Showing posts with label Antiques Roadshow. Show all posts

Friday 19 February 2021

Dr. No Film Poster-Scraped Off A Wall.

I was recently asked to appraise a Dr. No film poster that had been scraped off a wall by Jim the Scrim.

Film posters were not thought of anything more than wall-paper when it was pasted as a backdrop in a basement room. They were probably cheaper than wallpaper. per square yard. Who wanted them, they were everywhere.

Once scraped off it was put in a frame by a fan of the James Bond series of films.

So it was my job to look it over and put the poster into context, from its then...to its now. Had it appreciated.............................

Dr. NO

Poster designed by MITCHEL HOOKS AND DAVID CHASMAN

PRINTED IN ENGLAND by STAFFORD AND CO Nethinfield Nottingham and London.

It introduced The Spectre Organisation

The first James Bond film was not really tipped for anything spectacular but numerous films later its now a multi billion pound industry.

Ian Flemings sixth James Bond novel was originally written in 1956 for an episode of a never produced TV series 'James Gunn Secret Agent' with the episode being entitled Commander Jamaica. The working title of the film was 'The Wound Man'.

Dr. No was written in 1958 was a follow up to From Russia with Love.

LIVE AND LET DIE AND DIAMOND ARE FOREVER are written before Dr. No.

All the sets and furniture were filmed slightly smaller so Connery would look bigger.

It featured a stolen Francisco Goya picture. The Duke of Wellington, which was stolen in 1961 from London's national gallery.

Next to the stairs in Dr. No's dining area Bond stops to notice it. As he passes. Bond says "So there it is". The audience laughed as it had been widely publicized at the time. It was recovered in 1965. Read More Here

Director Terence Young said the idea for the stolen picture came from Irish co-screenwriter Johanna Harwood. Pictures from national Galleries were then thought of as priceless.

After viewing the film Ian Fleming simply said 'Dreadful Simply Dreadful'

He didnt like Sean Connery being Scottish as Bond was English and not upper class but then when the money started rolling in he wrote a Scottish Heritage into James Bonds past. A recent Bond film Skyfall brings in his Scottish ancestry.

Albert R Broccoli attended a screening of Darby O'Gill and The Little People (1959) and then asked his wife Dana to confirm Connery's sex appeal.

The theory is, BOND IS someone all men wanted to be. AND ALL WOMEN WANTED TO BE WITH.

Cary Grants daughter would say her father later regretted turning down the role.

Patrick McGoohan also turned down the role.

Dr. No was losely based around Fu Man Chu.

Fleming asked his good friend Noel Coward to play the role and he replied in a telegram

Dr No? No! No! No!

Dr. No is plotting to disrupt an American space launch from Cape Canaveral.

John Barry did not compose the theme but arranged and orchestrated it from a song by Monty Norman for a aborted musical called The House of Dr Biswas.

Anthony Sinclair the Saville Row tailor stated that a truly great suit would be able to stand up to a great deal of abuse such as grabbing by the lapels and still look great afterwards. Connery was asked to sleep in his suit and was stunned to wake up the next morning and it still looked great.

Filming lasted 58 days.

Bond sings 'Under The Mango Tree' the only time he has ever sung in a film.

Location manager was Chris Blackwell who later founded Island Records

It was filmed in 1962 but was delayed release in America till 1964 because of the Cuban missile crisis.

JFK was shot in in November 1963.

Now a lot of people say they remember where they were when they heard the news that JFK had been shot.

I remember exactly where I was when in the 70's I first saw Honey Rider came out of the sea in that white bikini.

I was at home with the family..My mother said “Wayne close your mouth you'll catch flies in it”.

Julie Christie was considered for the role.

The scene of Honey Rider walking out of the sea was shot at Laughing Waters, an estate owned by Mrs Minnie Simpson in St Ann Jamaica.

The discovery of Ursula Andress.

Brocolli wanted an unknown with a new face who wouldn't demand a large salary.

Two weeks before casting Honey Rider part had not been cast the producers then saw a photograph of an unknown actress in a wet T-shirt and offered her the part without even meeting her.

Ursula's voice was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl.

Andress salary for the film was $6000.

Ursula later says “I am amazed all all I did was wear this bikini not even a small one and whoosh overnight I made it”.

All my school chums were talking about it the next day.

Honeychile Ryder the last surviving member of an old plantation family in Jamaica.

Ursula won golden globe best newcomer 1964.

After the film bikini sales rocketed.

