A cascading cornucopia of cool comics, crazy cartoons, & classic collectables - plus other completely captivating & occasionally controversial contents. With nostalgic notions, sentimental sighings, wistful wonderings, remorseful ruminations, melancholy musings, rueful reflections, poignant ponderings, & yearnings for yesteryear. (And a few profound perplexities, puzzling paradoxes, & a bevy of big, beautiful, bedazzling, buxom Babes to round it all off.)
Didn't she have a massive beehive a la Night Girl from the LSH? Fascinating looking woman. I remember one Matt Hel movie where the bad guy threw her across the room [it was a slippery dancefloor iirc] and she went FLYING! What is she doing these days, I heard she married a diplomat or something.
Karl, I think she's now in her early 70s, and I have the impression that she was also a singer. Yeah, I thinks she did have a beehive - she'd have made a good Modesty Blaise.
Ah, Bulldog Drummond. I remember watching the old b&w films, BS - BD's sidekick, played by Reginald Denny, was Commodore Schmidlapp in the 1966 Batman movie, his last role. (He also played King Boris in episodes 11 & 12 of the TV series.) I'll keep an eye out for Some Girls Do.
IIRC, she wore a sort of beehive hairdo in Some Girls Do.
She was in the first Matt Helm movie, The Silencers, in 1966. That was where she got knocked across the dance floor in that fight scene.
Her last movie was the spaghetti western Catlow (1971). After that, she focused on her career as a cabaret singer in Europe. The last I heard, she was living in the US with her husband, a businessman who runs some sort of plastics company.
The 1967 version of Casino Royale was an overblown mess, but, on the plus side, it did have Daliah, Joanna Pettet, Ursula Andress, "Jacky" Bisset, and Gabriella Licudi.
You're right that Daliah Lavi was also a singer, Kid. She would have been one of those artists perhaps better known abroad than here in the UK and she was a very big name in West Germany in the 1970s. I have a track by her entitled 'Let The Love Grow (In Your Heart)' - a cracker! - on a West German-made various artists LP from 1973 entitled '20 Original Top Hits', which I got from our local Mind shop because it also had 'This World Today Is A Mess' by Donna Hightower on it, about which I had found out over Cyberspace via the cover version by the singer from Czechoslovakia, Jitka Zelenková, 'Ve stínu na pláži' ('In The Shade On The Beach'), Jitka Zelenková having been an associate at the Divadlo Rokoko (Rococo Theatre) of Valérie Čižmárová, for whom I run a fan Blog called - wait for it! - 'Bananas For Breakfast'.
I also run a 'sister Blog' on female Pop singers mostly from Czechoslovakia and mostly from the early/mid-1970s called 'Girls Of The Golden East'. If you're into Babes and the 1970s, as you appear to be, there's an great deal of material for your 'Babe of the Week' theme! Well, it is Eastern/Central Europe and the era of mini skirts and hot pants...of course, not forgetting Valérie Čižmárová herself!
Oh, since you appear to be from Scotland and since I accidentally got into the former Soviet Bloc via the Czech-language cover of Middle Of The Road's 'Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum' by Hana Zagorová, 'Pan Tydlitýt a pan Tydlitát' ('Mr. Tydlitýt And Mr. Tydlitát'), to put on a Scottish accent, whaur's that bonnie Scots lassie Sally Carr in your 'Babe of the Week'???
Oops! Sorry that I have implied that there's only enough material out there for one every week rather than one every day!
There's an American-based site called 'flashbak.com' which has compiled a 'Top Eleven' of Pop pin-ups who might be completely unknown in the States where Sally Carr is the opening entry. It's called '11 Stone Cold Foxes of Pop Music (Who Americans Won't Remember)'. That photo of Sally displaying her assets in a frilly-hemmed crocheted pair of yellow hot pants is the almost legendary shot taken from the cover of 'The Best of Middle Of The Road' album and it's probably the hottest pair of pants on an album cover outside of Valérie Čižmárová's scalloped-hemmed, high-waisted black suede number worn for the rear cover of her eponymous LP as seen at the 'Valérie Čižmárová: A Life In Pictures' page of 'Bananas For Breakfast'.
