all in the hands of China and its influence although until stability is achieved the risk of some incident escalating remains the greatest threat and concern to the rest of the world. It cannot be assumed that because America has Obama as its President it would not sanction the use of nuclear weapons if South Korea, Japan or other countries suffer nuclear attacks however unintended or if small incidents lead to a hot war with an escalation leading to the use of weapons of mass destruction by both sides.

There has been less media attention over the past week which suggests the belligerent talk has had the effect of getting China and the USA to engage in meaningful discussions about the future of the North Korea and its need for modernization without regime change. It is to be hoped the latest crisis is over, but I fear the new leader and those who advise him pose a threat to the future of everyone.

The second development occurred in the United States and it is still too early to come to any judgement about its potential significance. Two bombs were exploded among spectators as Boston Marathon was underway killing an 8 year old boy and severely wounding his mother and sister as they moved away from the area of first explosion by the father who was finishing the race. Over one hundred people were injured in addition to those killed. One of the greatest man hunts in the USA history took place as the perimeters of Boston were sealed with mobility in the city curtailed and then halted after the photos of the two brothers were released seen with back packs close to where the bombs went off. The city was brought to a standstill after one brother, the elder, was shot dead in an exchange of fire, with one policeman killed and others wounded. Eventually the other brother aged only 19 and who had been raised in the USA for 10 years from Russia, although wounded from gun shots was captured alive and is under guard at the same hospital with other victims with the rest of the world wanting to know why and if they had help and from whom. Until these questions are unanswered we do not know if this is another example of how individuals in the USA can get hold of the materials to create death and injuries to many or something more sinister.

Within hours of the bombing a Fertilizer plant close to a school, a care home and family homes and businesses exploded after the plant caught fire bringing a greater number of deaths, injuries and greater destruction to a community close to the WACO horror of some two decades ago, another reminder that this is a violent and troubled and divided country with rampant capitalism, vast criminal networks, corrupt officials, racial prejudice and without an effective social and health care system.

And then I come to the local politics and the future of South Shields the community where I live and its neighbouring communities that comprise the Parliamentary constituencies of South Shields and of Jarrow.

Only a matter of weeks ago, David Miliband, the former Labour Foreign Secretary, and favoured candidate among Labour Members of Parliament to become the next Labour leader and Prime Minister resigned his seat in Parliament to become President and Chief Executive officer of the International Rescue Committee which is based in New York.

He has a USA born wife who is a professional violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra and his two children were adopted new born from the USA so his family will feel “at home“ in the USA as he came to do so in South Shields and London where his family first came as refugees from Nazism from Poland via Belgium and he and his brother, now the official Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons are among the half million British citizens with polish ancestry and in his instance also Jewish ancestry although he is reported as no longer being religious.

His father was a well known Marxist whose work Parliamentary Democracy was one of the first political books I purchased soon after going to Ruskin College with money donated by the Mitcham Constituency Labour party where the Wallington and Beddington (also Carshalton Executive Committee) supported my application.

David became an important world statesmen and his experience will be invaluable in his new role, but a significant loss to the UK and to the Labour party nationally and here in South Shields. Although until now I have made a point of not becoming involved in local Labour politics and only have had limited communication with the Member of Parliament where I found myself agreeing with almost everything which he is reported to have said and done.

David Miliband is known for his commitment to Britain’s active participation in Europe and I strongly suspect that along with Nick Clegg the Leader of the Liberal Democrats and presently Deputy Prime Minister, they would be in favour in a full economic and political union if opinion in the UK had not become so hardened against as one of the many disastrous legacies of former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher who recently death and state funeral in all but name will have given a boost to right in the UK and to some extent to the Tory Party under David Cameron..

David Miliband alienated some opinion when during one BBC Radio Four programme he admitted that there are instances where terrorism is justifiable and it can be effective, but it is never effective on its own. I am not aware if he elaborated or was asked to explain what he meant by terrorism. I cannot support action by anyone against anyone who is not a non combatant, although in a war situation I am not against the official assassination or taking prisoner by a state against those who might not wear a uniform but who are key to the war effort by an enemy. If I do not object to my government using its power in this way, I cannot object in principle to my government’s enemy doing likewise.

