EYE OF THE NEEDLE (1981)

Director: Richard Marquand

Writers: Stanley Mann adapting Ken Follett’s novel

Producer: Stephen J. Friedman

Cast: Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, Christopher Cazenove, Ian Bannen, Philip Martin Brown, Jonathan Haley, Nicholas Haley, Alex McGrindle, Faith Brook, George Belbin, Barbara Graley, Rupert Frazer, Stephen MacKenna, Arthur Lovegrove, Barbara Ewing, Patrick Connor, John Bennett, David Hayman, Sam Kydd, John Paul, Bill Nighy, Allan Surtees, Rik Mayall

During World War II, England-based Nazi spy Henry Faber (Donald Sutherland) is trying to deliver film to his German handlers. Faber’s information could jeopardize the allies’ D-Day invasion of Normandy. Fleeing the British authorities, Faber steals a boat, gets caught in a terrible storm, and is shipwrecked on Storm Island, off the coast of Scotland. He finds shelter with the family of David and Lucy Rose (Christopher Cazenove and Kate Nelligan) and their young son, Jo (played by twins Jonathan and Nicholas Haley). David is embittered by the loss of his legs in an automobile accident. Ever since, David has been romantically distant from Lucy. The only other inhabitant on Storm Island is Tom, the lighthouse keeper. The lonely Lucy is drawn by the interest that Henry Faber shows in her, and they begin an affair. While cold-blooded spy Faber begins to reveal some humanity to Lucy, he is still intent on his rendezvous with a German U-boat.

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Based on the bestselling novel by Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle is a terrific thriller that succeeds by becoming more intimate, and therefore more suspensefully intense, as it progresses. The fate of the Free World could be decided by just the chance meeting of two people on opposing sides of World War II who have a spontaneous affair. The story builds believably with plenty of intrigue and drama. One never gets the impression that any characters are doing “movie stuff.” The stakes are high enough without any heroic or villainous posing and outrageous stunts or pyrotechnics. Best of all, the engaging lead performances remind us that emotional needs can cause anyone to take risks.

Donald Sutherland was such an unconventional presence that he could play sympathetic leads, eccentrics, and villains. As Nazi spy Henry Faber, Sutherland affects a relaxed and pleasant facade while mingling with his British co-workers and neighbors. He will revert to his heartless efficiency to kill anyone who endangers his mission. Henry Faber’s codename of “The Needle” is earned by his weapon of choice, a switchblade stiletto. When Faber meets Lucy, we suspect that his initial decency is all just a part of his act. Yet, as Lucy has her first private conversation with him, we see Faber begin to express some genuine feeling. At this point, we realize Faber is starting to bond with someone as he may never have done before.

Kate Nelligan’s Lucy Rose is such a sympathetic and decent person that we don’t resent her having a sexual tryst with a charming stranger behind her bitter husband’s back. She has tried to create intimacy with David Rose, yet he is unable to accept his disability in their relationship. After four years on the remote Storm Island in this hopeless marriage, her unreciprocated need for romantic love seems an understandable provocation for her infidelity. Nelligan’s tender beauty could convince me of anything, yet it is her understated sensitivity in her performance that has us rooting for her every second. She is both sympathetic and genuine.

The suspense in this thriller is both mortal and emotional. Beyond the concerns of whether the German spy Henry Faber can accomplish his mission, we have the intrigue of his affair with Lucy Rose that seems to be exactly what these two people need. However, Faber is concealing his true background from the woman he has very quickly become involved with. As the affair continues, the dynamic keeps changing because of Faber’s mission-related actions. This makes for some uncomfortable and harrowing moments for Lucy in their affair. Despite the gravity of Eye of the Needle’s espionage plot, Stanley Mann’s script and Richard Marquand’s direction zero in on the emotions of Henry Faber and Lucy Rose that drive the story to a conclusion that could decide the outcome of World War II.

Few movies have benefitted as much from a shooting location as this one. The Storm Island setting that the last two-thirds of the film centers on is really striking. It has a raw, pristine beauty with its expanses of green grass bordered by the magnificent cliffs above the restless ocean. It would seem to be a truly idyllic location for romance, but its isolation is also made very apparent and raises the risk for our heroine. This location was actually the Isle of Mull, an island of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The island was not as desolate as the selective camera angles would have us believe.

