Well, it's part of the whole history of James Bond. You can't discount it. For better or for worse it's part of the history. It's not one of the MGM/UA James Bond movies. There's a lot of crossover. Sean Connery, McClory.

I assume you're talking about the feature and not the TV production. Do I think it's part of the canon? I'd answer this the same way. It's part of the history of Bond. Its title, if nothing else, comes from Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale. It's an adaptation, even though it's a satire. So I'd say yes, it's part of the whole Bond history; but you have to put it in the proper context, the proper perspective. They chose to do a send-up rather than a straight adventure.

Could you see them doing Royale as a straight adventure?

I believe MGM now has the rights to it. Sony had the rights. When MGM and Sony came to a settlement last year, part of the deal was that they would let MGM have the rights to Casino Royale. As to whether they will ever make Casino Royale as a regular part of their series, I have no idea. I think that that movie would end up departing a fair amount from the novel because it is not exactly in the same tone as Fleming's subsequent novels. Much of it is dark. There're some dark, torturous kinds of sequences that would not fit within what the Bond films are. It's clearly James Bond, there's no question. It's part of that universe and the character is true. But the style of the novel is not what would translate directly as From Russia With Love or On Her Majesty's Secret Service did. I think they could certainly use the basic villain and the setting and all of that but they'd have to depart in many ways. I've heard a lot of talk that Quentin Tarantino has always wanted to make Casino Royale. Since it is a very violent type of novel it would be right up his alley which is probably why he wants to do it. But I don't think at this time that you're going to see that as part of the MGM Bond series as Fleming wrote it.

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I don't know. I've thought about it many times, but don't have an actor in mind right now. I've heard that Brosnan recently signed to do another three or four. There was a lot of talk where he was saying 'no', after the next one, that's it. Then he made a deal and supposedly signed for a batch of them. I'd rather wait and see at that time who's on the scene.

Do you think if Brosnan had started doing Bond films right after Remington Steele rather than having NBC pull that contract item that cost him the job the first time, would he be doing as well? Would we have the same Bond we see him as now?

I think it was good that it worked out the way it did. He was younger then and I think that with the aging and the maturity and things that happen to a person in one's life, it was just the right time in terms of his age and his ability as an actor. He honored that contract, yet it all worked out in the end.

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I suppose that could still happen. In fact, there is a new LeCarre' adaptation now in the works. I'm noticing that there are always new spy films being made. Pierce Brosnan is doing a spy flick that is non-James Bond. It's funny -- he wants to take a break from Bond then he turns around and does another spy piece. I think Sean Connery is also doing a CIA-type, ex or older agent kind of film. I just read the other day they're remaking a spy film from the sixties - Quiller Memorandum.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. seems to be in perpetual development. They've been talking for years about it and John Davis apparently has rights. Norman Felton, the producer of U.N.C.L.E., recently told me that Davis just renewed the option again. They keep hiring new writers to do new scripts. I don't know what the latest is. It's supposed to be made through Warner Bros. --

Uh oh…

-- which has done Wild Wild West and The Avengers movies.

Death-knell. (groan) I'm so sorry... You know, they signed Smith for at least a two-film deal (sequel option) with Wild Wild West. I'm sure they've bought him out of the second at this point.

I haven't heard talk on anything more from that. Everyone seems to agree that this isn't a good idea. So I guess we've heard the last of WB's Wild Wild West, hopefully, and The Avengers. Let's just let it rest. I was always excited about this sort of thing since back when I was developing an U.N.C.L.E. feature. I still do think many of these could become excellent movies, but I just don't see it happening at all. I'm at the point now that I'd rather it not be done because they're being done so badly.

They're just awful, almost malicious in intent. You can say that for sure of Wild, Wild West. It's a very cruel, filthy little script when you read it. Very unkind and spiteful, and extremely mean-spirited. It's astounding!

It is. You have to wonder what's going through the minds of these people who are writing and making these things. It's interesting that with Wild, Wild West, with The Avengers, with so many of these, as they are in production, you continually read interviews with the people behind them who express their great affection for the property. How they grew up with the shows and how they're going to honor them with what they're doing. And then you see what is actually made and wonder what the heck is going on.

Again, I believe that good movies can be made based on these series. I mentioned in my Times article that I saw The Mask of Zorro being the type of movie that Wild Wild West should have been.

People really picked up on that.

I'm glad. I thought Zorro was a wonderful film.