Sally Carr is far from the only Scots lassie in that 'Top Eleven'. There's also Altered Images' Claire Grogan and - although photographed at this page alongside her colleague from The New Seekers, Lyn Paul - the disgracefully overlooked Eve Graham, from one of my favourite placenames in Scotland, Auchterarder. One is almost tempted to remark, "so what's Eve Graham? Scotch mist???".
Hana Zagorová wasn't the only singer abroad to have recorded a foreign-language cover version of 'Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum'. The Sheila you see in this 'Top Eleven', before her Disco period alluded to, recorded the French-language cover, 'Les Rois Mages' ('The Three Kings'), which has gone down in modern French folklore as the French sound of 1971, half a century ago as I write.
Those of us of a certain generation may have very pleasant recollections of ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog as a top Swedish blonde of the 1970s. Before she hit big with the band there was an even bigger name from Sweden across both Blocs of the continent - Capitalist and Communist - Nina Lizell, probably largely unknown here in the UK. She recorded a Swedish-language cover of 'Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum' in the shape of the magnificently-titled 'Djupt i en skog nån'stans i Hälsingland' ('Deep In A Forest Somewhere In Hälsingland'). Continuing the theme of hot pants on album covers I don't suppose you'd have minded being lost in a forest somewhere in Hälsingland sometime in 1971! ;-)
It's funny how 'No. 11', Thereza Bazar, of Dollar takes me back to happy memories of Pop long before I stumbled across the former Soviet Bloc and that Bazar is a common surname, apparently, of the Ruzyn people who live in the far east of Slovakia near Valérie Čižmárová's home town of Michalovce. In another life she could have been one of my 'Girls Of The Golden East' as 'Tereza Bazárová'!
I used to post a Babe every day, but now 'Babe of the Day' refers to whatever day a Babe appears. I'll have a look at these links later, when I get a chance. They're not X-rated, are they? I'd rather avoid that sort of thing. I always preferred the other burd in ABBA, funnily enough. Wouldn't have slammed the door on the blonde for selling The Watchtower though.
Thanks, Kid...and don't worry, there's nothing X-rated in there, apart from the thoughts that may enter one's head, that is! ;-)
Funnily enough my older brother also preferred Anni-Frid Lyngstad, which is strange, since he also had a thing for Lyn Paul, so he went for the darker-haired one in ABBA and the blonde in The New Seekers. Make whatever sense you can out of that!
By a strange quirk of fate, noting that another 'Babe of the DAY' - my emphasis! - of yours has been Ayshea Brough, I've just had cause to edit this post at 'Bananas For Breakfast' where she is featured and where all of Lyn Paul, Eve Graham and Sally Carr are also in evidence. As a Scot I'm sure you'll appreciate the 'revenge' taken on Denmark for Scotland by Czechoslovakia at that post after last night's defeat of Scotland by Denmark!
That other reference to 'Lift Off With Ayshea' referred to in the aforementioned 'Bananas For Breakfast' Blog post also shows off that sensational garment that I think of as "a pair of 'Valinkas'" in honour of the affectionate variant of Valérie Čižmárová's first name. Valinka really shouldn't have worn those that day of Vladivoj Burjanek's photo-shoot and then perched on the back of a park bench like that, hitching one of the legs slightly upwards, showing just a little bit of her...erm...blank...or maybe she should! ;-)
Oh, finally, since I referenced a couple of singers from the 1980s in my last message silly me for failing to mention Natasha (England), probably best-known for her cover of The Dixie Cups' 'Iko Iko', who was/is another bonnie Scots lassie of the world of Pop. That first one in the second row down of her draped over a chair is my favourite!
