19 replies to this topic

[George White]

Bar Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell redoing M/Moneypenny-types in OK Connery and a French Comedy, from Hong Kong with Love, and Clifton James' Sheriff in Superman 2, Geoffrey Keen as M/Minister-type in Lindsay Shonteff's spy films...

Joseph Furst played a similar character to Professor Dr. Metz in Doctor Who, Prof. Zaroff four years earlier, although with a plan not unlike Stromberg.

[Turn]

Roger Moore as The Saint immediately comes to mind, along with his character who thinks he's Roger Moore in Cannonball Run

 

FYEO's Bibi, Lynn Holly Johnson played an aspiring ice skater in Ice Castles

 

Robert Carilisle was a psychopathic thug in Trainspotting

 

Adolpho Celi and Daniela Bianchi were the villain and girl in Neil Connery's film Operation Kid Brother

 

Akkiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama were in the Japanese spy film Woody Allen used for his spoof What's Up Tiger Lilly

 

Richard Kiel played numerous heavies and henchmen in about every American spy TV show in the 1960s

[Blofeld's Cat]

Roger Moore playing Seymour Goldfarb pretending to be James Bond in Cannonball Run.

[DaveBond21]

The one that springs immediately to mind is Richard Kiel as Reace in Silver Streak in 1976 just before he played Jaws in TSWLM.

 

The other one I think of is Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer together in TND and having a similar relationship in the BBC "comedy" As Time Goes By.

[AMC Hornet]

Adolpho Celi turned up - eye patch and all - at the end of Grand Slam 70.

 

NB DB21: Why is As Time Goes By a "comedy"? (You must be under 50)

[Guy Haines]

Burt Kwouk  played a Bond type villain in two episodes of The Saint I can think of. In "The Gadget Makers" he is the head of a Red Chinese behind enemy lines base in Switzerland producing lethal gadgets to kill off Western and Soviet agents, and starting a spy-v-spy shooting war, and in "The Master Plan" he is behind a plan to flood the UK and US with drugs to undermine the morale of both countries.

 

Not only did he play these characters, but the episode plots are similar in some respects to the films LALD and TLD.

[DaveBond21]

Adolpho Celi turned up - eye patch and all - at the end of Grand Slam 70.

 

NB DB21: Why is As Time Goes By a "comedy"? (You must be under 50)

 

Sorry AMC. It was a cheap dig. I didn't like the show. Apologies to any ATGB fans.

[AMC Hornet]

 

Adolpho Celi turned up - eye patch and all - at the end of Grand Slam 70.

 

NB DB21: Why is As Time Goes By a "comedy"? (You must be under 50)

 

Sorry AMC. It was a cheap dig. I didn't like the show. Apologies to any ATGB fans.

 

None taken.

 

George Lazenby, in pretty much everything he did in the 80s.

 

This came up in another thread, but Herve Villechaize's character Tattoo on Fantasy Island was nothing but Nick Nack, with a slightly less dangerous and psychotic boss.

[DaveBond21]

Good one - the idea for Fantasy Island must surely have originated entirely from TMWTGG?

 

Richard Vernon who played Colonel Smithers in Goldfinger played much the same role in his entire career - rather stuffy military types.

 

Interesting fact - Vernon was only 38 years old when he played Smithers, but looked more like 60.

[David_M]

Well, there's Sean Connery in his "let's see how close we can make this guy to James Bond without getting sued" role in "The Rock."

 

Also, the characters aren't all that similar, but Christopher Walken has a line as Max Shreck in "Batman Returns" that always reminds me of that *other* "Max" he played:

 

MAX SHRECK: "One can never have too much powah.  If my life has a meaning, that's the meaning."

MAX ZORIN: "More!  More Powah!  More!!!"

 

Britt Eklund played a dimwit bimbo "Bond-girl" type in the espionage-flavored Six Million Dollar Man TV movie, "Wine, Women and War" in 1974, the same year she was in TMWTGG.  In the same movie, Luciana Paluzzi plays a seductive beauty who turns out to be working for the bad guys (ala TB).  

[thecasinoroyale]

Brilliant thread...! Fascinating observations.

 

 

Gert Frobe played Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger) and Baron Bombust (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), a man who is trying to capture and prevent a man with a gadget laden car from putting a stop to his evil plot. Gold/burst surrounds himself with loyal stooges, dastardly henchmen and a well fortified base of operations.

