My Philly Daily On Crime Column: FBI To Expand Quantum Information Science And Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team

 Philly Daily ran my On Crime column today on the FBI leading the Quantum Information Science and Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team.

You can read the column via the link below or the following text:

Paul Davis: FBI to expand Quantum Information Science and Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team – Philly Daily  

Although I spend most of my day working the computer and phone at my desk in my book-lined basement office, my computer skills are somewhat limited.

But I received a primer on quantum computers when I interviewed David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist and the author of “The Quantum Spy” back in 2018. I don’t subscribe to his political views, but I think he is a fine newspaper columnist and author.

David Ignatius’s “The Quantum Spy,” is, as the title suggests, a spy thriller. The thriller describes the espionage race for a quantum computer between the U.S. and Communist China.        

I was able to follow the quantum computer science backdrop to “The Quantum Spy,” as David Ignatius did a fine job of explaining the basic technology involved in quantum computing and why it is vital that the United States builds a quantum computer before China, America’s adversary, builds one.

David Ignatius’s fictional CIA director explains that quantum science is a paradigm shift. “It’s like Galileo and Newton. It will change everything. A quantum computer would simultaneously explore every answer to a problem, creating a tool of immense, almost infinite computational power.”

So I was interested to see the FBI state their new lead role in quantum information science and technology.

According to the FBI, quantum information science and technology (QIST) -based on the field of quantum mechanics – has the potential to create revolutionary advances in science and engineering. But while these advancements have promising applications—from military to medicine to economic—that promise also makes them an attractive target for adversaries who seek to damage U.S. national and economic security.

In response to the global race to develop quantum technologies, a new executive order, Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation, calls for a government-wide effort to expand and protect the U.S. quantum ecosystem through quantum innovation, private sector cooperation, and international partnership in pursuit of a quantum computer—which could theoretically process calculations exponentially faster than any existing computer.

The FBI noted that the new executive order has tasked the FBI to lead and expand the Quantum Information Science and Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team (QCPT) to improve and coordinate protections against adversarial and cybersecurity threats to the QIST ecosystem, coordinate public messaging and outreach related to those threats, and enhance sharing of threat information with federal, industry, and academic QIST research and development entities. 

"Historically, the FBI is very good at solving theft of trade secrets and economic espionage cases, and working with DOJ to prosecute them," explained Supervisory Special Agent Wes Wollard. "However, the goal of our team is to proactively posture ourselves ‘left of theft’ to help prevent theft of quantum research and technologies."

Quantum mechanics examines the properties and behaviors of the smallest particles that make up everything around us, the FBI explained. In the quantum world - at the scale of molecules, atoms, and electrons - the laws of physics become peculiar and behave differently than in the physical world we can see. GPS systems, MRI technology, and the lasers that enable today's internet are examples of technology developed thanks to quantum mechanics.

“But in the emerging field of QIST, researchers are further exploring how to control the behavior of these quantum systems to create next-generation technologies for imaging, sensing, computing, modeling, and communication. QIST could give rise to the quantum computer—computers that can perform certain mathematical computations impossible for traditional computers—which scientists theorize could advance research in communication networks, new drugs, new materials, more defined medical imaging, microelectronics, and semiconductors. The full range of potential applications of quantum computers and technology is unknown,” the FBI explained. 

"At a simple level, QIST has the potential for very significant economic and national security impact. The greatest threat is the potential for adversarial development of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC) -one which could break current widely used encryption methods -which would allow our adversaries to elicit everything from the most sensitive secrets of our nation, to secure financial transactions and communications, and even decrypt previously harvested encrypted data," said Wollard. "As a result, there’s a sense of immediacy for us to address these risks."

The QCPT serves as an interagency team tasked with protecting the U.S. quantum information science and technology ecosystem.

"The QCPT was created via White House policy as a new approach to partnering with industry, academia, and federal partners to ensure U.S. leadership in quantum research and development," said Wollard. "With academia and industry leading innovation in this field, the U.S. government recognized that we needed to partner with those entities in a new way."

“Partnerships are vital - the threat from foreign intelligence adversaries has become increasingly complex as they employ an all-tools approach that includes non-traditional collectors, economic and academic influence, and other asymmetric intelligence operations. As a result, no single U.S. counterintelligence agency can fully understand or mitigate these operations on its own,” the FBI stated. 