You sound a lot like my (Scottish) sister-in-law's mother, who doesn't fit that perhaps stereotypical English view of the Scots as all 'fitba' crazy'. My sister-in-law herself, however, very much does fit that stereotype, both for Derby County and Scotland...and, to a lesser extent, Rangers.
Since she is today's 'Birthday Girl Of The Golden East' (seventy-one today) I'm sure that Hungary's Beáta Karda would be way up your 'Babe of the Day' street. A little note on Hungarian pronunciation - the 'a' without the acute accent is pronounced almost like an 'o', so, very fittingly, her surname is 'Cordo', the emphasis being on the "Cor!!!", of "Cor!!!-se" ;-)
My word! That was quite some get-up she was wearing for a front cover of a 'Tükör' ('Mirror') magazine from now over half-a-century ago, as I write (February 1971). I think I spy the tops of some black and white thigh-length PVC boots to go with the PVC mini-dress!
I don't fit any Scottish stereotype, C. Don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, don't do drugs, don't like parties or social functions, don't wear a kilt, etc. I also don't believe in so-called 'independence'. As far as I'm concerned, I'm British. (A Scottish Brit or a British Scot - doesn't matter which to me.)
It appears that you may be rather more British than myself, my having lived and worked on the Continental Mainland on more than one occasion. I refer to it as 'the Continental Mainland' rather than just 'the Continent', since - and it's very easy for Brits to lose sight of this fact - we are European, whether we are in the EU or not!
Although it's still just about intact, I'm afraid that my Englishness/Britishness has taken a severe pounding over Brexit and everything that's gone therewith and I really wish it hadn't all happened, but it has and I suppose I'll just have to get used to it over time.
It's really strange how I'm sort of more with 'The Auld Alliance' between France and Scotland through this than with the England on which it ganged!
That idea of 'The Mainland' almost found expression in the Blog-that-nearly-was, 'Maidens From The Mainland', as referred to at this post at 'Girls Of The Golden East'.
So, you could be in company with an old boy of one of the schools I attended back in the 1970s, as referenced at 'Valérie Čižmárová: A Life In Sound' - or two, now I come to think of it, as he'd have probably gone to Long Row School as well as Herbert Strutt - Timothy Dalton, who lived just two minutes' walk away from my old address in Belper.
It's a major disappointment for me, however, about the first of his outings as 007, 'The Living Daylights', that the scenes allegedly in Bratislava were actually shot in Vienna and that his love interest had that impossible Slovak name of Kara Milovy. She should have been something like 'Kara Milová' as a woman and I understand that somebody once remarked that they knew of not one single Slovak woman called 'Kara' in any case. I suppose it does have to be conceded, however, that at that time shooting a James Bond film in Bratislava itself might have been problematical on account of the Cold War still being in progress. As an aficionado of former Soviet Bloc Pop I wish now that she'd have been a Pop singer rather than a Classical cellist, too, but we were still in a time when it might have been difficult to conceive of the idea of Pop singers from Czechoslovakia.
I know of a fascinating site where one can read whole old editions of the French TV listings magazine, 'Télé 7 jours'. Unfortunately, this does not include what would have been the week when that edition of 'Télé-Dimanche' went out (16th January 1972). The closest I can get is Edition No. 616 (programmes from 12th to 18th February 1972). It looks a quite remarkably varied show as seen at this page featuring the 'Télé-Dimanche' of 13th February 1972 - anything from Operetta to indoor athletics with what I take to be a French version of 'Top Of The Form' in-between!
I see that the main presenter was Denise Fabre who had an article about her in that 'Salut les copains' magazine with the 'Pourquoi Londres veut nous voler Carene Cheryl' article. That Léon Zitrone commentating on the 'hippisme' (horse racing) from Vincennes was actually also the commentator for French TV on the immortal show 'Jeux sans frontières', as the French know it, 'It's A Knockout' to us. He also commentated on the domestic version of the show, 'Intervilles'.
