As someone who grew up in the sixties and partook of the spy craze, at least on television, my first experience with James Bond was when I lived in London England in the 70s and movie chains were playing the double bills. I was blown away. Hooked. I must have travelled to many of the local houses to watch them again and again. Remember this was back long before you could catch movies in anything but a movie theatre. If you enjoyed the movie, you might sit through several showings or return another day.

I could see how Bond took over the world and knowing that Hollywood thinks imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it was inevitable that there would be films that tried to ride the wave. Some of the series I loved in my teens like Man From Uncle owed much to the franchise. I enjoyed watching the ones from both the US and the UK. I even saw some of the knock off movies although far less. I was stymied to see how many there were and can appreciate why the trend suffered from “overkill”

It was a trip down memory lane with just enough gossip and such to make the memories even more entertaining. I did skip through the things that I would not have watch even had I known they existed but if you are going to do a thorough job, they do need to be included. It was an enjoyable romp and well worth the read if you are a fan of the genre. Four purrs and two paws up.

When the first James Bond movie hit the wide screen in the i960’s, Dr No in 1962, it began craze if you like, for more of this farfetched and yet very believable espionage, secret agent spy thriller genre. This was to last from 1962–1969—peaking in 1966–1967.
The timing was perfect as the world was grappling with the effects of Russia and their Communist philosophies, the very serious threat of nuclear war between the USA and Russia with fear widespread, when along comes James Bond, a man who not only looked handsome, had a very good way with women and had a ruthless personality when came to getting the job done.
Based on the books by Ian Fleming, who saw James Bond as his alter ego, the pace was fast, the settings exotic and the glamour surrounding Bond made it all the more believable in the cinemas. People needed a hero, even if he was a fictitious fellow.
The franchise was to go on to great Box Office success and is still alive and well after more than sixty years, the men playing Bond have changed several times with the last Bond, Australian Daniel Craig bringing this man of secrets and talents into the world of today.
This spawned many other Spy concepts, with In Like Flint being the first one to take a tilt at the Bond franchise, which then lead on to a range of secret agent material for both television and Cinema. Charlies Angels, the Austin Powers series and The Man From Uncle to name a few, are directly related to the original James Bond concept.
In James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze, Thom Shubilla looks at the influence James Bond has had on wider range of media productions, the establishment of the ‘franchise’, a little about the very careful selection of who was to play Bond and the men who followed in the footsteps of Sean Connery, Box Office takings and why the concept of James Bond is still popular today.
For anyone who is an avid James Bond fan, and there are many, James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze is a must read and a most enjoyable walk back down memory lane.

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James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze by Thom Shubilla explores the 007 movies, the knockoffs, and homages during the 1960s. Mr. Shubilla is a published author and writer, mostly about the entertainment industry.

If you’re a fan of many things espionage and pop culture, you’d enjoy James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze by Thom Shubilla. This book is about the success of the James Bond series and the movies, parodies, and TV shows it inspired.

From the Derek Flint movies, starring James Coburn, to Dean Martin’s Matt Helm flicks, to the Men From U.N.C.L.E. drama, to Mel Brook’s Get Smart parody, this book covers much of it. As a fan of the genre, I was very familiar with many of the movies and shows the author writes about, but I have to say that there were a lot I never heard of.

Mr. Shubilla starts with an overview of James Bond’s movies from the 1960s, followed by a section of other forms of media they inspired. Some of the movies he picked, I feel, were created to give the audience an alternative, more grounded, espionage stories (for example The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, or Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer movies), and while I can see a relationship, I’m not sure they belong in this book. The book includes movies and TV shows from the US, Europe, and even Mexico.

The book felt like a long graduate school work. Every paragraph had a reference which I found very distracting. I have no idea why the author chose to publish a book this way, it doesn’t add anything and distracts from the reading.

I have to admit that I thought I saw many of the espionage movies and TV shows from the era, even though I was born much later. The author did a great job compiling a reference work for fans of the genre, and has added several movies to my already too-long “to watch” list.

Strong Points: This book was thoroughly researched, and I learned a lot of interesting tidbits, like that JFK was a huge fan of the novels by Ian Fleming and that he had a special viewing of From Russia with Love two days before his assassination, making it his last film he watched. These films were such an event. I think we take it for granted that everything is streaming or that we can rent movies digitally to be viewed in the comfort of our own living room. Back in the day, seeing big blockbuster movies was an event. Goldfinger was such a hit that a movie theater ran it 24 hours a day for weeks. Imagine being able to show up at the theater at 2 a.m. to watch Bond kick some ass. Well, the Catholic Church was not pleased with Goldfinger or any of the other Bond movies, as was the German government. They were both very vocal about how vile they thought the movies were.
Also, remember books like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Well, that exact children’s book author, Roald Dahl, wrote the screenplay for You Only Live Once. Okay, I promise, I’m done with the fun facts. You can read the rest yourself.

