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James Bond
- MGM Hires an Adviser to Help Cut Borrowing - New York Times
- By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the 85-year-old movie studio behind "The Wizard of Oz" and the James Bond franchise, has hired an adviser to help restructure its mountainous $3.7 billion in debt and keep its film pipeline running....
- Timothy Dalton in Doctor Who? - The Press Association
- The former James Bond star will play a villain in one of David Tennant's last episodes of the TV show, reports The Sun. The paper quotes a source as saying: "Timothy Dalton is a big coup for Doctor Who because he is pretty iconic....
- Star Trek - Simply Amazing - Rexburg Standard Journal
- A simple reboot similar to the recent James Bond or Batman (both of which I loved) would not have worked for Star Trek. Had Abrams' simply recast characters, wrote a stand alone original story and slapped the name Star Trek on it, he would have run the...
- Cops don't think note really is from Bond ... James Bond - Tampa Tribune
- By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune TAMPA - A man claiming to be James Bond is offering to do odd jobs for single or widowed women in the Carrollwood area. A least one woman was concerned enough by his offer that she notified Hillsborough deputies....
- Fianna Fail's election hopes go south with Irish economy - Irish Central
- Only instead of James Bond taking control we had Maxwell Smart, who constantly assured us that "there's nothing to worry about," even though we could hear a few economists yelling 'mayday mayday' on our behalf. Even Fianna Fáil voters know that the two...
- Getting to know Mr. Bond - Vernon Morning Star
- Several of his observations dealt with trends, but the comment I found most interesting was: "of all the market forecasters, Mr. Bond gets it right most often." He's not talking James Bond, but rather the yield (or price) that bonds trade for....
- The Last Word: United are real villains, not the 'Bond baddie' - Independent
- And a vital facet of this particular game is obviously to do nothing to discourage the burgeoning image of the Iranian businessman as a James Bond villain or a slave-trader. The last accusation is, of course, infinitely more damning;...
- Liverpool super hero Gerrard is even James Bond's idol - Daily Mail
- Steven Gerrard wanted to be photographed with James Bond star Daniel Craig. And there's no prizes for guessing who looked the part in the suit. Craig is a Liverpool fan and idolises Gerrard. The duo cut a very special dash together....
- Extremist website sells pen-gun - Stuff.co.nz
- By TONY WALL - Sunday Star Times A New Zealander is providing plans over the internet for building a James Bond- style pen gun which he says can kill - "if you know how". The man, who goes by the name "John Wilson" and calls himself nzgunman,...
- Donnie Yen, the new Chinese 'James Bond?' - Kung Fu Cinema
- Susanna Tsang, producer for Daniel Lee's upcoming period action movie 14 BLADES is likening it to a James Bond movie which, by association, would make its star Donnie Yen, something of a Chinese James Bond. "14 BLADES is really the first James Bond...
James Bond
James Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. The character has also been used in the longest running and most financially successful English language film franchise to date, starting in 1962 with Dr. No.
After Fleming's death in 1964, subsequent James Bond novels were written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham), John Pearson, John Gardner, Raymond Benson and Sebastian Faulks. Moreover, Christopher Wood novelised two screenplays, Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond while other writers have authored unofficial versions of the character.
There have been 22 films in the EON Productions series to date, the most recent of which, Quantum of Solace, was released on 31 October 2008 (UK). In addition there has been an American television adaptation and two independent feature productions. Apart from movies and television, James Bond has also been adapted for many other media, including radio plays, comic strips and video games.
The EON Productions films are generally termed as "official" films originating with the purchase of the James Bond film rights by producer Harry Saltzman in the late 1950s.
Nevertheless, news sources speculated about real spies or other covert agents after whom James Bond might have been modeled or named, such as Sidney Reilly or William Stephenson, best-known by his wartime intelligence codename of Intrepid. Although they are similar to Bond, Fleming confirmed none as the source figure, nor did Ian Fleming Publications nor any of Fleming's biographers, such as John Pearson or Andrew Lycett.
James Bond's parents are Andrew Bond, a Scotsman, and Monique Delacroix, from Canton de Vaud, Switzerland. Their nationalities were established in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Fleming emphasised Bond's Scottish heritage in admiration of Sean Connery's cinematic portrayal, whereas Bond's mother is named after a Swiss fiancée of Fleming's. A planned, but unwritten, novel would have portrayed Bond's mother as a Scot. Ian Fleming was a member of a prominent Scottish banking family. In his fictional biography of secret agent 007, John Pearson gave Bond's birth date as 11 November (Armistice Day) 1920 (The beginning of the film "For Your Eyes Only" gives his wife's birth date as 1943. This seemingly assumes Bond to be younger than Pearson claimed). There is a reference to Bond's age in Fleming's You Only Live Twice, when Tanaka tells him he was born in the Year of the Rat (1924/25 or even 1912/13). In the novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond's family motto is found to be "Orbis non sufficit" ("The world is not enough"). The novel also states that the family that used this motto may not necessarily be the same Bond family from which James Bond came.
After completing the manuscript for Casino Royale, Fleming allowed his friend, later his editor, poet William Plomer to read it. Plomer liked it and submitted it to Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much. Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming's older brother Peter, an established travel writer.
Fleming did admit to being partly inspired by his service in the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty, most notably an incident depicted in Casino Royale, when Fleming and Naval Intelligence Director Admiral Godfrey went on a mission to Lisbon en route to the United States during World War II. At the Estoril Casino, which harboured spies of warring regimes due to Portugal's neutrality, Fleming was 'cleaned out' by a "chief German agent" in a game of Chemin de Fer. Admiral Godfrey's account differs in that Fleming played Portuguese businessmen, whom Fleming fantasised as German agents he defeated at cards. Moreover, references to "Red Indians" in Casino Royale (four times; twice in the final page) are to his own 30 Assault Unit.
In February 1952, Ian Fleming began writing his first James Bond novel. At the time, Fleming was the foreign manager for Kemsley Newspapers, owners of The Daily Express in London. Upon accepting the job, Fleming asked for two months' yearly vacation in his contract—time spent writing in Jamaica. Between 1953 and his death in 1964, Fleming published twelve novels and one short-story collection (a second collection was published posthumously). Later, continuation novels were written by Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham), John Gardner, Charlie Higson, Raymond Benson, who was the first American author of James Bond. The Young Bond series of novels was begun in 2005, by Charlie Higson.
In July 2007, it was announced that Sebastian Faulks has been commissioned to write a new Bond novel to commemorate Fleming's 100th Birthday. The book - titled Devil May Care - was published on 27 May 2008.