Reading French TV listings is fascinating? Well, who'da thunk it? I'd rather watch paint dry - and have! The only two things I liked about Timothy Dalton's Bond movies were the return of David Hedison as Felix Leiter and Desmond Llewelyn's increased screen time as Q.
Well, it is to me, especially since the French Pop Culture of the 1970s was key in how 'Girls Of The Golden East' came into being!
Regarding Pop Culture of a different time and place - mostly 1960s and mostly American, in this case - it appears that you'd obviously be more into that on account of a link I've spotted on your Blog to TwoMorrows Publishing, the people behind Mark Voger's 'Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture'.
When I'd spotted that there was a - admittedly small - feature in that book on the TV show, 'Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp', forever 'Link-ed' in my mind to 'Va-Link-a' via Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution's song 'Sha-La Love You', covered in Czechoslovakia by Valérie Čižmárová as 'Dávno nejsem hloupá' ('I've Not Been Crazy For A Long Time'), I just had to get hold of it and I'm glad that I did since there's a whole load of fascinating stuff in that book and I'd highly recommend it to you if you haven't already got it. I even have struck up a quite friendly relationship over email with the author, who is a really interesting chap.
I have made a couple or so references to Mark at 'Bananas For Breakfast' over time and this is one of them.
Going back to Timothy Dalton, from what I've encountered over the years regarding his relatively brief tenure of the James Bond role, he isn't a lot of people's favourite, to say the least and what you write appears to back that up, so that doesn't surprise me greatly.
Strangely, I've heard a few people say they liked Dalton's turn as Bond, but he just didn't cut it for me. He looked convincing in some of the advance publicity stills, but that didn't transfer to the big screen unfortunately.
That's encouraging to learn, Kid. Where does he rank in your all-time James Bonds, then - not quite the worst-ever?
Also, after having talked of the Kara Milovy character, noting that special section in your ongoing 'Babe of the Day' feature, '(Bond) Babe of the Day', where does Maryam D'Abo rank?
It has occurred to me that one aspect of the French Pop Culture of the 1970s that may interest you with your evident enthusiasm for super heros is Superbimbo, who came to my attention thanks to the July 1976 edition of 'Salut les copains' I have.
There was a Pop singer called Christophe - the French version of my name, of course - on the French scene at the time and there is a strip cartoon story in the magazine entitled 'Catastrophe pour Christophe' ('Catastrophe for Christophe'), where he has attained his dream of being a Formula 1 driver - driving a car sponsored by 'Salut les Copains' - and the evil Dr. Satanix has, thanks to his 'psychoordinateur' ('psycho-computer') taken control of his brain to make him kill himself by crashing his car...until Superbimbo comes to Christophe's rescue just in the nick of time to pull him out of his hurtling-out-of-control car, for which, in the next episode in the August 1976 edition, there would be 'La vengeance de Dr. Satanix!' ('The Revenge of Dr. Satanix!')
Carene Cheryl's and Sheila's label Carrère brought out a single by Venus Five, 'Super Bimbo (part 1)' - yes, in two words here - in that year and here it is.
Now, that's what I call lyrics! ;-)
How would you translate this into English? ;-) ;-)
Yeah, I'd say Dalton wasn't the best Bond ever for sure. His movies were certainly the worst. I'm afraid I can't really generate any enthusiasm for your French links, C. Not dislike, just apathy. D'Abo? Not that great to be honest.
26 comments:
I swooned when I saw her naked (except for straps covering the "naughty bits") in the 60s Casino Royale
Aha! I knew I'd seen her somewhere else! Ta, Britt.
Didn't she have a massive beehive a la Night Girl from the LSH? Fascinating looking woman. I remember one Matt Hel movie where the bad guy threw her across the room [it was a slippery dancefloor iirc] and she went FLYING!
What is she doing these days, I heard she married a diplomat or something.
Karl, I think she's now in her early 70s, and I have the impression that she was also a singer. Yeah, I thinks she did have a beehive - she'd have made a good Modesty Blaise.