Weak Points: That being said, being a James Bond fan, I wanted more James Bond. I didn’t care so much for the listing of other spy movies that took place in the 1960s (shockingly so, so many for such a short period of time). I had to force my way through the last part of the book.

My exposure to James Bond began as a junior high school student in 1965, begging my parents to let me see Goldfinger. My classmates regaled me at length with tales about Bond’s car, Oddjob’s hat, and the gorgeous women, so I felt I knew most of the plot already. But my parents objected, feeling that Bond’s relations with women were immoral. I eventually prevailed and loved the movie. My next move was to buy all the Bond novels in paperback, eagerly awaiting the last two books in the series. My experience was far from unique. The entire country was gripped with Bond fever, a fascination that rivaled Beatlemania.

Author Thom Shubilla tries to recapture that feeling in his new book, James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze. He reports on Bond and many of his cinematic and television rivals of the era, with mixed success. The material on Bond is sometimes entertaining and informative, especially for those unfamiliar with the character or the early films. But the book becomes dull and repetitive when Shubilla discusses other 60s spy films.

The author devotes the first third of James Bond to the first six Bond movies. These include the five Eon Productions (Saltzman and Broccoli) films and the Charles Feldman-produced big-budget spoof Casino Royale. Besides discussions of cast, crew, and plot highlights, the book contains extensive excerpts from contemporary film reviews and commentary. Critic Bosley Crowther from the New York Times is quoted at least a dozen times. Shubilla also provides some anecdotes about filming and discusses the business dynamics behind the films. After a brief discussion about how Sean Connery would return to the Bond role in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever, the author examines three of Bond’s main “rivals” of the era: Derek Flint (James Coburn), Matt Helm (Dean Martin), and Harry Palmer (Michael Caine). The treatment of these franchises is similar to, albeit less extensive than, the coverage of the Bond films.

Besides the four series above, many more spy films were made in the 1960s. The author follows his discussion of those well-known franchises with a whirlwind tour of the cinematic espionage world of the era. He devotes individual chapters to American films, British films, European films, and even a chapter on Mexican espionage films. (One of the book’s highlights is a publicity photo of masked Mexican lucha libre wrestler El Santo snuggling up to a bikini-clad actress on the beach.) The author discusses over 30 films, some of which I’d never heard of. They range from serious works like The Spy Who Came In from the Cold through many spoofs and parodies to the animated A Man Called Flintstone (which is just what you’d think). The book concludes with a brief chapter on popular (and not-so-popular) American and British TV series of the decade, such as The Avengers and The Man from UNCLE.

James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze is extensively and professionally researched. The book’s lengthy bibliography (over 50 pages) lists several hundred sources and includes many parenthetical footnotes in the actual text. These sources include such obscure references as an Anniston Star (AL) of an Italian film, Secret Agent Super Dragon. The author even mentions other non-espionage films with which these movies were paired on double-feature drive-in bills of the decade.

While the author’s meticulous research is the book’s big plus, it’s also a weakness. Shubilla often substitutes drive-in billings and minuscule box office returns for analysis or insight into the movies. The plot “synopses” usually seem like one-paragraph summaries from IMDB or a press release. Shubilla often includes detailed cast and crew summaries, but frequently, these are recitations of random prior and subsequent work. The effect is like reading a sports book in which an author includes pages of career statistics about obscure players. This seemingly endless litany of almost identical discussions of various movies, some barely seen in the United States, soon becomes monotonous.

Thom Shubilla was born in the 1980s, so he had seen none of the movies discussed in this book when they were first released. But although he’s clearly a James Bond fan, almost nothing in the book reflects his personal insight into the material. There’s little discussion of how the various films differed or any analysis of favorite scenes. Instead of analysis, the author substitutes extensive quotes from contrasting critics’ reviews, often couched in extreme generalities. The differences between source material and films are barely discussed. (The Matt Helm novels are hard-boiled spy fiction, a far cry from Dean Martin’s breezy take on the character.) Nor does the author really discuss how the “scandalous” depiction of sex and violence in these films is now routine and unremarkable, even on network television. There is no attempt to put these films in their proper perspective. Genre classics like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold get the same attention as a Danish film called Operation: Lovebirds.

