Re: RARA-AVIS: Willie Garvin and Friends

From: Steve Novak (Cinefrog@comcast.net)
Date: 23 Apr 2009

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    Finally somebody here speaks of Modesty Blaise...and we can then dream of Melina Mercouri...and that wacky Joseph Losey film...pure delight...the books (novelizations) were not bad either and I still have all the original UK ones...inclusing a few of the Bande Dessinées...

    And when it comes to Le Carré...the two BBC series are an absolute must and all the casts there are brilliant...and Jim Prideaux¹s composition was mesmerizing (Ian Bannen)...

    Thank you James...!

    On 4/23/09 1:04 AM, "James Michael Rogers" <jeddak5@cox.net> wrote:

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    > Those happy few who recall my obsessions from a few years back will recall my
    > affection for spy novels. Thanks to the intertubes, I have recently been
    > privileged to experience the entire Modesty Blaise run in the comics, as well
    > as the amazing BBC series of "Tinker , Tailor, Soldier, Spy".....one of the
    > few films which turned out to be better executed and more hard-bitten than I
    > recalled (I love the line: "I have a story to tell you....it's all about
    > spies. It changed my life. And if you believe it - as I do -you might find
    > it's going to change yours.")
    >
    > What I love most about LeCarre' and the adaptations of his work is how the
    > violence is kept offstage, hovering as a constant threat that informs the
    > actions of the characters. Yet even when a person gets "the full gitmo" you
    > always see them either before or after.....not during the violent experience.
    > Most of the James Bond stuff is implied only. For instance in "Tinker...", one
    > only knows Prideaux is a killer by the description a child gives of him
    > mercifully twisting a bird's neck.
    >
    > None of which applies to Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin and their poetry of
    > violence. Willie is a rich man's Archie Goodwin, except he gets laid more. In
    > a day when comics seem designed to disappoint, these are gripping and
    > wonderfully drawn. I am just now getting started on the pulpy Modesty Blaise
    > novels, but it appears they will not let me down.
    >
    > Am I the only HB spy dude left in the room?
    >
    > James Rogers

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