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2006 Ford Mondeo prototype driven by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale
This year marks an off-beat James Bond film anniversary. Twenty years ago saw the debut of arguably the worst James Bond car.
That would be the Ford Mondeo (actually a prototype) driven by Daniel Craig in his 007 debut in Casino Royale (2006).
The car wasn’t street legal. Its body was made of fiberglass or other lightweight material. It had a small engine, enough to move the vehicle forward but not much more.
Technically, the Mondeo is the first car driven by Craig’s Bond. The automaker had redesigned the European car and arranged for it to be in Casino Royale. Bond drives the car (or so it seems) after the agent has arrived in The Bahamas.
Based on anecdotal evidence, many Bond fans can’t stand the Mondeo’s appearance in the movie, viewing it as an obvious commercial for Ford. The magic of cinema likely made the Mondeo appear to be traveling faster than it could, via camera angles and sound effects.
To be sure, the cinematic Bond has driven other modest cars. In For Your Eyes Only (1981), Bond (Roger Moore) is deprived of his Lotus supercar. He makes due with a Citroen. However, there’s a chase where Bond outdrives the villains with superior vehicles. The notion behind this was to show that Bond is capable of getting by without gadget-laden cars. Also, the sequence was filmed on twisty, narrow roads.
In Casino Royale? Bond drives from Point A to Point B. Not very exciting.
Dorothy Provine, Robert Vaughn, and David McCallum in Part One, Alexander the Greater Affair and the movie version, One Spy Too Many.
For many fans, their favorite episode of a TV series may not be the best it has to offer.
So, here’s a personal example.
I became a fan of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. midway through its first season (1964-65). When the second season premiere in the fall of 1965, the series was now BIG. On NBC, the show went to COLOR . The network opened up the second season with a two-part story.
That meant there was a cliff hanger. Viewers had to wait seven days to see how it turned out.
The 7-year-old me watched both parts.
As it turned out, NBC only broadcast the two-parter once. MGM, the show’s home studio, made plans for it to be re-edited for theaters. NBC would get a cut of the theater box office.
So, the theater version could be seen. But the original TV version went dark.
November 1982: I was working at a newspaper in Birmingham, Alabama. (That paper no longer exists.) George Wallace had just been elected to his fourth term as governor. I couldn’t believe it. Wallace had declared in 1963: “Segregation, now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
I thought: “I’m going to be living in the same state where George Wallace is governor?” As it turned out, Wallace was the liberal candiate in 1982. Still, it was a major culture shock.
I turned on the TV. An independent TV station in Birmingham was showing One Spy Too Many, the movie version of that U.N.C.L.E. two-parter. It was the start of me rediscovering U.N.C.L.E.
1999: On an U.N.C.L.E. listserv (members communicating via email), there was a discussion about why the TV version had disappeared while One Spy Too Many was available. I weighed in.
I got a private email asking me for additional details. I soon got another email asking me for my mailing address.
I soon got a VHS tape. It had a copy of the original TV episode.
Months later, in mid-2000, TNT. for its final U.N.C.L.E. telecast, showed the original TV version for the first time since 1965. That was included in the original 2008 DVD set of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
That 1965 version was directed by Joseph Sargent and written by Dean Hargrove. Each were among the best contributors to the series. It was scored by Gerald Fried, his first contribution to a series he delivered a lot of music for.
Can I cite better U.N.C.L.E. installments? Certainly. During the show’s first season, Sam Rolfe, the producer, kept a tight quality control.
Still, a viewer’s emotions determines which installment is a favorite. Sometimes, what’s going on in your life at the time is important.
The greatest example of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. fanfiction ever is now on YouTube.
It’s titled “The Wing and a Prayer Affair.” It was created by Robert Short, one of the original U.N.C.L.E. fans. He went on to a long career in movies and TV shows. He won an Oscar.
Short created a 40-minute animated video. It has many of the conceits of fanfiction. There are multiple references to the original 1964-68 series. The voices of Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin sound similar to Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. The video evokes plots of episodes of the show. It also has various compositions of Jerry Goldsmith and other composers.
This blog has been skeptical about U.N.C.L.E.’s future. Short is doing his best to keep U.N.C.L.E. alive.
Today, July 4, is Independence Day in the United States. 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the U.S. becoming an independent country.
For this blog, there’s no better image to celebrate the holiday than this Jim Steranko cover from Strange Tales No. 167, published in January 1968 (with an April 1968 publication date). The issue was the climax to a months-long saga that Steranko wrote and drew featuring the intrepid Nick Fury and the forces of SHIELD.