The Vatican issued a special communique expressing its disapproval of the movies moral sentiment.

In Catholic countries local artists were employed to redesign and all implied nudity was censored.

THE POSTER HAD TO BE CENSORED IN IRELAND AND we see URSULA UNDRESS, IN A DRESS. The small amount of posters were coloured in by hand with marker pens for display.

THE Girls in the poster were designed from studio shot STILLS. They seem to be props.

First Ursula Andress from a still that is retouched.

Second ZENA MARSHAL She is really The Model Hooks with Zena Marshals painted in face

Third Eunice Grayson was the first ever Bond Girl Sylvia Trench.

Fourth in line and FAR RIGHT is ZENA MARSHALL her hair has been altered to look like Margerite Le Wars playing Dr No's photographer Anabel Chung she was a Miss Jamaica 1961.

She played the role while serving the title.

Years later the famous white Bikini was sold for $35,000 dollars with commissions and taxes £41,000.

But recently has caused a new stir Read More Here

So would you have a priceless Francisco Goya on your wall or a Dr No Poster?

WELL TODAY ORIGINAL DR NO POSTERS SELL AT THE WORLDS LEADING AUCTION HOUSES........... alongside Goyas.

ONE 30 by 30 inch Quad POSTER Linen backed. In perfect conserved condition. It had an estimate of £12,000 to £18,000 sold for £87,000. 10^th April 2019.

A Dr No poster albeit a bigger size sold for £40,000 with commission and taxes.

Generally you could acquire one in good condition for around £25,000.

This poster was in quite bad condition though..................

So how much? For a poster scraped off a wall!!!!

Well, you will have to watch The Antiques Roadshow Sunday 21st February to find out.

Thursday 17 December 2020

The Christmas Truce-Cold Turkey

This year we are in the hands of politicians who have the power to keep us safe and save lives.

Politicians have decided people are allowed in 2020 to have a little respite from Covid and meet loved ones in a limited way over the festive period.

Many think this is too lenient. Who am I to say.

It's a sort of truce.

There are politicians and there are murdering politicians and just over a hundred years ago, during the First World War most were the latter.

Twenty years ago while running a campaign to save the Chambre Hardman archive for the people of Liverpool I received a phone call with the offer of help.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2020/09/edward-chambre-hardman-59-rodney-street.html

“It's Lady French” she had said on the telephone.

Expecting to meet an old dud in a tweed suit I was surprised, as she was quite young. We chatted over a coffee and after a while I asked her about her title.

“Oh my Grandfather got his title from World war One, Lord French”

“Wasn't he that murdering General that sent hundreds of thousands of people over the top to death”

She looked at me hardly surprised and said “Yes that's him”.

I did not receive any assistance, though we stayed friends.

We have had the hundred years commemorations for WWI.

Individual stories of heroism has given way to the endless lists of tragic deaths.

Murdering Generals have been replaced by stories of heroes.

Recently during a recording at an Antiques Roadshow valuation I was asked to appraise a FA Cup Final medal from 1914.

King George V presented the medal and was, at that time the patron of the Football League.

Not to give too much away as it has not been aired yet.

The recipient of the medal was a bit of a card and the story that unfolded was of extreme interest to me. The story is mesmerizing. I hope I have done it justice. It will be aired sometime in 2021.

I learnt a lot from delving into these war years. I learnt a lot through football.

If I don't learn something new every day I am very disappointed.

I entered the debate before Liverpool became European capital of Culcha in 2008. (Some people were saying the only culture in Liverpool, was, in the yogurt, in the fridge, in the Kwik Save, in Old Swan). But I disagreed. The debate of' 'Is football culture? Intrigued me, as I grew up a stones throw from Anfield. Football is part of my, modern day culture. Its in my DNA. All great cities such as Napoli and Rome embrace football. The highs and lows and.......the art of football.

If a skilled craftsman can be a silversmith. Why cant a skilled footballer be treated the same way off the terraces.

I learnt more than I needed by handling this medal my mind began to race. That's just the way I like it. So it the story grew and grew.

The following year, after the medal was won, the 1915 Cup Final would be known as The Khaki Final because nearly all the crowd was dressed in uniform. I wonder if you did one of those images that took away all those who later died how many faces in the crowd would remain.

In between these two finals was of course the famous Christmas Truce.

Christmas Day 1914 where soldiers from both sides played a game of Togger in No Mans Land. They had both sung Silent Night in their mother tongues. The voices had hovered over the trenches in honest sentimentality. Fifty to hundred yards away from each other. It was a Christmas favorite in both homelands. The Germans had decorated little trees on the parapets of the trenches. These trees had been sent by their families and candles were put in jam jars lit up the night sky.

