Skyfall the Best Bond Film Yet?

Written by Kirk Baird

The critical and box-office success of Skyfall has many asking the question: Is this the best Bond ever? Perhaps. But it has some steep challengers. Here are some other classic Bond movies, in no particular order.

Goldfinger (1964): The third film in the series has 007 tangling with one of the great Bond villains, Goldfinger (Gert Frobe).

Casino Royale (2006): Daniel Craig in his first movie as James Bond makes us forget about the decades of pretenders to the throne of Best. Super Agent. Ever.

From Russia with Love (1963): Sean Connery as Bond and Robert Shaw as the villain Red Grant trade fists on a train in one of the great fights in movie history.

Live and Let Die (1973): Best remembered for Paul McCartney’s pulse-pounding theme song, it’s also Roger Moore’s entry into the Bond franchise.

Dr. No (1962): This first 007 outing in the movies set the template for 50 years to come of Ian Fleming’s dashing British super agent.

Die Another Day (2002): Pierce Brosnan wraps up his four-film run as 007 with his best Bond film yet, not to mention Halle Berry in a bikini.

007 - Not Just for the Big Screen

Written by Kyle Slagley

Some boys can recite the entire comic book saga of Batman or Superman at age nine. Other boys might easily rattle off the history between Master Splinter and Shredder of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There aren’t too many schoolboys whose hero was a martini-swilling, womanizing, narcissistic arm of the government.

I always was a little different.

Yes, Bond—James Bond—was the staple (almost super) hero in our house when I was growing up. My dad watched the movie marathons religiously, and that’s probably the reason my 007 collection has its very own shelf in my house.

I discovered the original Ian Fleming novels when I was in my early teens. I’d already been watching Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton for a while, so naturally I had some preconceived notions about the “true Bond.” What I found easily cemented my affection for the franchise. The Bond of the books is a deeply flawed man who can easily be as expensive to the British government as the Six Million Dollar Man but as self-centered and indulgent as Lord Henry Byron. Maybe another way to put it is that he’s as messed up as some of the bad guys he guns down, but you can’t help cheering for him anyway.

Ian Fleming died in 1964 after penning 14 James Bond novels, the last of which would be published posthumously in 1966. Following his death, five other authors have taken up the mantle, each putting his own spin on the legendary spy. Here’s a rundown of how 007 has spent the last 50 years.

Kingsley Amis wrote the first James Bond novel following Fleming’s death, Colonel Sun, using the pen name Robert Markham. Colonel Sun was published in 1968 and in it Bond heads to Greece to rescue M, who has been kidnapped. Colonel Sun Liang-tan of China is found to be at the heart of the plot and Bond must team up with a Greek agent in order to rescue his boss. Having been published immediately following Fleming’s novels, it’s no surprise that Amis’s rendition has much of the same tone and many of the same character traits as the original set.

James Bond took a nap during the 1970s and didn’t emerge again until 1981 under author John Gardner. Sixteen novels would be published under the Gardner name, two of which were novelizations of the films License to Kill and GoldenEye. Of his 14 original novels, however, none would make it to the big screen. Gardner published his last 007 novel in 1996.

The next six years were huge for Bond and his faithful fans. Raymond Benson kept the franchise pedal firmly on the floor with novelizations for the films Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day, as well as six novels and three short stories of his own. The Man with the Red Tattoo happens to be one of my favorite post-Fleming Bond novels because Benson did a wonderful job of tying West Nile Virus into the storyline at a time when the worldwide concern about global pandemic was at the highest levels since the AIDS crisis began.

Bond hasn’t really found a stable backing in recent years. Devil May Care was published by Sebastian Faulks on May 28, 2008—Ian Fleming’s 100th birthday—and just last year Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver hit the shelves. Both novels continue to bring Bond into the modern age, tying the villains’ evil schemes in with the global concerns of the day.

Although the traditional Bond novels seem to have hit a lull, the Young Bond series by Charlie Higson has taken off fairly well. It began with Silverfin and follows a much less suave James through the halls of Eton College. James is still daring and fiercely intelligent but without the martinis, the string of women, the swagger and pretentious confidence of the adult with a license to kill. Young Bond is a fantastic series for boys that dread reading requirements but love all the action and mystery of “Dad’s 007.”

With Daniel Craig signed on for another two films, it’s clear that as long as there are audiences waiting for another gun battle in which Bond has a girl in one hand and his Walther in the other, the film franchise isn’t going to die. For those of us that enjoy the depth of a novel, let’s hope that there’s an author out there that can write a good story to go with my martini.

Celebrating 50 Years of Bond

Written by Kirk Baird

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. No, the first James Bond film, released Oct. 5, 1962. The film, of course, starred Sean Connery, a handsome and masculine actor who only vaguely resembled what Bond creator Ian Fleming initially envisioned his British super spy to be: a slightly more dashing version of American jazz singer-musician Hoagy Carmichael.