In reading James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze, I felt the author had never seen (or seen and forgotten) many of the movies he discusses. He misses many opportunities to make his material more interesting for general audiences. For example, he notes that Dean Martin’s son, Dino, and Desi Arnaz Jr. appeared in a nightclub scene in the Matt Helm film Murderers Row. What he omits is that the two appeared as part of their singing group, Dino, Desi, and Billy (with a high school friend). While not strictly relevant to the film, a paragraph or two discussing the group’s brief career would have been far more interesting than many of the anecdotes that made the author’s final cut.

Similarly, much of the source material comprises “quotes” from the various actors in these movies. Since actors of that era rarely gave the televised interviews that are commonplace today, these quotes seemed to me suspiciously like studio press releases. For example, Michael Caine “discusses” his Harry Palmer character in pretty much the same language in each of the book’s sections devoted to the individual Palmer films.

The Caine quotes illustrate another of the book’s shortcomings. The author often says the same thing multiple times, sometimes within a few pages of each other. For example, he notes certain actors would later appear in another named genre film. He later notes that the actor in the subsequent film had been in an earlier genre film. These repetitions showcase a lack of editing from one section of the book to the next. In doing so, the author misses opportunities to look at an actor like Nigel Green’s genre work as a whole and the tendency to play essentially minor variations of the same character repeatedly.

I found James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze interesting in spots but an overall slog, especially the second half. Most of the material I didn’t already know was trivial or uninteresting. Most readers won’t be as familiar with the source material as I am, but they will probably get bored with the extensive quoting of critics’ reviews. The book will probably excite only for genre completists. I appreciate the extensive research the author has done for this book, but I wish he had included more insight and fewer dull trivialities.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.

An extensively researched book on the James Bond films and the many copycats spy films and secret agent tv shows from around the world. Not only is it full of facts about these movies and tv series but also delves a bit into the impact on culture that was reflected in toys, music, dress, etc. During the mid-sixties, James Bond was as popular as the Beatles and Batman (it must have been something about the Bs). I wish there was a little bit more about why spy fiction was so popular and less lists of what some of the actors starred in addition to the works being discussed but if you are a fan of Bond or the genre in general, including the many spoofs and bad B or C level copies this book is for you.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

“James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze” by Thom Shubilla is available now in hardcover and on Kindle.

The 1960s spy craze lasted seven years, ostensibly from 1962–1969—peaking in 1966–1967. However, in that time many secret agent films flooded theaters and drive-ins and television shows filled station line-ups in the United States throughout the 1960s. All of which were directly inspired by the first James Bond adventure to hit the big screen, Dr. No (1962). This is the story, from a historical perspective, of those films and how they became a part of American pop culture.

The book explores the various other top agents of the time, Matt Helm, Dereck Flint, and Harry Palmer, and the many spy-spoof imitators coming from the United States, England, Europe, and Mexico and discusses the impact James Bond had on each of these films and the ways in which James Bond influenced media.

This was a bit of fun, giving us a full run-down of James Bond’s cinematic inception, as well as looking into the host of imitators it spawned. It’s an easy read; sometimes a little too easy, as there’s sometimes too much repetition and hand-holding going on; but full of fun trivia and deep dives into behind the scenes work. It’s also great to see some of the knock-offs Bond inspired!

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This starts off well, but soon devolves into essentially a movie guide with capsule reviews, some behind-the-scenes information and reception data from the time period. Interesting as a movie guide or watch list, but I was expecting more of a study of the time and the influence of Bond at a deeper level.

James Bond was an integral part of sixties pop culture. Both the books andfilms made a mark and influenced culture in a way that changed it forever.
Thom Shubilla has written a book about all the movies from 1962-69 that were inspired by, parodied or just plain ripped off Ian Flemings creation. Some of them are quite well known like the two Derek Flint films and Dean Martins Matt Helm while others are more obscure. Even as an avid Bond fans since childhood I hadn’t heard of or seen a lot of these movies.

The book is divided into sections based on theme and country of origin. He starts off with an overview of the Bond films from the sixties. I guess it’s necessary as some sort of baseline but I found it the least interesting part of the book since it was mostly stuff I already knew.
Then follows a section on the biggest of the Bond-inspired franchises. That’s Flint and Helm who I already mentioned and also includes Harry Palmer.
I’m not actually sure if Palmer should be included since he was created to be an anti-Bond character and both the books and the movies feel a lot more grounded than Bond. Later in the book Shubilla also includes The spy who came in from the cold which has the same issues regarding Bond. But then again you can argue that a reaction against something also has a relationship to that very thing.