In 2026, there is a lot of division on many political and social issues. But Steranko’s image remains iconic. (Even if Val, pictured above, was turned into a villain in Marvel Comics and that version has made a few appearances in Marvel Studios productions — including 2025’s Thunderbolts*.)
For more background, CLICK HERE for a 2000 article that originally appeared on the Her Majesty’s Secret Servant website. Happy July Fourth to everyone.
Voting for the annual Golden Bullet 007 fan awards started July 1. Winners are scheduled to be announced in mid-August.
The Golden Bullet awards are similar to Fan Q awards for fanfiction. In each example, fan popularity plays a big part.
The Golden Bullets categories for 2025 have been expanded. They include categories such as Man of the Year, Woman of the Year, Couple of the Year, Best Dressed, All-Star Award, and other categories.
For honesty’s sake, I have to note I was nominated in the category of Best Writer. The 007 Files was nominated in the category of podcast episode where we interviewed Lee Goldberg about Richard Maibaum.
Note: This is not intended to be a comprehensive list.
These days, continuity has been decried for TV shows and movies. The idea is there’s too much attention paid to continuity at the expense of storytelling.
Perhaps that’s so. Still, over the past 70 years or so, continuity has been a complex subject. Here are various examples:
Casting actors: How often should guest star actors appear in a TV show? Once upon a time, say the early to mid 1960s, an actor could play different characters during the same season of a TV show. Examples: the likes of Robert Blake, Richard Anderson and others played more than one character in a single season of a TV series.
Over time, the understanding arose that actors could be on the same series in different roles but only once a year. The likes of Anthony Zerbe, John Vernon and Nehemiah Persoff followed this pattern.
In the James Bond film series, actors would come back playing different parts. Nadja Regin was in From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Martine Bestwick was in From Russia With Love and Thunderball. Maud Adams was the second female lead in The Man With the Golden Gun and the title character in Octopussy. Joe Don Baker was a villain in The Living Daylights and a CIA operative in Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies.
Even Marvel Studios, known for slavish continuity, has recast key parts. Iron Man (2008) had Terrance Howard as James Rhodes. He was replaced with Don Cheadle in future productions. “Thunderbolt” Ross was originally played by William Hurt. After Hurt’s death, Harrison Ford took up the role in 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World.
Characters disappear (and sometimes reappear) without notice: In real life, actors get new offers and producers let them pursue those possibilities. On other occasions, producers decide things aren’t working out and change the cast.
In the old days, producers decided the best approach was not to say anything.
Gunsmoke, the 1955-75 western series, got used to this. Dennis Weaver as Chester, the original sidekick to Matt Dillon (James Arness), was around for seven years. In the eighth season, Chester disappeared but he later came back. In real life, Weaver had the chance to star in series that weren’t successful.
After almost a decade, Chester was gone for good. No explanations given. Burt Reynolds as Quint, another sidekick, was around for awhile. He, too, disappeared. One episode briefly mentioned he had left but there was no detailed explanation. In the show’s final season, there a brief mention of how Chester and Quint once lived in Dodge City.
One of the most extreme examples was The FBI. At the start of the series, Inspector Lewis Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) was a widower with a daughter in college, Barbara (Lynn Loring). Before the end of the show’s first season, executive producer Quinn Martin didn’t feel the set-up worked. Barbara Erskine disappeared. No explanation was given.
Changing casting for recurring characters: One of the most famous examples was how different actors played Felix Leiter, James Bond’s CIA friend.
Eon Productions initially sought Jack Lord, the first screen Felix Leiter in Dr. No, to come back for Goldfinger. But screenwriter Richard Maibaum told writer Lee Goldberg in the 1980s that Lord sought a big raise and better billing. Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman took a pass. Different actors played Leiter, including Cec Linder in Goldfinger and Rik Van Nutter in Thunderball. Eventually, David Hedison played Leiter twice and Jeffrey Wright did so three times.
I thought you were dead!: James Bond fans, upset the character died at the end of No Time to Die, have asked how Bond could possibly come back in a new movie. Some internet stories suggest that’s a major problem for makers of the first Bond film under Amazon creative control.
That’s not stopped makers of movies and TV shows before. An obscure example: Richard Widmark starred in the 1968 movie Madigan. He played a tough New York City detective who dies in a shootout near the film’s end. In 1972, the character, again played by Widmark, was revived as part of a second Mystery Movie on NBC. Nobody worried about the end of the 1968 film. The TV version of Madigan only lasted a year.
Two reports issued minutes apart said auditions for the next James Bond actor will gear up in August.