Ah, Casino Royale..."I'm the new secret weapon - and I've just been developed."
She was also quite good in Some Girls Do, a Bulldog Drummond film from the late 60s.
Ah, Bulldog Drummond. I remember watching the old b&w films, BS - BD's sidekick, played by Reginald Denny, was Commodore Schmidlapp in the 1966 Batman movie, his last role. (He also played King Boris in episodes 11 & 12 of the TV series.) I'll keep an eye out for Some Girls Do.
IIRC, she wore a sort of beehive hairdo in Some Girls Do.
She was in the first Matt Helm movie, The Silencers, in 1966. That was where she got knocked across the dance floor in that fight scene.
Her last movie was the spaghetti western Catlow (1971). After that, she focused on her career as a cabaret singer in Europe. The last I heard, she was living in the US with her husband, a businessman who runs some sort of plastics company.
-TC
I think that's where I first saw her - The Silencers. I was only a kid, but I was mighty impressed by how sultry she was.
The 1967 version of Casino Royale was an overblown mess, but, on the plus side, it did have Daliah, Joanna Pettet, Ursula Andress, "Jacky" Bisset, and Gabriella Licudi.
-TC
I can't watch it - it's truly awful.
You're right that Daliah Lavi was also a singer, Kid. She would have been one of those artists perhaps better known abroad than here in the UK and she was a very big name in West Germany in the 1970s. I have a track by her entitled 'Let The Love Grow (In Your Heart)' - a cracker! - on a West German-made various artists LP from 1973 entitled '20 Original Top Hits', which I got from our local Mind shop because it also had 'This World Today Is A Mess' by Donna Hightower on it, about which I had found out over Cyberspace via the cover version by the singer from Czechoslovakia, Jitka Zelenková, 'Ve stínu na pláži' ('In The Shade On The Beach'), Jitka Zelenková having been an associate at the Divadlo Rokoko (Rococo Theatre) of Valérie Čižmárová, for whom I run a fan Blog called - wait for it! - 'Bananas For Breakfast'.
I also run a 'sister Blog' on female Pop singers mostly from Czechoslovakia and mostly from the early/mid-1970s called 'Girls Of The Golden East'. If you're into Babes and the 1970s, as you appear to be, there's an great deal of material for your 'Babe of the Week' theme! Well, it is Eastern/Central Europe and the era of mini skirts and hot pants...of course, not forgetting Valérie Čižmárová herself!
Oh, since you appear to be from Scotland and since I accidentally got into the former Soviet Bloc via the Czech-language cover of Middle Of The Road's 'Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum' by Hana Zagorová, 'Pan Tydlitýt a pan Tydlitát' ('Mr. Tydlitýt And Mr. Tydlitát'), to put on a Scottish accent, whaur's that bonnie Scots lassie Sally Carr in your 'Babe of the Week'???
Well, it's actually Babe of the Day, but Sally Carr's name doesn't ring a bell with me. I'll have to Google her. (And no, that isn't a euphemism.)
Oops! Sorry that I have implied that there's only enough material out there for one every week rather than one every day!
There's an American-based site called 'flashbak.com' which has compiled a 'Top Eleven' of Pop pin-ups who might be completely unknown in the States where Sally Carr is the opening entry. It's called '11 Stone Cold Foxes of Pop Music (Who Americans Won't Remember)'. That photo of Sally displaying her assets in a frilly-hemmed crocheted pair of yellow hot pants is the almost legendary shot taken from the cover of 'The Best of Middle Of The Road' album and it's probably the hottest pair of pants on an album cover outside of Valérie Čižmárová's scalloped-hemmed, high-waisted black suede number worn for the rear cover of her eponymous LP as seen at the 'Valérie Čižmárová: A Life In Pictures' page of 'Bananas For Breakfast'.
Sally Carr is far from the only Scots lassie in that 'Top Eleven'. There's also Altered Images' Claire Grogan and - although photographed at this page alongside her colleague from The New Seekers, Lyn Paul - the disgracefully overlooked Eve Graham, from one of my favourite placenames in Scotland, Auchterarder. One is almost tempted to remark, "so what's Eve Graham? Scotch mist???".