Shouting took place amidst the choirs.

“Happy Christmas Tommy”.

“Happy Christmas Fritz”.

Who would want to kill on Christmas day.

It was said, that a sign was held up.

Happy Christmas No Shooting”

And some brave soldier walked over the top. He was not shot and this started a unbelievable sight. Where enemies met and shook hands and swapped cigars coffee tea, and chocolate. Someone got a ball out and they had a kick around. That leather ball must have weighed a ton with the build up of mud amidst the bomb pocks and craters. What a match that must have been.

Enemies playing a game in good spirit.

There was also talk of a British officer being blindfolded and taken behind German lines for Christmas dinner. He was given a slap up, by trench standards and was taken back soon afterwards. There were stories of people recognizing Germans who had worked in London. One even was said to have had his haircut by his barber who was German and had returned home to fight in the war.

Some truces lasted for days.

It is of course the season of goodwill. Photographs appeared in the British papers.

This was of great discontent to the Murdering Generals and of course the politicians with blood on their hands like Churchill, who had helped start the war so that they could play toy soldiers, for real.

The scorn that was poured on both Tommie's and Fritz's who nodded a ball around a field in some distant land meant that they were ordered to stop fraternizing and bomb the gubbing's out of the opposition shortly after. Orders were given by the murderers who probably never got anywhere near the front line.

Where these fraternizers the clever people. Could they have spoiled Churchill's war.

I respect the heroism of my Grandfathers generation who fought in that war and I have even come around to having a bit of sympathy for the German soldiers who were also led like lambs to the slaughter for the honour of their King and Country.

Now if the people had known what we know now about the Cousins, the spawn of the mentally disturbed Queen Victoria. King George his lookalike, Tzar Nicholas and the evil Wilhelm of Germany, would they have allowed themselves a glorious death.

Is there a glorious death?

Its strange the way time gives you more insight, to digest and when writing about the Next of Kin medal designed by the father of a lady I knew, I was quite emotional at the way solemnity and dignity could be designed as symbolism. A symbol of lament. Death.

https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2014/09/dead-mans-penny-edward-carter-preston.html

But recently I have started to feel that the dignity was manipulated to make up for the stupidity of murdering politicians now PR'd in the case of Churchill into saviors of our nation. If the word of peace had of been spread on Christmas day forthwith to both homelands maybe it would have saved 2 million peoples lives and a Second World War. The whole truth of The American Flu pandemic that was PR'd into The Spanish Flu killed near a hundred million souls. It is only with the outbreak of Covid 19 that people have become aware of the great death during WWI.

They also PR'd The Murderous act by the Hun of torpedoing The Lusitania. As a recruitment exercise to send more soldiers to their doom.

https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2015/04/lusitania-medal.html

DID THE FLU STOP THE WAR. That would have been an unacceptable response. A insult to all those relatives that received The Dead Mans Penny.

I grew up with stories of Great Britons the likes of Scott, Shackleton, The Charge of The Light Brigade. Scott of the Antarctic and the brave fool Shakleton. Only to now look back at the whole bouncy build up of British heroes as no more than lies spun on heroic failure. They have just named the Nightingale Hospitals to hide another con just like the invention of The Lady With The Lamp, Florence Nightingale. No matter how kind she was, her fame just hid the abominable state of medical treatment in The Crimea.

And while it made her a jolly good fellow, while the mentally disturbed Queen Victoria and the politicians got away with murder. I could make the list of lies longer.

You get a bit cynical the older you get. But you also have more tie to think for yourself.

So what of those soldiers who met to spread a bit of Christmas cheer. A little respite to horror before they may have met a glorious death. Up to their necks in mud and lice they sensed a small respite from the horror of war.

They knew what death was in reality. It was all around them. Not a public relation invention by the suppressed newspaper magnates, in on the con. Feeding the flames

Where these honorable soldiers the clever people?

These men most of whom had little or no education.

Who had nothing against the opposite of themselves. Barbers plumbers shopkeepers. Who went along with the propaganda of the evil Hun. Spun by the evil murdering politicians of Britain.

Most may have been wondering what they were really fighting for. What Belgium had to do with them. Most would not know that Leopold The King of the Belge was one of the most cruel people ever to walk the face of the earth. He was responsible for real evil in his African Congo Kingdom.