So did a lot of other people. It made money, which is the studio bottom line, isn't it?

When I saw Zorro, I thought the tone of it is what a Wild Wild West feature film should be. And then you end up with what you ended up with! It should have been like Zorro. It should have been a great adventure film with great wit and the right style of humor. Not bathroom-toilet humor and disrespect and all the racial garbage/slurs. You could do something great!

After I saw The Avengers, to my mind I thought immediately how it could have been done. One of the big mistakes is these people are going after "trademarks". In The Avengers movie, it was the bowler hat and the cat suit and whatever they made the biggest deal about. The obvious, obvious things. The posters saying something about 'saving the world, the weather, and it's tea time'. In the TV show, they didn't even drink tea, they drank champagne! They get all these things wrong. It's like this giant warp from the sixties where people think they know these things, yet they don't go after the "soul" of these properties, if I can use that term. I don't want to take this too far out here. But they're missing the boat totally.

I think they're obviously paying people to tell them about the show, what the show is. They're taking the superficial and going with it. The translation isn't holding up, clearly. They need to *see* what its about, what's really going on. You probably ought to like what you see at some level as well. They're being told the characteristics of a certain show, and that's it. Most of the time when these guys say they're a fan of the show, just throw it out the window. It's publicity and PR talking.

If you're going to make movies like that, at least don't call it The Wild, Wild West. Don't call the characters Jim West and Artemus Gordon. When you're making Mission: Impossible and you're going to turn Jim Phelps into a traitor and then kill him at the end, please make him another character. Don't call it Mission: Impossible.

Oh, but 'name recognition', you know. Considered one of the main reasons for these tv remake things. That's actually a big issue with Wild, Wild West. Prior to the series, people often referred to the Old West as The Wild West. But not The Wild, Wild West. In fact, that was the original title of the show: The Wild West. Someone at CBS added the extra "wild" to the title.

But since the series, it sounds cool so people have borrowed that and use it to refer to the Old West, among other things. You hear it all the time. There are tons of web pages that come up in a search for the literal string Wild Wild West, and a majority are actually Old West pages or references to same. So now when WB goes to do a film called Wild Wild West, they don't even really have the series name recognition! So why not change the name??

Heck, their preview audiences' reactions, rather, their lack of reaction to the title, told them this over and over, and it was apparently ignored.

Also, if you look at the audience, I don't know what percentage of the audience is people who grew up on the show and are coming back like you and I are, saying, 'I remember this, it must be great, let's go see it.' And how many people have never heard of the old show because they're another generation or are just Will Smith fans or whatever... -So- -call- -it- -something- -else-. Don't take something great and rake it over the coals.

I don't know if any of your people are into The Prisoner, but Universal is doing a Prisoner feature. This has been a long time coming, but they just made a deal now.

What's Patrick McGoohan saying about this?

McGoohan is onboard. He's onboard as executive producer, but they're not using his script. I think it's the writer or director of The Usual Suspects -- which I actually liked -- who has come on board and is writing it and/or producing it. I don't know if McGoohan has any kind of veto power or say or anything, but at least his name is there on the credits. It's very interesting -- it made me more than a little concerned when I read the quote from the guy who's making this. He said "I grew up on this show and I am in love with this show. This is the best thing I could ever do, and in fact when they were filming it and I was a little kid, I demanded my parents take me to the set. I had to go to The Village and see the set." So any of us who would read something like that would relate to it and think, "This sounds good because I would say that." But knowing what we now know about people saying these things, it makes you very worried.

Also, Get Smart is in development. They were originally talking Jim Carrey for Maxwell Smart. He eventually passed and the last name I've read is Tom Hanks.

Does Buck Henry have anything to do with this film?

Not that I've heard. See? That's the whole problem. I Spy is in development, too. That also was a Warner Bros. project for a while.

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[laughing] That's something I can't comment too much on. There's a rumor that he is now sequestered, hidden away in Northern California with an office being shared with a printing company. He's renting a corner in that office trying to get his clients some work. That's all I can comment about it.

I apparently don't know the Ziggy Freed story.

One day it's going to be coming out and a lot of people are going to be very surprised.

You're writing that script, are you?

We'll see. I don't know yet.

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I wish I had. You know, you have so many regrets in your life and that's one of them because *twice* at Nate n' Al's I saw him. Nate n' Al's is one of my favourite places to eat.

