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| Images copyright relevant owners |
"Ah, Mr. Pearl - you persist in trying to provoke me - into writing interesting blogs just like yours. However, I don't need to because you keep doing it for me." Yup, it's time again for Bashful Barry to write another guest post for this blog. However, the minute I see him walking up the pathway to Castle Crivens, holding his suitcases, I'm heading for the hills. Over to the bashful one.
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The name's Pearl... Barry Pearl, and I'm a James Bond fan, books and movies. I suspect that when the next Bond arrives, we'll get a box set of the 25 films that Eon Productions have made released in 4K. Currently there is a Blu-ray set that leaves out three productions that weren't made by them. I thought it would be fun to list all 27 and see how they are represented in comparison to the books.
The Bond movies are all photographed well, but in the current individual discs and the box set, the picture quality varies a bit, but is mostly very good. Some of the Roger Moore movies look a bit faded. (Not in my scene-by-scene remastered DVDS they don't, Barry. They're perfect.)
A note on Surround Sound! On home DVDs, there has been two kinds of surround sound: 1: The James Bond Surround and 2: The George Lucas surround (THX).
1. The James Bond surround realizes that you are in a movie theatre and what you are watching is in front of you. Therefore, unless a 'plane goes overhead or there's an explosion off-screen, most of the surround is left and right in front of you.
2. The George Lucas surround sound places you in the middle of the action, so the surround is all around you, not mostly in front. The later Bond movies go this way too.
The first production of a James Bond novel was Casino Royale, which appeared on CBS TV in 1954. (Also available on Blu-ray.) It was a live, one hour broadcast that starred Barry Nelson as American agent “Jimmy Bond”. Great to watch for what we know is coming, but it was badly done. Ian Fleming, now a husband and father, wanted Bond to be bought by the movies, or be a TV series (which were new then) to make some money. CBS said it was too violent and too sexy. This is exactly what made it a hit a half a century later. In the Moonraker novel, they mention that secret agents should be 35-45 years old and then retire. This won't be true of the actors who take on the role! Verdict: ** out of four stars, just because it is a curiosity to watch.
When Eon productions' Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman began their franchise, Casino Royale, Bond’s debut novel, was not available, so they started with Dr No, the sixth book. This 1962 movie was low budget and appeared mostly in drive-in movie theatres in the U.S. It followed the book closely, but instead of fighting the Russians, Dr. No worked for SPECTRE, which wasn’t introduced in the books until Thunderball, Fleming's ninth. Fleming was a snob and a racist and many racist elements appear here. Director Terrance Young, who does not get enough credit, changed the snobbishness to sophistication and worked so well, especially with Sean Connery. In Bond’s opening scene with M (Bond’s boss), they discuss an assassination attempt on Bond that occurs in the next movie, but in the previous book! Verdict: *** ½ stars out of four.
Three Bond Formulas are introduced:
Three Bond Formulas are introduced:
1. A beautiful girl is introduced and spends the last half of the move being rescued by Bond.
2. Bond is captured and the villain simply must tell him every detail of his plan.
3. The movie ends with Bond and the girl together, usually on water or some other secluded place.
From Russia With Love, 1963. Simply one of the best Bond movies, with a great cast and great villains. More serious than most, it also uses SPECTRE, which hadn't yet appeared in the bond books. Verdict: **** stars out of four
Goldfinger, 1964. Again, one of the best and most entertaining movies, even the John Barry music is famous. It closely follows the book, substituting a laser in place of a mechanical circular saw. Here they show that a movie can be better than a book. That is, in the book Goldfinger attempts to rob Fort Knox, a long process and completely impractical. In the movie he tries to detonate an atomic bomb to radioactively contaminate the reserves of gold, thereby rendering them worthless. Verdict: **** stars out of four.
Formulas introduced:
1. The film begins with a “mini-movie” that has nothing really to do with the main plot.
2. Bond meets a beautiful girl at the beginning of the movie and she doesn't live to see her name in the end credits. They are often very pretty and cannot act.
3. Villain has an interesting henchman.
Casino Royale, 1967. Colgems (Columbia Pictures) bought the rights to Casino Royale from CBS and produced one of the worst movies ever made. Allegedly a satire, it ain’t funny. The music, however is great, and the song The Look of Love comes from this movie. More on this picture later! Verdict: Zero stars out of four.