Wollard explained that the FBI’s role in leading the QCPT is to "bring together key counterintelligence and security agencies protecting quantum under one team with unified lines of effort and a strategy to ultimately protect the U.S. quantum ecosystem from adversarial threats.”

The FBI works to achieve this by: 

• hardening the ecosystem through threat awareness and promotion of best practices across security disciplines

• actioning intelligence to mitigate vulnerabilities and threats

• promoting collaboration and information sharing within the U.S. government and with like-minded nations

The QCPT is embedded within and the National Counterintelligence Task Force (NCITF), which brings the counterintelligence and security components of the U.S. government under one roof, allowing QCPT to collaborate with the full suite of the U.S. government's protection apparatus.

"As a field counterintelligence agent, a lot of our time is spent doing two things, protecting classified information of state secrets and protecting economic information and intellectual property," said Supervisory Special Agent Sean Miner. "Quantum really covers both of those areas. And so, it fits really snugly right into what makes up the bulk of a field counterintelligence agent in the FBI protection responsibilities."

Note: You can read my Counterterrorism magazine interview with David Ignatius via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Quantum Spy: My Q&A With Spy Novelist And Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius

Paul Davis’s On Crime column appears here each week. He is also a contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine.

My Crime Fiction: Crime Boat'

The below short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

Crime Boat 

By Paul Davis

Back in 2009, I called the bold bank robbers in South Philadelphia the 'Cook Crooks' in my crime column in the local paper.  

I called them the Cook Crooks, as the armed bank robbers wore a mask and a tall, white and pleated chef’s hat as they held up bank employees at gunpoint in a series of bank robberies in South Philadelphia. 

I interviewed FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Virgillo at the time, as he headed up the task force committed to capturing the armed criminals. He agreed that the chef’s hat threw off witnesses. 

“They all described the chef hats in great detail, but they could not describe anything else about the bank robbers,” Virgillo told me. “The hats were an attention grabber.” 

Two weeks ago, I received a call from a local defense attorney who told me he was calling on behalf of his client, who was serving a long federal prison term at FCI Fairton in Fairton, New Jersey. He said his client read my weekly newspaper column and wanted to talk to me about the series of bank robberies in the mid-2000s. 

I ventured from my South Philly home to Fairton, New Jersey and entered the mid-security level federal prison. I was escorted to an interview room, where John Kelly was waiting for me. He was younger than me, but he looked older, as he was rail-thin, gray and had a long, creased face. I shook his hand, took out my pen, notebook and tape recorder and laid them on the table between us, and then sat down. 

Kelly was one of the Cook Crooks. He said he read my weekly column, and like me, he was from South Philadelphia. Also, like me, he served in the U.S. Navy, although his service was some years after mine. 

Kelly wasted no time and went right into his story. 

Kelly, Pat Collins and Bob Reilly were boyhood friends and '2 Streeters.' While in high school they belonged to an Irish American street corner gang on Second Street in South Philadelphia. Kelly was a lean teenager with sandy hair, Reilly was short and wiry with light brown hair, and Collins was tall, dark and muscular. 

Kelly was a quiet, unassuming young man and Reilly was good-natured and funny, but their leader, Collins, was a tough, vicious, and intelligent teenager. Collins planned the small-time burglaries and armed stick-ups that the trio committed in their last year of high school. They committed the crimes as much for fun and excitement as they did for the money. They were never caught and none of the young men had a police record. 

After the three graduated high school, Kelly joined the U.S. Navy and served as a coxswain (pronounced cox’s’n) in charge of the captain’s small boat, called a 'gig,' on a guided missile frigate in the Mediterranean Sea. Reilly joined the Carpenters’ Union and Collins worked odd jobs until he was old enough to join the Philadelphia Police Department. 

After leaving the Navy, Kelly became a bank guard, Reilly worked as a carpenter on construction sites in Philadelphia, and Collins worked as a patrolman, cruising the streets of South Philly’s 3^rd District. 

Collins remained a crook, even though he wore a policeman’s uniform. He took bribes, stole money and drugs from crime scenes, and extorted money from low-level criminals. When he felt Internal Affairs investigators closing in on him, he resigned abruptly from the police department. 

Collins rekindled his friendship with Kelly and Reilly. He was pleased that Kelly was a bank guard. He asked Kelly for the best time and day to rob the bank where he served as a guard. 