So what was it really all about?

When the murdering politicians on both sides were a confused bunch of confidence tricksters.

Running amok.

One thing I have learnt, is that football was and has become a symbol of humanity. They shake hands after every match.

All politicians should be made to go out in a pair of muddy shorts and be made to play for a team on a wet windy Sunday morning. Because the game of life is like match. Once you start disrespecting yourself what chance for your opponent.

That those simple folk on the terraces. The Spion Kop (another con) are the salt of the earth and that modern culture is inextricably tied together with football.

For one thing I have learnt. From learning. Is that.

When it's foolish to be clever. It is folly to be wise.

Update 22.12.2020.

There are now thousands of lorries waiting to get to France. The 2020 Christmas truce called by buffoon politicians is all but cancelled. Brexit is looming.

France has banned the returns of lorries because the murdering politicians of Britain's current crop have made such a mess of dealing with Covid 19 that a new strain has developed. What a mess.

And they are still lying to us. Through Their teeth. What will the new year bring.

Friday 12 June 2020

Liverpool The City That Knocked The Cavern Club Down, Then Called Itself Beatles Town.

I was born just off St Domingo Road in Everton, though it was nearer to the hallowed turf of Anfield.

The proximity to Anfield is what provided me with my pocket money.

I would mind cars on match day.

It was great running up and down the street “Can I mind your car Sir”.

I would put my Liverpool scarf on early in the morning and we would have a little bit of territory in our cobbled street with which to work.

People were kind.

It was a friendly gesture rewarded for the effort and enthusiasm.

The drivers in would get out in their red and white scarves. They didn't have to give you a few coppers but I think it heightened match day for them.

There would be no cars in our street of a normal day. There wasn't anybody living there whose income could afford to run one.

It showed you that if you tried a bit and were pleasant, you could earn a little bit. Which in turn made your life a bit better.

Mainly in the ability to buy football cards that you could collect into an album. I can still remember the team goalkeeper was Tommy Lawrence, right up to Peter Thompson on the left wing. The beginning of collecting, maybe.

It was a friendly place, we knew everyone in the street. I still today can recall most of our neighbours names.

The surrounding streets were pockmarked with missing houses that had been bombed during the war looking like missing teeth within a pretty girls smile. Other houses were shored up with timber.

We played war games amongst the debris and in the abandoned houses with broken window pains.

Around a similar time I was once showed how to throw a brick at a church window by an older lad.

It was covered in a grill and made a great noise. I hadn't realised why my so called mentor was running away, until a white collared clergyman came out from a side door running towards me shaking his first. I learnt how to run that day.

And how to keep away from this tearaway who fell about in stitches laughing.

I didn't think it funny at all especially when a knock on the door came and there he was reporting me to my mother. You grow up quick in the school of hard knocks.

The church was two streets away, the other side of Sir Thomas White Gardens which was quickly becoming a failed experiment into social housing. Its no longer there. Either is the church that became our playground. I used to run errands having made friends with the people inside.

I never picked up a stone in anger again and soon realized why the beautiful glass windows were covered up.

At that time in Liverpool there was a different mentality, Protestants and Catholics were enemies, or so we were taught.

We played football matches when we found someone with a ball. The teams were usually picked by religion. I thought whats all this about.

I soon grew up and realized, just as I had been shown to throw a stone, that I was not to listen to my elders, not to be guided by the wrong people.

To form my own judgments by study.

Decades later whilst driving past, I found the same church in disrepair and about to be demolished so I removed some of the fittings before the bulldozers destroyed them and put them in my stores to re use. Then shortly after, while reading Freddy O'Conners “It All Came Tumbling Down” I found a picture of my street, and a picture of a church that was designed by Pugin, well the firm of E.W Pugin. I was a property developer by this time. I then realized that there were several Pugin buildings in the vicinity and I also realized I had felt the gravity of the history in the humble little street that was condemned by the city council as a slum and we were sent to a modern house in the suburbs.

I always regretted the move. The wash house, that steamy place where the washer women gathered to chit chat away was in fact a Pugin building.

If you are born poor you dont know anything else.

My first BBC appearance was for a documentary about slum housing and I was nominated for interview by the headmaster of my school St Georges.

I recall in my past memory that I was talking about growing up and there and some shots walking home from school with my friend.

I must have only been six years of age. We did not have a TV and had to go to a neighbours house to watch it. I have tried to find it in the BBC archives but I fear its lost.