You Only Live Twice, 1967. This is the first Bond movie that has nothing to do with the book, except the location and the names of some characters. In the books, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service came first, where James Bond's wife is murdered by Blofeld. In the book of YOLT, Bond goes after his wife’s killer. Shot out of sequence, this does not touch on that plot at all. Instead it has a plot about stealing rockets. Verdict: A watchable ** ½ stars out of four.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969. One of the Best Bond movies, even with the worst James Bond, here played by George Lazenby. The movie follows the book closely and former Avengers girl Diana Rigg is beautiful and perfect. But!!!! The movie was supposed to end with the marriage of Bond and Tracy (Rigg), and the next movie was to begin with Blofeld killing Tracy. However, Lazenby, after one movie, thought that he was too big a star to do a second movie and quit. So they tacked on the sad scene to the end of the movie. The movie is still great and ends like the book, but the sad ending really hurt at the box office. Verdict: **** stars out of four.
Diamonds are Forever, 1971, doesn’t work well. After the disappointing box office of the previous movie, United Artists (not the producers) wanted Connery back. He was now a bit too old and too heavy. The movie pays little notice to OHMSS, and, as with YOLT, takes the location and characters from the book and nothing else.
Two important points:
Two important points:
1. This is the first Bond movie where Bond is portrayed more like a super-hero than a spy. The humour, which overwhelms the Roger Moore movies, actually starts here. The plots are more silly than threatening.
2. Remember McClory? He claims the legal rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE. They will not be used in a Bond movie for over forty years! This was a ** ½ stars out of four movie for me.
Live and Let Die, 1973. Roger Moore takes over and, frankly, these are the worst of the Bond movies. He doesn't have the presence or sophistication of Connery, but after Lazenby, the producers wanted an experienced actor. However, he plays the part like a comic strip character, not a secret agent, and the humor goes overboard. Again, this doesn’t follow the book closely, but uses the locations and characters. Sadly, the book is filled with racist comments and the movie includes a lot of them. (Name one, Barry. Or are you referring to when Bond is called 'Honky'?) It is painful to watch, but Jane Seymour is a sight for sore eyes. Verdict: * star out of four.
The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974, continues the worst portrayal and writing in a Bond movie, which looks rushed. Christopher Lee is such a great actor and a relative of Ian Fleming, but he can't overcome a bad script. Again, this has little to do with book except setting and character names. Verdict: Another * star out of four movie.
The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977. The actual book was really a long 'short' story where Bond has a cameo. Here the girl is a Russian Spy, which has nothing at all to do with the book. It steals a lot from Thunderball. The highlight is the incredible beginning and the introduction of the villain, Jaws. Verdict: ** ½ stars out of four.
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| Bob Simmons opening |
Moonraker, 1979. The book was a story about a villain named Hugo Drax, who wants to launch a missile with a bomb on it, directed at the heart of London. However, the relatively recent Star Wars movie was such a big hit, that the producers wanted to make this a space, sci-fi movie. The beginning, where Bond is thrown from an airplane without a parachute is fantastic. And then it gets really silly. This is the first Bond movie to feature the return of a villain, with Richard Kiel reprising his role as Jaws. Verdict: ** stars out of four.
For Your Eyes Only, 1981, was originally a book containing five short stories. Three of them are written into the script here. It is the best and most serious of the Roger Moore films. For that reason, Moore wrote, it is his least favourite, but it's my favourite. It lifts scenes from the book of Live and Let Die too. Verdict: *** stars out of four.
Octopussy, 1983. This was a short story that is quickly mentioned in the movie, which has nothing to do with the story. It steals from Goldfinger. Just silly, but with really pretty women and silly scenes. Verdict: * ½ stars out of four.
Never Say Never Again, 1983. Remember McClory? Well, he owned the Thunderball script and was legally able to make a remake of the original without the aid of EON Productions. He hired Sean Connery, now 53, who now hated the original producers, and they produced a boring movie. I had seen it all before. Everything seemed wrong and out of step for me. (Except for Kim Bassinger.) This came out the same year as Octopussy and didn't do as well. Verdict: ** stars out of four.