On the day of the planned robbery, Kelly called in sick and sat behind the wheel of a stolen car as Collins and Reilly went into the bank, waving handguns and shouting while wearing masks and the tall chef’s hats. 

They gathered up the money from the tellers and walked calmly out to the car. They climbed in and Kelly drove off. 

The bank robbery went off smoothly, just as Collins planned, and Collins’ idea of wearing chef’s hats made them all laugh. The trio went on to rob several more banks, and the TV news and newspapers made them out to be something of a curiosity due to the chef’s hats. 

The Philadelphia Police and the FBI were not amused. 

With his share of the illegal money, Collins bought a house with a dock in Wildwood, New Jersey and a 42-foot Silverton white fishing boat. Reilly, the carpenter, built a secret compartment in the boat’s cabin to hold the bulk of the trio’s stolen money.  

Collins named the fishing boat Crime Pays. Reilly thought that was funny, but Kelly was concerned that the name would draw unwanted attention towards them. Collins replied that as an ex-cop, he could get away with the name. 

Collins loved to go to sea with his partners, although he knew nothing about boats or the sea. Kelly urged Collins to take the Coast Guard's small boat course, but Collins never did. He used Kelly, the former sailor, to take the boat out and Collins learned the basics from watching Kelly. Once out at sea, Collins would discuss their robbery plans as they drank beer and downed shots of whiskey.   

Things went on smoothy for several years, until they robbed a bank on Oregon Avenue in South Philadelphia. Exiting the bank, Collins slammed into a uniformed policeman who was coming in. The young policeman saw the mask and the chef’s hat on Collins' head, and he pulled his Glock service firearm out of its holster. Collins, who had his gun in his hand, shot the police officer in the head, killing him. 

Although Collins was a former cop, he felt no guilt in killing the police officer. As he later told his partners, it was kill or be killed. 

The TV news and the newspapers no longer treated the bank robbers as a curiosity, as they were now vicious cop killers. Kelly and Collins headed to Wildwood, New Jersey to hide out, and Reilly headed to his cabin in the Pocono Mountains to lay low until things calmed down. But even after several months, things did not calm down for the cop killers. 

In Wildwood, Collins asked Kelly to take Crime Pays out to sea. Collins cut the engine and told Kelly that he wanted to sell his South Philly and Wildwood houses and then take the boat to Florida, where he had a third home. He wanted Kelly and Reilly to join him in Florida.  

Kelly objected, as he had a wife and young son in South Philly. Collins, who had already sent his girlfriend to Florida, told Kelly to leave his family and then send for them later. 

Kelly, the usually quiet and compliant one, said no firmly. He said they should contact Reilly and they should evenly split up the money and then go their separate ways. 

Collins, stone-faced and silent, pulled out a .25 semi-automatic Beretta from his pants pocket and shot Kelly in the chest. Kelly’s hands gripped his chest, cried out in pain, and then collapsed on the deck. Collins placed the Beretta back in his pocket, lifted Kelly up and slipped him overboard into the ocean. Collins started the boat and headed back to shore. 

Once back at the boat dock, Collins cleaned the boat thoroughly. He got on the phone and told a friend in real estate to sell his Philadelphia and New Jersey homes. He then called Reilly and told him to meet him in Florida. 

“Oh, by the way, John’s dead,” Collins told Reilly. 

“Shit. What happened?” 

“He died of heart failure.” 

“He had a bad heart?” 

“No. His heart failed when my bullet pierced it."

“What?” 

“Just an old joke. Meet me at my Florida house next Tuesday.”

But the meeting never took place, as Kelly, a fit and healthy man, survived the gunshot wound and several hours floating in the ocean. He was discovered bobbing in the sea and rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. 

While recovering in the hospital, Kelly asked to see the FBI. He confessed to the FBI agents of his involvement in the bank robberies and explained that Collins murdered the police officer and tried to murder him.

He told the FBI where they could find Collins in Florida and Reilly in the Poconos. 

 

Now sitting in Fairton prison, Kelly told me he felt bad about informing on Reilly, but he thought he was saving his life. Surely, Collins would have shot him as well. 

“I always knew Pat was a cold-hearted prick, but I didn’t think he would try to kill me,” Kelly said. 

As for Collins, Kelly asked me if I remembered what happened in 2012. 

“No, what?” 