According to Mrs. Martin, it was one of Ross's as well.

It was after Wild, Wild West, and I don't recall if it was after the TV movies or during, but I was eating across the aisle from Ross. I was sitting there by myself, eating and, as I usually do, reading a newspaper. I looked across the aisle and just four or five feet away there was Ross Martin with his wife and they were sitting there eating. And I think, "Wow! It's Ross Martin! How cool!" And I just didn't go over and say hello.

You didn't want to bother him at dinner.

Yeah. Because so many people come up and bug recognizable people. So I didn't. But you know, today I sure would have said hello. I saw him there twice. Another time I remember pulling out of the Nate n' Al's parking lot and, as I pulled out, I looked in my rear-view mirror and there's Ross Martin in my rear-view mirror. I think he was in a Rolls Royce. I just looked at him and then he drove by, and I thought "I really should have talked to him," you know.

So I think I've learned my lesson. Last year at the world premiere of The World is Not Enough, Desmond Llewelyn, who played Q, was there. We went to a wonderful party afterwards. I thought "I have got to say hi to him". At least I wasn't disturbing his dinner. He was standing there so I went over and introduced myself and shook his hand. He was very kind. Then I thought, "Wait a minute!" I had brought a camera with me but I didn't want to use it because these are people I work with and I didn't want to seem like a fan, you know? But I had this camera just in case and I thought, "I'll probably never see him again in my life. This is an opportunity. Rather than get his autograph, I'd rather have a picture taken with him." So I asked him if it was possible to get a picture taken and he said, "Sure!" I just grabbed whoever was there, the place was chaotic, and said, "Can you get a picture?" So we put our arms behind each others' backs and they snapped the picture.

Good for you!

It was a month later that someone from the studio called me and said, "Did you hear the news?"

What sort of cosmic collision is that when they introduce the John Cleese character in the film and within a month Llewelyn is dead -- not of old age?

Right. In a car accident. Well, I think it's unfortunate and I think it's just coincidental. That's all. I don't really attribute anything else to it because strange things happen all the time.

Does that coincidence jump out at you at all?

The timing is odd, there's no question. But you know, he was getting much older. Apparently, from what I heard, he was driving by himself. His family was concerned. He had a driver who would drive him to these autograph sessions, but he just wanted to drive on his own. When you get older, things can happen. It can happen to any of us, but certainly when you are getting older your reflexes slow down. Things can happen. The producers wanted him back for the next film along with John Cleese, who had been introduced for an eventual transition. And then that tragedy occurred very shortly after that sequence appeared in the movie.

So they'll have just John Cleese in the next movie.

Yes...

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Now I have a question for your readers. Did anyone like The Saint, with Val Kilmer? (You can respond to Danny's question here.)

I personally didn't see it. I know a number of people who did actually like it.

That was a personal favourite of mine. I think it was a Paramount film, if I'm not mistaken. I really liked it. It's not perfect. I think it has problems at the end. It doesn't even necessarily follow the television series that much. It's just a good movie.

It didn't make much at the box office.

It wasn't successful and you know, most people I talked to didn't like it at all. Two, maybe three people who I've spoken to also loved it. It's a great action-adventure film.

Val Kilmer elicits so many feelings, both positive and negative, on his own that this may have crippled the movie from the start, unfortunately. Kilmer has a reputation as badly behaved. That may have tainted some of the critics.

That's too bad because I was hoping there'd be a sequel.

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In terms of the James Bond universe, where does The Wild, Wild West stand in your opinion?

Well, it was promoted as 'James Bond in the West' and I think it is a western James Bond in many ways. The term 'James Bond' has almost become an umbrella term for the genre. When you say 'James Bondian', someone could be talking about The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, Wild, Wild West or anything when in fact each of these, even though they're within that genre, have their own certain idiosyncrasies. They have their own identities. My whole interest in the genre has been from the sixties forward. I never really studied or got into the spy genre prior to that. Certainly there have been spy films since the beginning of filmmaking, but my interest came about with that 'Bondian' style, that sort of larger-than-life dynamic. Exciting editing, directing style, the beautiful women, the gadgetry, the thrills, that whole thing which began in Dr. No and then suddenly took off in all these other areas.