The rest of the book goes through spy movies from USA, UK, Europe in general (the eurospy genre) and Mexico and finishes with spies on TV.
My main complaint with this book is that it is just a list of movies with little critique from the author or other context than chronological. It gets a bit tedious just reading summaries of movies. On the other hand my to-watch-list grew A LOT while reading.
I also must commend Shubilla for his research. A lot of his material has been gathered from trades like Variety and from contemporary reviews in American and English papers. My guess is that there actually isn’t much other written about this kind of movies. In that Shubilla has done a wonderful groundwork.
This book will serve as reference for Bond fans and people interested in sixties pop culture for years to come.

DNF @ 20%

Utterly dull and very unimaginatively written. The author is all too happy to state things and move on, but even the stating is done in a manner so completely bereft of personality that one wonders just how the idea of such a writing style would gel with the likes of James Bond and Napoleon Solo.

Thomas Shubilla's James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze was a very interesting, well-researched and informative look at how the popularity of the James Bond franchise had a huge copycat effect particularly on other movies and television shows in the 1960s. The opening section goes into great detail about the Bond movies themselves. I've read several books and watched documentaries about the making of the films and so a lot of this material wasn't anything new to me, but I still found out some interesting anecdotes I'd never heard before. The second and third parts focus on the movies and tv shows that Bond inspired and the spy craze that popped up all around. I think this is where the book really shines as in delves into more unknown (at least to me) territory and I know that my "to-watch" list has grown exponentially as the descriptions and accompanying pictures have sparked a real desire to watch so many of these movies and shows that Bond inspired.

Special Thanks to Globe Pequot, Applause and Netgalley for the digital ARC. This was given to me for an honest review.

I recommend this—but only if you are really into the subject matter.. The book offers little insight or analysis—it’s more a tedious summary of the various movies snd tv shows relating yo the subject. But I got intermittent entertainment as it brought back fond memories of watching many of the movies and shows with my father in the 60s

For a while there, back in the Sixties, the western world went spy crazy with stories about secret agents, espionage operations and fiendishly inventive weapons and gadgets saturating many areas of popular culture. At the forefront of this trend was, of course, the James Bond films which launched in 1962, All of the first four Sean Connery outings, plus George Lazenby's notorious misfire which all appeared during the decade are covered in detail here. The book also covers other successful intelligence-themed entertainments of the time such as the three Harry Palmer films, James Coburn's two outings as agent, Derek Flint and TV favourites, The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, Mission Impossible and Dangerman. The numerous parodies of the era such as the notoriously chaotic 1967 production of Casino Royale, Carry On Spying and Hanna-Barbera's The Man Called Flintstone are also looked at.
The book is meticulously researched with lots of quotes from contemporary interviews (Michael Caine was unworried about typecasting: "I may be (Harry) Palmer for the rest of my life"), often sexist 1960s film reviews (The Guardian's Richard Roud complained "there aren't so many juicy girls" in From Russia With Love as in Dr. N0), details of merchandise, box office receipts (Modesty Blaise was the forty-first highest grossing film of 1966 apparently), cast and crew information and top trivia (Sean Connery did not appear in the first opening 007 gun barrel sequences: stuntman Bob Simmons did). The book sometimes repeats itself and occasionally slips up (Peter Sellers dd not appear in The Goon Squad. It was The Goon Show).
But, generally, this is great. Author Thom Shubilla deserves special credit for also covering the less well received contributions to the genre (i.e. all the rubbish) so well too. If you want to know everything there is to know about Goldfinger alongside Vincent Price's Dr. Goodfoot and the Girl Bombs, this is the book for you.

A treasure trove of facts and figures.

This book covers the period 1962 to 1969, when the spy craze was sweeping the globe, prompted in no small part by the release of first James Bond film. In fact the first part of it covers the franchise in minute detail, offering fact after fact on budgets, casting, and production, as well as a liberal sprinkling of anecdotes.

The next section examines the various other secret agent franchises, including, Matt Helm, Derek Flint, and Harry Palmer, plus many of the spy-comedy films from the US, Europe, and Mexico and discusses the impact and influence James Bond had on them. The section on Euro-Spy espionage is particularly interesting. Even "The Man from Flintstone" gets a mention. The book is brightened up by a selection of B&W images and film posters.

The final section covers spy TV, from Man from UNCLE, through Danger Man to Mission Impossible, and again, includes anecdotes and facts from a variety of sources.

Across the book there's an impressive discussion on budgets, casting, production, box office numbers/ratings, development and merchandising, The author has clearly carried out A LOT of research, as borne out by the extensive bibliography.

My main issue with this book is that it examines the entire subject from a very American perspective - so definitely aimed at the US market. I haven't read many other books like this, so I'm not clear on whether or not it brings anything new to the table, but you can't fault the author's enthusiasm for his subject.

Definitely one for die-hard fans.