The Long Goodbye

– We’re thieves, not spies.
– Thank you, Sidney. There goes our not guilty plea.

Weighing in at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, our latest pinched loaf of pure Rogertainment is Bullseye!, a 1990 comedy starring Roger Moore and Michael Caine as two petty criminals pursuing a nuclear physicist and his patron, played by Michael Caine and Roger Moore. Hilarity ensues, probably.

See the film

Bullseye! was given a fairly lacklustre DVD release, which you can buy from Amazon in Australia (Amazon AU). Both delightfully and inexplicably, it’s available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video in the US and the UK. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK).

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll ensure that the haggis you ordered is rigged to explode so that you don’t have to eat the bloody thing.

Must be Christmas. Everyone wants to give me things.

A skeleton flies a plane into a Scottish forest, and in that plane Rodge and Tony find a secret formula that will make all fossil fuels obsolete! Soon people are throwing punches, girls and million-dollar contracts at them both, but with the mystery of the skeletal aviator still unsolved, they have no alternative but to wait for the fabulous Nicola Pagett to sort it all out for them.

The Rogertainment continues with Episode 13 of The Persuaders! (1972) — The Long Goodbye

See the episode

The Long Goodbye is available on YouTube somehow, along with the rest of the series.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and Todd is @ToddBeilby. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll ignore our dead father’s last wishes and read out the secret formula after the closing credits of the next Bondfinger episode.

– Will you do it?
– Of course. Nobody in the world is better-equipped to get rid of Simon Templar than me.

And we’re back at last — a fresh slab of Rogertainment, with a couple of ripper Aussie sheilas along for the ride. When organised crime boss Robert Verrier’s butler is unexpectedly exploded, he becomes convinced that Simon Templar is the killer. Hilarity ensues, of course, and Simon has no choice but to impersonate the assassin to uncover the real culprit.

See the episode

To Kill a Saint is available on YouTube (for the time being), complete with burned-in Hungarian subtitles.

The entire series was released on DVD in two box sets, one for the black and white episodes and another for the colour episodes. The colour episode box set, which includes this episode, is 14 discs of pure Rogertainment, designed to titillate the palette of the true Rodge connoisseur. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and Todd is @ToddBeilby. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll release our next Bondfinger episode with Hungarian subtitles.

– Ah, I make it just on half-past three.
– Eight, Holmes.
– What on earth are you talking about?
– Half-past eight, see.
– Watson, we are on New York time.
– Oh. Oh, well I’ve always found Greenwich time perfectly adequate to me needs. I see no reason for changing it now.

This month: New York! With a horribly miscast Roger Moore as Sherlock Holmes and a horribly misjudged John Watson in Patrick Macnee, Sherlock Holmes in New York is the story of a ruddy-cheeked and thoroughgoingly heterosexual consulting detective, his toffy-nosed dimwit sidekick, and their inexplicably beautiful girlfriend (Charlotte Derampling), who all harbour a dark secret, in the form of an appalling American moppet called Scott. Plus, all of the world’s gold has been stolen, or at least shifted to a nearby floor. Which is why, dear listener, it took us two attempts to work up the courage to even watch this.

(Don’t) see the film

If you want to spend some money here, a plastic disc release of the film is available. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

If not, it’s currently up on YouTube, for some reason.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll send you some unsolicited tickets to the opening night of our next show.

– Actually, I wanted a word or five about the old Groupee, official magazine you know, I’m acting as PRO.
– From the HQ?
– BHQ.
– On TTR?
– JJV. seconded from RHB.
– Oh really, how’s the GCM?
– A-1.
– MY?
– 50 PPR.
– Downgraded to 007, eh?

This month, Steed and Mrs Peel are joined by John Le Mesurier, while we are joined again by Steven B, ably assisting us as we investigate various military bigwigs with improbable facial hair, who appear to be leaking valuable secrets to our enemies. Meanwhile, Diana Rigg’s Spotlight photo is getting one hell of a workout. Which is impossible to object to, really.

