THE SECRET SAM CAMERA: A LICENCE TO CLICK!

 As a secret agent kid in the Sixties I adored spy toys.

One of my favourites was the 1965 Secret Sam attaché case by Topper.

I can see it now, a large black plastic case jam packed with spy gold like a fully compartmentalised rifle with detachable pistol and orange secret message missiles. The case even fired plastic toy bullets from the side! How damn cool was that!

Nothing really brings back the Sixties for me like Secret Sam!

Did you have a Secret Sam case?

As a collector and toy trader I've loved getting back various Secret Sam cases. I've completed a couple of incomplete sets and sold one or two cases on my old toy stall, which was fun, discussing classic spy toys with customers - in hushed tones of course!

I think only my Topper Johnny Seven One Man Army rifle topped my Topper Secret Sam case!

Here's a vintage Secret Sam TV ad from America when kids met other kids in trench coats and handed over attaches! How fab!

One of the neatest features of the Topper case was the secret camera. Real pictures of dodgy bad guys could be taken by clicking the button on the side of the case ...... and it really WORKED!

The detailed instruction sheet explained everything about the working camera and how to insert the film, standard 127 roll. No film was included in the case but it was widely available back then I imagine.

Alas I don't recall ever getting the film or taking any photographs, despite clicking that camera till it hurt.

Fortunately the Secret Sam camera is still popular among camera buffs and you can still see what sort of snaps it took online! I could only find black and white results but I understand the camera also took colour snaps too.

Here's a fabulous example of a modern Secret Sam camera enthusiast on Flickr, Tony Kemplen and his gallery of superb monochrome Secret Sam photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tony_kemplen/49459668008/in/photostream/

Out of curiosity I tried to find some 127 film available to buy now but found it hard to locate. One rare stockist, Analogue Wonderland, had this bundle for £14.

I wonder of any of you ever took any Secret Sam photographs?

Do you still own one of the 127 film cameras?

The Secret Sam camera also appeared in another Topper set, the Secret Sam Camera Book, a toy I have only ever seen in pictures online. 

Did you have one?

WILL I WATCH WILLOW?

Over Christmas I realised, again, that I've never seen three key films of 1980's fantasy: The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and Willow.

I've seen a lot of fantasy films like Legend, Time Bandits, The Neverending Story to name a few, but the above three have somehow passed me by.

Have you seen them readers?

THE GAVION

The GAVION, all new to me. I thought it said Gaviscon!

What a beast! Do you know it?

CORGI TOYS ANNOUNCE NEW DIE-CAST STINGRAY

 

Corgi Toys have released a video showing their 2023 line up, including what looks like a very tidy looking prototype die-cast Stingray model, complete with firing sting missiles!

It looks to be smaller than the Product Enterprise version,  but larger than the Matchbox one. The example in the video isn't painted, but still looks pretty good to me.

The Corgi You Tube video. The part on Stingray is around 12 minutes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kne2-v1DUAE

OUTER PLATE MEN

 

I just liked this when I saw it on auction so I saved the pic.

The compartmented card art recalled my beloved Colurforms Outer Space Men.

The old graphics of muskets and drums takes me right back to the Sixties and Seventies.

I would have loved this as my light switch plate. You?

DAREDEVIL AND ELEKTRA: CANE AND SAI

I've been enjoying re-watching two old movie friends this weekend. When I say friends I mean films I saw decades ago and always liked them, namely Daredevil and Elektra. Have you seen them?

When you'd taken all you could from the X-Men and X2, with the dawn of Marvel's cinematic universe at the turn of the Millennium, Daredevil and Elektra were waiting for you to keep your leather-clad inner-hero alive and kicking.

OK, neither of them are Avengers or maybe not even A-listers but this linked pair of films really grabbed my attention way back when. 

Ben Affleck's understated and tormented Daredevil, patrolling Hell's Kitchen and being a general pain in the kneecaps for Kingpin, was just what I needed after the wild fury of Wolverine's steel claws. His playground skirmish with Elektra was, well ..... electric and the perfect cue for her own film two years later.

Elektra and me hit it off from the get go. It was her two fabulous sai, an Okinawan weapon I was fascinated by as a martial arts nut in the early Seventies. Her red garb completed the look of the ultra-lethal karate-kicking Stick-trained assassin with a heart.

Daredevil has remained a constant in the murky background of the MCU defending the Kitchen with his pals Iron Fist et al, but Elektra seems to have sadly hung up her sai unless I've missed her come-back. I for one would welcome her's and Stick's return.

Oddly I never found a single vintage Daredevil toy in all my years of car booting. OK, there's been a slew of modern figures but when I was collecting any Secret Wars 1984 figures at boot sales years ago old Fearless, below, never showed his masked face.

The first Daredevil action figure - or plastic figure - was part of the wonderful and ground-breaking range of Marx super hero mini-statues in 1966, a figure I've only ever seen in the flesh on the Olympian shelves of super dealers at Birmingham's Memorabilia.

Have you any Daredevil or Elektra collectables?

BRIAN MAY'S STAR FLEET

I'm very pleased with my latest charity shop purchase for the princely sum of £1. Only when I got home I found I’d already got it! Have any other readers bought something forgetting they’d already got it? What was it? Or is it just me!

Will O.

UK

AVENGERS DOLLS FROM PRODUCT ENTERPRISE: PART 2

 

Concluding my Avengers TV series posts, here’s The Avengers in Colour dolls from Product Enterprise, released in 2005.

This special edition set depicts the two super secret agents as they were typically dressed during the Steed & Mrs Peel filmed colour series .

Steed is dressed in a dark grey suit, blue tie and red carnation. He wears his signature bowler hat, which like the previous monotone Avengers set is fixed in place.

His umbrella hides a Sword Stick.

The likeness to Patrick Macnee is very good.

Mrs Peel is dressed in her familiar colour season blue number. It has a working zip on the cardigan, which can be removed, revealing her sleeveless jump suit. The doll’s accessories include a hip fob watch and a nicely detailed gold coloured revolver.

Comparing the Emma Peel doll with the previous version, it looks to have been re-sculptured to try and capture a better likeness, and the moulded hairstyle is distinctly auburn. But if I’m honest, it’s still not easily recognizable as Mrs Peel.

The dolls have fully articulated bodies, as can be seen in the sleeveless Mrs Peel photos.

The set comes with a few more little extras. There’s a small facsimile cover of The Winged Avenger, and tiny replica of the P.U.R.R.R. prospectus brochure. Inside the brochure are photos of the P.U.R.R.R. committee, and on the last page the names of three of the Product Enterprise crew.

Like the previous set, it comes with two tiny drinks glasses and a bottle of Champagne. Closer inspection of the label reveals another little in-joke; The label says ‘minesime’(great vintage) 1963, and Stephen Walker Champagne Brut. Stephen, of course ran Product Enterprise, now Sixteen 12, and I believe was born in 1963!

This set also comes with stands containing voice chips using sound clips from the colour episodes.

As usual from Product Enterprise, the packaging is visually attractive and well designed, featuring a fold over cover. The ‘Avengers’ logo is what was used on the fifth season.

To sum up, the set is another fine piece of retro Avengers merchandise, and certainly captures the essence of the Steed + Peel colour season.