BOND VS. BOND: THE MANY FACES OF 007

BOND VS. BOND: The Many Faces of 007. Paul Simpson. Race Point Publishing; 2015.

This huge coffee table book is divided into several informative sections. First we meet James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, and look into his background and his various 007 novels. Simpson also examines other authors who have written James Bond adventures, including John Gardner and Raymond Benson, as well as writers, such as Jeffery Deaver, who contributed only one novel. Then each actor who played Bond in the major movies -- from Sean Connery of Dr. No to Daniel Craig of Casino Royale -- gets his own chapter, and there is an additional section of other Bond portrayals, such as Barry Nelson on Climax!. There are sidebars on cars, gadgets, villains and "Bond girls." Aside from a comment here and there, the book offers no critical analysis of the books or films, but it does offer a wealth of behind-the-scenes details and is generously illustrated throughout. Major Bond fans will enjoy this enormously. 

Verdict: Beautiful tome on the most famous film series of all and then some! ***. 

BOND ... JAMES BOND

BOND ... JAMES BOND

In honor of the release of the latest James Bond movie, Spectre, this week we have a round up of 007 adventures dating from the sixties (From Russia with Love with Sean Connery) to the 21st century (Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan) with Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton in-between. All of these gentlemen -- including the latest Bond, Daniel Craig, as well as George Lazenby -- did their own take on the famous fictional spy, and I think all of them were very good, if different.

As for the evil organization, SPECTRE, it has been around since Dr. No in 1962. Dr No was working for the Russians in Ian Fleming's novel; Spectre, run by Ernest Stavros Blofeld, was invented for the films [maybe the studio didn't want Cold War problems?] The training center, Spectre Island, was introduced in the second Bond film, From Russia with Love, and really came into its own in Thunderball. As for Blofeld, he was up to his tricks in several later films, including You Only Live Twice.

SKYFALL

"Skyfall:" Bond's family estate in Scotland

SKYFALL (2012). Director: Sam Mendes.

MI-5 is on high alert: a computer drive with a list of undercover agents in terrorist groups has been stolen, but while attempting to get it back James Bond (Daniel Craig) is accidentally shot by a fellow agent. Bond takes his time reporting back for duty, only to discover that the info on the drive is being used to kill many other agents; even headquarters comes under attack. The mastermind behind this is a highly disgruntled former agent, Silva (Javier Bardem), who is out to take down the whole network and especially M (Judi Dench) whom he chiefly [pun intended] blames for his troubles. Skyfall is somewhere between the excellent Casino Royale and disappointing Quantum of Solace in quality. There is not nearly enough plot for a movie that is almost two and a half hours long, and Bond has been turned into a very callous and unemotional creature. At one point he does nothing to stop an assassination [we never even learn who the victim was], and seems unperturbed by the death of a woman who helped him [admittedly he takes down the bad guys immediately thereafter]; even Roger Moore would have shown more emotion during such scenes. Most incredibly, Bond simply shows up in the shower of a woman that he knows has been manhandled by men since the age of 12 [Ian Fleming's Bond may have been a lover boy but he showed women more respect.] In fact the film has a general streak of misogyny through it, and M seems especially inept; at one point the villain breaks out of confinement with such ease that it's almost laughable.

Skyfall is the name of Bond's estate in Scotland, where he takes M for a final stand against Silva and his allies. As Silva, Javier Bardem is pretty awful; he seems to be channeling his inner Joker. A scene when he questions Bond and tries to make him uncomfortable by sort of coming on to him is meant to be homoerotically hip, but instead it seems dated, a throwback to the nasty gay villain. [For the record Silva's sexual orientation is never really established.] Silva tells Bond, "there's a first time for everything," to which Bond replies "what makes you think this is my first time?" which some have interpreted as Bond being bisexual when such is not the case. In any case, the scene doesn't really work.

The film has some striking cinematography by Roger Deakens [another reason why the movie has been vastly over-praised], some exciting action sequences involving high-speed trains and the like, and has recaptured some of the romantic atmosphere and elegance of earlier Bond films. Thomas Newman's music is generally helpful. Craig and Dench are competent, and newcomers Naomie Harris [the agent, Eve, who becomes the new Miss Moneypenny], Berenice Marlohe [as the seductive Severine] make a favorable impression. Ralph Fiennes is in the running for M's job, and a nearly unrecognizable Albert Finney plays the Bond family gameskeeper and figures in the finale. Director Mendes at least keeps things moving.

Verdict: Despite its many good points, this is far from being a great 007 outing. **1/2.

DEVIL MAY CARE -- NEW JAMES BOND NOVEL

DEVIL MAY CARE. Sebastian Faulks (writing as Ian Fleming). 2008. Doubleday.