The film series has grossed over $4 billion (£2 Billion) (nearly $11 billion when adjusted for inflation) worldwide, making it the highest grossing film series ever. The 22nd and newest movie in the series, Quantum of Solace, was released in the UK on 31 October 2008. As of 9 November 2008, global box office totals for Quantum of Solace were almost $161 million (£ 103 million), placing the Bond series ahead of the Harry Potter film series even when not adjusting for inflation.
In 1954, CBS paid Ian Fleming for the rights to adapt Casino Royale into a one hour television adventure as part of their Climax! series. However, Barry Nelson played a CIA agent named Jimmy Bond, Clarence Lieter was a British agent played by Michael Pate and Peter Lorre was Le Chiffre.
In 1956, Bob Holness starred in a South African radio adaptation of Moonraker, making him the second actor to portray James Bond.
According to Andrew Pixley's notes to Danger Man Original soundtrack, Ian Fleming collaborated with Ralph Smart to bring James Bond to television, but dropped out taking his creation with him. Ralph Smart went on to develop Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan who would later turn down James Bond.
In 1967, Casino Royale was adapted into a spoof Bond film starring David Niven as Sir James Bond 007 and Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd. David Niven, had, in fact, been Ian Fleming's preference for the part of James Bond. EON Productions, however, chose Sean Connery. David Niven is the only James Bond actor who is mentioned by name in the text of two of Fleming's James Bond novels. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond visits an exclusive ski resort and is told that David Niven is a frequent visitor and in You Only Live Twice Kissy Suzuki mentions him as the only man who had been kind to her in her brief foray to Hollywood. Ursula Andress is also mentioned in the text of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as being present at the ski resort.
The 1973 BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero featured Christopher Cazenove playing a number of such title characters (e.g. Richard Hannay and Bulldog Drummond), including James Bond in dramatised scenes from Goldfinger - notably featuring the hero being threatened with the novel's circular saw, rather than the film's laser beam - and Diamonds Are Forever.
A legal loophole allowed Kevin McClory to release a remake of Thunderball titled Never Say Never Again in 1983. The film, featuring Sean Connery as Bond, is not considered an "official" James Bond film because it is not part of the Bond film franchise from EON Productions and United Artists, although it is currently owned by United Artists parent MGM. Its original theatrical release in October 1983 actually created a situation in which two Bond movies were playing in theaters at the same time, as the "official" EON Bond film, Octopussy was still playing in theaters. Since then, MGM has bought the name "James Bond", preventing a repeat of this episode.
James Bond has long been a household name and remains a huge influence within the genre. The Austin Powers series by writer, producer and comedian Mike Myers, and other parodies such as Johnny English (2003), Bons baisers de Hong Kong, OK Connery, the "Flint" series starring James Coburn as Derek Flint, the "Matt Helm" movies starring Dean Martin, and Casino Royale (1967) are testaments to Bond's prominence in popular culture.
The Bond series also received many homages and parodies in popular media. The 1960s TV imitations of James Bond such as I Spy, Get Smart,Charles Vine, Matt Helm and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. went on to become popular successes in their own right, the last having enjoyed contributions by Fleming towards its creation: the show's lead character, "Napoleon Solo," was named after a character in Fleming's novel Goldfinger; Fleming also suggested the character name April Dancer, which was later used in the spin-off series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.. A reunion television movie, The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1983), is notable for featuring a cameo by George Lazenby as James Bond in tribute to Fleming (for legal reasons, the character was credited as "JB").
George Lucas has said on various occasions that Sean Connery's portrayal of Bond was one of the primary inspirations for the Indiana Jones character, a reason Connery was chosen for the role of Indiana's father in the third film of that series.
The "James Bond Theme" was written by Monty Norman and was first orchestrated by the John Barry Orchestra for 1962's Dr. No, although the actual authorship of the music has been a matter of controversy for many years. In 2001, Norman won £30,000 in libel damages from the British paper The Sunday Times, which suggested that Barry was entirely responsible for the composition.
Barry's legacy was followed by David Arnold, in addition to other well-known composers such as Chris Minear and Corbin Ott and record producers such as George Martin, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, Marvin Hamlisch and Éric Serra. Arnold is the series' current composer of choice and composed the score for the 22nd Bond film, Quantum of Solace.
A Bond film staple are the theme songs heard during their title sequences sung by well-known popular singers (which have included Tina Turner, Paul McCartney and Wings, Sheryl Crow and Tom Jones, among many others). Shirley Bassey performed three themes in total. After Doctor No, On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the only Bond film with a solely instrumental theme, though Louis Armstrong's ballad "We Have All the Time in the World," which serves as Bond and his wife Tracy's love song and whose title is Bond's last line in the film, is considered the unofficial theme. Likewise, although the credit sequence to From Russia with Love features an instrumental version of the film's theme, another version, with lyrics sung by Matt Monro, can be partially heard within the film itself, and is featured on the film's soundtrack album.
The themes usually share their names with their film. A large reason for the turning down of Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang for Thunderball was that it was not named after the movie. "Nobody Does It Better", the theme for The Spy Who Loved Me , was the first Bond theme not to share its title with that of the movie, although the words "the spy who loved me" do appear in the lyrics. The song is featured in both credit sequences of the film, and in orchestral form throughout. "Nobody Does It Better" was nominated for an Academy Award for "Best Original Song" of 1977, but lost to the theme song to You Light Up My Life. Hamlisch's score for the film was also nominated for an "Oscar", but lost to John Williams' score for Star Wars.
The only other Bond themes to be nominated for an Academy Award for best song are "Live and Let Die", written by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by their group Wings, and "For Your Eyes Only", written by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson and performed by Sheena Easton, though a few of John Barry's scores have been nominated.
The only singer, to date, to appear within a title sequence is Sheena Easton during For Your Eyes Only. The only singer of a title song to appear as a character within the film itself, to date, is Madonna, who appeared (uncredited) as fencing instructor Verity, as well as contributing the theme for Die Another Day. The title sequence in Die Another Day is notable, however, for being the only one in which the visuals actually serve to further the plot of the film itself, as opposed to being merely a montage or collage of abstract images related to the film or to the larger James Bond mythos.
The latest theme song is Alicia Keys and Jack White's "Another Way to Die", from Quantum of Solace, the first James Bond theme song to be a duet. It is also the fourth Bond movie that doesn't have the name of the movie in its lyrics.
