Ricky Ross

A rare US three-sheet from King Kong expected to fetch between pounds 30,000 and pounds 50,000 is the highlight of Christie's sale of vintage film posters on Monday. One of only four known copies, the poster depicts the film's most memorable image: King Kong on the pinnacle of New York's Empire State Building. The sale also features the largest collection of James Bond posters, including three unique sets of US door panels from Thunderball, You Only Live Twice (both reckoned to go for between pounds 2,000 and pounds 3,000) and Goldfinger (pounds 3,000-pounds 5,000).

THE Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is to be asked to investigate claims that the former Bond actor Sean Connery was denied a knighthood because of a donation to the Scottish National Party.

FROM HIS unbreakable Scottish soldier in The Hill to his definitive James Bond, Sean Connery is a great British film star. He is also a tax exile. Content to leave the green hills of Scotland far behind him for most of the year he has none the less been lending his sex appeal to romantic Scottish Nationalism - the misty-glens-and-braes variety rather than a form of politics meaningful in the lives of the people of Edinburgh to whom he once delivered milk. Connery is also credited with approving the use by men of physical force in controlling their womenfolk. Sometimes she needs a good slap, is how he is supposed to have put it.

SCOTTISH Nationalists are question the Government over reports that actor Sean Connery was refused a knighthood because of his separatist views, writes Andrew Buncombe.

Kevin Costner's latest film is about a futuristic postman. And it's utter tosh. Whatever happened to the once-epic star of 'Dances With Wolves'? By David Thomson

The Enchantress Royal Festival Hall (Saturday)

Hollywood is often fawningly referred to as "a state of mind" but these days it's more like a turbo-charged assembly line. The directors and screenwriters working the factory floor are earning more money than ever before, but there's a catch: the only clear route to success is the well-travelled, four-lane, techno-violent highway.

we're no strangers to controversy here at Cries & Whispers. Our radical treatises, from "Liv Tyler doesn't look all that gorgeous to me" to "I'm not sure if Anna from This Life is such a brilliant actor", have challenged the assumptions of the age, time and time again. And today we're going to devour the meat of popular culture's most sacred cow - right off the bone. Hate-mail and death threats be damned. This is the column that dares to say: Roger Moore was a superb James Bond.

Get an evil mastermind who cannot do the simplest task, like killing someone. `We're not going to actually watch them die, we're going to shut the door and just assume everything goes as planned.'

One of last summer's blockbusters, The Rock (cert 15) starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, is a cocktail of action, adventure and comedy which boasts a well- crafted script. After its success at the box office, The Rock is now available to buy on video (pounds 14.99).

It was certainly right for the Government, as a mark of respect to the Princess of Wales, to call a temporary halt to the Scottish referendum campaign. What is more it may make a difference: the referendum is only nine days away; and the last two weeks were always seen as crucial. Apathy, and a consequently low turnout, perhaps 50 per cent or even less, has always been what ministers feared most deeply. And so far a series of distractions, over which Donald Dewar, the Secretary of State for Scotland, has inevitably had little control, have made it much more difficult for the Yes campaigners to inspire real excitement among Scottish voters about how a parliament might improve their quality of life.

Paul Healy's recent job interview had him shaken but not stirred. "There must have been about 30 or 40 people there and most of them were dressed in James Bond gear," Healey, a media studies student from Burnley, explains. Having barely had time to check the Bond-age on display (ranging from "tuxedos" to "a few females dressed as Bond girls"), Healey found himself plunged into a group interview with a character from the famous films. Luckily, his grilling for a position as a "Special Agent" at the Royal Armouries World of 007 exhibition in Leeds was conducted by a charming Miss Moneypenny, who awarded him the job on the strength of his "customer services" skills - interpersonal aplomb gleaned largely, he explains,"from working in a Bingo hall"!

Kolya Jan Sverak (12)