[David_M]

Well, there's the similarities that occur because the producers hired a specific "type" deliberately (Richard Kiel was obviously cast as "Jaws" because he'd proven himself in similar roles like "Voltaire" on The Wild Wild West, Lynne-Holly Johnson was a jail-bait hottie skater in "Ice Castles" before FYEO, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan had done "extended screen tests" as Bond-like characters on TV) and then there's the similarities that occur because other producers, or the actors themselves, deliberately exploited the Bond association (it can't be coincidence that Clifton James' character in Superman II is so similar to JW Pepper).

 

The parallels between Frobe's Goldfinger and Baron Bombust are more of a stretch, but if we're going to open it up that far, David Yip's turn as Chuck Lee in AVTAK (85) is similar to his Wu Han in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (84);  affable undercover ally quickly dispatched by the bad guys.  Or Alison Doody in AVTAK and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade": hot blonde who looks great in riding pants but works for the wrong side.

 

Also, you could argue that all the Bond actors have used the 007 connection to "juice up" their later roles:  Connery's master thief character in "Entrapment," ex-spy in "The Rock", reluctant spy in "Russia House" and more-or-less Bond villain in "The Avengers" all carry extra weight because of his history, and even his decidedly less swashbuckling role as Dr Henry Jones, Sr is a meta-textual in-joke because the audience knows James Bond is the "father" of Indiana Jones, conceptually and, here, literally.  Also, Brosnan's projects between Remington Steele and GE often carry the not-so-subtle subtext of "Don't you think this guy should've gotten his chance to be Bond?":  "Live Wire", "The Fourth Protocol", "Death Train" (aka "Detonator")

 

After his turn as "Mr Wint" Bruce Glover turned up all over TV as any number of creepy killers, then unleashed his most terrifying scheme ever by fathering the even creepier Crispin Glover.

 

Also, a special award in this category must go to the Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter, which besides its famous scenes with James Bond in FYEO also dangled off its landing skids countless TV policemen, private eyes and spies.

Edited by David_M, 08 January 2015 - 03:21 PM.

[FlemingBond]

well Lynn Holly Johnson played an ice skater in more than one movie because she was an ice skater

 

Can we even list how many spies Brosnan has now played ?

[thecasinoroyale]

I feel Mathieu Amalric, playing Louis in 'Munich' (2005) and Dominic Greene in 'Quantum Of Solace' (2008) are similar in some ways, obviously their European descent and similar dress and sophistication.

 

Just that Louis is a shadowy informant obviously working for mysterious larger powers, involving themselves with political and current affairs with fingers in many pies.

 

Mix that with Greene - while he operates a team as a leader, he too operates for unseen powers and has fingers in many political pies with links to many countries and powers.

 

And both up with Daniel Craig.

[Mr_Wint]

Shane Rimmer had somewhat similar roles in YOLT and Batman Begins (2005), as a technician.

Andreas Wisniewski was a henchman in TLD, Die Hard and MI-1.

[glidrose]

Timothy Dalton played a spy in "Looney Tunes Back in Action".
 

[George White]

Jack Hedley in Who Pays the Ferryman? and FYEO - both Englishmen based in Greece who happen upon incidents involving former members of the Greek resistance in WW2. 

[Guy Haines]

Only on briefly in TSWLM but the captain of HMS Ranger, Cmdr. Talbot, was played by Bryan Marshall who if my memory serves also played a Royal Navy captain - of a surface vessel - in a BBC drama series of the 1970s called "Warship". Played a character named Cmdr, Alan Glenn, an ex-Fleet Air Arm aviator.

Steven Berkoff - have we mentioned him yet? Played General Orlov in OP - didn't he play another Russian officerl in the second Rambo movie?

Grand L. Bush - wasn't he a government agent in Die Hard (along with, I believe, Robert Davi.)

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Luciana Paluzzi played a very Fiona Volpe-like femme fatale in the Man From UNCLE film To Trap A Spy

 

Milton Reid(Sandor in TSWLM) played an Oddjob-type henchman in the Bond-style Bulldog Drummond film Deadlier Than The Male

Also, in Deadlier Than The Male, Laurence Naismith(Sir Donald Munger in DAF) played an M-like boss for Drummond not unlike Sir Donald

 

Barbara Carrera played a campy villiainess named Angelica Nero on Dallas who was very similar to Fatima Blush from NSNA.

 

Kim Basinger's Vicki Vale in Batman was arguably very Bond girl-like(beautiful damsel-in-distress with a boyfriend who's a suave hero in a tux who uses a lot of gadgets when he battles villains).

 

Shane Rimmer played a NASA techician in YOLT and in Superman II(both the Lester and the Donner cuts).

[DaveBond21]

Andrew Scott played villain Max Denbigh in SPECTRE and plays a similar role, Moriarty, in Sherlock.