There are 25 Bond films, including November’s Skyfall, as well as the 1967 007 parody Casino Royale starring David Niven, and 1983’s Never Say Never Again featuring the second return of Connery to the role, this time after more than a decade away. Incidentally, the latter two films are the only Bond movies not produced by Eon Productions, and therefore not considered by some to be part of the official franchise.

In popular culture a person’s preference of Bond actors has been a source of debate. Google “james bond actor poll” and you’ll find multiple solicitations. For many, it’s the first who remains the best.

Connery’s blend of tough and sexy, a womanizer with a penchant for guns, gadgets, shaken martinis, and survival set the template for all the actors to follow. The Scottish Connery played Bond through five films in six years, before Australian model-actor George Lazenby stepped in with 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Lazenby, who played the secret agent only once before turning down additional Bond movies by choice, remains the forgotten 007 — some would suggest for good reason.

By 1971, Connery returned to Bond in Diamonds Are Forever and was paid handsomely for it, but producers went in a new direction with 1973’s Live and Let Die, casting Roger Moore as Bond. Moore was best known to audiences for his role as Simon Templar in the long-running BBC series The Saint. In fact, the show, which aired from 1962-1970, kept Moore out of the running as Connery’s original replacement in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

With Moore aboard, the film’s producers lightened the serious demeanor of the super agent, turning Bond into a debonair playboy with women and quips to spare, especially as he terminated a film’s chief villain and his henchmen.

Moore is also unfairly saddled with what is a notable shift in the quality of the Bond films themselves, as producers altered the more dramatic tone of the Connery movies, often in favor of riding current cinema trends. 1979’s Moonraker, largely considered the weakest film in the series (I wholeheartedly agree), was an obvious attempt to cash in on the Star Wars craze with a silly-even-for-its-time space laser battle over Earth. Moore still stuck around for three more Bond outings, and a total of seven films through 12 years, the latter being a record for the series.

When the English Moore retired from the series at the age of 58, Timothy Dalton was brought in as the new 007 for 1987’s The Living Daylights. Dalton, by then 43, had originally been offered the role of James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but the British actor turned it down, feeling he was too young for the part at the age of 25. Perhaps by being older and wiser when he finally accepted the role, he brought a maturity and grit to the films that had been missing during the Moore years. In License to Kill, for instance, Bond resigns from the Secret Service to exact revenge against the drug dealer who seriously injured his CIA friend and killed his friend’s wife.

The deadly serious tone of Dalton’s film, while significantly closer to Fleming’s novels, was met with mixed reviews and good but not great audience reception. Dalton, who had signed on for three films, made two of them and then opted to leave the franchise after a lengthy hiatus between Bond movies.

Rumors had swirled about Pierce Brosnan joining the exclusive club for Bond actors after Moore stepped down. Brosnan, however, was contractually obligated to the NBC series Remington Steele, which essentially launched the Irish actor’s career, so Dalton was cast instead. With Dalton retired from Bond, Brosnan seized the opportunity with 1995’s GoldenEye, offering a 007 lighter in tone than Dalton’s, existing on the Bond continuum somewhere between Connery’s man’s man and Moore’s ladies’ man. He stayed with the franchise for four successful films. Most assumed he’d be back for a fifth Bond, but Brosnan ultimately retired from the role, just as rumors suggested producers were considering going younger (read: edgier) for the part.

After four years away from the screen, Bond returned in 2006 with Casino Royale and Daniel Craig in the role. It was indeed a grittier Bond that drew influences from the new and more violent super-agent Bourne series, with English actor Craig offering the most human 007 yet. Out were one-liners and in was raw physicality, including a torture scene with Bond tied naked to a chair and whipped from underneath. Audiences and critics welcomed the fresh approach to the aging series as well as the first blond Bond. Craig’s Casino Royale is the highest-grossing film in the franchise, with a nearly $595 million haul worldwide. 2008’s Quantum of Solace was nearly as successful.

While villains could never kill Bond, MGM nearly did, forcing the agent to take a hiatus as the studio sorted through its financial mess in 2010. With the studio’s money problems long resolved, Craig as Bond returns to U.S. theaters Nov. 6 in Skyfall, along with Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes at the helm and Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem as the film’s chief villain, Raoul Silva. It was also recently announced that Grammy-winning singer Adele would croon the film’s title song, scheduled for release today as part of the “James Bond Day” celebration. Late last year it was also announced that the 44-year-old Craig has signed on for five additional Bond films, which would make him the longest-running 007 with eight total James Bond movies.

Does your library need more Bond? Check out the Bond 50 box set, containing all 22 Bond films, on both DVD and Blu-ray.