“Hurricane Sandy,” Kelly replied. “Pat owned a boat, but he was no fucking sailor. The dummy sailed Crime Pays right into the path of Hurricane Sandy." 

Kelly said that according to the Coast Guard, the boat went down somewhere off Cape May, New Jersey during the powerful and devastating hurricane. 

"Pat washed up ashore dead, but Crime Pays sunk with all that money aboard.” 

“Well," I said. "I guess crime doesn’t always pay.”  

© 2022 By Paul Davis                            

My South Philly Review Crime Beat Column: Beware Of Porch Pirates

The South Philly Review published my Crime Beat column on porch pirates. 

You can read the column above or the text below: 

Beware of Porch Pirates

 By Paul Davis

 View any social media outlet, such as Facebook’s “Stand Up South Philly and Take Back Our Streets,” and you will see numerous posts from outraged South Philadelphians who have been the victim of “porch pirates.” 

You can view doorbell and other security cameras as they capture the porch pirates in action, lifting a package sneakily from a home’s porch or front step and scurrying away like a rat with a piece of pizza. 

This all-too-frequent occurrence truly upsets the victims. Some victims have told me that they feel violated. Although the theft occurred outside of their home, it was still on their property, so it was as if a thief broke into their home.

“Just wanted to give everyone around Porter St a heads up because this is getting ridiculous,” one victim wrote in a social media post. “A man has now stolen our dog’s Chewy package off our front door TWICE. The first time, we had to get a replacement sent out, and now the same guy came back and stole the replacement too. We have video of him, and I just wanted to put this out there so people in the neighborhood can be aware and keep an eye on their packages. It’s frustrating enough having your packages stolen once, but TWICE?! Just be careful if you live around the area and are expecting deliveries. Keep an eye out for each other because apparently we have to worry about people stealing dog packages now too.”

Another victim offered a security camera photo of a porch pirate stealing. “This woman came right up on my step and stole my Instacart order yesterday!! Anyone know her?”

Yet another victim wrote, “How low can you be this woman stole my plants in the afternoon yesterday and came back at 1030 and night to get the rest of them.”

And one angry and frustrated victim offered a photo of suspected porch pirates and stated, “Every damn day with these packages’ thieves. Show up at 7am and back again when mail gets delivered in the afternoon. Taller one always on a bike. That’s them hiding their stolen goods in someone’s trash can until their done making their rounds.” 

I too was a victim. Some time ago I ordered online an unassembled wood bookcase and when I had not received it after a time, I complained to the store about not receiving the bookcase. The store’s delivery service emailed a photo of the bookcase left on my porch. So it appeared that someone had taken the bookcase from my porch. Thankfully, the store sent a replacement package.

Security experts that I’ve spoken to say that there are preventative security measures one can take to avoid being a victim of porch pirates. For example, one can install a doorbell or some other type of security camera. Often, the sight of a camera discourages a potential thief.

But if the thief is brazen, desperate or stupid enough to steal under the watchful eye of a camera, the camera will capture the image of him/her, and one can report the theft to the police and provide the camera image.

Most security specialists suggest the installation of a doorbell camera as the doorbell camera is equipped with built-in motion detectors, which will alert your smart telephone when someone is at your door when you are not home. Doorbell cameras are also equipped with night vision, which will enable one to see someone in the dark night. Motion detector lights can also discourage a would-be-porch pirate.

One can also often choose to ask the delivery service for a signature required. But the downside of this is one then has to go and collect the package.

As I noted here before, a dog is perhaps the best security. If a would-be-porch pirate comes up on your porch or front step, the sight and sound of a dog (especially a large dog) that is barking furiously in the front window will often send the thief running away.

As my late friend Mark Tartaglia, a retired detective, often said, “Crooks hate dogs.”

Paul Davis’s Crime Beat column appears here each week. He can be reached via pauldavisoncrime.com.  

Brother Of Notorious Mexican Cartel Leader Pleads Guilty To International Drug Trafficking And Firearm Offenses

The U.S. Justice Department released the information below:

A Mexican national pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for unlawful importation into the United States, and using, carrying, and possessing a firearm in furtherance of the drug trafficking conspiracy. 