Hana Zagorová wasn't the only singer abroad to have recorded a foreign-language cover version of 'Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum'. The Sheila you see in this 'Top Eleven', before her Disco period alluded to, recorded the French-language cover, 'Les Rois Mages' ('The Three Kings'), which has gone down in modern French folklore as the French sound of 1971, half a century ago as I write.
Those of us of a certain generation may have very pleasant recollections of ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog as a top Swedish blonde of the 1970s. Before she hit big with the band there was an even bigger name from Sweden across both Blocs of the continent - Capitalist and Communist - Nina Lizell, probably largely unknown here in the UK. She recorded a Swedish-language cover of 'Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum' in the shape of the magnificently-titled 'Djupt i en skog nån'stans i Hälsingland' ('Deep In A Forest Somewhere In Hälsingland'). Continuing the theme of hot pants on album covers I don't suppose you'd have minded being lost in a forest somewhere in Hälsingland sometime in 1971! ;-)
It's funny how 'No. 11', Thereza Bazar, of Dollar takes me back to happy memories of Pop long before I stumbled across the former Soviet Bloc and that Bazar is a common surname, apparently, of the Ruzyn people who live in the far east of Slovakia near Valérie Čižmárová's home town of Michalovce. In another life she could have been one of my 'Girls Of The Golden East' as 'Tereza Bazárová'!
I hope you enjoy these links, Kid!
I used to post a Babe every day, but now 'Babe of the Day' refers to whatever day a Babe appears. I'll have a look at these links later, when I get a chance. They're not X-rated, are they? I'd rather avoid that sort of thing. I always preferred the other burd in ABBA, funnily enough. Wouldn't have slammed the door on the blonde for selling The Watchtower though.
Thanks, Kid...and don't worry, there's nothing X-rated in there, apart from the thoughts that may enter one's head, that is! ;-)
Funnily enough my older brother also preferred Anni-Frid Lyngstad, which is strange, since he also had a thing for Lyn Paul, so he went for the darker-haired one in ABBA and the blonde in The New Seekers. Make whatever sense you can out of that!
By a strange quirk of fate, noting that another 'Babe of the DAY' - my emphasis! - of yours has been Ayshea Brough, I've just had cause to edit this post at 'Bananas For Breakfast' where she is featured and where all of Lyn Paul, Eve Graham and Sally Carr are also in evidence. As a Scot I'm sure you'll appreciate the 'revenge' taken on Denmark for Scotland by Czechoslovakia at that post after last night's defeat of Scotland by Denmark!
That other reference to 'Lift Off With Ayshea' referred to in the aforementioned 'Bananas For Breakfast' Blog post also shows off that sensational garment that I think of as "a pair of 'Valinkas'" in honour of the affectionate variant of Valérie Čižmárová's first name. Valinka really shouldn't have worn those that day of Vladivoj Burjanek's photo-shoot and then perched on the back of a park bench like that, hitching one of the legs slightly upwards, showing just a little bit of her...erm...blank...or maybe she should! ;-)
Oh, finally, since I referenced a couple of singers from the 1980s in my last message silly me for failing to mention Natasha (England), probably best-known for her cover of The Dixie Cups' 'Iko Iko', who was/is another bonnie Scots lassie of the world of Pop. That first one in the second row down of her draped over a chair is my favourite!
Have you heard of her???
Nah, I don't care what Scotland loses at, especially not football. Not heard of Natasha, but might recognise her face when I look at the pic.
You sound a lot like my (Scottish) sister-in-law's mother, who doesn't fit that perhaps stereotypical English view of the Scots as all 'fitba' crazy'. My sister-in-law herself, however, very much does fit that stereotype, both for Derby County and Scotland...and, to a lesser extent, Rangers.
