Matt Helm: The War Years by Keith Wease

I decided to drop by the the Matt Helm Dossier website to check on any updates for the proposed new Matt Helm movie when I discovered this bit of (Happy) news...

"June 22, 2013 Notice:  A New Matt Helm novel, MATT HELM:  THE WAR YEARS, has been published. (link to the Amazon.com website is below in the Ref section)."

Amazon.com is selling the paperback version for $7.19 while their Kindle edition is $6.39.

Plus there is the news that Titan Books is republishing all the original Matt Helm novels by Donald Hamilton.  


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Ref.
1.  The Matt Helm Dossier website. (http://www.matthelmbooks.com/intro.html)
2.  Amazon.com weblink to novel MATT HELM: The War Years by Keith Wease (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1482592959/bradyworld/).
3.  image of book cover comes from this link at goodreads.com. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17409168-matt-helm).

Titan Books - The Return of Matt Helm

Titan Books - The Return of Matt Helm


On a whem, I decided to drop by one of my favorite websites:  The Matt Helm Dossier.  Low and behold, there was a update notice right under the title.  Dated June 24, 2012.  "Titan Books announced today that beginning in 2013, they will reissue the original Matt Helm® spy thrillers written by Donald Hamilton."  And then I clicked on the link (Like you can too!).

I'm doing my Happy Dance with this news!

It's about time that Donald Hamilton is reconized by a new generation.

Quoting from the article: “These novels were among the best spy thrillers ever published,” said Nick Landau, Publisher of Titan Books and CEO of the Titan Publishing Group.  “We’re thrilled to partner with the estate of Donald Hamilton, enabling us to bring them back into print and show readers what they’ve been missing all these years.”

I'm old enough to think that Dean Martin is the one and only Matt Helm even though he played the character as a joke.  Then again, the scripts were written that way.  The only thing the script writers bother to barrow from the novels were the titles of the books and apply the characters in a more laughable way.

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Ref.
1. The Matt Helm Dossier. (http://www.matthelmbooks.com/intro.html).image of Matt Helm from website.
2. Titanbooks.com. (http://titanbooks.com/blog/return-matt-helm/).

Triad Toys Doll Clothing

In the back of my mind, I have been wanting to do a kinda of James Bond/Matt Helm photostory using my action figures as the actors of course. I'm waiting on news about that future Matt Helm movie project and what might be spun off of it for my Matt Helm custom. I already have a few James Bond to choose from in my collection already.

And what would be a good spy story without some good looking female eye-candy hanging around? I already have most of the female action figures that Blue Box originally released from a few years ago, but civilian clothing for them has been lacking unless I modified some Mattel Barbie stuff.

Crusing One Sixth Warrior forum today, I spotted a post about Triad Toys offering sexy outfits for the 1/6th ladies in your life. (And really, this is jsut an excuse to post some sexy looking babe dolls). Quote: Triad is releasing more casual and fashion-based outft sets. Starting with the contemporary skin-tight dresses. Each set comes with two (2) dresses in different colors and styles. There is a total of three sets in the latest Nite Out 2.0 series, totaling 6 different dress styles.

Two outfits per set that run $19.99 per set which isn't too bad a price for these hard economic times. Figures not included in these sets.

Link (http://www.triadtoys.com/).

UFO to Reboot in 2011!

I'm late with this news, but it seems that a lot of effort is taking place to do a major motion picture of the 1969 sci-fi British tv program UFO by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

This amazing team created many famous tv programs known as Supermarionation such as Fireball XL-5, Stringray, Captain Scarlet, etc. (mostally they were puppet-based, but UFO was the first Live action program that they came up with). UFO ran for 26 episodes. That was followed by the more famous Space: 1999 that ran for two seasons.

UFO is NOT for children. IT a a dark and sometimes frightening view of the then future 1980s (my god, that was 30 years ago now!). The basic premise of the program was that invading aliens are bent on kidnapping humans for body parts and taking Earth's natural resources back to their own dying world.

Earth is protected by the secret organization known as SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization). Its commander is one Commander Edward Straker. SHADO has a fully equipped moonbase with fighter interceptors, here on Earth, a fleet of submarines that can seperate into two parts - one remains submerged and the other is a flying interceptor. Finally, if a UFO manages to reach the surface, there are land-based APCs known as Mobiles to try and capture or destroy the invaders.

Plus the main characters were quite human - never quite living up 100% of the time as heroic. They had to wrestle with morality and ethics all the time. Commander Straker's personal sacrifices were some of the most moving of the series.

The ladies of the moonbase wore sexy silver suits with purple wigs for some reason. Why the guys didn't purple wigs - well, you have to guess. They had to wear the Nehru-style suits. But - there is always the lovely Lt. Gay Ellis!

Fans of the show would not let it die. When the internet came around, websites such as ufoseries.com and others kept the show alive for those who thought to look it up.

Now, it is the 21st century. And one Matthew Gratzner(director) seems to have picked up the baton to make UFO into a movie. So far, actors Joshua Jackson and Ali Larter have been picked to play Paul Foster and Virginia Lake respectively. There is even talk so far that this could turn into a trilogy of films. Scriptwriting duties by Ryan Gaudet and Joseph Kanarek have been taksed to revamp and update the concept. But they are keeping in mind the original tv fans of the show and is expected to do a better job than what JJ Abrams did with the latest telling of the Star Trek francise.

Principal photography is to begin in 2010 with a release n 2011.

The movie poster is pretty faithful to what the original moonbase interceptors looked like. In this poster version, there does appear to be a slight difference in the front missile. It may very well be a missile pod instead of the entire front end being just a nuclear tip missile.