There is definitely an element of James Bond in The Wild, Wild West. Of course, you can also point to how it is different, looking at either the characters or the overall story and format of the show. You can look at some episodes where it feels very Bondian. By the time you get to the end of the episode with Robert Duvall, The Night of the Falcon, where the giant cannon is about to go off. it's pretty easy to relate it to a Bond film: he finally meets the villain and the countdown. And he's got to stop him. And he fights all the bad guys. And he romances the woman along the way. And he uses gadgets to survive. There's a lot of parallels there. It differs from Bond in that West works with Artemus Gordon. But even that had an evolution: In the beginning, Artemus didn't get the women as much. It was usually Jim who ended up with the ladies, while Artemus kind of stood back and observed.

The change is very similar to what occurred in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. If you look at the pilot, David McCallum's character was very minor. Napoleon Solo was the man from U.N.C.L.E., that's why they called it The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. Because McCallum had such an appeal, the character started to grow. Finally the two characters were on par with each other in terms of their screen time, the romantic element, and so forth.

So all these shows evolved. The fight scenes in The Wild, Wild West changed throughout the series from very tailored martial arts to big barroom brawls. It was the staging of those stunt scenes which I love. The Night of the Dancing Death, for instance, with the camera and the great martial arts stunt work that Conrad performs with all those thugs coming at him. The moves that he makes are just really cool. Eventually, as the seasons progressed, you didn't see much of that. It's mostly people being thrown through windows and so forth.

Look at Night of the Dancing Death or Night of the Red-Eyed Madmen with Martin Landau, where West is up against villains who are *so* good in physical combat. West looks at them and says, "He's the best I've every seen," and you know West is really good at what he does. I love the scene with the cat in The Train in Dancing Death when the cat flips as a set-up for how West will parallel that later. Those are nice touches that end up getting lost later on, I think. The Wild, Wild West held its own pretty well throughout all four seasons. There are some episodes that were, of course, rather weak. But in spite of the rare clunker, The Wild, Wild West held up very well. I have found that in most TV series, the pilot is usually superior, and done with such artistry. The characters are cared for so much. Usually through the first season there's this incredible effort to keep to the bible and the integrity of the characters. Later, they become very comfortable and the writers get looser. That just tends to happen.

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Can you rank all these spy shows from the sixties in terms of quality, "like"ability, Longevity? The Wild, Wild West is often treated as 'a red-headed stepchild'. People don't seem to know what to do with it in the genre and just slap the "western" label on it.

To me, The Wild, Wild West is definitely in the Top-5 in the genre. When I think of the real quality shows, I immediately think of Secret Agent with Patrick McGoohan -- originally called Danger Man. Those hold up so well. The quality is incredible in terms of the production values, the scripts, the performances, the directing. It's interesting to watch that show because you will see such simple plots and scenes. McGoohan has such charisma and his acting ability is so good. You'll see a scene where it's just him and one or two other people and not much is happening. It could be that he has to hide a wounded British agent in a foreign country and a woman is coming who works in that country and she's not supposed to know, and he's just hiding somebody and he has to tell her something to fool her. It's a lengthy sequence, mostly dialogue. McGoohan is just mesmerizing. This is not the kind of thing in my opinion that today's mass audiences are going to run to the theatre and go 'whoa!' Most people expect the big special effects and shoot'em up, and so on. Yet in Danger Man they can take something simple and make it so captivating to watch the drama of it, to see what's going to happen when you're with this character. It's great!

Also right up there for me I would put The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but not the entire four years.

One and four?

One, two and four. There are one or two great third season episodes. But yes, take away the third season. Most of those first season episodes that Sam Rolfe produced are great. They are just fantastic. It's a different style than something like Secret Agent. I don't like to use the word 'science fiction' but went more in that direction in terms of bizarre elements, some of the gadgetry, and U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. More fantastic. There are some excellent episodes: The Vulcan Affair, The Mad, Mad Tea Party Affair, The Iowa Scuba Affair. The second season shifted a little- a little less melodrama, but extremely cool.

Do you think this was the "colour effect" that seemed to hit every single show of the time? They went into colour and went silly. (aka "The Batman effect")

Not at all. Both West and U.N.C.L.E. were in top form during their initial color seasons. It was Batman and the success of other satires that turned U.N.C.L.E. toward camp in '66 and '67. We associate black-and-white with quality and class because the greatest amount of care and originality and invention occurs at the beginning-and in the beginning they were filmed in black-and-white.

Fourth season Man From U.N.C.L.E. was very good. I don't think it quite hit the level of the first season, but they sure tired hard; it was a very excellent attempt.