It showed a happy little child growing up and attending a school with its Grade I listed St Georges church, walking home through Everton Library, also a listed building that had escaped the blitz.

https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/search?q=st+georges I wrote about St Georges some time ago.

Not long after being cleared out to the new Metro-land. A concrete jungle. I missed the sturdy security of my poor working class background and the way the people stood together and helped each other.

People who had nothing would share their last bit of food with you, not knowing if there would be any money with which to buy more for themselves.

Boot boys and football hooliganism appeared. Things rather dramatically in the coming years. When I started going the match it had become a dangerous place.

Now I understand that that church was in fact The Chancel Chapel erected to be the beginning of the building of a new Cathedral of such gigantic proportions that it would rival St Peters in Rome. The Church never got the necessary finances required and after war decimated Liverpool a free site was given to the Catholic Church near the city centre. This would see The new Metropolitan Cathedral Of Christ The King, or Paddy's Wigwam built.

I was an apprentice watching this new space rocket erupt on the plateau opposite the Anglican Cathedral by Giles Gilbert Scott. I did not like it.

Later I got angry with what was happening to my city and how it's historical buildings were being targeted for redevelopment in the new era that was bringing a new prosperity...with little respect for my past.

I had become a vociferous heritage campaigner as Liverpool became a World Heritage City it began to destroy the Pier Head.

The famous Three Graces had escaped The Luftwaffe and then the city planners set about destroying the majesty of Liverpool's waterfront.

Now I was negotiating with Unesco to save its soul as we watched the corrupt city council planners destroying my city that I had been so proud of, yes proud, even with all its tatty edges and incongruities,

It was my town. And they were knocking it down.

I would be as vocal as I could with some great success I gained a respect for my opinions and believed I could shape the argument of how to keep what was the essence of the city yet bring it into the modern times.

This is the city that knocked The Cavern down and then called itself Beatles Town.

Liverpool became European Capital of Culture and some argued that the only culture they could find was in the yougurt, in the fridge, in the Kwik Save, in Old Swan.

They built without respect, on and on, higher and higher, the World Heritage Site was becoming a architectural mess.

https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2019/06/liverpool-threatened-with-world.html I tried to inform the public. What happens if the econony shifts? I said.

I would be asked my opinion many times.

One request was to the merit of The Metropolitan Cathedral by the Editor of the Liverpool Daily Post where I was careful not to throw stones at it, but give it a conseintious view built up by years of experience, questioning.

The lack of knowledge in the city for its heritage assets was apparent, especially that of the Editor of both the Daily Post Mark Thomas and the Liverpool Echo which had sunk to an all time low under Alaistair Machray.

It was in the Lutyens Crypt within the Metropolitan Cathedral that I made my Antiques Roadshow debut where I was invited to become a specialist on the longest running factual programme in the history of the BBC. https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2014/09/antiques-roadshow-what-amazing.html This was the programme I had loved since discovering it one Sunday night a long time ago. Those stories those objects, It lit up my life like a beacon.

Hopefuly I was invited to become part of the show because I understand the meaning of how important the past is to our future.

How we need history, the stories and meanings of the past.

How we use objects as a vessel to discover who we are.

And more importantly how to objectively look at everything without believing what you are told. To question and not be ordered how to think.

I believe that lad who taught me how to throw a brick made me think, and I formed the opinion that we should never trust in those who appear to be in a superior position.

And now I own a 19^th century Grade II listed slate built Chapel where I will open my new gallery soon. I spent the summer restoring it and phase one is nearly completed and I realize that those who live in ecclesiastical buildings should not throw stones, yes I have learnt a lot.....................oops, I have just realized I started off writing about the designer architect who brought Gothic architecture back to the fore and in doing so changed forever the shape of our cities. Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin.

I will now have make that my next post I got a bit carried away there.

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2020/07/augustus-welby-northmore-pugin-his.html

Thursday 2 April 2020

The Antiques Roadshow venues for 2020

This year to keep the public and our specialists safe. We request that you contact Antiques Roadshow on the BBC website or through the links below and if you wish to share your story.

The Antiques Roadshow venues for 2020

Following government guidelines for filming at our postponed venues
We’re unlikely to be able to film on the scale we are used to, but we are exploring the option of inviting a small number of guests with items, and our experts to future Roadshows.
To make this work we really need to know in advance about the items you were planning to bring along.

Follow the links below to let us know about the items you want to show us.

I Look forward to seeing you at Windermere Jetty, Bodnant Gardens, Culzean Castle and
Newby Hall. These are Exceptional times.