JAMES BOND IN THE MOVIES: A Personal Journey (Part 2)

Thunderball (1965) threw in everything but the kitchen sink, and was the first Bond movie to be co-produced by the infamous Kevin McClory. Back in the late 50s, Ian Fleming had written a script with McClory and Jack Whittingham for a pilot episode of a proposed tv series to be called ‘James Bond Of The Secret Service’. The series never materialised, and Fleming went on to adapt the script into a novel, renaming it ‘Thunderball’. McClory and Whittingham were a little upset when Fleming refused to acknowledge their contribution, but they eventually received recognition when credited on the new film. McClory demanded to be onboard as co-producer, alongside EON’s Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and was allowed the rights to produce his own film version after EON’s rights elapsed in ten years time. In hindsight, this can be seen as rather short-sighted by EON, but nobody ever expected the Bond movies to last more than a decade. A great pre-title sequence saw Bond duking it out with a SPECTRE agent at a funeral. The agent, dressed as the dead man’s widow battles furiously with Connery, throwing tables, chairs, and a plant pot at him before being strangled with a poker. The sight of Bond punching what appeared to be a woman in the face was a great shock, and the fight sequence borders on parody as agent 007 trades punches with a man in a frock. The brutal nature of the fight stifles any potential sniggering at stuntman Bob Simmons (who had also doubled as Bond in the opening gunbarrels) wearing a black skirt, heavy make-up, and high heels. 

007 and a man in a dress.

Unfortunately we had another drippy leading lady in the shapely form of model Claudine Auger, but us schoolboys were amply compensated once again by the sultry Martine Beswick returning in a different guise as a fellow M.I.6 agent; in a bikini. We were doubly delighted by the kinky bad girl Fiona Volpe (played by Luciana Paluzzi) who nibbled at Connery’s ears in their bedroom scenes, and tried to kill him several times (once whilst riding a motorbike and dressed all in leather). Adolfo Celi as Largo was a suitably sadistic, eye-patch wearing bad guy – yet another employee of SPECTRE, and we got another glimpse of ‘Number One’ (face in shadow, seen stroking his white cat once again). 

Rik Van Nutter as 'Felix Leiter' gives Bond a hand.

Claudine Auger as 'Domino' with Adolfo Celi as 'Largo'.

Gadgets galore!

A long underwater battle had Bond flying through the water wearing a huge jet pack, and the action was aided enormously by John Barry’s atmospheric score. Tom Jones belted out the theme song, and was even reported to have fainted during recording, whilst screaming out the final lengthy note. Bond was massive now, and this movie was the biggest yet. In the shadow of Goldfinger, the film was an even bigger box office success but there was a noticeable dip in quality. The pace was a little sluggish at times, and Connery was beginning to look a little tired. In real life, Connery was growing bored with the role, and despised the intrusions on his private life by an insatiable world press. He was also getting pretty fed up with the larger than life stories, and the increasing reliance on gadgetry and gimmicks to get Bond out of trouble. Thunderball, like its predecessors, was a pretty faithful adaptation of the source novel, but everything was about to change on the next EON film.

The sound of Bond: Music maestro John Barry.

I bloody loved the Bond films! I taped them all on to audio cassette, and would be outraged if any of the family so much as coughed or even breathed too loudly while recording was in progress. At nights, I’d lay in bed listening to them through a single earphone, and remembering the images I’d seen on tv. Only this time, I imagined them in full colour – particularly Ursula’s blonde hair, Martine’s olive-skinned thighs, and Luciana’s luscious red lipstick. What were these movies doing to me? I was only twelve! Apart from the lovely ladies, exotic locations (I’d only ever left Wigan twice; to visit Southport and Rhyl), fantastic villains, and marvellous fist fights, the thing I was starting to love most about the films was the music. John Barry’s music. Monty Norman’s score for ‘Dr No’ was the weakest of the series, and that man was bloody lucky to have the hugely talented Mr Barry totally rip apart and rebuild his James Bond theme into something beautiful, ageless, and totally awe-inspiring. FRWL, Goldfinger, and Thunderball had superb theme songs, atmospheric melodies, and nerve-jangling action cues. Apart from the sheer energy, there was always an underlying melancholy that contrasted perfectly with the epic sweep of the individual scores. Fleming’s Bond, despite his expensive suits, exotic excursions, rich food, and devastatingly attractive women, was actually a pretty sad individual at heart. His job had him putting his life on the line regularly, killing people in cold blood, and enduring hideous torture (In ‘Casino Royale’, the debut novel, Bond has his meat and two veg pummelled by a sadistic Benzedrine-sniffing dwarf). In the novels, Fleming had Bond regularly musing on the shallowness of his existence, and the pursuit of instant gratification between his life-threatening missions. Barry seemed to totally understand this, and his music gave Bond an inner life that was rarely alluded to in the script (until, of course, Daniel Craig’s tenure). 