Director Richard Marquand also directed the horror film The Legacy (1978) and the thriller Jagged Edge (1985). George Lucas was so impressed with Marquand’s work in Eye of the Needle that he hired him to direct the third produced Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi (1983). Richard Marquand died much too young at the age of 49.

Eye of the Needle is a war film for people who don’t like war films. It has romance, intrigue, danger, and suspense that never strains credulity and challenges us emotionally.

DR. NO (1962)

Director: Terence Young

Writers: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkley Mather adapting Ian Fleming’s novel

Producers: Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman

Cast: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Bernard Lee, Jack Lord, Lois Maxwell, Anthony Dawson, Eunice Gayson, John Kitzmiller, Zena Marshall, Peter Burton, Marguerite LeWars, Louise Blaazer, Yvonne Shima, Michel Mok, William Foster-Davis, Dolores Keator, Reggie Carter, Colonel Burton, Timothy Moxon (uncredited), Milton Reid (uncredited)

When British Intelligence operative John Strangways (Timothy Moxon) goes missing in Jamaica, British Secret Service Agent James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to investigate. Strangways was monitoring radio jamming transmissions detected during failed U.S. space program rocket launches from Cape Canaveral. Bond works in collaboration with CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jack Lord). Almost immediately upon Bond’s arrival in Jamaica, he is in mortal danger from various assassins.

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Former British Intelligence officer and writer Ian Fleming is supposed to have selected the name for his world-famous spy hero from an author’s name on a book about birds. Fleming wanted a plain sounding name, and he thought “James Bond” was the most plain one he could have imagined. In retrospect, it is the perfect name that only seems anonymous until the feats of the character himself make that name notable. It is a solid and decisive sounding name that is unforgettable after reading just one of Ian Fleming’s stories.

James Bond's creator, author Ian Fleming

James Bond debuted in Fleming’s 1953 novel, Casino Royale. With the Cold War well underway in a world coming to grips with mankind’s newfound nuclear capabilities for push-button Armageddon, Fleming’s British espionage operative grappled with international security threats that had readers on edge. There are those who prefer to ignore bad news and others who are all too aware of civilization’s precarious balancing act. To comfort that latter segment of the public, James Bond entertained them with the hope that there are always some anonymous brains and brawn bound by duty to spoil the schemes of the West’s enemies. To put it more simply, being entertained by Bond’s adventures was making the best of a bad situation.

All that Ian Fleming intended with his Bond stories was to provide some exciting escapism informed by his background as an intelligence officer, his own sense of refinement, and perhaps a bit of wish fulfilment. That last consideration certainly figured into the appeal of the Secret Agent 007 character to the readers. Despite the pooh-poohing of many critics, Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories were very popular. When it became known that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was a fan, the sales continued to climb.

Actor Barry Nelson as Bond. Jimmy Bond.

If ever there was a property ripe for filmic adaptation, it was James Bond. Before producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman arranged for making a film that they hoped would be successful enough to launch a series, American television beat them to the punch. Just one year after its publication, Casino Royale was adapted for a 1954 episode of Climax!, the CBS Network anthology series. While it is the first on-camera adaptation of Bond, Barry Nelson’s Americanized role of card shark Jimmy Bond is barely remembered. The constraints of a live television broadcast made palatable for the U.S. audience certainly compromised the fidelity to the edgier aspects of Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel. It would not be until 1962’s Dr. No movie that Bondmania would begin.

This first James Bond film in the “official” Eon Productions series is quite faithful to Ian Fleming’s novel. That novel was the perfect template for this inaugural film. It has the mix of sex and violence in an exotic locale and plenty of bizarre and grandiose incidents that can’t go unnoticed to the moviegoing public. There is the jet-setting aspect found in so many films of the 1960s that took the audience to picturesque, foreign locations. The title villain is a cold-blooded and grotesque genius housed in a secret, high-tech lair with plenty of henchmen. Dr. No is an operative of a vast organization bent on world domination. The violence is ruthless on the part of both the villain and the heroic James Bond. The hero is a man of class and sophistication that helps himself to the carnal pleasures of the many women that he attracts. As the film series progressed, the scripts would stray ever further from the source material they were adapting, yet those offbeat elements remained vital to the ongoing series’ success.