In 1998, Barry's music from You Only Live Twice was adapted into the hit song Millennium by producer and composer Guy Chambers for British recording artist Robbie Williams. The music video features Williams parodying James Bond, and references other Bond films such as Thunderball and From Russia With Love. It should also be noted that the video was filmed at Pinewood Studios, where most of the Bond films have been made.
In 2004 the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps won the Drum Corps International World Championship with "007," using the music of James Bond as composed by David Arnold. The Cavaliers performed selections from GoldenEye, Die Another Day ("Hovercraft Theme" and "Welcome to Cuba"), and Tomorrow Never Dies.
Burt Bacharach's score for 1967's Casino Royale included "The Look Of Love", nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song, has become a standard for its era, with the biggest-selling version recorded by Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 (#4 on the Billboard pop charts in 1968). It was heard again in the first Austin Powers film, which was to a degree inspired by Casino Royale.
In 1983, the first Bond video game, developed and published by Parker Brothers, was released for the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Atari 800, the Commodore 64, and the ColecoVision. Since then, there have been numerous video games either based on the films or using original storylines.
Bond video games, however, did not reach their popular stride until 1997's revolutionary GoldenEye 007 by Rare for the Nintendo 64. Subsequently, virtually every Bond video game has attempted to copy the accomplishments and features of GoldenEye 007 to varying degrees of success; even going so far as to have a game entitled GoldenEye: Rogue Agent that had little to do with either the video game GoldenEye 007 or the film of the same name. Bond himself plays only a minor role in which he is "killed" in the beginning during a 'virtual reality' mission, which served as the first level of the game.
Since acquiring the licence in 1999, Electronic Arts has released eight games, five of which have original stories, including the popular Everything or Nothing, which broke away from the first-person shooter trend that started with GoldenEye 007 (including the games "Agent Under Fire" and "Nightfire") and instead featured a third-person perspective. It also featured well known actors including Willem Dafoe, Heidi Klum, Judi Dench, John Cleese and Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, although several previous games have used Brosnan's likeness as Bond. In 2005, Electronic Arts released a video game adaptation of From Russia with Love, another game in the same vein as Everything or Nothing. This was the second game based on a Connery Bond film (the first was a 1980s text adventure adaptation of Goldfinger) and the first to allow the player to play as Bond with the likeness of Sean Connery. Connery himself recorded new voice-overs for the game, the first time the actor had played Bond in twenty-two years.
In 2006, Activision secured the licence to make Bond-related games, briefly sharing but effectively taking over the licence from EA. The deal became exclusive to Activision in September 2007. Activision studio Treyarch has released the new James Bond game "Quantum of Solace" a movie tie in of "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace" it (not unlike "Goldeneye 007") is a first person shooter and it does include a new 'dashing to cover' and 'cover fire' third person game play.
In relation to the twenty-first film in the series Sony Ericsson released a Casino Royale edition of their K800i mobile phone. In this edition, a Java ME game loosely based on the movie was included. Vodafone has also published a game for the same platform called 007: Hoverchase and developed by IOMO.
In 1957 the Daily Express, a newspaper owned by Lord Beaverbrook, approached Ian Fleming to adapt his stories into comic strips. After initial reluctance by Fleming who felt the strips would lack the quality of his writing, agreed and the first strip Casino Royale was published in 1958. Since then many illustrated adventures of James Bond have been published, including every Ian Fleming novel as well as Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun, and most of Fleming's short stories. Later, the comic strip produced original stories, continuing until 1983.
Titan Books is presently reprinting these comic strips in an ongoing series of graphic novel-style collections; by the end of 2005 it had completed reprinting all Fleming-based adaptations as well as Colonel Sun and had moved on to reprinting original stories.
Several comic book adaptations of the James Bond films have been published through the years, as well as numerous original stories.
Most recently, a thinly-veiled version of Bond (called only "Jimmy" to avoid copyright issues) appeared in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. In this story, Bond is the villain; he chases the heroic duo of Mina Murray and Allan Quatermain across London, aided by disguised versions of Bulldog Drummond ("Hugo Drummond") and Emma Peel ("Miss Night").
The James Bond series of novels and films have a plethora of allies and villains. Bond's superiors and other officers of the British Secret Service are known by letters, such as M and Q. In the novels, Bond has employed two secretaries, Loelia Ponsonby and Mary Goodnight, who in the films typically have their roles and lines transferred to M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny. Occasionally Bond is assigned to work a case with his good friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter.
Throughout both the novels and the films there have only been a handful of recurring characters. Some of the more memorable ones include Bill Tanner, Rene Mathis, Jack Wade, Jaws and recently Charles Robinson. J.W. Pepper is also a recurring character.
Exotic espionage equipment and vehicles are very popular elements of James Bond's literary and cinematic missions. These items often prove critically important to Bond in successfully completing his missions.
Fleming's novels and early screen adaptations presented minimal equipment such as From Russia with Love's booby-trapped attaché case. In Dr. No, Bond's sole gadgets were a Geiger counter and a wristwatch with a luminous (and radioactive) face. The gadgets, however, assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film Goldfinger. The film's success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond. In the opinion of critics, some Bond films have included too many gadgets and vehicles, such as 1979's science fiction-oriented Moonraker and 2002's Die Another Day.
James Bond's cars have included the Aston Martin DB5, V8 Vantage (80s), V12 Vanquish and DBS (00s); the Lotus Esprit; the BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and the BMW Z8. Bond's most famous car is the silver grey Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger; it later features in Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and Casino Royale. The films have used a number of different Aston Martin DB5s for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in Arizona for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. That specific car was originally sold for £5,000 in 1970.
In Fleming's books, Bond had a penchant for "battleship grey" Bentleys, while Gardner awarded the agent a modified Saab 900 Turbo (nicknamed the Silver Beast) and later a Bentley Mulsanne Turbo.
In the James Bond film adaptations, Bond has been associated with several well-known watches, usually outfitted with high-tech features not found on production models. The Rolex Submariner, one of the few recurring models, was worn by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton's versions of James Bond. Roger Moore also sported a number of digital watches by Pulsar and Seiko. Pierce Brosnan's and Daniel Craig's James Bonds were both devotees of the Omega Seamaster. The selection of James Bond's watch has been a matter of both style and finance, as product placement agreements with the watch manufacturers have frequently been arranged.