A View to a Kill, 1985. Moore’s last picture. Just bad. It has nothing to do with the short story that the title came from. Verdict: Zero stars out of four. Broccolli, the producer, doesn't want to embarrass Moore by “firing” him, so instead asks Moore to announce his retirement.
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| Timothy Dalton opening |
The Living Daylights, 1987. United Artists, the movie studio, is in financial trouble and is sold to MGM, which is also in financial trouble. This causes severe problems in budgeting and money for advertising. So the next two Bond films don't do well and the blame is placed on their new Bond, Timothy Dalton. (Pierce Bronson was originally slated to do Bond, but his contract with NBC could not be broken.)
This movie is sort of a generic Bond, with every cliché and formula being used. It borrows a bit from the short story it's named after. Timothy Dalton, at this point, is the closest to the serious Bond in the books, but is the audience ready for him? (I liked his performance very much.) This movie moves back into the politics of the Cold War, where Bond should be. But as serious as Dalton is, the movie gets frivolous. Verdict: ** ½ stars out of four.
License to Kill, 1989. The most controversial and violent Bond film to date, it was rated PG 13. The story, about drugs, takes very violent scenes from the movie Live and Let Die. Some bad casting, Wayne Newton and Talisa Soto. I liked that it wasn't following the Bond formulas too closely. Dalton, blamed for the lack of success of this and the previous movie, is asked to announce that he's leaving. Verdict: *** stars out of four.
Goldeneye, 1977. The financial problems of MGM cause a six year gap in the Bond films. Pierce Bronson, a fine actor, finally gets his chance to play Bond. For me, he was not quite suited for the role. He was too slight and not fearsome enough. He replaced Sean Connery rather than played James Bond. With the Cold War over, they “jiggered” his part to make him seem more like an anachronism. Judy Dench as M is just wonderful. Again, this is a formula movie. (Goldeneye was the name of Ian Fleming’s home in Jamaica.)
Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997. An interesting idea, that a media mogul (obviously Rupert Murdoch) would manufacture news to supply his media outlets and sell papers. Too much formula, but Teri Hatcher, someone who could act, is the girl who will die in the second reel. Verdict: ** ½ stars out of four.
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| Airfix model kit from the '60s |
The World Is Not Enough, 1999. This was a more interesting film, primarily due to the casting of Sophie Marceau and the expansion of Judy Dench’s role as M. Here, M finally gets to see Bond in action and what he has to go through both physically and emotionally. This changes her impression of Bond a great deal from what she thought of him in Goldeneye. Denise Richards, the pretty girl who can’t act, survives to the end. Many wished she hadn’t. Verdict: *** stars out of four.
Die Another Day, 2002. The first hour of the movie was terrific - 2 stars. It broke away from formula and showed the acting chops of Bronson as he is captured by the enemy. It then becomes pure formula, complete with an invisible car, and is very below par. Rosamund Pike’s first film and she and Halle Berry are top notch! Verdict: I guess ** ½ stars. (2 for the first hour, ½ for the second, though if the whole movie had been as good as the first hour, I'd have given it **** stars out of four.)
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| Daniel Craig opening |
Casino Royale, 2006. Sony had partnered with McClory and owned the movie rights to Casino Royale when it bought Columbia Pictures. But Sony didn't have the right to make another movie of it, so they traded their rights to CR to MGM for their rights to Spider-Man. So Sony made Spider-Man and MGM made this. Bronson was set to do another movie, but Casino Royale gave them a chance to start over, so Daniel Craig was hired. The opening of this film was still a Bond mini-movie, but the movie mostly followed the book, except they played Baccarat (something like Blackjack) in the book, Poker in the movie. Daniel Craig is definitely the James Bond that Ian Fleming had in mind. Verdict: **** stars out of four.
Quantum of Solace, 2008, had nothing to do with the short story on which it is named after. (That was about a marriage gone wrong.) It connects to the first movie, but this, for me, was horrible and made no sense. The producers are hoping and preparing for a big reveal to come soon.