Every bit as vital was casting just the right actor in the lead role of James Bond. As is often the case for establishing larger-than-life series characters, going with a relatively unknown actor can have fantastic results. That actor can make the part their own without having to defy an already defined public image. That was never proven on a grander scale than with Sean Connery’s first performance as James Bond. To the millions of Bond fans since, Connery seems like an obvious choice, yet there were misgivings at the time. Both author Ian Fleming and director Terence Young thought that the Scottish actor from a working-class background was lacking the refinement that they envisioned for James Bond. Once Young had Connery outfitted with those Saville Row-tailored suits and imparted him with some urbane manner, Connery’s rugged good looks and confidence perfectly complimented the Agent 007 image.

While Sean Connery’s James Bond perfectly embodies the appeal of the character and immediately became an icon of the 1960s, he also roused some critical backlash. As with Ian Fleming’s original novels, the hero was often vilified for his promiscuity and cold-blooded violence. No doubt, the critics feared that the stories legitimized such behavior, which they thought made him just a glamorized thug. However, that was precisely the edgy attitude that thrilled the audience. It lent a visceral, human element to the extravagant adventures.

Dr. No is the launching pad for what would become the action film genre. It began instilling the norm of ruthless violence for movie heroes. There were certainly precursors to such deadly tactics in the Mr. Moto and Tarzan films, but the Bond films elevated the violence with cool panache. You don’t have the cliché of a witty one-liner delivered by the hero just before or after dispatching a villain without it being established by Connery’s Bond in Dr. No. This was not just a strained gag in this film and those to follow, it was an indication of the calloused conditioning of an experienced spy with a license to kill. The filmmakers also had a more pragmatic reason for this humor. They knew they were pushing movie norms with the sex and violence and thought that a bit of wit would take the edge off the bed-hopping and brutality as far as the censors were concerned. Fortunately, their instincts were correct, and Dr. No was released with its edge intact.

One of my favorite things about this first James Bond film is that we are allowed time to settle into this remote character’s circumstances. We get no background about him; we only get to know him through his actions. But we have the time to get fully engaged in Bond’s mission through brief moments of lonely intimacy. Bond’s simple precautions of lightly sprinkling talcum powder on his attaché case latches and pasting one strand of his dark hair across the gap between his twin closet doors will inform him if his hotel room has been searched while he is away. These are stealthy security procedures that remind us of how careful a lone secret agent must be. Arriving back in his room, Bond unwinds with a drink and presses the cold glass to his forehead after a trying, hot Jamaican day. These little touches ground the idealized Bond character in a mortal reality that allows us to vicariously experience his adventures.

We are also introduced to the series’ supporting cast of M (Bernard Lee), his commander at the British Secret Service, and Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), M’s secretary. In addition to assigning Bond to his missions, these two brought a bit of levity into the stories. M often criticizes Bond’s judgement and comes off almost like a school principal reprimanding an unruly student. He almost never fails to bristle at Bond’s sophisticated taste and independence. Miss Moneypenny and Bond always engage in unfulfilled flirtations, while trying to avoid the disapproval of the all-business M.

Aside from a more measured pace in Dr. No than later Bond films, what may strike the casual viewer is an absence of gadgets. That Secret Service gadget-master Q (Desmond Llewelyn) would not appear until the next film in the series. The only hardware Bond is dealt, at M’s insistence, is a Walther PPK pistol to replace Bond’s preferred Beretta.

Another recurrent character in the original Bond stories is CIA operative Felix Leiter. He is played in this first Bond film by Jack Lord. Here Leiter seems as capable and handsome as Bond himself. Lord brings a lot of presence to what seems like little more than a bit part as played by other actors in some later Bond films. Of course, Jack Lord would gain immortality as Steve McGarrett, the head of the law enforcement team in the original Hawaii Five-O television series (1968–80).

While Connery’s first scene introducing his James Bond ranks as one of the most significant events in cinematic history, Ursula Andress in a white bikini rising from the surf on a Jamaican island beach is a stunning sex symbol moment. That is one of the finest incarnations of that feminine fantasy image that would soon be termed the “Bond girl.” As the independent diver and seashell collector Honey Ryder, Andress combines carnal allure and naivety that makes her immediately likable. The Swiss actress had only been in a few small parts in a handful of films, but her Dr. No role brought her immediate international fame. Andress would go on to star in films of many genres with her unique beauty often being their most outstanding feature. It is rather ironic that the most famous Bond girl appearing in the first Bond feature film would later play Vesper Lynd in the Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967). The character of Vesper Lynd was Bond’s love interest in the very first Bond novel.

