Just like other government departments the Foreign & Commonwealth Office requires film and TV producers to sign contracts with them to provide production assistance.  The agreement signed with the makers of Downton Abbey includes an interesting clause - they signed up to abide by the strictures of the Official Secrets ...
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Netflix recently ordered a 10-episode first series of Q-Force, the world's first animated LGBTQ spy series.  Pitched as a 'gay James Bond' the cartoon will undoubtedly contain the usual PR for the security state, wrapped up in a rainbow flag.  No doubt it will be heralded by numerous liberal and ...
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In this month's subscriber-only podcast we explore the censorship of the one of the world's biggest film franchises - James Bond. The Bond movies have been subject to both moral/cultural censorship by the British Board of Film Classification, and political censorship by the Pentagon's entertainment liaison offices. This is a ...
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Good friend Pearse Redmond invited Matt and I on his radio show to talk about our new book National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood. We discussed the new evidence that provoked us into writing this book, looked at some of the case studies including ...
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The James Bond films, like the books on which they are based, have always pushed the boundaries of acceptable portraits of sex and violence. Documents from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) show how for Thunderball they reviewed the script, recommending many changes if the film was to achieve ...
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Uncle and Aaron invited me back to drink Hoegaarden and discuss the movie Air Force One. This typically chaotic discussion focused on how the Air Force rewrote parts of the film in exchange for their support, why Hoegaarden reminds me of happy times, and how terrorists open locked doors on ...
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Goldeneye is possibly the best of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films, but like two others in the Brosnan period it relied on US military support. This entailed the Pentagon reviewing the script and demanding two changes - one political, one promotional - in exchange for helping to shoot one ...
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From the Donald Trump school of naming things came The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World, a 1965 spoof of the James Bond movies. Like many 1960s spy thrillers The Second Best Secret Agent was on the radar of the CIA ...
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Richard Whiteley is best known for presenting the popular afternoon quiz show Countdown, and Ricky Tomlinson is best known for starring in the popular sitcom The Royle Family. Back in the 1970s things were very different. This week we examine Tomlinson's recent allegation that Whiteley was a 'member' of the ...
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What connects JFK, Allen Dulles and the CIA's invasion at the Bay of Pigs to the movies Thunderball and Goldfinger? The answer is the relationship between the CIA and James Bond. In this episode we look at Fleming's decades-long relationship with American intelligence, from the OSS through to the CIA, ...
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In November 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles sent a copy of the new Ian Fleming novel Goldfinger to Jackie Kennedy. In October 1964 the CIA Deputy Director Marshall Carter was invited to a special screening of the new James Bond movie Goldfinger at the MPAA headquarters in Washington. The film ...
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Tomorrow Never Dies is perhaps the most military-heavy Bond film of recent times, benefiting from production support from both the British and American armed forces. Despite this the Pentagon's Hollywood liaison Phil Strub denied that they provided any assistance to the film-makers. This document proves that Strub is not telling ...
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