According to court documents, Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, 67, of Michoacán, Mexico, trafficked cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States for Mexico-based cartels for over two decades. From around 2002 to 2010, Oseguera Cervantes operated as a member of the Milenio Cartel in Jalisco, Mexico, overseeing narcotics sales, protecting territories from rival cartels, and supervising and maintaining the operations of methamphetamine laboratories. He procured precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and distributed methamphetamine and cocaine destined for the United States.  

The court filings state that since around 2010, Oseguera Cervantes worked with and reported directly to his notorious and now-deceased brother, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “Mencho,” who co-founded and led the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). The CJNG is one of the most prolific and dangerous drug cartels in Mexico, based in the State of Jalisco, which traffics multi-tonnage quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States. Oseguera Cervantes furthered CJNG’s drug trafficking operations, including by supplying precursor chemicals to CJNG methamphetamine laboratories and distributing cocaine and methamphetamine for the CJNG. He also collected drug proceeds and managed CJNG’s money laundering activities, such as transferring drug proceeds from the United States to Mexico through currency exchange locations. When collecting drug proceeds or attending meetings to discuss drug trafficking, Oseguera Cervantes armed himself with a pistol. 

Oseguera Cervantes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and 500 grams or more of methamphetamine destined to the United States, as well as using, carrying, and possessing a firearm in furtherance of the drug trafficking conspiracy. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 13 and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison and a maximum penalty of two consecutive life sentences in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Administrator Terrance C. Cole of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made the announcement.

The DEA’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit Los Angeles is investigating the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance to Oseguera Cervantes’ February 2025 transfer from Mexico to the United States pursuant to Mexico’s National Security law. The Department of Justice thanks the Government of Mexico for its assistance in securing Oseguera Cervantes’ presence in the United States for prosecution.

Chief Kaitlin Sahni of the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Unit (NDDU) and Trial Attorneys Lernik Begian, Douglas Meisel, and Nicole Lockhart, of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section are prosecuting the case.

The Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section’s (MNF) mission is to take the profit out of crime, eliminate drug cartels, and protect the U.S. financial system. MNF pursues criminal prosecutions and criminal and civil asset recovery actions involving: financial facilitators who launder profits for criminals; financial institutions and their officers and employees whose actions threaten the U.S. financial system and financial institutions; international money launderers who support transnational organized crime; and the top command and control of international drug trafficking organizations.

MNF’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Unit investigates and prosecutes the top command and control elements of international drug cartels, drug trafficking organizations and related transnational criminal organizations.

This case is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of U.S. law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States.            

My Philly Daily & Broad + Liberty On Crime Column: Looking Forward To The New James Bond Film

Philly Daily & Broad + Liberty ran my On Crime column today on the upcoming James Bond film.

You can read the column via the link below or the following text

 Paul Davis: Looking forward to the new James Bond film

As fans eagerly await the next 007 film, they wonder what actor will assume the role of Bond, James Bond.

As a James Bond film fan and Ian Fleming aficionado, I too am waiting for the new film. I’ve been a Bond film fan since I first saw Sean Connery as Bond in Dr. No when I was a kid in the early 1960s. After viewing the second Bond film, From Russia With Love, I bought the Ian Fleming novels, which I was pleased to discover were darker and more complicated than the films.

I hope the new Bond film will be more faithful to Ian Fleming’s classic novels, and I hope the producers will pick a good actor to portray Bond.

Amazon acquired control of the world-popular, billion dollar 64-year-long James Bond franchise last year from the original producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli’s daughter, Barbara Broccoli, and his stepson, Michael G. Wilson.

Amazon MGM Studios and Broccoli and Wilson formed a new joint venture in which they will co-own James Bond intellectual property rights, but Amazon MGM will have total creative control. Financial terms weren't disclosed, but it was big, big bucks.

The deal has increased speculation, and British bookie’s bets, about who will portray the world’s most famous fictional secret agent and international crime fighter in a new film that is set to hit the big screen in 2028.  

That will be seven years after the last Bond film, No Time to Die (it ought to have been called No Time To Think of a Better Title), which featured Daniel Craig’s last portrayal of James Bond. 

The new film is being produced by David Heyman and Amy Pascal, and Denis Villeneuve, the director of Dune and Blade Runner 2049, is set to direct. Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, is writing the screenplay. But the new James Bond actor has not yet been selected, or perhaps not yet announced. 