Skyfall, 2012: A great movie, particularly because Dame Judy Dench as M is fully in it. The movie borrows a lot form the books, especially James Bond's biography from OHMSS. There's little formula here, it's a brand new plot and what happens at the end to Judy Dench is unexpected. (Not if one knew her contract was up, Barry.) Bond movies are also usually as good as the villains, and Javier Bardem is cold, ruthless and utterly perfect. Verdict: *** ½ stars out of four.
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| Roger Moore opening |
Spectre, 2015. McClory died in 2006 and on 15 November 2013, MGM acquired all the rights and interests of McClory's estate, bringing "amicable conclusion to the legal and business disputes that have arisen periodically for over 50 years.” So this movie links all the Craig movies together using SPECTRE, which they couldn't use since Diamonds are Forever. MGM also acquired the rights to Never Say Never Again. Scenes are taken from Thunderball in particular, and a few other books. I was surprised I did not like this movie more. They “pretended” that the identity of Blofeld would be a big reveal, but every Bond fan knew who he was so a lot of the suspense was gone. Verdict: *** stars out of four.
So that's my personal evaluation of all the Bond movies so far. Hope you're not too shaken or stirred if your personal favourite doesn't measure up in my eyes. Why not let me know why you disagree in the comments section. And if you do agree, then let me know about that too.
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So that's my personal evaluation of all the Bond movies so far. Hope you're not too shaken or stirred if your personal favourite doesn't measure up in my eyes. Why not let me know why you disagree in the comments section. And if you do agree, then let me know about that too.
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And below is a couple of photos of Barry's Bond collection.
Sir Roger was MY Bond (first Bond films I saw at the cinema were "Live & Let Die" and "The Spy Who Loved Me" on a double bill), so I prefer him though his films are occasionally difficult (as you point out about LALD and TMWTGG) and I can't defend "View" at all. But I love "Spy" and "Moonraker" and FYEO and have a soft spot for "Octopussy".
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the Dalton films, Brosnan was a great Bond who's films never served him (apart from "Goldeneye" though that clanging on the soundtrack wears thin) and Craig is also very good, though I can't stand "Quantum". I'm with you on "Spectre", I expected to like it more but the retro-fitting didn't really work for me and given the title, how could they not expect us to know it's Blofeld?
Die Another Day gets 2.5 stars. Kid misunderstood me. When you average our the first hour, which was great and the second hour which was terrible, it comes out to 2.5 stars.
ReplyDeleteDC's Showcase #43 (shown at top) reprinted a Dr. No adaptation from a British issue of Classics Illustrated. Showcase was usually a try-out for possible new series (it introduced the Silver Age versions of Flash and Green Lantern). I don't know offhand if DC was considering an ongoing Bond series, but I would assume that they would have the same problems with it ("too violent and sexy") that the CBS TV network had.
ReplyDeleteThe 1954 TV play was, IIUC, an episode of the anthology series Climax. They also did adaptations of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Long Goodbye, and Sorry, Wrong Number.
In Dr. No, Bond is ordered to turn in his Beretta pistol and trade up to the Walther PPK. It is strongly implied that the PPK is now the standard issue handgun for both the British Secret Service and the CIA. In You Only Live Twice, though, Bond is operating undercover, but Blofeld recognizes him because "only one man we know carries a Walther PPK." !?
BTW, in the movie, M says that the Beretta had "jammed on you" during Bond's last mission. In the novel, the pistol did not malfunction; the silencer snagged in Bond's waistband when he tried to draw it. (And I agree with Bond when he said that it could have happened with any handgun.) Actually, Beretta handguns are extremely reliable. Beretta should have sued Eon.
From Russia With Love introduced the convention of the chief villain executing a henchman for failure to carry out a mission. Also, Blofeld's "surprise victim" gimmick of chewing out one minion but then killing another.
You Only Live Twice is practically a remake of Dr. No, and The Spy Who Loved Me is practically a remake of You Only Live Twice (with submarines instead of spacecraft).
Luciana Paluzzi was a huge hit as SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in Thunderball, which is probably why YOLT also had a red-haired femme fatale (Karin Dor).
OHMSS went wrong by being too different from the usual formula, as well as by not starring Connery. Both of which were corrected for DAF.
IMHO, none of Moore's Bond movies, except maybe The man With the Golden Gun, is really bad, but the series may have just been running out of steam.