Published to celebrate the centenary of James Bond creator Ian Fleming's birth, Devil May Care is a disappointing 007 adventure. The best of the Bond novels -- be they written by Fleming, John Gardner, or even Raymond Benson -- sort of grab hold of you and never let go, giving you that certain irresistible pleasure no Bond fan can do without, but Devil May Care -- while not without merit -- is not in the same league. It lacks the rich, descriptive prose and that certain insight of Fleming, and it doesn't quite have the edge-of-your-seat, fast-paced thrill quotient of Gardner's best books, such as Scorpius. Neither is it as detailed or workmanlike as anything by Benson. It comes off like an okay pastiche with some good scenes -- none of which are developed that well -- and nothing more.

An interesting aspect is that the book takes place during the Cold War, right after the last Fleming novel, The Man with the Golden Gun (infinitely more entertaining than this). Some of its attitudes are strictly 21st century (female double-O agents), however, while others are mired back in the sixties (traitorous, blackmailed homosexuals). Bond's antagonist in this is Dr. Julius Gorner, who has one deformed hand and despises the English, and has come up with a plot to destroy Bond's homeland. Of course there's a beautiful woman in the mix with the unlikely moniker of Scarlett Papava. Gorner is not a memorable villain like Goldfinger or some of the Gardner or Benson antagonists, and the book's climax -- incredibly -- takes place a few chapters before it should. It'll make you want to reread the Fleming and Gardner books just to get a real feel of Bond.

Verdict: Borrow it from the library if you must. **.

THUNDERBALL

THUNDERBALL (1965). Director: Terence Young.

Overlong but generally very entertaining Bond film is a handsome production with excellent photography and some great set-pieces. SPECTRE, headed by an unseen Blofeld (voice of Dr. No's Joseph Wiseman), assigns Number 2, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), to arrange the theft of two atom bombs with which to blackmail the world's governments into a huge pay-off. Bond, accompanied by Felix Leiter (Rick Van Nutter) and female agent Paula (Martine Beswick) travels to Nassau to investigate Largo, where he meets the man's beautiful mistress Domino (Claudine Auger), who winds up helping him. The theme song, sung with zest by Tom Jones, is memorable, as is the prologue sequence, wherein Bond exposes and kills an enemy agent who attends his own funeral in drag. The bit with the sharks in Largo's swimming pool that eat a couple of his henchmen and nearly munch on Bond, is interesting, and the finale on the speeding, runaway hydrofoil is thrilling [none of these sequences are in Fleming's novel; neither is Bond's souped-up car or the lady assassin, Fiona (Luciana Paluzzi)]. 

Another change from the novel is that Domino's late brother is a good guy. He doesn't steal the atom bombs and kill his colleagues, but is murdered by Fiona and replaced by a double.

Thunderball is a nearly excellent 007 adventure but it does have its detractors. Sometimes the music, while attractive, is much too languid for an action picture, making the pace seem slow. It doesn't help that some sequences could certainly have been trimmed. The sequence when Largo and his men recover and move the bombs from the downed plane goes on forever, for instance. Another problem is that Claudine Auger, while competent enough as Domino, exhibits little personality [Paluzzi is much better as the evil hit woman]. Adolfo Celi is somewhat striking and dynamic as Largo, but his performance isn't that great. Of the supporting cast, Martine Beswick makes the best impression, but she has little to do and is quickly killed off [she also appeared in From Russia with Love as one of the battling gypsy women]. There are a couple of dumb moments. In the novel the lovely gal at the Shrublands health spa uses a mink glove to soothe Bond's muscles after his “accident” on the rack (a well done sequence in the movie). In the film, Bond uses the mink glove on her and tells her how soothing it is as if it's his glove that he carries around in his luggage. When Bond tries to convince Domino how evil Largo is, he says “Largo had him [your brother] murdered – or it was on his orders.” Of course, that means the same thing. What Bond really meant was “Largo killed your brother – or it was on his orders.” Thunderball was remade as Never Say Never Again with the same star.

Verdict: Whatever its flaws, Thunderball is one of the best of the Sean Connery Bond adventures. ***.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967). Director: Lewis Gilbert.

The film version of Fleming’s novel hasn’t got a whole lot to do with the book, although it does retain the Japanese setting and the master villain is still Blofeld. The character of "Tiger" Tanaka (head of the Japanese Secret Service) is also carried over from the book, as is the Ama diving girl called Kissy (the sexy Mie Hama). In this new storyline Blofeld is using his own spaceship to hijack manned rockets out of orbit, hoping to cause a war between the Russians and the Americans. Inexplicably Bond’s death is arranged and announced and he is even buried at sea amidst headlines, but this whole business seems contrived merely to fit in with the film’s title. You Only Live Twice is highly entertaining and has top-notch production values, including Freddie Young’s striking cinematography, Ken Adam’s stunning production design, and pretty sharp editing by second unit director Peter Hunt (who would helm a Bond feature himself in the future). This is a very well-made movie. Even the models and miniatures (copters, space ships, buildings, volcanoes) seem more like something out of the 80's than the 60's.