Ursula Andress, as Honey Ryder, is often celebrated as the first Bond Girl, but it is Eunice Gayson’s Sylvia Trench that is the first woman we see score with Bond after losing to him at the casino. Sylvia Trench is also the only one of Bond’s lovers to appear in more than one film until Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) in Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021). Perhaps the most noteworthy contribution the Sylvia Trench character made to the series is that she inspired Bond’s introduction, which has become one of the most famous film quotes of all time: “Bond. James Bond.”

Bond creator Ian Fleming’s inspiration for the title villain in the original Dr. No novel was Dr. Fu Manchu, the criminal protagonist of the popular series of novels by English author Sax Rohmer. No Bond film is complete without an ambitious, amoral mastermind. Joseph Wiseman’s Dr. Julius No sets the standard for Bondian supervillains. This calm, cold-blooded genius is a high-ranking operative of the international criminal organization SPECTRE. Wiseman’s performance is almost robotic, which compliments the accessories of his prosthetic, metal hands. Dr. No moves very deliberately, his face resists emotional expression, and he speaks in a controlled monotone that still manages to convey some suppressed rage and pride. His hospitality establishes another Bond film tradition of formality and good manners extended by the villain to his foe. Sometimes this is done as a token of respect and always as a display of supreme confidence.

Beginning in this very first James Bond film, music is an important stylistic element. That fantastic “James Bond Theme” serves as the opening credits musical accompaniment and would certainly become one of the most recognized tunes in the world. Monty Norman was credited as the theme’s composer, though it was arranged by future Bond film music maestro John Barry. There has been ongoing contention over the years about whether it was Norman or Barry that composed that famous theme music. Nevertheless, John Barry would go on to create many more terrific movie soundtracks, including eleven more for the Bond series.

Production designer Ken Adam’s ingenuity made the most of Dr. No’s modest million-dollar budget to create some distinctive sets that make the film seem positively plush. Adam’s sets in further Bond films would continue to create a grand, bizarre, and exotic atmosphere for Bond’s larger-than-life adventures.

With the success of Dr. No, Sean Connery became a superstar, the popularity of James Bond exploded, and Bondmania led to a wave of Bond-related merchandise. Such success meant that the spy film became a dominant genre in the 1960s. Secret agents proliferated on both the silver screen and television. Other notable series characters such as Matt Helm, Derek Flint, Harry Palmer, and Napoleon Solo were all imitating, spoofing, or countering the spy hero standard set by the James Bond films.

Dr. No is more than just the cinematic debut of Ian Fleming’s world-famous spy. Not only is it the beginning of one of the longest running and most lucrative film series in the world, but it is also enormously influential. The modern action film genre was truly spawned with Dr. No. Many descendants of that noble film lineage have become brash and brainless bastards. They engage in childish excess to gain attention. As a result, such films become more generic and ludicrous the more hyperactive they become. Unfortunately, some of the later Bond films have run the risk of inheriting some of those defective strains trying to remain relevant, rather than continuing to be the innovators. Dr. No can still show them all how to kick ass with style.

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN (1973)

Director: Richard Irving

Writers: Henri Simoun (Howard Rodman) adapting Martin Caidin’s novel Cyborg

Producer: Richard Irving  

Cast: Lee Majors, Martin Balsam, Darren McGavin, Barbara Anderson, Ivor Barry, Charles Knox Robinson, Anne Whitfield, Maurice Sherbanee, Robert Cornthwaite, Olan Soulé, Dorothy Greene, Norma Storch, George Wallace, John Mark Robinson

Former astronaut Steve Austin (Lee Majors) crashes during his test flight of an experimental aircraft for NASA. His injuries include the loss of his left eye, right arm, and both legs. Austin’s friend and attending physician, Dr. Rudy Wells (Martin Balsam), is approached by Oliver Spencer (Darren McGavin), the director of a government agency called the Office of Strategic Operations. Spencer is aware of Dr. Wells’ theories regarding the replacement of human limbs with functioning, lifelike, mechanical substitutes. He supplies Dr. Wells the millions of dollars needed to reconstruct Steve Austin into a cyborg (part man and part machine). After the surgery and recuperation, Spencer wants to employ Austin’s cyborg abilities on special missions for the OSO. However, Steve Austin is despondent about his strange, new condition and is reluctant to have any more to do with the government.