As for sci-fi and adventure/spy films in general, this appears to be a very god year. Spacecruiser Yamato wil be a live action picture. Matt Helm will be coming back to the big screen and now this. I am a very happy camper now!

UPDATE: Found some additional websites including this one that has some concept artwork for this movie (http://www.cinemaspy.com/article.php?id=2584).

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Ref. (http://www.fanderson.org.uk/ufomovie/breakingnews.html).

(http://www.denofgeek.com/television/392179/looking_forward_to_the_ufo_reboot.html).

Matthew Gratzner interview (http://forbiddenplanet.com/pages/matthew-gratzner-new-ufo-trilogy/).

Charlie Chan Update

Well, I still need to do the eyes. But overall, the figure is coming along nicely.

But I havefinally managed to get a white suit for him. Check out the photos. Hes looking pretty good - basically a buff Charlie Chan. I still need to get a fat suit for him, but after getting this suit, I really don't see how I can pull it off but to leave the jacket unbutton.

Also, the black bowler hat that came from the 007 figure Oddjob will need to be painted white to match the suit. And I think it would be better to find a blue or even black tie. And I still need to come up with some shoes for him.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures taken this morning.

And for those of you who noticed the desktop image on my laptop in the background. Thats Dean Martin as Matt Helm from "The Silencers." Thats my next project if I can come across the head sculpt that comes close to ole Dino.

The Matt Helm Movie - 2010?

I was bored and decided to do a websearch on Matt Helm after re-reading Death of a Citizen this past week at work.

According to the Hollywood North Report (dot) Com article of October 19, 2009; Paramount is moving forward with their Matt Helm project. The new director for the project will be Gary Ross (who did "Pleasantville").

This latest version of Matt Helm is suppose to be closer to the original novels in a Jason Bourne-like manner than the 1960s Dean Martin version. Producers for this film will be Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci ("Transformers" and "Star Trek" respectively). Production will take place in the summer of 2010. The screenplay will be by Paul Attanasio.

UPDATE: Further research has come up with a possible lead actor to play the role of the famous secret agent. One Bradley Cooper.

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Ref. Hollywood North Report, October 19, 2009. (http://www.hollywoodnorthreport.com/article.php?Article=7680).

Wikipedia-Matt Helm. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Helm)

image is of Dean Martin.

Matt Helm and UFO TV series coming back as movies

I discovered over on the Spy-Fi Channel blog this article about Steven Spielberg might be the director for a revival of the Matt Helm character. Matt Helm was the creation of author Donald Hamilton.

Its unclear if he will actually do the project. The character will be updated for the new century (no longer a government assassin from World War Two/Cold War era). There is a script by Paul Attanasio that will make this "Helm" closer to what we have seen in "The Bourne Identity." Then, for me, the actor has to be very good to make me consider someone else for the role of Matt Helm other than old Dino (aka, Dean Martin) himself.

Then, I remembered seeing a blurb about someone wanting to remake the famous Gerry Anderson "UFO" series. Variety news says that visual effects "guru" Matthew Gratzner has been wanting to make a big screen adpation of that tv series. A script has been written by Ryan Gaudet and Joseph Kanarek. Gratzner's studio, New Deal Studios, has begun work on the concept art and pre-visualizations. When this is completed, they will be shopping for financing.

Like the orignal ITV series that Gerry Anderson came up with, this film will revolve around SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) - a secret military operation hidden beneath a Hollywood studio, whose operatives battle an alien race that has been kidnapping and killing humans for decades and using their body parts.

Quoting that article, "The story, characters and situations Mr. Anderson created in 'UFO' are timeless and engaging," Gratzner said. "My vision is to utilize visual effects as a supportive storytelling device that draws audiences into this universe."

The saying, "Whats old is new again." comes to mind. I wait with baited breath for both projects to see the light of day.

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Ref. Spy-fiChannel blog (http://spy-fichannel.blogspot.com/2009/07/spielberg-to-direct-matt-helm.html).

Ain't it Cool News (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41783).

Variety (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118006352.html?categoryid=13&cs=1).

Dean Martin as Matt Helm, James Coburn as Derek Flint - Those were the days!

Lets get back to having some fun shall we?  

I'll let other blogs cover the Tax Day/Tea Party Revolt for April 15th.  

Surfing the internet last night, I was in a Matt Helm/Dean Martin mood.  And I came across this blog where PVMan created his own Dean Martin/Matt Helm action figure.  Check out the link below to see it and the photographs.  Finding this has made me want to have my own Dean Martin/Matt Helm action figure.  

And by reading that original article by PVMan, we know that Sideshow will not be interested in doing this figure (or even James Coburn as Derek Flint).  I remembered that there was a German figure that bore a very close resembilance to the actor James Coburn.  But I was never able to get that one.  I would still like to get one nevertheless.

I am a big fan of author Donald Hamilton.  After many years, I finally managed to gather together ALL the printed novels into my collection.  Mr. Hamilton's son is still trying to shop the final Matt Helm novel - but no one is buying which is a shame.  I WANT TO READ THAT FINAL NOVEL!  While the Dean Martin movies only barrowed the character names and the titles to the novels -everything else was made up and in no way even came close to the actual novel, if those stories were made into movies today, I think they would be much better - not so campy.  There would still be some tension as to if the character will save the day or not.  

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Ref.  PVMan!  ( http://polyvinylman.blogspot.com/2006/11/dean-martin-as-matt-helm.html)