I am only in favour of individuals using Satyagraha, non violent direct action against their own governments and who are willing to accept the inevitable action taken against them by their government. To take violent action in such a circumstance usually causes greater harm to others, including family members. Thus are the dilemmas of those who try and balance the idealism of youth with the realism of age.

Mr Miliband is reported to have been part of a group of influential labour Members of Parliament who were determined to ensure the Party moved on from the divisive conflicts between those supporting Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and who included the admirable Any Burnham in addition to his brother Ed and Jim Murphy.

Given his important behind the scenes role in policy formulation for the Party as well as the holding of several important Ministerial offices I remain puzzled by the failure of him and his brother to work out the best way in which he could contribute to defeating the Coalition Parties at the 2015 General Election. However I am not one of those who felt that because of his Internationalism, his Ministerial and other political roles he failed to work hard for the constituency or for the problems of individual constituents as well as for local businesses and interest groups. A feature of recent years has been the expansion and modernisation of local health and education facilities together with transforming the sea front and ambitious plans for the regeneration of the riverside and the town centre. This development has been borough wide and therefore praise has to be shared with the Member of Parliament for Jarrow whose constituency also covers the separate communities of Hebburn, Whitburn and the Boldens.

Last Wednesday week I attended my first ever selection meeting for a new Parliamentary candidate and it was an impressive event. First every step was taken to ensure that participating Party members were eligible to vote hat they were paid up members and could also prove their identity. Only individual members were eligible to vote so there was no attempt by interests providing funds or seeking influence to affect the outcome. The candidates were given the opportunity to speak for a few minutes and then answer questions which came from individual members and the Party and candidates were all asked the same questions. The ballot was a preference vote so on the basis that no one achieved over 50% majority on the first count the second preferences of the candidates who came last were then allocated to the remaining candidate and so on until someone achieved the 50% majority.

The successful candidate is Emma Lewell- Buck, a local councillor representing a ward in the neighbouring constituency of Jarrow and who in addition to working as a asocial worker, is the lead member in the Cabinet for adult social services. She is therefore in an excellent position to represent the majority of constituency, especially those who are being most hit be the recession and Coalition polices on public services and welfare benefit provision. Born in Shields she is descended from the man who created the first Lifeboat. I commenced work in support on Wednesday in the afternoon after the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.

Ed and the rest of the leadership had to tread a difficult path to avoid the trap set by Cameron had they refused to recognise the funeral attended by the Queen and her partner, quirkily former Princess, the Duchess of York among the guests of the so called great and the good as well as those who had done service for the former Prime Minister

I only have two personal experiences of Thatcher. The first as she was being escorted by the leadership of the Association of Director of Social Service before addressing conference and afterwards hearing their comments of how she was deaf to the role of social work and social services in society.

The second was when with the help of the then Member of Parliament for Jarrow and Deputy Chief Whip in the Commons for the Labour party, Don Dixon, now Lord Dixon, I attended a debate on the extent to which Cleveland Council acting on the advice of a paediatrician had been removing children from their parents into care under Child Protection Legislation.

Don arranged for to be almost inside the chamber where visiting Peers and other notables sometimes are allowed to sit and where he sat with me but inside the Chamber. Margaret Thatcher stayed to listen to the opening parts of the debate and I felt her eyes focus on me and ask someone close to her who I was, presuming I might be the Director of Social Service for Cleveland I speculated.

There are so many myths about her that I do not know where to begin. I was always with Lord Carrington who resigned from her Government because of the decision to go to war with Argentina over that miserable lump of rock and less than 3000 people. 255 British individuals died and close to 800 were injured without justification as well as 650 Argentinean deaths and over 1600 wounded in the war she chose to make rather that reach an amicable settlement.

It can also be argued that Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair did more to create modern trade unionism that her punitive trade union measures. The loss of the coal fields, ship building and steel workings was the product of changes in international trade and the general imbalance between wages, standards of living in the UK and the emerging economies and her failure and that of her government was the she did not help and protect those and their families who lost their jobs However my main opposition to her role was on the controls placed on local government and the attacks on public sector services although these were nothing like as severe in their impact as those of the present Coalition. She was an excellent actress rivalling the performances of Arthur Scargill. However the lady is dead and the important thing is to concentrate on ensuring the Coalition is replaced by a Labour Government in 2015. More on the candidates and electioneering if I can make the time.