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The Six Million Dollar Man has always been a favorite movie of mine. When this boob tube brat saw its first broadcast on the ABC network, I just knew that it had to become a series. At that time, I had no idea that television films were ever made in the hope that high ratings would justify the development of an ongoing series; I was just so buzzed about it that I thought fate somehow had to intervene to make me happy by providing a weekly dose of this as a new video vice. Aside from its status as the pilot for the iconic 1970s television series (which inspired a succession of other superhero programs), The Six Million Dollar Man is terrific as a stand-alone science fiction film and was nominated for a 1974 Hugo Award.

This TV-movie is a streamlined adaptation of Martin Caidin’s 1972 novel Cyborg. He would write three sequel novels about his part-man and part-machine hero, Steve Austin. Caidin had an aviation and aeronautics background and wrote novels about World War II and space travel. His science fiction included current technological innovations and their future development and application. Caidin’s earlier 1964 novel Marooned (about the attempt to rescue NASA astronauts orbiting the Earth) had been made into the 1969 movie. Caidin first used the word “bionics” in his 1968 science fiction novel The God Machine, but he did not actually invent that term. (Don’t feel bad; I only just discovered that on my smart phone a minute ago.) Of course, it is The Six Million Dollar Man television series that made bionics a household word. Although Caidin’s novel refers to the technology implanted into his hero’s body as bionics, that term is never used in this pilot film.

The opening scene of the movie is the desert-based airstrip where NASA and the U.S. military are about to conduct an experimental test flight. This is the setup for the tragedy that puts the plot in motion and establishes the plight for our hero, former astronaut and test pilot Steve Austin. He makes a distinctive entrance that establishes his personality and foreshadows his fate. We first see Steve Austin as a lone figure approaching from a distance on a morning stroll returning from the barren desert onto the airstrip. This visually suggests Austin’s independence and his imminent isolation as a technological prototype which will eventually lead him to another even more lonely and dangerous desert-bound mission. We see Austin’s camaraderie while he makes small talk with the other NASA personnel as he returns, and we enjoy his nonchalance that irks the uptight general at the airstrip. Austin is immediately established as down-to-earth, confident, and likable. This is efficient storytelling and character building that puts us squarely on Austin’s side within the film’s first few minutes.

Steve Austin’s tragic test flight is very well realized with plenty of NASA stock footage intercut with Austin at the aircraft’s controls and radio chatter between him, escort planes, and the ground crew. The final footage of the ill-fated test flight is of an actual 1967 crash of the M2-F2 lifting body aircraft. That real accident’s NASA test pilot was Bruce Peterson. He was badly injured but recovered. Unfortunately, Peterson lost the sight in one eye due to an infection in the hospital.

Lee Majors was perfect casting for Steve Austin. He has the rugged good looks and athleticism that suit an action hero. Most importantly, Majors has a likability that has us rooting for him while he maintains some emotional reserve that makes us believe he has the discipline and stability to be capable of heroism. Before his acting career, Majors suffered a serious back injury playing college football that left him paralyzed from the waist down for two weeks. One must wonder if the memory of that trauma and the awful suspense of recuperation informed Lee Majors’ performance as the maimed and hospitalized Steve Austin. By 1973 Majors had already starred in three television series and would go on to star in several more. It is with this pilot film of The Six Million Dollar Man that Lee Majors begins his most famous role.

Martin Balsam’s movie immortality was already established as the private detective Milton Arbogast in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho (1960). He provides great support as Austin’s friend and physician, Dr. Rudy Wells. It is his character’s medical genius that restores our damaged hero to a full-bodied, superhuman state. Balsam’s narration as Wells immediately creates a sense of foreboding as the story begins and later explains the pioneering technology used to rebuild Steve Austin. Balsam’s Dr. Wells is both brilliant and compassionate. In the subsequent series, the role of Wells would be played by Alan Oppenheimer and Martin E. Brooks.

