LP: From Russia With Love
Song: "From Russia With Love"
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Song: "James Bond With Bongos"
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Song: "Opening Titles - James Bond Is Back"
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This morning I woke to the sad news that actor Sean Connery had died; he was 90 years old. I grew up watching the 007 films and for me Connery was the REAL James Bond. "From Russia With Love" is my favorite Bond film. British crooner Matt Monro does a fine job on the film's theme song (with John Barry doing dynamite work with the music for the film), but sadly, the Bond film tradition of having the vocal version of the theme song blazing hypnotically over the film's sexy opening title sequence hadn't yet taken hold when this second 007 film was released in 1963. (It was the next film that began the trend, when Shirley Bassey crooned the immortal "Goldfinger" over that film's opening credits in 1964.) If I remember correctly, Matt Monro's theme song for "From Russia With Love" is merely heard (only partially) in a beach scene, playing through the speaker of an AM radio stuck in the sand.
Unfortunately, when I told my work colleague Amir, who is from the Middle East, about Connery's passing, I ended up with my foot in my mouth again in another of my infamous and regrettable situations where I'm accidentally racist because I'm just no good at comprehending foreign accents. Amir expressed sadness over Connery's passing, and then told me he really liked the actor in the film "Zurock." He asked me if I'd seen it, and I repeated the title several times aloud, trying to recall if I'd even heard of it before: "Zurock...Zurock..." I told Amir I'd seen Connery in the strange '70s sci-fi film "Zardoz" and asked it that's the movie he was talking about. It wasn't. As I was busy assuming that "Zurock" was some small-scale, made-for-cable film Connery had been in, probably about some conflict in an Iraqi city called Zurock that I'd never heard of before, Amir was on his phone looking up the film he was trying to tell me about: It was this one. Embarrassed, I told him I absolutely loved it.
You can read about Sean Connery's life and career on Wikipedia here, find his BBC obituary here, see a sexy photo of Sean without a shirt on here, and read all about singer Matt Monro over here.
[ Matt Monro: December 1, 1930 — February 7, 1985 ]
[ August 25, 1930 — October 31, 2020 ]
We will miss you, Sean.
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