Bond's weapon of choice in the beginning of Dr. No is an Italian-made Beretta 418 .25 calibre, later replaced by the German-made Walther PPK, chambered in 7.65mm (a peculiar choice, as Valentin Zukovsky remarks in GoldenEye: the PPK as found in the U.S. and Western Europe is most commonly chambered in .380ACP). The PPK was used in every subsequent film and became his signature weapon until the ending of Tomorrow Never Dies, when Bond upgraded to the Walther P99. He has subsequently used the P99 pistol in Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, and Casino Royale. Strangely, Bond resumed use of the PPK in Quantum of Solace, the direct sequel of Casino Royale.
James Bond (film series)
The James Bond film series are British spy films inspired by Ian Fleming's novels about the fictional MI6 agent James Bond (codename 007). The franchise remains as one of the longest continually running film series in history, having been in ongoing production from 1962 to 2008 with a six-year hiatus between 1989 and 1995. In that time EON Productions has produced 22 films, at an average of about one every two years. In addition, there are two independent productions and an American television adaptation of the first novel. Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman co-produced the EON films until 1975, when Broccoli became the sole producer. Since 1995, Broccoli's daughter Barbara and stepson Michael G. Wilson have co-produced them. Six actors have portrayed 007 so far.
Broccoli's and Saltzman's family company, Danjaq, has held ownership of the James Bond film series through Eon, and maintained co-ownership with United Artists since the mid-1970s. From the release of Dr. No (1962) up to For Your Eyes Only (1981), the films were distributed solely by UA. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought UA in 1981, MGM/UA Entertainment Co. was formed and distributed the films until 1995. MGM solely distributed three films from 1997 to 2002 after UA retired as a mainstream studio. From 2006 to 2008, MGM and Columbia Pictures co-distributed the franchise, as Columbia's parent company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, bought MGM in 2005. MGM will distribute the series alone once more. The twenty-two Bond films have grossed nearly $5 billion in the worldwide box office, being the most profitable film series ever.
The end of the Dalton era in the late 1980s marked the end of the era of a common creative team that had worked on the Bond films from the beginning in 1962, including Albert Broccoli as producer, who died shortly after the release of the first Brosnan film. Over the course of 16 Bond films, all had been produced or co-produced by Albert Broccoli, 14 had title sequences designed by Maurice Binder, 13 had been scripted or co-scripted by Richard Maibaum, 11 had been scored by John Barry, and 7 had set designs by Ken Adam. All films except Lazenby's On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been directed by either Terence Young (3 films), Guy Hamilton (4 films), Lewis Gilbert (3 films), or John Glen (the final 5 films). None of these people worked on a Bond film again after the last Timothy Dalton film.
The early Bond films incorporate much of Fleming's storyline, but later ones — especially those featuring Roger Moore — borrow only character names or locales. While the film The Spy Who Loved Me bears the title of a Fleming novel, and A View to a Kill and Quantum of Solace are named after short stories, they use none of the author's original material.
The last film prior to Casino Royale to use the title of a Fleming novel was Moonraker, after which the series used the titles of Fleming short stories until (and including) 1987's The Living Daylights. However, material from the story "Risico" (as well as the title story) is used in For Your Eyes Only, parts of "The Property of a Lady" (and the title story) feature in Octopussy, and elements of "The Hildebrand Rarity" are included in the first original-titled film, Licence to Kill. Although already adapted as a film, unused plot devices from the novel Live and Let Die show up in both the film For Your Eyes Only and Licence to Kill, as do plot elements from the novel Moonraker in the film Die Another Day. The last Dalton film and all four Brosnan films all had original titles, leaving six Fleming titles that had yet to be used in the official series. However, Licence to Kill and The World Is Not Enough are phrases from Ian Fleming novels and GoldenEye was both the name of Fleming's estate in Jamaica and an operation he planned during World War II. As such the only film titles that do not derive from Fleming at all are Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day.
As of 2008, the remaining four short story titles to be used as film titles are Risico, The Hildebrand Rarity, The Property of a Lady and 007 in New York. Prior to the announcement of the title of the 22nd Bond film, media reports from sources such as Variety and other entertainment industry publications speculated at that Risico and The Property of a Lady were being considered for what was eventually titled Quantum of Solace; Property of a Lady was also a title considered for Timothy Dalton's planned third Bond film.
Previous attempts to adapt the James Bond novels resulted in a 1954 television episode of Climax!, based on the first novel, Casino Royale, and starring American actor Barry Nelson as "Jimmy Bond". Ian Fleming desired to go one step further and approached Alexander Korda to make a film adaptation of either Live and Let Die or Moonraker, but Korda was not interested. On 1 October 1959, it was announced that Fleming would write an original film script featuring Bond for producer Kevin McClory. Jack Whittingham also worked on the script. However, Alfred Hitchcock and Richard Burton turned down roles as director and star respectively. McClory was unable to secure the financing for the film, and the deal fell through. Fleming used the story for his novel Thunderball (1961).
In 1956, producer Albert R. Broccoli expressed interest in adapting the Bond novels, but his colleague Irving Allen was unenthusiastic. In 1961, Broccoli, now partnered with Harry Saltzman, purchased the film rights to all the Bond novels (except Casino Royale) from Fleming. However, numerous Hollywood film studios did not want to fund the films, finding it "too British" or "too blatantly sexual". The producers wanted US$1 million to either adapt Thunderball or Dr. No, and reached a deal with United Artists in July 1961. The two producers set up EON Productions and began production of Dr. No.
A contest was set up to 'find James Bond', and six finalists were chosen and screen-tested by Broccoli, Saltzman, and Fleming. The winner of the contest was a 28-year-old model named Peter Anthony, who, according to Broccoli, had a Gregory Peck quality, but proved unable to cope with the role. The producers turned to Sean Connery for five films. According to one story, Connery had been suggested by Polish director Ben Fisz, a friend of Saltzman. Saltzman viewed Connery in On the Fiddle (also called "Operation Snafu"), the actor's eleventh film. By other accounts, Broccoli first saw Connery in a screening of Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). Connery had worked as a milkman, truck driver, bricklayer, coffin polisher, and life guard, among other jobs, before getting a break as a dancer in the chorus line of South Pacific in 1950.
Broccoli and Fleming were cool on Connery, but accepted him after rejecting Richard Johnson, James Mason, Rex Harrison, David Niven, Trevor Howard, Patrick McGoohan, and Broccoli's friend Cary Grant. As Broccoli later said, "I wanted a ballsy guy…Put a bit of veneer over that tough Scottish hide and you've got Fleming's Bond instead of all the mincing poofs we had applying for the job". (Ironically, the rejected David Niven would play an aging Bond in the 1967 parody of Casino Royale in just that mincing way.) Already balding, Connery wore a toupee in all his Bond films. Connery stated that "the character is not really me, after all". Ian Fleming, after seeing the preview screening of the first film, Dr. No, told his research assistant, "Dreadful. Simply dreadful." Dr. No received mixed reviews, some quite hostile, and even received a rebuke by the Vatican. Fleming eventually warmed up to Connery sufficiently to establish a Scottish ancestry for Bond in the late novels.