The young Ian Fleming. 

Fleming reads the US edition of his debut novel.

Fleming meets Connery on the set of 'From Russia With Love' (Fleming cameos in the film).

Rival film companies had begun to jump on the ‘Bondwagon’, and the sixties saw a huge increase in spy movies, most of which failed miserably to replicate the Bond formula. James Coburn’s ‘Derek Flint’ was a hit, but was an obvious parody of Bond. Flint was virtually superhuman, and ultimately cartoonish. Tom Adams’ Charles Vine in ‘Licensed To Kill’ tried to be 007 on a micro budget, and wasn’t a bad try. But Connery was head and shoulders above them all. Sean Connery’s Bond, EON’s production values, Fleming’s original stories, and John Barry’s music were a winning formula not easily copied.

James Coburn flashes the gnashers as Derek Flint.

Tom Adams as 'Charles Vine' in 'Licensed To Kill'. 

Vine in action!

Bond was massive in Japan, which led to EON’s choice of the next film to be Fleming’s melancholic and death-obsessed novel ‘You Only Live Twice’. 

A sombre story finds 007 seeking vengeance for the death of his wife in the previous novel (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and tracking down his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld – previously referred to only as ‘Number One’- to Japan. Fleming wanted to kill Bond off  by this point, and the novel ends with Bond presumed killed in action, and an obituary published in The Times. Much of the novel could not be used in the film script for various reasons (the most obvious being the fact that Bond is a widow at the start), and so a completely new story was concocted by none other than Roald Dahl. Yes, ROALD DAHL. The author of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, The BFG. Yes, THAT Roald Dahl. There was also another new director onboard in the shape of Lewis Gilbert, and a reluctant Connery back for a fifth time as Bond, and now completely and utterly pissed off with playing second fiddle to increasingly preposterous plots and, more importantly, long shooting schedules and endless publicity jaunts. 

Connery getting fed up with Bond.

A typical Japanese fisherman!

Filming in Japan would be the final straw for Connery, with Japanese photographers even reportedly following him into toilets. No surprise that the actor looks surly throughout, appears to be carrying a few extra pounds, and is mightily unconvincing when disguised as a Japanese fisherman. Thankfully, John Barry gave us another memorable theme song performed by Nancy Sinatra, who got the gig thanks to her recent hit ‘These boots were made for walking’. YOLT had a weak story which had 007 faking his own death in order to work more easily undercover in Japan (this is a ludicrous plot device, as when we first see him, post death, 007 is walking casually around the neon-lit streets of Tokyo, and attending public events such as a sumo wrestling match). We finally see ‘Number One’s face when he is revealed to be the aforementioned Blofeld, but it’s a little disappointing to see him played by the distinctly unthreatening Donald Pleasence (more usually cast as weasly, pathetic characters such as the short-sighted P.O.W. in ‘The Great Escape’). 

This is NOT 'Dr Evil'!

It was the end (for now) of Sean Connery as 007, but ‘James Bond will return in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Yep, the novel they SHOULD have filmed before YOLT. Thanks to the bright idea of exploiting the Japanese market, EON had made a rare miscalculation resulting in a missed opportunity of dovetailing OHMSS and YOLT, and instead had managed to give us the first lacklustre Bond film, and annoy their star actor into quitting. Was this the end for Bond? Did EON assume they’d be able to lure Connery back for OHMSS? It was 1967. The Summer Of Love. Was Bond now out of step with the times?