Experienced and fairly well-known actors such as Callum Turner, 36, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 36, are being named by the press (and British bookies) as possibly the new Bond, but I suspect it will be a younger actor (Sean Connery, the first cinema Bond - and still the best in my view - was 32 when he filmed Dr. No), as well as a lesser-known and more rugged actor.

I believe they will select a younger actor as the film makers would like the new actor to do a 15-year run or more as James Bond. I also suspect they want a more rugged and physical actor, harking back to the ruggedly handsome Sean Connery, whom Ian Fleming first dismissed but later told a friend that the Scot actor looked like his Bond and had the right physique, and the rough-hewn, mug faced Daniel Craig. Movie audiences believed the two actors would kill without hesitation. I think the film makers will shy away from actors who, like Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, are traditionally handsome and less intimidating.

There is also intense debate on what direction the new film will take, as Daniel Craig’s Bond character was killed in No Time To Die (apparently there was, in fact, time to die). 

One speculated direction that I would like the film makers to take is to reboot the series by having the film set in the 1950s, the era in which author Ian Fleming first set his Bond character.

I would also like the film makers to be more faithful to Fleming’s popular novels. And I would like the film makers to remake some of the sillier, action-comedies in the film canon, beginning with Sean Connery’s Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and all of Roger Moore’s Bond films from 1973 to 1985. 

As a teenager in the 1960s I loved Roger Moore as Simon Templar in the TV series, The Saint. He was debonair, tough and cool. I wish Moore had portrayed Bond as tough and less comedic like Simon Templar.

I’d like to see a remake of Moonraker as a true thriller set in the post-WWII 1950s. The Moore film was silly, taking its cue from Star Wars. Fleming’s Moonraker novel was much darker. It had a great plot and a great villain, and it would make a great film.

Likewise, Diamonds Are Forever. Connery’s film was made as an action-comedy rather than a thriller. The film was amusing and well-made (as were Moore’s Bond films) but if one reads the Fleming novel, I suspect one will wish for a more faithful film version.

In the novel Diamonds Are Forever, Bond takes on the American mob and is much more realistic than the 1971 film. Anyone who reads the novel won’t soon forget the spa violence at the Saratoga Racetrack. There are many other unforgettable set pieces in the novel as well.

So, like millions of other Bond film fans, I eagerly await the arrival of the new Bond, James Bond.

Paul Davis’s On Crime column appears here each week. He is also a contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine. He can be reached via pauldavisoncrime.com 

Cinema Crime Wave: A Look Back At The Great Crime Films

 I recently passed by the street in South Philadelphia where the Colonial movie theater used to sit. The old movie house was torn down some years ago and an apartment complex now sits on the site.

I spent many hours of my childhood in the 1950s and 60s in that theater. I saw Dr No and the other Sean Connery-James Bond movies there. I saw John Wayne in The Alamo there. I also saw a good number of crime films there.

In the 1960s and 70s, a block away from the Colonial, was a Cheesesteak sandwich shop that didn’t sell cheesesteaks or anything else. The store was a well-known front for the headquarters of a Cosa Nostra capo named Frank Sindone, who oversaw all loan sharking in Philadelphia and South Jersey.

While moviegoers enjoyed crime films in a darkened theater on 11^th Street, the true-life criminals were meeting just down the block on 10^th Street.

Although the vast majority of South Philadelphians were and are honest, hard-working and law-abiding people, such as my parents, South Philly was and is the hub of organized crime in the Philadelphia area. As an aspiring writer, I grew up in South Philly with an interest in both reel and real criminals.

So as a lifelong student of crime, I was certainly drawn towards Crime Wave: A Filmgoer’s Guide to the Great Crime Movies (I.B. Tauris, 288 pp. $22.50). The book, written by film critic Howard Hughes (not to be confused with the eccentric billionaire), offers a companion book to one’s crime film home collection.

As Hughes notes in his preface, the world of crime is full of unpleasant people, yet crime movies hold a special place in cinema audiences’ affections. The movies Hughes chose to cover in the book are those he considers seminal Hollywood films, both in their genre and respective eras.

"Crime Wave includes the classic gangster flicks of the thirties and forties, often detailing bootlegging, robbery and smuggling: The Public Enemy, High Sierra, White Heat," Hughes wrote. "I also trace the development of the post-war film noir style, from The Maltese Falcon and Kiss Me Deadly to the knowing post-modernism of Chinatown and L.A. Confidential."