The role of Dr. No went to Joseph Wiseman who had played a similar character in a The Twilight Zone episode One More Pallbearer, after Noel Coward, Christopher Lee, and Max von Sydow were suggested. (Both Lee and Sydow played Bond villains later.) With just two weeks to go before filming, the part of the first principal Bond girl, Honey Ryder, had yet to be cast. Director Young had seen a picture of Swiss-born actress Ursula Andress, then wife of John Derek, when visiting Darryl F. Zanuck over at Fox, and he borrowed the photo and showed it to the producers, who quickly approved the deal.
On the next film, From Russia with Love, the producers doubled the budget, and shot locales in Europe, which had turned out to be the more profitable market for Dr. No. Much of the team from the first film returned. The film was the first to feature the pre-title sequence and the first to feature Desmond Llewelyn as Major Boothroyd, now called the Equipment Officer, who finally becomes Q in the third film. Llewelyn appears in a total of seventeen Bond films, the most for any actor playing the same role. The final confrontation between Bond and assassin Donald Grant (Robert Shaw) takes place on the Orient Express and Bond owes his life to Major Boothroyd's deadly attaché case. It is also the second and last film to feature the role of Sylvia Trench, who was supposed to continue through the series as Bond's somewhat regular bed partner between assignments.. The violence of the second film was decidedly pumped up from the previous film, with more than double the homicides.
Adding to the appeal of mounting the picture, From Russia with Love was also cited by President John F. Kennedy as one of his ten favourite books. It was likely the last film Kennedy saw before his death. Some critics still resisted the Bond allure on the second Connery film, branding From Russia with Love "a movie made for kicks", but audiences loved it and some critics raved, such as Bosley Crowther who proclaimed "Don't Miss It!". It is the first of the series to have virtually all the elements that appear throughout the series.
For the next film, Goldfinger, Guy Hamilton took over as director from Terence Young, putting more humour into Bond's character and more double entendres on the table. For the important role of Pussy Galore, Honor Blackman was lured away from her role on the Avengers television series, which later offered up Diana Rigg as well. For Auric Goldfinger, Theodore Bikel was considered but the role went to Gert Fröbe, a well-known actor in Europe, whose heavy accent required that his voice be dubbed.
BOND: Do you expect me to talk? GOLDFINGER: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!
The premiere in the UK created a near riot. In America, it became the fastest-grossing film ever to date. It was the first Bond film to win an Oscar (category: Best Effects, Sound Effects). Ian Fleming died before getting to see the film.
The production of the fourth Bond film, Thunderball, was delayed by legal disputes. In a court case, McClory sued Fleming, because Fleming had used Thunderball's story and characters without permission. He won the film rights to Thunderball, so when Broccoli and Saltzman made Thunderball, it was a co-production with McClory. Part of the deal they made ensured McClory was unable to make Thunderball into a film for ten years.
Connery would later state that Thunderball was his personal favourite performance as Bond (though in later statements, he claims that his favourite is From Russia with Love). Thunderball was the most successful Bond film to date, based on total box office, earning nearly $1 billion (inflation-adjusted to 2008 US dollars). It also inspired other spy films of the 1960s, including the "Harry Palmer" trilogy featuring Michael Caine, the "Derek Flint" series with James Coburn, the "Matt Helm" series with Dean Martin.
For the fifth Bond film with Connery, You Only Live Twice, Bond comes face-to-face for the first time with arch-nemesis Blofeld (played by Donald Pleasance) Number One in SPECTRE, the world's most powerful criminal organization. The title comes from a pseudo-haiku written by Fleming in the book, "You only live twice/Once when you're born/And once when you look death in the face." The Bond films are hugely popular in Japan and when the crew arrived for shooting, they were treated exuberantly. Connery, however, was somewhat resigned to the project, lacking the enthusiasm he sported for Thunderball. Glimpses of Japanese culture were progressive (again a smart bow to Asian audiences by the producers) and the martial arts and ninja sequences novel for the time.
You Only Live Twice is the very first James Bond film to jettison the plot premise of the Fleming source material, although the film retains setting the plot entirely in Japan and the use of Blofeld as the main villain and a Bond girl named Kissy Suzuki. This would be common during the Roger Moore era, but this is the only Connery film to do so this radically.
After You Only Live Twice, and despite the posters boasting that "Sean Connery is James Bond", Connery announced that it was his last film as Bond. The producers had no desire to give up the franchise. He was then replaced by George Lazenby, who starred in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
After Lazenby turned down Diamonds Are Forever (1971), the producers decided to return to the formula of Goldfinger. Director Guy Hamilton returned, as well as the regular cast. John Gavin was offered the role of Bond and accepted, but the producers were simultaneously attempting to bring Sean Connery back to the role. In order to clinch the deal, Connery received a remarkable contract: a record US$1.25 million salary, plus 12.5 percent of the gross profits and an additional US$145,000 per week overtime if filming extended beyond 18 weeks. Connery admitted: "I was really bribed back into it...But it served my purpose...Playing James Bond again is still enjoyable." The original idea was to bring back Auric Goldfinger for a sequel, but that was abandoned. In Fleming's novels, Bond attempts to get revenge for the death of his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service in You Only Live Twice. But since the latter had been filmed prior to the former, Blofeld (played by English actor Charles Gray) is put into the story of Diamonds Are Forever to give Bond an opportunity to give Blofeld his comeuppance. This results in expanding Fleming's "Blofeld trilogy" into a tetralogy. Connery returned to the role 12 years later in Never Say Never Again. For more see Non EON-series column below.
Australian model George Lazenby became the new 007 in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). Timothy Dalton, a later Bond, declined: he claimed he was too young for the role. Lazenby had little acting experience beyond a series of chocolate advertisements. His screen tests were satisfactory, and he was offered a contract for seven films. However, convinced by his agent that the secret agent would be archaic in the 1970s, Lazenby left the series after one film.
In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, a conscious attempt was made to establish continuity with previous Bond films by showing scenes from several previous Bond films during the title sequence. Furthermore, when Bond is packing up items in his office, several mementos of previous cases, such as the breathing device from Thunderball, are shown, while the score plays musical motifs from those previous films.
