Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema

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Indeed whilst the first Bond film premiered in London on 5 October 1962, but the day before had seen the debut of what would go on to be a star-making vehicle for Roger as Leslie Charteris’ Simon Templar in the hit TV show, The Saint. Early on he established an attitude towards 007, "I tried to find out what Bond was all about, but you can't tell much from the books. There are photo gallery sessions, film festivals, movie premieres, publicity trips to the major foreign film markets.

In 1967, when Connery initially relinquished the role after You Only Live Twice, there was talk of Roger toplining a Cambodian-set version of Fleming’s posthumous 1965 bestseller, The Man With The Golden Gun but then he continued lucratively as Simon Templar until 1969.Aside from Cubby Broccoli’s split with Harry Saltzman and the company almost going into liquidation, Eon had released one of the lowest grossing James Bond films in 1974. Keeping the British End Up covers those mostly unloved 'dirty postcard' type films that the dirty mac brigade would go to see in Sullivan's and Raymond's Soho fleapits. The author does a great job of summing up the film, and includes a bit about the production and actors involved, as well as an overview of the social evolution of "naughty" films in the UK. The exploitation cinema in Britain throughout the fifties and into the seventies is detailed in this coffee table book that’s not for the prudish. To my eternal shame [and I'd completely forgotten about this] I own two of the films mentioned in the text - Zeta One and The Sex Thief [for Yutte Stensgaard and Diane Keen respectively] - even though I'm not especially a fan of these types of pictures.

I'm very aware of the interest in James Bond but, finally, there is just so much you can say about him and the film you' re doing. After Brexit, and with the Conservative government going back on its promise to take in refugees from Syria, I wanted to know what he thought Britain’s role in the world should be.As a matter of fact, Cubby [Broccoli] and Harry [Saltzman] tell me that when they first started making the Bonders, I was their first choice for the role. Whereas Roger could kiss the girl, if he stuck a knife in her it would look nasty because Roger looks like a nice guy. He does seem like a reinvention of Blofeld to me, and as discussed the whole film is reminiscent of the ‘60s SPECTRE epics. As you might know, he had a lot to do with the screen treatment of Thunderball, and had teamed up with Saltzman and Broccoli in 1965 on the understanding that he wouldn’t launch a rival production.