"There are tough B-movies from the thrifty fifties, such as The Big Combo; tales of gangster revenge (Point Blank and Get Carter) and Quentin Tarantino’s genre-referential Pulp Fiction. There are heist and caper movies, epitomized by The Asphalt Jungle and Ocean’s Eleven. Also discussed are lone, rule-breaking cops (Dirty Harry), buddy cops (Lethal Weapon), global crime (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), blaxpoitation action (Shaft) and even a gangster love story: Bonnie and Clyde."

"And of course there are the four great gangster epics, directed by Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone and Francis Ford Coppola: GoodFellas, Once Upon a Time in America, The Godfather, and The Godfather Part II," Hughes writes in the preface to the book.

And as Hughes tells his readers, in the book’s chapters you’ll come into contact with the crime movie stars like Jimmy Cagney on top of the world, Humphrey Bogart pursuing the black bird, Sterling Hayden prowling the asphalt jungle, Lee Marvin escaping Alcatraz, Clint Eastwood feeling lucky, Michael Caine spilling blood on the Tyne, Joe Pesci getting whacked and Robert De Niro being a wiseguy.

For me, Jimmy Cagney was one of the best cinema gangsters. Although he was a short man, he had great film presence. The baby-faced dancer and former boxer from the Lower East Side of New York was superb in The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces and The Roaring Twenties. He was a cocky, strutting tough guy. He is unforgettable.

An older, heavier Cagney revisited the gangster film in 1949 with his brilliant performance in White Heat, which Hughes states is Cagney’s greatest film. I’m inclined to agree. "Top of the world, Ma!" The film is a must for all crime film buffs.

Hughes does a good job of explaining the background to the crime films, from their inspirations from other films, novels and true stories to the people behind the scenes of the film’s production. From studio bosses to the directors, writers and money men, we see how the films developed into the classics we love today.

I especially enjoyed his chapter on 1971’s Get Carter. Michael Caine was terrific as a British villain out to avenge his brother’s death. Caine, like Cagney, grew up among real hoods and said that up to Get Carter, British gangsters were portrayed as stupid or funny and he knew some who were neither.

His Jack Carter character in the film is a mean guy with a mission. Those viewers only familiar with Caine in his more recent elderly roles may be surprised at his dark side. Caine is all psychotic killer here.

As Hughes points out, the director, Mike Hodges, references great detective fiction in the film, with Caine reading Raymond Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely on a train and there are two rival gangs, as in Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, with Carter, like the Continental-Op, trapped between the two.

Mike Hodges also directed Caine in another somewhat lighter crime film the following year. 1972’s Pulp also references detective fiction, but in this film, Caine portrays a writer of pulp crime fiction. I love the film and get a kick out of the jokes at the expense of writers. When Caine is hired to ghost-write the autobiography of a movie star/gangster (sort of a latter-day George Raft), he gets involved in murder and political intrigue on the island of Malta.

I love Caine’s voice-over narration, which does not quite match what viewers see on the screen. (The voice-over talks of his drinking champagne, but Caine is seen clearly drinking beer). This is a device later used to less effect in a Tom Selleck crime comedy.

"The writer's life would be ideal," Caine tells us. "But for the writing."

When Caine points out a relevant fact, he's asked how he knew this.

"I write crap like this every day. It's my job." Caine, the pulp writer, replies drolly.

Hodges and Caine were set to make another film together based on the life on British traitor and spy Kim Philby. According to Hughes, Philby, an upper-class twit then living as a defector in the Soviet Union, vetoed the casting of Caine.

Hughes quotes Caine as saying, "It seemed he didn’t like the idea of someone of my class playing him, which I thought was spoken like a true communist."

Hodges would go on to direct Clive Owen in Croupier, another interesting crime film with a writer for a protagonist. Perhaps because Owens wore a tuxedo as a casino croupier in the film, the speculation began that Owens would or should play James Bond. Although I thought Daniel Craig was fine as James Bond in Casino Royale – I think he was widely accepted in large part because the producers made a true thriller rather than a cartoon – I believe Owen would have been far better as he fits Ian Fleming’s physical description of Bond.

Owen is now set portray another of my childhood fictional crime heroes, Philip Marlowe. He is said to star in a series of films based on the tough, wisecracking private detective of the 1940s from the novels by Raymond Chandler. I’m looking forward to seeing the films.