Highlights include the plane trap that horny Bond is suckered into by Helga Brandt (aka No. 11), played by lusciously sinister Karin Dor; the attack on the mini-copter "Little Nelly" by big copters that seem like malevolent dragonflies; and the poison-on-a-thread business that inadvertently kills Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) when Bond himself was the target. There’s a scene with piranha in the novel – in the film Blofeld sends No. 11 into a pool full of them because she failed to kill Bond. Blofeld was behind the scenes in two previous Bond movies (From Russia with Love and Thunderball) and Bond finally meets him face to face in this entry, with Donald Pleasance properly weird and sinister (perhaps a little too weird) as Blofeld. Charles Gray, who plays the murdered Dikki Henderson in this film, would play Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever. Although the word S.P.E.C.T.R.E. is never mentioned, one imagines that Blofeld would need the services of that group to pull off this caper, and he is still referred to as "Number One." (Spectre was also mentioned in the film version of Dr. No, although not in the novel, as the group did not exist before Fleming wrote Thunderball.)

Roald Dahl’s screenplay is lively, and there are plenty of memorable action scenes and fisticuffs. The sexism involving the geisha girls and the Japanese opinion of women is so outrageous that it’s almost comical. This reaches its nadir when Tanaka tells Bond that as cover he must marry a woman with "a face like a pig." As he waits by the altar, two supposedly "homely" women approach, but the third, who is beautiful, of course, turns out to be the bride. Tanaka tells Bond that the geisha girls are fascinated by his hairy chest. "Japanese men have beautiful bare skin," he tells Bond. Bond replies, "Bird never make nest in bare tree." Sean Connery, giving his usual slick one-dimensional performance, is unconvincing as a Japanese – at his height (6 ft. 2), it’s a wonder they even bothered with the deception (even in the novel this aspect seems foolish). John Barry’s music is, as usual, excellent, with a compelling theme song sung competently by Nancy Sinatra. Lewis Gilbert directs with aplomb. [Question: Are the American astronauts still on Blofeld’s ship when Bond blows it up? This seems unclear.] The next Bond movie was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service; Majesty was actually published before You Only Live Twice, which served as a sequel to that book. The same cannot be said for the film versions, of course.

Verdict: Good show, 007! ***.

DR. NO [revisited]

DR. NO (1962). Director: Terence Young.

Asked what he thought of the film adaptation of his novel "Dr. No," Ian Fleming replied thusly: “Those who've read the book are likely to be disappointed, but those who haven't will find it a wonderful movie. Audiences laugh in all the right places.” Well ... score one for Fleming, who was right on target: the book was better. Still, Dr No is an entertaining, essentially well-made thriller which introduced James Bond 007 to the world (notwithstanding the Casino Royale television production) and started the practice of him giving out with black comedy quips which were not in Fleming's novels. Dr. No also began the practice of featuring a cinematic Bond who was much less dimensional than he was in the books. Bond is assigned to investigate the disappearance of two agents in Jamaica, and comes afoul of the sinister Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman), who is taking over the guidance systems of the super-powers' missiles. The best and most suspenseful sequences have to do with Bond trying to keep from being captured by the doctor's men on his island of Crab Key. [Although the fictional James Bond has a scar on his cheek, this detail has always been omitted from the films.]

Although the movie is relatively faithful to Ian Fleming's novel, there were quite a few changes made. Felix Leiter does not appear in the book, but he shows up briefly in the film in the form of Jack Lord. Bond winds up with a tarantula in his bed instead of the much more dangerous giant centipede that appears in the novel [the deadliness of the tarantula has always been greatly exaggerated]. There are no birds or bird dung on Crab Key, and we learn what the doctor is up to almost from the very start. Honey (Ursula Andress) does not have a broken nose, but she does relate the story, as in the novel, of dropping a black widow spider into the bed of a man who raped her. [Although no reference book states this outright, Andress appears to be dubbed; for one thing the Swiss actress has a British schoolgirl accent, and her voice sounds different from subsequent film appearances.] Dr. No is working for SPECTRE instead of for the Russians, and at the end Bond enters a tunnel simply as an escape attempt – it is not “doctored” with Dr. No's traps as a test of endurance as in the novel. Finally, there is no giant squid at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps the filmmakers felt the audience just wouldn't buy this [to date there is no live giant squid in captivity.] 