Some critics said that the Moore films were silly and campy because Moore could do comedy, but not straight action and drama. IMO, that is BS. The series was already heading in that direction anyway. Probably because each film needed to top the one before it. Eventually, it reached the saturation point, and had to be toned down, which is why the Daniel Craig films had a more serious tone.
(Something similar happened with a lot of action-adventure TV shows in the mid-1960s. Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea, Lost In Space, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, and The Avengers all went over the top in the 1966-67 season, then most of them tried to tone it down in '67-68, when the camp comedy fad was passing.)
The 1967 Casino Royale had Ursula Andress, Joanna Pettit, Daliah Lavi, Jacqueline Bisset, Gabriella Licudi, and Mirelle Darc, and somehow it is still unwatchable. It was a product of its time (and the above-mentioned camp fad), the decade that gave us Adam West as Batman, Dean Martin as Matt Helm, and Jane Fonda as Barbarella. Somehow, that movie actually made a profit. Maybe because it was the late 1960s, and everybody was on drugs.
I really like the Dalton films too, for what it's worth.
ReplyDeleteNice to see that splash page from Showcase, I believe that was a European comic that DC bought the rights to and reprinted, rather than an issue they actually adapted and drew themselves. A pity in on one way, as it would have been nice to have seen Bond drawn by Dick Giordano or Don Newton. Joe Kubert would have done bang-up job on the Caribbean setting too.
I was lucky, MW, in that Sean and Roger were BOTH 'my' Bonds. That's because, even though Sean had retired from the role, his replacement hadn't yet been announced when I saw most of the early Connery Bonds on the big screen of my local cinema. Personally, I think Roger was just as good as Sean, and the 'differences' between their portrayals has been exaggerated. As TC points out in his comment, the Bonds had already started to get more and more outrageous by the time Roger took over (in fact, Live & Let Die is less over the top, I'd say), and had Sean continued in the role, the movies would have headed in the exact same direction as they did with Roger.
ReplyDeleteGood points all around, TC, though perhaps Blofeld just didn't know any other agents working for MI6? Apparently, Fleming was advised about Berettas and Walthers by a real gun expert, so he's probably not to blame here for his opinion of the guns.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Roger gets a bad rap in my opinion. Live & Let Die outperformed Diamonds Are Forever at the box office, and Roger was tasked with not only filling Connery's shoes, but also casting off the shadow of Simon Templar. In my view, what he did was a remarkable achievement.
I'm surprised at Barry not being too impressed with L&LD - in my estimation it's one of the best Bonds of all time.
I just couldn't warm to the Dalton films, DS. He wasn't physically imposing enough in the role (even the director of stunts said as much), and the films were just going over old ground by this time. The best thing about his second movie was the increased screen time of Desmond Llewelyn as Q and the return of David Hedison as Felix Leiter.
ReplyDeleteWell, you did say four stars for the first hour, and one star for the second hour, which is five stars out of four, BP. I'm no mathematical genius, but four and one make five in my book, and you hadn't said anything about 'averaging out' (and I'm not quite sure how five stars for two hours 'averages out' at two and a half stars for two hours. (Me Tarzan.) I just did the best I could with it. And you actually gave it three stars in your draft, not two and a half.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I'm interested in BW, is where the 'racism' is in the movie of Live & Let Die. I don't remember seeing any. And Fleming wasn't generally disparaging of negroes in the book that I recall, and I just re-read it several months back. John Brosnan, in his book, James Bond In The Cinema, said it was racist for Bond to tell Quarrel to fetch his shoes (in Dr. No), but I think Bond would have said that to any 'assistant' agent, regardless of their colour.
Well, maybe Bond would have politely asked Felix Lieter, "Do me a favor, will you? Bring my shoes, please." Instead of curtly ordering him to "Fetch my shoes." Maybe with Paula or Kissy, he would have said, "Be a love, dear, and fetch my shoes, there's a good girl."
ReplyDeleteIn the novel Live & Let Die, Fleming seemed to bend over backwards to appease "Negroes," which he never did with any other ethnic group. And he had villains from many different races and nationalities. Dr. No was half German and half Chinese; Red Grant was Irish, and Rosa Klebb was Russian; Goldfinger was Austrian and Jewish, and Oddjob was Korean; Largo was Italian; and Blofeld was (IIRC) Polish, and probably Jewish. As a British WWII veteran, Fleming may have had a negative attitude toward Germans. And there are some racist remarks about Koreans in the novel Goldfinger. (Bond says they are below apes on the evolutionary scale.)