In early 1972, the search for Connery's replacement began. Jeremy Brett, Michael Billington, and Julian Glover (Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only) were considered for the next film in the series, Live and Let Die (1973), with the forty-five year old Roger Moore getting the nod. Moore would become the longest-serving Bond, spending twelve years in the role and making seven official films. One critic noted, "Roger Moore has none of the gravitas of Sean Connery…he does fit slickly into the director's presentation of Bond as a lethal comedian".
In strong contrast to the laborious attempts to establish George Lazenby as being the same character as Connery via office mementos and short clips from earlier films, Live and Let Die goes to some length to make Moore a different character. He does not drink a Martini that is shaken not stirred. He gets no office briefing from Q, and he smokes a cigar instead of cigarettes. Over the course of the Moore films, classic Bondisms would creep back in. In particular, fans would demand the return of Q.
Moore's second film, The Man with the Golden Gun, was a box office disappointment, and Broccoli was determined not to be upstaged.
Roger Moore's third film, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), became a turning point for the series in two ways: it was the first film produced by Broccoli alone, as Harry Saltzman was forced to sell his half of the Bond film franchise in 1975 for twenty million pounds following huge debts; and also the first to include a completely original storyline, as Ian Fleming had given permission to use only the title of the novel.
Moore's fourth film, Moonraker, was the last Bond film to use the title of a Fleming novel until 2006's Casino Royale. The next two films, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy, used both of the titles of Bond short story anthologies and each incorporated material from multiple stories in those anthologies. The film Octopussy can be read as a sequel to Fleming's short story of the same name.
Moore showed interest in departing the series after 1981's For Your Eyes Only, and a string of younger actors, including James Brolin, Oliver Tobias, and Michael Billington, screen-tested for the part. However, EON eventually persuaded him to return in 1983's Octopussy, due to the non-EON Bond film, Never Say Never Again, being released in the same year. Because he was rather old for the required action and the demands of the character (Moore was 58 at the time), stunt doubles were employed often (over a hundred stuntmen in total), and only the close-ups are surely Moore. Moore would only regret his last film, A View to a Kill (1985), which was poorly received by critics.
In undertaking the challenge of creating his own version of Bond, Moore merged some of the characteristics of his role in his series The Saint with the Bond persona. Critics thought this Bond more of a charmer, more debonair, more calculating, and more casually lascivious in a somewhat detached but amused manner. He appears just as strong physically as Connery (at least in the early pictures), but not quite as graceful in action. Moore's adaptation applied more fantasy and humour than other Bonds. The series managed to stay afloat by adding contemporary material and new characters to shore up the dated Fleming plots.
Timothy Dalton had been considered to replace Sean Connery in 1968, but he walked away from his screen test feeling, at aged 24, he was too young for the role. 12 years later, Dalton was approached again to possibly replace Roger Moore in For Your Eyes Only but the producers did not have a script and he feared being asked to do a Spy Who Loved Me/Moonraker type of film which "Weren't my idea of Bond films." Dalton was the first actor to be offered The Living Daylights but initially had to turn it down as the original shooting date clashed with commitments on the film Brenda Starr. Pierce Brosnan was then cast, but when his cancelled television show Remington Steele was renewed in 1986, he was prevented from continuing. Several actors were screen-tested, including Sam Neill and Lewis Collins, before Dalton was offered a revised production date which he was able to accommodate, and no sooner than he wrapped shooting on Brenda Starr than Dalton found himself in the shoulder holster for The Living Daylights.
Best known for his stage and television roles and trained in the British Shakespearean tradition, Dalton's Bond differs noticeably from his predecessors. The Guardian remarked, "Dalton hasn't the natural authority of Connery nor the facile charm of Moore, but Lazenby he is not." The film returned to "realism" and a more creditable plot, with less fantasy and less gratuitous humour.
To save on production costs and taxes, Eon decided to shoot the next Bond film, Licence to Kill, in Mexico rather than at Pinewood Studios in the UK. The film's darker and more violent plot elicited calls for cuts by the British Board of Film Classification. Licence to Kill is the first Bond film by EON to not use the title of any Fleming novel or short story (although it uses material from the Fleming short story "The Hildebrand Rarity" and novel Live and Let Die). It and subsequent Bond films were novelised. Reviews for the film ranged from negative to positive. With box office admissions close to that of The Man with the Golden Gun, the worst attended Bond film to date, some thought that replacing the basic style and elegance of a Bond film with "realism" was a mistake.
In 1989, the same year of his second appearance, MGM/UA was sold to the Australian based broadcasting group Quintex, which wanted to merge the company with Pathé. Danjaq, the Swiss based parent company of EON, sued MGM/UA because the Bond back catalogue was being licensed to Pathé, who intended to broadcast the series on television in several countries worldwide without the approval of Danjaq. These legal disputes engendered a six-year hiatus in the series. Nonetheless, official pre-production of another film began in May 1990, in order to be released in late 1991. Generic promotional materials for "Bond 17" were unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival at around the same time. A detailed story draft, widely available online and spread over 17 pages, was written by Alfonso Ruggiero Jr. and Michael G. Wilson. The 'Imagineering' division of Walt Disney Studios were also involved in the film's development at some point, specifically in the development of the high-tech robots prominent in that early treatment.
Owing to the legal disputes, Dalton's third film's production was postponed up to 1994. In an interview in 1993, Timothy Dalton said that Michael France was writing the story for the film, which was due to begin production in January or February 1994. It never began and in April 1994, Dalton resigned from the role.
Although little attention had been paid in the past to the Scottish background of Connery, or the Australian background of Lazenby, or the Welsh ancestry of Timothy Dalton, some British thought there was something odd about an Irishman playing Bond, and some referred to Pierce Brosnan as "James O'Bond".
In keeping with changing times, the new Bond is a non-smoker and he favours Italian-made suits. More importantly, Brosnan's GoldenEye was the first film of the series to be produced since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This cast doubt over whether Bond was still relevant in the modern world, as many of the previous films pitted him against Soviet adversaries. Gone is state-sponsored criminality, now replaced by Russian mobs and gangsters. Another major change was casting Judi Dench as M, reflecting that MI5 (the UK Security Service) was now headed by a female, Dame Stella Rimington. Actress Samantha Bond was cast as Miss Moneypenny.
