The Art of Giving A Good Screen Kiss (Off?)

... well, that would work as a goodbye 

--- but it implies too many happy returns! 

Maybe a better, more effective way to KISS OFF
(as in ''kiss them goodbye'' figuratively, as you push them off of you!)
is the way Dame Diana Rigg famously went about it,
prior to all of her scenes with one-time James Bond
George Lazenby, in 1969's
On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 
she ate garlic!

But even when there is no garlic involved... 

An onscreen kiss is a technical, cold thing, verily --- 

no room for anything else there! 

It is the same thing onstage...! 

Or on LIVE TELEVISION... 

Now a KISS OFF can also be... all this:

... ultimately, 

it is all make-believe! 

As Sam sang it: 

''you must remember this; 

a kiss is just a kiss!''

"This Never Happened To The Other Feller" - best sly line delivery of all time!

I admit it:
It took me a long, long time to discover that ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE was the greatest James Bond film ever made (in great part due to the absence of either Sean Connery or Roger Moore - but also because of the simply stupendous title sequence by master Maurice Binder (the best such sequence ever made), the awesome action sequences, their realism, the stunning soundtrack by John Barry, the masterful directorial debut of one Peter Hunt, the better use of the locales chosen to shoot in, the flair and panache that dastardingly captures the true essence of the Ian Fleming beast throughout this film and, of course, the casting of Diana Rigg as the first and only Mrs. Bond!)
It took me quite long to give the film a chance, alas; prior to 1980, I had considered this to be a film "that didn't count" - it wasn't "the real Bond", just an impostor! The real Bond was, to me, The Saint! Roger Moore - in other words, Lord Brett Sinclair, Simon Templar and James Bond were all one and the same to me! Sean Connery was himself a mere replacement in my mind - so what did George Lazenby hope to be rated as, when young filmgoers such as me had this kind of "backwards logical thinking" going - eh?

The pleasant surprise that "OHMSS" is born in the luminous year of 1969 was a factor, I cannot deny it (plus, one of the locations it was shot in was Portugal - wow!) - but the film itself, in my more mature eyes, proved to be far superior on all technical levels that matter - once I finally gave it a chance, sat down and saw it, in 1980!
I was stunned - this was waaaaaaaaay better than any Connery conk out on celluloid or any Moore merriment caught on film...! (And please spare me any Dalton or Brosnan talk - and that other guy now...! The preceding was a little *clin d'oeil* to the pre-credits in-joke Lazenby so cleverly delivers in this one...! ;)
THIS, my friends, is the true James Bond!



And DIANA RIGG is the ultimate Bond Girl - no question about it!
Most fully-capable critics will agree with me on that too!


.

Many kudos and thanks to the Propellerheads for ressuscitating that unforgettable and unmistakenably unique theme music concocted for Bond exclusively for this film
(the finer music, the meticulous approach to every detail, both in scriptwriting, cinematography and plain plausibility - it was all attributable to the casting of a neophyte 007 in this one! It was the nicest side-effect of all, in the end: in over-compensating for their apparent weakness -their leading man- the 007 team made this the best Bond film of all! More stills from it can be seen here.)

A Review penned under my nom de plume...!

The Corvini Inheritance (1986)
by luc poirier
January 24, 2007 03:07 AM EST (Updated: March 09, 2007 07:12 AM EST)
to group: Movies & Film Corps
tags: reviews, movies - digg it del.icio.us
Directed by G. Beaumont
And starring David McCallum, Jan Francis and Terence Alexander.

This one may be a trifle hard to find, as it dates back 21 years and was made for British television to boot. It is part of a series of films that paired up numerous fine talents (other films had starred David Carradine and Stephanie Beacham; Mary Crosby and Nicholas Clay; Jenny Seagrove and Dirk Benedict; Hannah Gordon and Peter Graves) in well-crafted mini-thrillers each 90 minutes in length. The series was "Hammer House" - a sort of Masterpiece Theater for the Hammer Films tradition! Yes, you read right - Hammer Films! Ironically enough though, none of these films would feature vampire horror, as Hammer had pretty much run the genre to its grave, no pun intended... (It was a temporary demise anyways - for we all know that everything old is eventually new again and trends return, one day...)

Still, no one can deny that the Hammer style was perfection in itself. It still stands on its own as a masterful way to package the supernatural mystery suspense thriller and many of the currently successful projects in this genre owe a lot to it. The Christopher Lee Draculas and Ingrid Pitt Carmillas may have been past their time of glory, but the distinguished Hammer style will always be in fashion and au goût du jour - whatever the current trends may be!

Recognizing this, Hammer attempted a comeback in the mid-1980s on the small screen this time, with these 90-minute films rich in style and suspense, if not hemoglobin or special effects. Hammer Horror was never about gore anyways - it was always stylish, intelligent and refined fare that was, truly, well-suited for television and its censors. And so this series of films met with a certain success indeed. The Corvini Inheritance is a personal favorite of mine for it starred two under-appreciated stars; the true (invisible) man from U.N.C.L.E. and the mesmerizing Jan Francis, who got a chance here to be the center of a piece and not merely supporting characters once more.

Without giving away the mystery, this is a twist on the curse of the Hope diamond as well as a haunting story in all the possible senses of the expression! The ending is a shocker and one feels for the main hero and heroine - for, aye, it is not a happy ending that we get! When one deals with curses and ghosts, it isn't so simple as the vampire getting the stake through the heart and crumbling to dust! Maybe it is the problem here as well - despite being a "refreshing" change of pace, the lack of happy endings here must have hurt the popularity of these films, hence, the demand for them. Whether vampire films or other things, Hammer films had always ended in a satisfactory fashion for the moviegoer. Maybe expecting the film viewer to be less demanding in that regard -or more of a realist- only because he is watching this for free at home, was not so logical after all. Still, just for the well-structured suspense, Jan Francis' acting and gorgeous eyes and that perennial good guy who never gets the breaks that David McCallum always embodied so well, I highly recommend this one. The directing is nearly flawless and that can only come from veteran directors, true artists and masters of their medium - all of which were always to be found in "Hammer House" - the house that Peter Cushing built!

"Child's Play" and "Mark of the Devil" are two other finely-honed suspenses in the series - the latter also featuring Burt Kwouk, famous for his Pink Panther role, in a decisively very different role...

If these are ever on some specialty channel (such as Sci-Fi) I suggest recording them - these are for keeps!

... little did ''luc poirier'' know that, 

soon enough, it would be seen 

-in its entirety and for free- 

on YouTube!!! 

But that's another story...