Since she is today's 'Birthday Girl Of The Golden East' (seventy-one today) I'm sure that Hungary's Beáta Karda would be way up your 'Babe of the Day' street. A little note on Hungarian pronunciation - the 'a' without the acute accent is pronounced almost like an 'o', so, very fittingly, her surname is 'Cordo', the emphasis being on the "Cor!!!", of "Cor!!!-se" ;-)
My word! That was quite some get-up she was wearing for a front cover of a 'Tükör' ('Mirror') magazine from now over half-a-century ago, as I write (February 1971). I think I spy the tops of some black and white thigh-length PVC boots to go with the PVC mini-dress!
"Cor!!!-do", indeed!
I don't fit any Scottish stereotype, C. Don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, don't do drugs, don't like parties or social functions, don't wear a kilt, etc. I also don't believe in so-called 'independence'. As far as I'm concerned, I'm British. (A Scottish Brit or a British Scot - doesn't matter which to me.)
Well, you certainly don't, Kid!
It appears that you may be rather more British than myself, my having lived and worked on the Continental Mainland on more than one occasion. I refer to it as 'the Continental Mainland' rather than just 'the Continent', since - and it's very easy for Brits to lose sight of this fact - we are European, whether we are in the EU or not!
Although it's still just about intact, I'm afraid that my Englishness/Britishness has taken a severe pounding over Brexit and everything that's gone therewith and I really wish it hadn't all happened, but it has and I suppose I'll just have to get used to it over time.
This has been accentuated by all the connections on the Continental Mainland that led to the setting-up of 'Girls Of The Golden East' and 'Bananas For Breakfast', when you've got time to delve into the back-story of how it all happened.
It's really strange how I'm sort of more with 'The Auld Alliance' between France and Scotland through this than with the England on which it ganged!
That idea of 'The Mainland' almost found expression in the Blog-that-nearly-was, 'Maidens From The Mainland', as referred to at this post at 'Girls Of The Golden East'.
I'm so British I should be the next James Bond - who was half Scottish anyway.
So, you could be in company with an old boy of one of the schools I attended back in the 1970s, as referenced at 'Valérie Čižmárová: A Life In Sound' - or two, now I come to think of it, as he'd have probably gone to Long Row School as well as Herbert Strutt - Timothy Dalton, who lived just two minutes' walk away from my old address in Belper.
It's a major disappointment for me, however, about the first of his outings as 007, 'The Living Daylights', that the scenes allegedly in Bratislava were actually shot in Vienna and that his love interest had that impossible Slovak name of Kara Milovy. She should have been something like 'Kara Milová' as a woman and I understand that somebody once remarked that they knew of not one single Slovak woman called 'Kara' in any case. I suppose it does have to be conceded, however, that at that time shooting a James Bond film in Bratislava itself might have been problematical on account of the Cold War still being in progress. As an aficionado of former Soviet Bloc Pop I wish now that she'd have been a Pop singer rather than a Classical cellist, too, but we were still in a time when it might have been difficult to conceive of the idea of Pop singers from Czechoslovakia.
After having mentioned the 'Auld Alliance' I just happen to have stumbled across a YouTube video of Middle Of The Road performing - live, no backing track - 'Samson And Delilah' on the French TV show, 'Télé-Dimanche'.
I know of a fascinating site where one can read whole old editions of the French TV listings magazine, 'Télé 7 jours'. Unfortunately, this does not include what would have been the week when that edition of 'Télé-Dimanche' went out (16th January 1972). The closest I can get is Edition No. 616 (programmes from 12th to 18th February 1972). It looks a quite remarkably varied show as seen at this page featuring the 'Télé-Dimanche' of 13th February 1972 - anything from Operetta to indoor athletics with what I take to be a French version of 'Top Of The Form' in-between!