The great Darren McGavin appears in the crucial role of Oliver Spencer, the callous, government bureaucrat that has been planning to fund a cyborg project to create technologically enhanced humans for espionage and military operations. Spencer decides that Steve Austin’s catastrophe presents the perfect subject for a cyborg prototype. Spencer practically steamrolls over Dr. Wells when he presents him the proposition to turn the comatose Steve Austin into a cyborg. McGavin’s performance as the heartlessly pragmatic Spencer is a joy to watch. This role was just one year after McGavin had first portrayed the more admirable character of newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak in the record-setting TV-ratings blockbuster The Night Stalker (1972). That fine film would lead to a sequel, The Night Strangler (1973), and then the weekly series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75).

During Steve Austin’s recuperation and reconstruction, Jean Manners is his personal nurse. Her affection for her patient makes the physically rebuilt, emotionally damaged Austin confront his new self-image as a once ideal specimen of manhood that is now partly artificial. Jean Manners is played by incandescent-eyed Barbara Anderson. She had guest-starred on many television series and won the Primetime Emmy Award for her ongoing supporting role of Police Officer Eve Whitfield in the series Ironside (1967-71).

One of my favorite scenes of any sci-fi film occurs after Dr. Wells and his team have performed the surgery attaching Steve Austin’s artificial limbs. Austin regains consciousness and weakly quips to Wells, “Dr. Frankenstein, I presume?” The rest of the scene plays without dialogue as we see Austin lying in his hospital bed coping with the strange sensations of his new cyborg body and his mental struggle to make his mechanical attachments respond. As his new arm rises into his field of vision, Austin’s expression passes from strain to horror to hope. Majors, Balsam, and Anderson give very moving silent performances underscored by the awe generated with Gil Mellé’s idiosyncratic and powerful music.

Some departures from the source novel concern Steve Austin’s cyborg modifications. I am guessing that Austin in the movie has his right arm rather than the left arm replaced because actor Lee Majors was probably right-handed. In the novel, Austin’s artificial eye could not see, but it could take photographs with an enclosed miniature camera. Similarly, his bionics limbs had compartments concealing devices, such as an underwater breathing apparatus in his leg and retractable swimming flippers in his feet. The middle finger of his bionics hand could shoot poisoned darts. While Austin’s bionics limbs of the novel were tireless and formidable weapons, they were made much more powerful in the film. Lee Majors’ character can run sixty miles per hour and tear off car doors. His artificial eye can not only replicate human vision, but in the later episodes it can see in the dark and has zoom in capability over long distances or for up-close detail.

There are also interesting and effective character alterations from the Cyborg source novel. The ruthless Oliver Spencer originates in the TV-movie and provides more immediate dramatic conflict with the characters of Steve Austin and Dr. Rudy Wells than any government official does in the novel. Spencer’s agenda as the OSO director to develop Austin as a weapon is not enthusiastically received by either Wells or Austin. The movie also modifies Steve Austin’s character; he is a civilian member of the space program instead of a military colonel. This establishes Austin as a man not accustomed to military protocol, which makes him apprehensive about what the government and Oliver Spencer have planned for him. These changes in a simplified movie plot dial up the drama to deal with a couple more character concerns than the novel. Conversely, the ongoing television series would replace OSO director Oliver Spencer with the novel’s less antagonistic Oscar Goldman (Richard Anderson) as director of the OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence) and make Austin a USAF Colonel, after all.

While the film’s Steve Austin suffers the same accident and reconstruction as the novel’s character, he is made a bit more sympathetic. In the novel, Austin is chiefly concerned with his ability to gain mastery over the new technology that has been attached to him. He is also angered by his initial helplessness and fears that his manhood and virility are diminished by so much of his original body having been destroyed. The Austin of the film has those same emotions, but as he is not a member of the military, he is more suspect of the government and averse to killing. Despite the character’s trauma and frustrations, Lee Majors makes his Steve Austin more appealing than the somewhat surly and cold-blooded character of the novel.

It is Steve Austin’s ambivalence in the film that creates more tension for us during the mission Oliver Spencer assigns him. We wonder how capable and determined Austin will be when he is sent out into the desert of Saudi Arabia to rescue an important hostage held by terrorists.