So we have Danger Man, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. --

I'd add Mission: Impossible to that Top 5 list because that was a quality show. It definitely fell in later seasons. It became very routine and robotic and kind of uninteresting. But it kept to the formula which is more than I can say about the movie. Even the mediocre Mission: Impossible TV episodes tried to maintain the formula, which is sorely missing from the movie. That was a really well crafted show. Different from the other shows because it wasn't as people-oriented, it was the mission, the orchestration. It was a puzzle that got put together. Some of my favourites include the pilot, which was great, and The Mind of Stephan Miklos. A friend of mine wrote that, Paul Playdon.

Playdon wrote some Wild, Wild Wests.

He did. I just love some of his stuff, they're so intelligent. The best stories are the ones that make the audience think.

Okay - Danger Man, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, then...

Definitely The Wild, Wild West. Because it was very inventive, imaginative. The chemistry between the actors. The stories. The music.

Richard Shores has a big following.

I love Richard Shores. He's absolutely great. I think he did fourth season Man From U.N.C.L.E. too. Just fantastic score. That's one thing that really made a lot of these shows. 1970s and '80s shows I just don't follow much because I don't see the quality. I don't know that the music has been anywhere as good. I've watched some of these recent shows like Secret Agent Man and Spy Game and the various attempts to recreate that sixties style.

You watched Secret Agent Man? Mr. Sonnenfeld's recent unsuccessful venture into television?

I saw two episodes.

That good, huh?

It's not worth going into. But back to what I wanted to say, which was that the music on these series is a part of the whole magic. You'd go away and hum the music -- that's part of the coolness of the whole thing. It's just shocking that they didn't use Richard Markowitz's theme except for, what, three seconds in that West feature film.

And they didn't credit him.

Unbelievable!

And they sure as heck didn't pay him.

Incredible! Is he still around?

No. He passed away in '94 or 5.

Now having seen the Wild Wild West movie, I am glad they didn't use his music. Don't contaminate it with that film. It's the same as The Avengers. They didn't use the theme music miraculously until the very end when suddenly they clink their glasses and the theme music comes on. And you go 'Oh, so now they're finally discovering that this is supposed to be The Avengers'. Why? Just to say, "By the way, we know this is The Avengers." To placate you or something.

So back to The Wild, Wild West. The theme to The Wild, Wild West, and that opening title sequence which are just so classic, and the actors, the gadgetry. That's a great series. A classic series. I put it up there with the others.

And number five is?

Oh, I have to go to number five? Let me think...

I haven't heard The Avengers yet.

I know. Hard to choose. Let me tell you all the ones I'm thinking about. The Avengers. I Spy. I Spy was a classic. It had its high and low points, too. It was great because it brought a whole new side to spying in the real world. Even though it had action and escapism, they dealt with some issues.

And then a lot of time they took the camera out and said 'hey -- look! We're on location in Calcutta! Look!' Then nothing happens...

I think that was mostly the third season. They did some of that. It was like, 'Do your shtick and we'll follow you with the camera.' But you mentioned The Avengers, and absolutely it's up there. That's a classic, classic show. So is The Prisoner. And here's one that I don't know if many people remember: T.H.E. Cat. It's a half-hour long, but such quality they put into 30 minutes. It's Robert Loggia starring as a professional bodyguard, former cat burglar.

What did T.H.E. stand for?

Thomas Hewitt Edward ... Cat. Lalo Schifrin did the music. Incredibly great musical score. Really cool title sequence. Just a cool show. If you look at the pilot, To Kill a Priest, it's riveting. It has such style. It's not a spy show, but I classify it in the same area because it has that motif. It came at that time, 1966 NBC, one season. It didn't do well. It was on at 9:30 between Avengers and U.N.C.L.E. on NBC. It was so well done. The writing was so good. They'd have long stretches where it was just dialogue, with Cat talking to a villain. Some of it was almost like poetry. Very artsy. Then there'd be this huge action sequence. Loggia did his own stunts for the most part. He had a sleeve knife, similar to the West sleeve gun, but it was a knife that came out. That was his only weapon. He also had a grappling hook that he'd use.

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So today there's nothing on television that comes even close to these shows at their height?

Sadly, no. At least not in this genre. Nobody seems to have a handle on it.

Is there a place for the spy genre in today's mass media market?