I see that the main presenter was Denise Fabre who had an article about her in that 'Salut les copains' magazine with the 'Pourquoi Londres veut nous voler Carene Cheryl' article. That Léon Zitrone commentating on the 'hippisme' (horse racing) from Vincennes was actually also the commentator for French TV on the immortal show 'Jeux sans frontières', as the French know it, 'It's A Knockout' to us. He also commentated on the domestic version of the show, 'Intervilles'.
Finally, I've found another excerpt from the 'Télé-Dimanche' of that era featuring that sort of 'Girl Of The Golden East', Sylvie Vartan, who, despite being a French star to all intents and purposes, was actually born in Bulgaria, being interviewed by Denise Fabre.
Reading French TV listings is fascinating? Well, who'da thunk it? I'd rather watch paint dry - and have! The only two things I liked about Timothy Dalton's Bond movies were the return of David Hedison as Felix Leiter and Desmond Llewelyn's increased screen time as Q.
Well, it is to me, especially since the French Pop Culture of the 1970s was key in how 'Girls Of The Golden East' came into being!
Regarding Pop Culture of a different time and place - mostly 1960s and mostly American, in this case - it appears that you'd obviously be more into that on account of a link I've spotted on your Blog to TwoMorrows Publishing, the people behind Mark Voger's 'Groovy: When Flower Power Bloomed in Pop Culture'.
When I'd spotted that there was a - admittedly small - feature in that book on the TV show, 'Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp', forever 'Link-ed' in my mind to 'Va-Link-a' via Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution's song 'Sha-La Love You', covered in Czechoslovakia by Valérie Čižmárová as 'Dávno nejsem hloupá' ('I've Not Been Crazy For A Long Time'), I just had to get hold of it and I'm glad that I did since there's a whole load of fascinating stuff in that book and I'd highly recommend it to you if you haven't already got it. I even have struck up a quite friendly relationship over email with the author, who is a really interesting chap.
I have made a couple or so references to Mark at 'Bananas For Breakfast' over time and this is one of them.
Going back to Timothy Dalton, from what I've encountered over the years regarding his relatively brief tenure of the James Bond role, he isn't a lot of people's favourite, to say the least and what you write appears to back that up, so that doesn't surprise me greatly.
Strangely, I've heard a few people say they liked Dalton's turn as Bond, but he just didn't cut it for me. He looked convincing in some of the advance publicity stills, but that didn't transfer to the big screen unfortunately.
That's encouraging to learn, Kid. Where does he rank in your all-time James Bonds, then - not quite the worst-ever?
Also, after having talked of the Kara Milovy character, noting that special section in your ongoing 'Babe of the Day' feature, '(Bond) Babe of the Day', where does Maryam D'Abo rank?
It has occurred to me that one aspect of the French Pop Culture of the 1970s that may interest you with your evident enthusiasm for super heros is Superbimbo, who came to my attention thanks to the July 1976 edition of 'Salut les copains' I have.
There was a Pop singer called Christophe - the French version of my name, of course - on the French scene at the time and there is a strip cartoon story in the magazine entitled 'Catastrophe pour Christophe' ('Catastrophe for Christophe'), where he has attained his dream of being a Formula 1 driver - driving a car sponsored by 'Salut les Copains' - and the evil Dr. Satanix has, thanks to his 'psychoordinateur' ('psycho-computer') taken control of his brain to make him kill himself by crashing his car...until Superbimbo comes to Christophe's rescue just in the nick of time to pull him out of his hurtling-out-of-control car, for which, in the next episode in the August 1976 edition, there would be 'La vengeance de Dr. Satanix!' ('The Revenge of Dr. Satanix!')
Carene Cheryl's and Sheila's label Carrère brought out a single by Venus Five, 'Super Bimbo (part 1)' - yes, in two words here - in that year and here it is.
Now, that's what I call lyrics! ;-)
How would you translate this into English? ;-) ;-)
Yeah, I'd say Dalton wasn't the best Bond ever for sure. His movies were certainly the worst. I'm afraid I can't really generate any enthusiasm for your French links, C. Not dislike, just apathy. D'Abo? Not that great to be honest.
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