IMO, Dalton gets a bad rap. If his two Bond films failed, it could have been because they (like OHMSS) strayed too far from the formula, as much as it was because of his shortcomings (which I do not deny). It looked as if they were trying to make Bond more politically correct, and to make James Bond movies for people who did not like Bond movies. Try to please everyone, and you end up pleasing no one.
Geoffrey Boothroyd was the British firearms expert who advised Fleming about weapons, including trading up from the .25 Beretta to the 7.65mm (.32) Walther. In Dr. No (both the novel and the movie), a Major Boothroyd is the MI6 armorer who issues Bond the new handgun. The actor who played the major was not Desmond Llewellyn, and I don't know if Q and Boothroyd were supposed to be the same person, or if they were two different characters. If the latter, they evidently got conflated over time. In the film The Spy Who loved Me, the Russians address Q as Major Boothroyd.
Just in case anyone is tempted to consider me a bit of a thicko when it comes to averages, let me explain my thinking. Barry originally gave the first hour of Die Another Day four stars, and the second hour one star. That adds up to five stars, which, as Barry correctly pointed out, is an average of two and a half stars - but it's an average for each hour individually, not the two combined. (However, in the draft he sent to me, he gave the complete movie three stars in his final summation, not two and a half, so I was trying to make sense of a figure that was wrong to begin with.)
ReplyDeleteIf you have five stars applied in total to two separate hours, the average for the first hour (which originally had four stars) is two and a half stars, but likewise, the average for the second hour (which originally had one star) is also two and a half stars - not the average for the two parts combined as a whole.
Any mathematicians out there?
H'mm, I'm not convinced, TC. Bond was in a hurry and the trio were in danger, so the 'fetch my shoes' line strikes me as someone who is preoccupied with trying to figure a way out of the mess they're in, and is merely talking (as the man in charge) to the person nearest him, but without the usual courtesy that would accompany a less dangerous situation.
ReplyDeleteMajor Boothroyd was always 'Q', as far as I understand, TC. 'Q' stands for Quartermaster (armourer). As you say, Llewelyn wasn't the first actor to play the part - it was Peter Burton, who was addressed as 'Boothroyd', not 'Q', in Dr. No, but I believe they were meant to be the same person from the start.
Meant to say, TC, that I agree it's difficult to assess Dalton's turn with any certain attribution of culpability for both movies' relative failure. I do think that Dalton, though he looked fine as Bond in publicity photos, just didn't measure up in the flesh. Looked too angst-ridden most of the time, and there's a scene with his shirt off where he doesn't look strong enough to fight sleep. And that hint of 'yokel' in his voice didn't help.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, perhaps his physical inadequacy (as Bond, not as Dalton) might have been less obvious if the movies had been better, but they were a couple of damp squibs with nothing original about them in my view. I just felt I'd seen it all before, not only in Bond movies, but also in other films - and done better too. Without a doubt, the scriptwriting, direction, boring photography (point and shoot), and lack of any decent fights in the movies are also huge factors in their failure to set the cinema-going public alight.
Hi guys:
ReplyDeleteIn Live and Let Die all the African Americans spoke in a dialect of broken English showing a lack of literacy. No other characters had that. Also, Fleming says that all black people believe in Voodoo. No black character had a real job, so to speak, yet white people did. Fleming goes on about how black people should be treated as if they were separate.
I don's see Dr. No as being that similar to YOLT.
In the ORIGINAL draft of Thunderball (called Operation: Warlord) the villain was not SPECTRE but the Mafia. That is why all the villains are Italian in the movie.
Didn't My Fair Lady end with "Eliza, get me my slippers."
Are you talking about the book or the movie, BP? In the movie, Mr. Big/Kananga, Baron Samedi, and Tee Hee all sound quite educated to me. If in the book, I don't think that Fleming's attempts to capture and convey the dialect can be construed as meaning to suggest that the speakers lack literacy. Didn't the bad guys write a note saying "He disagreed with something that ate him"? They wouldn't have been able to had they been illiterate. And the movie makes no suggestion that black people should be treated as separate.
