Official Tiki Oasis 2012 thread for TO12 - California Events

C Cammo Member San Diego Joined: May 18, 2006 Posts: 2041	C Cammo Posted posted on Mon, Jul 9, 2012 10:32 AM PART 3 Real Life Spies Many people have tried to nail who exactly was the wartime model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Many more operatives have taken credit for it themselves by smiling and telling everyone who would listen that their role was too secret to admit the details of. Somerset Maugham’s 1928 novel Ashenden, based on his spying experiences in WW1, were an enormous influence on the young Fleming, as was the heart-pounding Hitchcock movie Secret Agent that was made from it in 1936. Later, the 1939 movie Clouds Over Europe had Ralph Richardson playing a bluff, joking, umbrella-swirling veddy English agent that Patrick Macnee admits was his inspiration for John Steed of Avengers fame, and co-stars an almost unrecognizably handsome flyer-agent Lawrence Olivier as a striking Bond prototype. Fleming and Maugham had bizarrely similar lives, both coming from upper-crust lawyer and banking families, dabbling in spying in their respective wars, both accepting important assignments in Russia, and later writing about the gritty side of it all to become overnight best selling authors of their day. Somerset Maugham also has a huge place in Tiki history as the writer of Rain and The Moon and Sixpence; he was fascinated with South Seas Islands, near-East pagan cultures and bizarre sex practices, and was a huge figure in re-introducing these ideas to the 20th century.

PART 3
Real Life Spies

Many people have tried to nail who exactly was the wartime model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Many more operatives have taken credit for it themselves by smiling and telling everyone who would listen that their role was too secret to admit the details of. Somerset Maugham’s 1928 novel Ashenden, based on his spying experiences in WW1, were an enormous influence on the young Fleming, as was the heart-pounding Hitchcock movie Secret Agent that was made from it in 1936. Later, the 1939 movie Clouds Over Europe had Ralph Richardson playing a bluff, joking, umbrella-swirling veddy English agent that Patrick Macnee admits was his inspiration for John Steed of Avengers fame, and co-stars an almost unrecognizably handsome flyer-agent Lawrence Olivier as a striking Bond prototype.

Fleming and Maugham had bizarrely similar lives, both coming from upper-crust lawyer and banking families, dabbling in spying in their respective wars, both accepting important assignments in Russia, and later writing about the gritty side of it all to become overnight best selling authors of their day.

Somerset Maugham also has a huge place in Tiki history as the writer of Rain and The Moon and Sixpence; he was fascinated with South Seas Islands, near-East pagan cultures and bizarre sex practices, and was a huge figure in re-introducing these ideas to the 20th century.

Post #643313 by Cammo on Mon, Jul 9, 2012 10:32 AM