Jeff Sneider, who writes an entertainment newsletter, made a post on X at 11:09 a.m. New York time:
Next round of James Bond auditions will be in August so anythjng you hear before then will be bullshit. Expect Denis to cast a wide net… somewhere between a dozen and two dozen actors. I’d expect a decision around Labor Day.
The Deadline entertainment site had a story with a timestamp of 8:19 a.m. Pacific time (or 11:19 a.m. New York time) saying the same thing but with more details. Here’s the first paragraph.
EXCLUSIVE: Fans of the James Bondfranchise are getting closer to finding out who will next play the iconic spy for future installments. Sources tell Deadline that producers and director Denis Villeneuve have begun informing talent who have made the next round of auditions, which will occur later this summer. Villeneuve has been calling talent directly and while Deadline has not been able to confirm any names at this time sources say the auditions are set to take place in August.
That story by Justin Kroll also says casting director Nina Gold “has been meeting with actors for the past several weeks, but sources say those meetings were for lesser known names to see if anyone should be added to the list of prominent actors expected to get a call for the next round.”
Deadline also reported that Villeneuve and producers David Heyman and Amy Pascal “have started making contact with actors over the past week to inform them about the August auditions.”
Who actually got this first? Hard to say. Sneider often complains he gets stories first but publicists arrange for big entertainment websites to publish ahead of his newsletter. Also, Sneider’s post on X has opinion (“I’d expect a decision around Labor Day.”). Kroll’s story presumably had some editing and the writer reached out to Amazon MGM for comment. The studio declined.
The next Bond movie will be the first since Amazon gained creative control of the 007 franchise in early 2025.
Variety this week repeated old news involving Walt Disney Co. and the James Bond film franchise.
The established entertainment outlet had a story that began thusly:
Bob Iger, who stepped down from his second stint as Disney CEO in March, gave an exit interview to Financial Times in which he revealed that he tried to acquire the James Bond franchise for Disney amid a spending spree that included the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and “Star Wars.” Pixar was priority number one for Iger, and the studio “felt unstoppable” when it acquired Pixar in May 2006 for $7.4 billion.
The problem? Iger said all this in 2019. Iger’s comments came after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox.
Disney, under Iger, acquired Marvel, Lucasfilm (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) and other properties, while spending billions of dollars.Still, Iger told Time magazine back in the day he coveted Bond.
Iger has since stepped down as CEO of Disney. His dreams of taking over Bond are over and done with.
Yet, Variety is keeping those dreams (for Disney, if not Iger) alive.
The famed “Batman Mansion” in Pasadena, California
A Pasadena, California, mansion nicknamed the “Batman Mansion” is up for sale for a mere $32 million.
The property is listed for sale by Coldwell Banker Envision. It has seven bedrooms and 11 bathrooms. The mansion has 18,655 square feet.
The mansion is best known as “stately Wayne Manor” on the 1966-68 Batman television series. It was used mostly for exterior shots on the television show.
However, in an early scene of the 1966 Batman feature film, Adam West and Burt Ward drive up while Aunt Harriet (Madge Blake) and Alfred the Butler (Alan Napier) are doing some gardening.
Exterior shots of the property also appeared on Mission: Impossible and The FBI. In an eighth-season episode of the latter (“Night of the Long Knives”), the grounds of the mansion were used for the scenes involving a mob wedding.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as FBI Inspector Lewis Erskine goes undercover as part of the catering crew. He speaks in an English accent he’d utilize as Alfred in various Batman cartoons starting in the early 1990s.
Here’s part of the description in the listing:
One of the most extraordinary residential offerings in Southern California, 380 S. San Rafael Avenue stands as arguably Pasadena’s premier estate, an irreplaceable Jacobean Tudor Revival masterpiece set on nearly 5 private, gated acres in the city’s most prestigious enclave.
David Sheiner in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
David Sheiner, a chameleon-like character actor, died June 5 at the age of 98, according to an obituary published by the Los Angeles Times.
At times, Sheiner shaved his head, at other times he wore hairpieces. The actor was adept at accents in his various roles. He could speak in an Indian accent, then turn around and talk in a Turkish accent, among others.
Sheiner appeared in five episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In that show’s second season, Sheiner was in three episodes as two different characters. Sheiner showed up in six episodes of Mission: Impossible as well as installments of I Spy, The FBI, The Invaders, Ironside, and Hawaii Five-O among others.
The actor also was in feature films such as The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Odd Couple.
Sheiner’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists almost 100 credits from 1953 to 1988.
The Spy Command 