ReplyDeleteIn Dr. No, the bad guy is interfering with the American space programme (if I remember correctly) so that the US will think the Russians are responsible. The baddie has a secret underground/undersea lair. In YOLT, the bad guy is interfering with the US and USSR space programmes so that each will think the other responsible. The bad guy has a secret underground lair. A basic similarity to be sure, but many commentators have remarked on both movies' similar plot. Author John Brosnan certainly thought so in his book James Bond In The Cinema.
And I think the fact that all the villains in the original draft of Thunderball being Italian only shows that Fleming was prejudiced against the Mafia, not Italians per se.
And I trust that Eliza DID get the Prof his slippers after all he'd done for her - AND made him a cup of tea and brought him a biscuit as well. It's the least she could have done after weeks or months of free bed and board.
Oh, and in the book, the black characters working in the bars and restaurants had real jobs, BP. I believe it's called the service industry. And I'm sure that Fleming wasn't suggesting that the black villains were representative of their entire race, so no racism there.
ReplyDeleteOnge again another very good article...I thought all the Bond actors were good.. Some were dealt lousy scripts, others were given badly miscast villains etc.. I grew up with Connery and Moore and when you are a kid they were great. I must admit I thought that irritating southerner cop in live and let Die did not help and to top it off he was back in the next one...I found I got tired of Bond movies as I got ancient...I do watch the occasional one now and then.. My favourite being Goldfinger. That... they got it right.. Connery was excellent. Gert Frobe Brilliant !! and Harold Sakata and Honor Blackman.. Outstanding....Great Story Great Movie.. And the debut of the Aston Marton ...and!!! we cannot forget Shirley Eaton
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Bond 'fan' as such (I don't collect 'em), but my favourite by far is LALD, both for it's tapping into the brief 'blaxploitation' cycle of movies (which I do collect) and for the best theme song of the lot (sorry Shirley and Carly). I can't comment on the books though...
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched LALD recently, but I remember Yaphet Kotto being perfectly dignified and well-spoken (until he exploded). If you expect all black characters in a '70's Bond film to be erudite intellectual equals to Bond, rather than slang-spouting hustlers, you're after an idealised world rather than a realistic one, and Bond films are certainly not the place for realism! And, even in the real world 40-odd years later, black folk don't walk about talking like Chris Eubank - come for a walk around Hackney with me and we'll research it together! It really bugs me when people take offence on behalf of actors who probably appreciated and enjoyed the work, not to mention had their industry profiles raised by it. (Check out the fab Night Gallery episode 'The Messiah of Mott St.' ('sic', probably) if you think Yaphet Kotto wasn't taken seriously as an actor!
Bond is not a touchy-feely social worker - he's a killer who's liable to consider most people his inferiors. He uses charm to get what he wants, but I wouldn't say he's charming, so why be surprised that he orders anyone to do something? He'd push any of us aside to achieve his goal quicker...
I think that From Russia With Love and Goldfinger are the two best Connery Bonds (FRWL was a real spy movie), and Live & Let Die and For Your Eyes Only were Moore's two best Bonds, LH. And you're right - who can (who would want to) forget Shirley. She appeared in the first ever Saint episode, and a later one as well. Wotta darlin'!
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Well made points, HS, and Yaphet Kotto was certainly an extremely well-respected actor as far as I can determine. As for Bond's 'fetch my shoes', funny how some people are looking for 'manners' in someone who is essentially a hired killer, eh? Especially when he's 'in the field'. If he'd said it to Honey, it probably wouldn't even have registered. (Though she may well have told him to fetch his own shoes.)
Interesting that Quarrel appeared in Connery's first Bond and also in Roger's first Bond. True, he became Quarrel Junior because the movies were shot out of sequence, but we all knew it was the same guy in the books.
I'm rather indifferent to Bond. I've seen every Bond film from 1962-89 on TV but none of the Pierce Brosnan ones and only the first Daniel Craig one (on DVD). I wouldn't care if I never see another Bond film. And when Idris Elba takes on the role, Bond will become a bit ridiculous (a black Bond...really??)