Handsome and well-produced, Dr. No is not a great movie, but it is a good one, and a not-bad introduction to the World of 007. There is one rather dumb moment, when Bond kills Professor Dent, who is in the employ of Dr. No. While one can't blame Bond for wanting to snuff Dent, who has tried to kill him more than once, what about keeping him alive for questioning? The cast members give adequate to excellent performances with Wiseman the best as the sinister and strangely elegant Dr. No.

Verdict: Definitely has its moments. ***.

CASINO ROYALE (2006)

CASINO ROYALE (2006). Directed by Martin Campbell. NOTE: On occasion Great Old Movies will review a more recent film of interest to our readers.

This excellent OO7 adventure takes Ian Fleming’s original story and updates it to contemporary times, although it is still presented as Bond’s first major case (as it was in the books; it was the first Bond novel) and as such can be considered a "prequel." Bond is already considered a maverick by M (played, incongruously, by the wonderful Judi Dench, as if the male "M" never existed), when he’s assigned to beat a man known as Le Chiffre at cards at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. Le Chiffre has already lost a lot of money owed to terrorist employers and desperately needs to win it back. Vesper Lynd, who is not a field agent, accompanies Bond to Montenegro to keep track of how he spends his funds allocated for gambling. There’s a splendid action scene at an airport when Bond tries to prevent a terrorist from blowing up a new-fangled kind of plane, a suspenseful torture scene between Bond and Le Chiffre involving a chair with the bottom cut out as well as Bond’s bare bottom, and an exciting climax that takes place in Venice inside a collapsing Palazzo and features the moving, dramatic death of a major character.

As for Daniel Craig, he’s terrific. He takes some getting used to, admittedly. At first he seems a bit too thug-like, devoid of the elegance and class that has always been part of the 007 mystique. He’s not really an especially handsome bloke, his face a bit blunt and battered (as if he’s been on a lot more than one mission, frankly), but one can see how he could appeal to certain ladies. He looks more like Fleming’s original concept for Bond than Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, and especially, Roger Moore. And more like 007 even than George Lazenby. Craig is probably a better actor than most of those guys to boot, handling the more sensitive scenes as well as the obligatory fisticuffs and gunplay. Eva Green is also excellent as Vesper Lynd, unconventionally beautiful, glamorous yet real, undeniably tragic. Mads Mikkelsen scores as Le Chiffre and there are other fine supporting performances as well. Felix Leiter, not for the first time, is portrayed by an African-American actor (Jeffrey Wright) although in the novels his character was Caucasian. As Leiter, regrettably, has never been that dimensional a character in this or any other Bond movie, it scarcely makes a difference.

This is possibly the only Bond film that approaches the more literate level of Fleming’s novels and -- even more than the Timothy Dalton features -- dares to present Bond a bit more as a realistic human being instead of a cartoon super-hero (not that we don’t have the usual improbable but enjoyable feats of derring do). One of the best scenes is a quiet moment when Bond comforts Vesper in the shower (both are dressed) after her first exposure to extreme violence leaves her depressed and rattled., The beautiful settings and exquisite cinematography by Phil Meheux give the picture a glossy, romantic sheen and the stunt work is as gutsy as ever. Not to quibble, but the film ends a little too abruptly for my taste. Still, Casino Royale is the best James Bond movie in years. One debit: The opening theme music is pretty awful., but you can't have everything. Screenplay by Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis. NOTE: To read a review of the first film version of Casino Royale, click here.

Verdict: Excellent Bond adventure. ***1/2.

DR. NO

DR. NO (1962). Director: Terence Young.

The film that introduced James Bond 007 to moviegoers is not a classic, but it does hold the attention and establish the filmic counterpart to Ian Fleming's literary creation. The black comedy quips came from the screenwriter, not Fleming, whose Bond was a bit more dimensional than he has ever been in the movies [although Timothy Dalton, and then Daniel Craig, perhaps came closest]. In this Bond is up against the sinister part-Chinese mastermind Dr. No (an excellent Joseph Wiseman), who takes control of missiles on behalf of SPECTRE. In the novel his front was a guano operation, but the filmmakers decided to – if you'll pardon the expression -- drop the s--t and make a few other changes. Gone are the broken nose on Honeychile Ryder (a probably dubbed Ursula Andress, looking luscious), the three-inch scar on Bond's cheek, and the giant squid that nearly makes a meal out of 007 at the end of the novel. Instead of running Dr. No's survival test tunnel as in the book, Bond simply crawls through an access tube to escape. The tarantula that nearly bites Bond when he's in bed is relatively harmless; Fleming used a much more deadly giant centipede instead. Some nice scenery and scenic design helps, but this is nowhere as good as the book. Still, it led to a great many more Bond films, some of which were excellent.

Verdict: Fun if you're in the mood. **1/2.

NOTE: For more on James Bond films and novels check out THE JAMES BOND 007 PAGES by clicking here: http://jamesbond007pages.tripod.com/.