Espionage Aficionados discussion

Good spy lit usually has scenes of highly-detailed food and drink which 'sticks in your mind' afterwards.

Like Red Grant not knowing that red wine & Dover sole is 'just not done' (From Russia with Love)

In Ken Follett's 'The Man From St Petersburg' there is an elaborate, sumptuous meal which takes place at a London club. It runs the length of an entire chapter. Literally, soup to nuts.

There's also a 'club meal' in one of the James Bond books--I forget which one.

Anyway, just like the way mystery fans always know what the 'scent of bitter almonds' connotates--fans of spy lit have their favorite viands.

Name some!

Way to get the ball rolling. Of course! (smacking self in forehead)

Agreed, although long debates can ensue about the merits of this-or-that actor; and the others have their good-points/bad points..really Connery had it nailed and if he could just have stayed young and slim there never would have been any need to get anyone else. He was perfect!

Even today when I read a Fleming novel I picture his James Bond character as Connery, and even voice as well.

Connery had a side to him which was inherently nasty, a genuine bastard in many ways. He was excoriated in a 1960s Playboy interview for his advocacy of 'slapping women around when they needed it'. Something like that. Even in recent years, his neighbors in the UES complain he is the worst SOB ever. What I want to know is why is he even living in NYC anyway? He doesn't work anymore.

But his callousness really did help him as Bond. You can see it in his face. He just doesn't care.

Ever read that story about the trouble between him and Johnny Stampanato? He cared that time.

Feliks wrote: "Connery had a side to him which was inherently nasty, a genuine bastard in many ways. He was excoriated in a 1960s Playboy interview for his advocacy of 'slapping women around when they needed it'...."

I missed that story, but kinda off topic, another Connery favorite of mine is the WWII movie "The Hill".

That is my favorite Connery movie. Although he also did fine work in 'The Offence' and 'Man Who Would Be King'.

I am not surprised to hear you know of it.

Sometime I shall tell you my anecdote about that flick.

Would like to hear it and Man Who Would Be King is damn fine movie as well. They sure made some good movies back then.

They sure did, and not just by happenstance. They made them well, for very good & solid reason.

You been viewing the film debate I've been carrying on with this guy named 'Lance' in the Action Aficionados group?

He thinks that the classic era in Hollywood made 'mostly' bad movies; and 'only a few good ones' came down to us accidentally. Absurd.

Everyone agrees that 'Casablanca' was not made in any extra-special manner at the time. It was produced exactly like dozens and dozens of others. 250 flicks just like it every year. That's not a fluke; that's production expertise on a large scale.