In his chapter on global crime, Hughes chooses the 1969 James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (OHMSS). Hughes notes that of all the actors to play Bond, George Lazenby is the least remembered and OHMSS is the most overlooked of the Bond films.

"And yet in its depiction of Bond’s battle with corruption, extortion and organized crime on a global scale, OHMSS has aged much better than its contemporaries and remains one of the most elaborate and exciting crime thrillers of the sixties," Hughes writes.

The film is one of my favorites and I wish that Connery had started in it, as I would have loved to seen him with Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas as Blofeld. But I always thought Lazenby did a fine job, all things considered. 

He was not an actor, and he was following Connery in the role. Had he stayed with the series, he would have become a better actor and I’ve no doubt he would have made the role his own. (And we would not have had to endure Roger Moore’s lighthearted and lightweight portrayal of Bond).

"Bond is a crime-busting secret agent on a grand scale – a very distant relative of the G-man heroes of old," Hughes writes.

Lazenby looked like Bond, and he was very good in the fight scenes. But it was the director, as Hughes rightfully points out, that made OHMSS one of the best film adaptations of the Fleming novels. Peter Hunt, who served as the editor of the previous Bond films, was faithful to the novel and truly captured the feel and flavor of the Fleming/Bond world.

In OHMSS, we find Bond chasing Blofeld, the head of the international criminal organization SPECTRE, when he comes across a woman intent on killing herself. Bond saves her and discovers that her father is Marc Ange Draco, the head of the Union Corse, one of the biggest crime syndicates in Europe. He is pleased with Bond and tries to bribe him into marrying his daughter Tracy (Diana Rigg).

Bond of course refuses, stating that he doesn’t need the money and he has a bachelor’s taste for freedom. Just see more of her, Draco pleads, explaining that she has been self-destructive, but he senses something in her changed when she meets Bond.

Bond asks if he knows the whereabouts of Blofeld, who is a competitor of sorts to Draco. Draco claims not to know and says that if he did, "I would not tell Her Majesty’s Secret Service," he sneers. "But I might tell my future son-in-law."

OHMSS is a dark film, Hughes writes, beginning with an attempted suicide and ending with a wedding-day murder. Although From Russia With Love is my favorite Bond film and novel, OHMSS is one of the better films in the series and if Connery had been in it, it may very well have been the best.

"It’s all right," Bond tells the passing police officer as he sits in his car, cradling his bride who had just been shot and killed by Blofeld.

"There’s no hurry you see… we have all the time in the world."

Hughes offers a chapter on another of my favorite films, 1967’s Point Blank. Like Caine’s Carter, Lee Marvin’s Walker is one bad guy. He’s out for revenge and to get his money while systematically bringing down a crime syndicate in John Boorman’s classic film. Marvin, a Marine veteran of the WWII war in the Pacific, was the perfect hard-looking antihero.

Hughes also offers a chapter on 1971’s Dirty Harry, one of my favorite Don Siegel crime films. As Hughes rightly notes, this was the most influential cop movie of the 1970s. It captured the mood of the country as many Americans believed that criminals had more rights than crime victims and that the police were hampered by liberal laws. Clint Eastwood was excellent as Dirty Harry, the cop they gave all of the dirty jobs to. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for any of the sequels.

Hughes also writes about Siegel’s other great crime films, such as 1968’s Coogan’s Bluff, which also starred Eastwood.

I also liked 1968’s Madigan with Richard Widmark and Harry Guardino, a good character actor who also appeared in Dirty Harry. (I was told that Guardino was our second cousin on my mother’s side).

There are also interesting and informative chapters on other great films and on films that I’m not so keen on, such as Pulp Fiction and Ocean’s Eleven.

Tarantino, it seems to me, is all style and pop culture references, and not much else. And the less said about Ocean’s Eleven and the sequels the better. For that matter, I didn’t particularly care for Frank Sinatra’s original film either.

Hughes also writes chapters on The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and what I consider the best crime film ever made, 1990’s GoodFellas. I’ve written about these great films before, and I will again in another column. Unlike Hughes, I would not lump Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America with these great films. I would add Scorsese’s Casino.

So if you are a crime film aficionado, Howard Hughes’s Crime Wave, with its photos, listings of movie credits and informative background material, should be a part of your library.                                                              

Note: The above column originally appeared in The Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2007.