Who will fill Connery's shoes?

Some time around 1977 I sat down to watch ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ (1969), the first non-Connery Bond movie. All I knew about this one was that it starred “That George Lazenby bloke. Bloody idiot!” Well, that was what my Dad used to say about it. Apparently they’d replaced the irreplaceable Connery with a young Australian model who’d been ridiculed for years as the guy who failed as Bond. Yikes! Had EON done it again? Misjudged their audience and carried on the same crazy mistakes they’d made on YOLT? This was going to be interesting.

The trailers on tv looked great. Diana Rigg, best known as the sexy-as-hell Mrs Peel in another of my favourite tv series, The Avengers was playing Countess Teresa, the girl who marries Bond. Then there was Telly Savalas as Blofeld, who certainly looked far more threatening than Donald Pleasence. Plus the fantastic theme music (the first Bond movie without an opening title song), and the awesome looking ski chase sequences. 

"Merry Christmas, 007".

It was a shock to see Lazenby in action as 007, but I’d already seen lots of photos of him as Bond and he looked a pretty good substitute for Connery. Well, I sat down to watch OHMSS (in black and white, as usual), and was absolutely thrilled by the pre-titles scene. Here we had Bond driving his Aston Martin along a narrow road in the middle of the night, when he’s suddenly overtaken at speed by an attractive young woman in a sportscar. We see Bond’s hands on the wheel, his face in shadow, and the fact that he’s wearing a trilby. He’s wearing a hat while driving? Weird! Some superb fast-paced editing accompanies Bond as he rescues the girl from an attempted suicide by drowning, then battles a couple of thugs in a fabulously choreographed fight sequence , with an ace orchestral track by the ever-present and increasingly brilliant John Barry. 

Peter Hunt directs George Lazenby.

Bond wears a kilt.

This was fantastic! Then we came to the first shot of Mr Lazenby, and his first line to a groggy Diana Rigg; “Good morning, my name’s Bond. James Bond”. Well, this was different. Lazenby had a bright and breezy attitude, totally lacking Connery’s ruthless persona. Oh, dear. But he was good in a fight, and was obviously keen to be seen doing his own stunts. When Diana then leaves him alone on the beach, we have the first and only instance of the actor playing Bond breaking the ‘fourth wall’ as Lazenby looks out at us with a cheeky grin and utters the immortal words “This never happened to the other fella”. What? I’m sure I must have spluttered out my Horlicks at that moment. What did he just say? Even my dad laughed, and he only ever laughed at Benny Hill. The Bond movies were continuing to evolve, and OHMSS was the best yet, in my 13 year old opinion. I loved the whole atmosphere of the film, and with the only downbeat ending in a Bond movie (up until ‘Casino Royale’ in 2006, once again), it was certainly unique. Peter Hunt had been the brilliant editor on all the previous Bonds, and here he was promoted to full directing duties, and boy did he make a cracking job of it. Tightly choreographed fight scenes, stunning Alpine chase sequences, and a superb battle between Bond and Blofeld flying at (literally) breakneck speed down a treacherous bob sleigh run. 

'Blofeld' (Telly Savalas) meets Bond, but fails to recognise him from their previous film encounter!

True love at last.

This one had it all, and has remained my all-time favourite 007 movie. It also happened to be the longest Bond film, but such was the frantic pace, that I hardly noticed the time. And as for Lazenby? Well, I didn’t mind him at all; in fact it made the film all the more realistic to have someone playing Bond who wasn’t the all conquering Connery. Because I’d never seen Lazenby before (or much since), I found it quite involving to watch an unknown play Bond. I was appalled to discover, several years later, that it had been a relative failure at the box office (compared to the previous five films), and that Peter Hunt never got to direct another. So that was it for the 1960s. We’d had six Bond movies culminating in Bond sobbing at the untimely death of his new bride on their wedding day. 

A bleak ending to a fabulous decade of movies that redefined the action genre, gave us an immortal screen hero, and created one Scottish superstar. But OHMSS was to see the end of the (semi) serious Bond thriller. It was now the 1970s, and the world was in need of a few laughs.

“James Bond will return...”