See the episode

As is now well established, Series 4 of The Avengers is also available in a lavish Blu-ray box set. Which is how we watched it. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Steven is @steedstylin, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood . You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast .

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll sponge your best suit so thoroughly that you’ll be able to see your face in it.

– I see. Oh! Are you going to tie me up?
– You bet I am.
– Well, I don’t mind, really, but may I fix my face before I die? It’s in such a mess.

This month, we’re joined by Steven B from New to Who to investigate the theft by some puppets of the blueprints for a new atomic weapon. Inevitably, Lady Penelope gets tied to a bomb or something, and we have mere moments to locate her before she is completely exploded. The sets are lavish, the hardware is impressive and the eyebrow lifts are the most expensive and time-consuming eyebrow lifts until Rodge takes over as Bond. Thunderbirds are go, in The Man from MI.5.

See the episode

The episode is available for purchase through various online retailers, but it is currently available in full on YouTube.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Steven is @steedstylin, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we won’t turn up at your wedding, accuse you of bigamy and generally ruin your life.

Can I just have one nice evening before the world explodes?

After a disastrous attempt to record a commentary on No Time to Die results in several cinemagoers calling the police, we decide to regroup, get some drinks in, and hold a roundtable discussion of Daniel Craig’s last film in the role. So: when SPECTRE holds a Christmas drinks thing despite Covid restrictions and everyone ends up feeling quite unwell, James Bond, Felix Leiter and 007 (it’s complicated) team up (sort of) to find the renegade scientist responsible. A whole bunch of things happen, and a generation of Bond fans are scarred for life as a result.

Be warned. There will be spoilers.

Here is a link to the #IAmNotYourVillain campaign by Changing Faces UK, which calls on filmmakers to stop using scars and disfigurement as a signifier of villainy.

See the film

The film is currently screening in a cinema new you, at last. Streaming and DVDs and things will all come later.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we won’t suggest that the Bond producers abandon facial disfigurement as a signifier of villainy and start making all their villains avid podcast listeners instead.

It’s nothing much. It’s only serious.

This month, advertising account executive Gary Fenn (Roger Moore) and fiery underwear model Marla Kougash (Claudie Lange) find themselves on the run as they try to foil a violent fascist takeover of Great Britain. Meanwhile Richard (Martha Hyer), James (Dudley Sutton), Brendan (Mark Ruffalo) and Nathan (an extremely rosaceous Sir Bernard Lee) take copious liquid advantage of the recent lifting of Sydney’s lockdown by slurring their way through the long-forgotten quota quickie Crossplot.

See the film

The film is available for purchase through various online retailers, but it is currently available in full on YouTube.

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we won’t turn up at your wedding, accuse you of bigamy and generally ruin your life.

– You’re not the first person to pass through my hands, Stirling.
– I never thought I was.
– They all broke eventually.
– I’ll try and spoil your record.

This month, James finds himself drugged, sweaty and trapped in a prison cell with a wastepaper basket and no visible means of escape, while Richard insistently questions him about the identity of the mysterious Renfield or something. Meanwhile, Brendan and Nathan flap about uselessly outside. It sounds like a job for The Champions.

See the episode

You can watch this episode for free on DailyMotion, for the time being. The whole series is also available on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video (in some regions).

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll forget all the grievances we have with you by the time the next episode airs.

– I might try singing an antidote note.
– Then do it!
– Oh, but that’s three octaves above high C! Nobody’s ever done it before! My voice would be gone! I’d rather die!

Holy Peripheral Relevance, Batman! This month, the Dynamic — er — Four have pursued patron-saint-of-the-podcast Joan Collins to Gotham City, where she makes a surprising guest appearance in an episode of Batman as the mesmeric Lorelei Circe, whose voice has an uncanny power over heterosexual men. (Fortunately we’re all very neatly tucked and wearing the Bat-Earplugs for this one.)

See the episode

As Brendan says towards the end, Batman is available for streaming on Amazon Prime in the US, but not in the UK or Australia. There is, however, a beautifully mastered Blu-ray box set available. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)

Follow us!

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll introduce her to our new friend Ethel Merman and her lovely collection of parasols.