After the triumph of GoldenEye, there was pressure to recreate success in its follow-up, Tomorrow Never Dies, also at MGM. The studio had recently been sold to billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who wanted the release to coincide with their public stock offering, and the worldwide audience. Co-producer Michael G. Wilson said, "You realise that there's a huge audience and I guess you don't want to come out with a film that's going to somehow disappoint them." The rush to complete it meant the budget spiralled to around $110 million. Most of the locales were in Asia. Breaking completely with Fleming, with no direct references to the novels, the plot is nevertheless reminiscent of The Spy Who Loved Me. The incorporation of stealth technology and cruise missiles makes the story somewhat up-to-date.
Brosnan portrayed Bond in two more films, The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002), and a video game, Everything or Nothing, before it was announced by EON that Brosnan was no longer required as the film series was about to be rebooted and the search for a new 007 (eventually Daniel Craig) was on. Though strong in its action scenes, production values, and acting, some critics found the final two Brosnan films to be too hyperkinetic with little time to savour the characters.
Following the success of GoldenEye, Kevin McClory also attempted to remake Thunderball again as Warhead 2000. Liam Neeson and Timothy Dalton were considered for 007, while Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were developing the film at Sony Pictures. MGM launched a $25 million lawsuit against Sony, and McClory claimed a portion of the $3 billion profits from the Bond series. Sony backed down after a prolonged lawsuit, and McClory gave up. In exchange, MGM paid $10 million for the rights to Casino Royale, which had come into Sony's possession after its acquisition of the companies behind Climax! years before.
Pierce Brosnan had originally signed a deal for three films, with an option for a fourth, when he was cast in the role of James Bond. This was fulfilled with the production of Die Another Day in 2002. However, at this stage Brosnan was approaching his 50th birthday, and speculation began that the producers were seeking to replace him with a younger actor. Brosnan kept in mind that both aficionados and critics were unhappy with Roger Moore playing the role until he was 58, but he was receiving popular support from both critics and the franchise fanbase for a fifth instalment. For this reason, he remained enthusiastic about reprising his role. Throughout 2004, it was rumoured that negotiations had broken down between Brosnan and the producers to make way for a new and younger actor. This was denied by MGM and EON Productions. In July 2004, Brosnan announced that he was quitting the role, stating "Bond is another lifetime, behind me"; this is thought by some to be a failed negotiating ploy. However, in February 2005 Brosnan officially announced he was stepping down.
Casting involved a widespread search for a new actor to portray James Bond, despite Brosnan having proven to be a very popular Bond. Throughout 2004 and 2005, a whole legion of potential new actors to portray James Bond were speculated on by the media, ranging from established Hollywood actors, such as Eric Bana, Hugh Jackman, James Purefoy, Goran Višnjić, Julian McMahon, Gerard Butler, and Clive Owen, to many unknown actors from a number of different countries, including Sam Worthington, Alex O'Loughlin, and Rupert Friend. At one point producer Michael G. Wilson claimed there was a list of over 200 names being considered. English actor Colin Salmon, who had played the role of MI6 operative Charles Robinson in earlier Bond films alongside Pierce Brosnan, was also considered for the role and raised speculation that he might become the first black Bond. According to Martin Campbell, however, Henry Cavill was the only actor in serious contention for the role. But being only 22-years-old at the time, he was considered too young.
In May 2005, Daniel Craig announced that MGM and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli had assured him that he would get the role of Bond, but EON Productions at that point had not yet approached him. Later, Craig stated that the producers had indeed offered him the role, but he had declined until a script was available for him to read.
Bolstered by the success of Universal Pictures' rival Jason Bourne franchise (as well as Warner Bros.' reboot of the Batman franchise with Batman Begins), the decision was made at MGM and EON to "bring Bond back to his roots" by eliminating the increasingly silly gadgets and outlandish fantasy elements that had begun to define the series, and introducing a tougher, darker, and more realistic Bond that was more in line with the Bond of Ian Fleming's original novels than with any of his previous screen incarnations. Thus, the 21st Bond film, Casino Royale (2006), in addition to being the first film adaptation of a Fleming novel since 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun, was to be a reboot of the franchise, establishing a new timeline and narrative framework not meant to precede any previous film. This not only freed the Bond franchise from more than forty years of continuity, but allowed the film to show a less experienced and more vulnerable Bond. As with the previous introductions of new Bonds, the film provided the opportunity to remove production excesses and to get back to basics.
As production of Casino Royale reached its conclusion, producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli announced that pre-production work had already begun on the 22nd Bond film. After several months of speculation as to the release date, Wilson and Broccoli officially announced on 20 July 2006 that the follow-up film, Quantum of Solace, would be released on 2 May 2008 and that Craig had been signed to play Bond, with an option for a third film. Quantum of Solace was eventually released on 31 October 2008 in the UK and 14 November 2008 in North America, changed from its original release date of 7 November 2008 after Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was pushed back to summer 2009. Upon its opening in the UK, it grossed £4.9 million ($8 million), breaking the record for the largest Friday opening (31 October 2008) in the UK. The film then broke the UK opening weekend record, taking £15.5 million ($25 million) in its first weekend, surpassing the previous record of £14.9 million held by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The film grossed $27 million on its opening day in 3,451 theatres in Canada and the United States. It was the #1 film for the weekend, with $67.5 million and $19,568 average per theatre. It was the highest-grossing opening weekend Bond film in the US and Canada, and tied with The Incredibles for the biggest November opening outside of the Harry Potter series.
Columbia Pictures co-financed and distributed Craig's first two films because they bought MGM in 2005. However, MGM chose to stop having Columbia distribute their DVDs following the success of Casino Royale (which Columbia provided 75% of the budget for). In agreement, Columbia chose to finance one more Bond film, Quantum of Solace.
It was EON's intention to hire writers to begin work on the next film in January 2009, for release in 2011. The film will be set after Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, and Daniel Craig will return as James Bond (he is also contracted for a fourth film). MGM hoped the film would be out in 2010, but the 22nd film left Michael G. Wilson exhausted. Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster will not return to direct.
Composer David Arnold will return, and hopes to collaborate with The Killers for the main theme.
All of the official EON Bond films feature the unique gun barrel sequence, created by graphic artist Maurice Binder. As Bond walks across the screen, he is viewed by the audience through the barrel of a gun trained on him by an unknown assailant. Bond wheels around and shoots directly at the gun/viewer, followed by the assassin's blood spilling down the barrel/screen. This is accompanied by the opening bars of the "James Bond Theme", composed by Monty Norman, orchestrated by trumpeter and composer John Barry and Burt Rhodes. After Maurice Binder's death in 1991, Daniel Kleinman was responsible for the gun barrel sequence up to and including Casino Royale. Design house MK12 supervised the graphics for Quantum of Solace.