The Six Million Dollar Man is another fine example of the compelling science fiction films that were being made in the early 1970s. I think science fiction should not just be a genre used to create fantasy worlds; it can speculate about the real-world consequences of scientific developments and their impact on individuals and society. Although this film depicts potential benefits of man merging with technology, it also stresses humanity and independence. As we become ever more dependent on technology, we must maintain and protect those vital human attributes.

THANK YOU, MR. MOTO (1937)

Director: Norman Foster

Writers: Willis (later Wyllis) Cooper, Norman Foster adapting John P. Marquand’s novel

Producer: Sol M. Wurtzel

Cast: Peter Lorre, Thomas Beck, Jayne Regan, Sidney Blackmer, Pauline Frederick, Philip Ahn, John Carradine, Sig Rumann, Nedda Harrigan, John Bleifer, Wilhelm von Brincken 

Japanese detective and international importer Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) has recovered one of a set of seven ancient Chinese silk scrolls. The complete set of scrolls would reveal the location of the tomb and treasure of the 13th-century Mongol emperor Genghis Kahn. Moto contacts Prince Chung (Philip Ahn) and his mother Madame Chung (Pauline Frederick) in Peiping, China. The Chung family has long been entrusted to safeguard the scrolls and keep the treasure’s location a secret. While Moto tries to encourage them to let him use their scrolls, there are others who will use any means to acquire all of the scrolls and take the Genghis Kahn treasure. 

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Peter Lorre will probably always be associated with unsavory characters ever since he achieved international fame playing a serial murderer of little girls in the German film M (1931). His small stature, unusual features, and soft Hungarian accent make him seem both harmless and distinctive. That impression abetted Lorre as a film menace. This is the kind of guy who would not seem threatening to most, yet the viewer finds him odd enough to be interesting and unsettling. That quality also made Peter Lorre a great choice for the devious and dangerous Mr. Moto. 

Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937) had been a big B-film hit for 20th Century Fox, which led to the series that the studio surely hoped for. The adaptation of novelist John P. Marquand’s popular Japanese secret agent maintained the character’s mystique and the popular formula of danger and mystery in exotic places. The main changes to the Mr. Moto film character made him a more central player in the story and his vocation became more international than strictly Japan-directed. 

Thank You, Mr. Moto was the second film released in the eight-film series. Once again Lorre’s Mr. Moto is the soft-spoken and enigmatic character that we join in the midst of an adventure, and we have to try to keep up with him for a good stretch of the picture before we know just what he is after. As in the first film, Mr. Moto seems vaguely sinister. For those who had not seen that first Moto movie, they may not be sure that he is supposed to be the good guy. He continues to nonchalantly dispose of people and, while they certainly seem to deserve it, we are not immediately sure of just how noble Moto’s objectives are. 

Also returning are Thomas Beck and Sig Rumann as different characters fulfilling more or less the same purpose as they did in the first film. Beck plays Tom Nelson, the male half of the young couple caught up in the danger. As Colonel Tchernov, Rumann is another baddie, though in a much smaller part this time around. 

In her first starring role, Jayne Regan plays Eleanor Joyce, the love interest of Tom Nelson. She would be cast as a different character in the very next Moto film to be released, Mr. Moto’s Gamble (1938). 

Genre film favorite John Carradine appears as the shady antiquities dealer Periera. As was the habit in this film series, Carradine was another actor who would play a different character in a later entry. He shows up for a larger role in Mr. Moto’s Last Warning (1938). 

The main heavy is Herr Koerger, a real bastard that is so intent on getting his greasy mitts on treasure that he’ll even resort to punching out an old woman. If Herr Koerger seems familiar, that’s because Sidney Blackmer plays him. Blackmer had been a prolific character actor appearing in films since 1914. He would also make many guest appearances in various television series. Blackmer memorably starred as another villain in “The Hundred Days of the Dragon,” the second episode of the classic science fiction television series The Outer Limits (1963-65). He is probably most remembered as half of the elderly, eccentric Castevet couple who room next door to Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby (1968). 

While the Mr. Moto movies were always fun, this adventure is probably the grimmest in the series. As the film approaches its climax, Moto makes a vow of vengeance to a dying man and the film ends on an unusually somber note.