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned this before but my father was only two days older than Roger Moore!
Yes, a black Bond is just as ridiculous as a white Shaft or white Luke Cage, etc. They'll be inflicting a black Sherlock Holmes on us next - or a female one (or a black female one). PC madness reigns, CJ.
ReplyDeleteHow about a black Kingpin (since corrected brilliantly in the TV show), Valkyrie, Madame Xanadu, Iris West and my absolute favourite, a black Heimdall? What makes me laugh (well, punch a wall) is when a white actor is cast in a role that's non-white in the source material, (some loud) people do their nut and the white actor backs out saying they hadn't realised (as happened with the recent Hellboy flick)...
ReplyDeleteThey've already had Lucy Liu playing Watson in the recent US show, so that's pretty close to your prediction. Me and a mate have long joked about a Dambusters remake starring Denzel Washington and Forrest Whittaker, and their dog Snowflake.
I think Michael Clarke Duncan was really good in the role, but it wasn't the 'real' Kingpin - and I'm surprised that nobody made a fuss that the baddie had been made a black guy again. Apparently ('cos I never saw it), Valerie Leon was on Loose Women recently, saying that the idea of James Bond being played by a female was a load of old cobblers, and the harpies had a go at her for it. Anyone who seriously suggests that James Bond (not Jane Bond) can be female is several sandwiches short of a picnic and we should all be allowed to line up and give them a good slap.
ReplyDeleteWell, you know a helluva lot more about Bond than me...in the original novels is James Bond his birth name or an alias provided by his employers? I guess anyone could be cast as agent 007 if the production company had the guts to kill or sack James Bond himself, but you can't just decide he's black, female or a multiple amputee if Fleming's character wasn't!
ReplyDeleteWith all these remakes/reimaginings I usually think, as long as they don't replace the previous versions that we know and love, just ignore 'em. But to make such a BIG change to established literary sourced characters runs the risk of re-writing history to suit the PC brigade. (Don't get me started on recent Dickens adaps!)
Good old Valerie Leon - she'd still do a turn!
James Bond is his birth name, HS, but (as you say) any agent, man or woman, could theoretically be 007. However, that's not what these prats are calling for - they actually want a woman to play James Bond as part of their assault on gender differences. Bunch of absolute pillocks. What we need is a real double 0 agent to shoot the lot of 'em.
ReplyDeleteThey should be made to watch women's football - very funny on Not the Nine O'clock News when they all swapped shirts at full time, but in reality...
ReplyDeleteOr forcibly compelled just to stop talking sh*te and giving normal people a headache.
ReplyDeleteDid you know....In Live and Let Die Bond has an affair with an African American woman. It was deliberately filmed so it could be edited out without hurting the plot. And it was deleted ifor showing in many Southern cities in the US and other places world wide.
ReplyDeleteKid, you wrote, "prats are calling for " What is a prat?
ReplyDeleteThey used to do that in old Hollywood movies as well, BP. Songs and dances by black artistes were shot as 'stand-alone' scenes so that they could be edited out for screening in the deep South.
ReplyDeleteA prat (or pratt) is a fool, an @rse (ass, as you would say), an idiot, a clown, etc. (Probably where the expression 'pratfall' comes from.)
There is a fan theory that "James Bond" is a code name, but both the novels and the movies have clearly shown that it is his birth name.
ReplyDeleteOn Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice (the books) reveal details about Bond's past, including his parents' names: Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix Bond. And their graves are shown in Skyfall.
I might be OK with it if Bond retired, and if Idris Elba or Lashana Lynch or whoever played another MI6 agent who was appointed the new 007. But the idea of someone of a different race and/or gender being "James Bond" is ridiculous.
Fleming only gave Bond a Scottish father because he was impressed with Connery as Bond. At first he wasn't too keen on him when it was announced Sean had got the role, but once he saw him in Dr. No, he approved of him and Bond's Scottish ancestry was mentioned in the next book.
ReplyDeleteYou know the race/gender thing is ridiculous, TC, I know it, Bond knows it, and Fleming would be turning in his grave or his urn if he knew it was even being considered, but unfortunately, there are too many @rseholes in the world who don't have a clue about what makes Bond Bond. Someone save us from them.