There have been several variants of the sequence regarding Bond's attire, posture, the colour of the blood, etc. The early sequences showed Bond in a suit and tie (with Bob Simmons, Connery, and Lazenby also wearing a hat), until Roger Moore re-filmed his sequence for a new aspect ratio with 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, which from then on showed Bond wearing a tuxedo and bow tie. However, the sequences for Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace feature Daniel Craig in an open-necked shirt and business suit respectively.
Starting with the Pierce Brosnan films, the gun barrel was rendered with CGI allowing the shadows inside it to move. The sequence was traditionally placed at the start of each film until Casino Royale (2006), where it appears after the cold open and is incorporated into the plot; in Quantum of Solace (2008), it occurs at the end of the film. Royale is a reboot of the franchise, establishing a new timeline and narrative framework; and many of the conventions of the series were either omitted or introduced in a new way.
The one non-EON film which is a serious competitor to the EON series is Never Say Never Again. It follows most of the conventions of typical Bond films but lacks the gun-barrel opening as this is trademarked by EON Productions.
In Dr. No, the gun-barrel sequence is followed by the main titles, but in all subsequent films the titles are preceded by a pre-title sequence or "teaser" that is loosely connected (The World Is Not Enough), fully pertaining (Die Another Day) or not at all related (Goldfinger) to the film's plot. Since Thunderball the gun barrel sequence segues into the pre-title sequence by having the opening shot be sighted through the barrel. The pre-title sequences are mini-films that set the emotional mood and heighten the anticipation for the action to come. When they are not related to the main story, Bond is usually seen wrapping up a mission, or effecting an extraordinary escape. In three of the teasers, the films' villains are shown committing their evil acts with Bond absent (though Connery plays a Bond impersonator in the pre-title sequence of From Russia with Love). In the late 1970s, cleverly dangerous stunts became standard for all pre-title sequences until Casino Royale. The sequence for The World Is Not Enough is unusually long: at over 20 minutes it is two to three times the length of most others.
The main title sequences incorporate visual elements reflecting each film's theme and often (but not always) silhouettes of nude or provocatively clad women set against swirling images that usually (but not always) reflect the general theme of the film; for example, Thunderball features deep-sea diving and this is reflected in the associated opening sequence; the opening sequence for Casino Royale (2006) featured, appropriately, a casino motif. Maurice Binder is the title designer for thirteen Bond films. A contemporary artist usually sings during this sequence (starting with Goldfinger), and an instrumental version of the main track may also be featured as a leitmotif during the film, which repeats in various moods (tense, romantic, adventurous, etc.).
The title song does not always match the name of the film. The Spy Who Loved Me featured Carly Simon singing "Nobody Does It Better" (which contained the film's title in one line); the songs for Octopussy ("All Time High" sung by Rita Coolidge), Casino Royale ("You Know My Name" sung by Chris Cornell) and Quantum of Solace ("Another Way to Die" sung by Jack White and Alicia Keys) don't reference the title at all. With regard to the latter Jack White was quoted as saying, 'The title is quite hard to rhyme with!', though there is a single use of the word "solace" during the second verse. John Barry provided the title song music on ten of the eleven films for which he composed the musical score.
To date the only EON films title sequences to actually propel the film's storyline are that of Dr. No, which directly segues into an assassination sequence by introducing the killers, and Die Another Day, which depicts Bond's 14-month incarceration and torture in North Korea.
The core of the Bond films are the agent's personality, tastes, and skills, evolved and interpreted from the Fleming James Bond character by the various actors who have played the role. Much of the films' appeal is watching Bond be Bond. In personality, Bond is tough, ruthless, detached, and egotistical — a man of action given to few words. This is similar to the earlier Fleming novels, while in later novels Bond develops a more introspective side which is glimpsed only rarely in the films. Physically, Bond is athletic, graceful, and quick-acting. Aesthetically, he thoroughly enjoys good food, fine liquor, and beautiful women. In appearance, he is stylish and well-groomed.
There are modest variations on a theme between actors, which is attributable to how the script-writers write for the actors. Moore's Bond is slightly softer and a bit more romantic than either his predecessors or successors. Craig's Bond is slightly more stoic and introverted, while Dalton's is particularly cynical and angry, while retaining Moore's romantic qualities.
Bond's prowess as a lover is well-established in the films. There are numerous double-entendres in the series referring to the size and potency of Bond's penis, and his use of aphrodisiacs, especially when he is in the arms of a Bond girl. He is frequently "rising to the occasion". His sexual skills turn enemies into allies, as is the case with Pussy Galore. A few women manage to resist Bond's charms but overall over fifty women have had sex with Bond in the series so far, ranging from one girl (rarely) to three per film.
With the exception of Daniel Craig's first two films, every Bond film has a sequence in which Bond interacts with Miss Moneypenny, the personal assistant to M, Bond's superior. A running joke throughout the film series is Moneypenny's unrequited love for Bond and his playful flirting with her. She flirts back, jokes and sometimes pouts, hoping to wrangle a proposal and a wedding ring out of him. A fantasy sequence in Die Another Day marks the only occasion in the EON film series in which Moneypenny was actually shown in a romantic embrace with Bond. The character was dropped from the reboot film Casino Royale, the first Bond film (official or unofficial) in which Moneypenny did not appear, and the character does not appear in Quantum of Solace either. In many of the films, established in Dr. No, the tossing of Bond's hat onto a coat rack in M's office signals the start of another adventure. There have been several variations on this theme. As Bond leaves the office in Goldfinger, Miss Moneypenny takes the hat from him and tosses it herself, hoping to induce him to stay. In Thunderball, he is cut off in mid-toss when Moneypenny announces that he is late. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, after Bond is married, he throws his hat, which is caught by a tearful Moneypenny. And when Bond is in Venice in Moonraker, he tosses his gondolier's hat onto a vacant gondola.
Lois Maxwell portrayed Miss Moneypenny opposite Connery, Lazenby, and Moore. She was followed by Caroline Bliss and Samantha Bond, who played opposite Dalton and Brosnan respectively. The three have arguably divergent interpretations of the role, as do the six actors who have played Bond.
Bond is early on called in to see M, the head of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) in his or her office to receive his assignment. In several films, Bond receives the assignment at a secret headquarters or out of the office. Bond enters, often finding M in a subdued state of agitation over a new threat to world peace. M typically shows confidence in his/her best agent but feels a need to rein Bond in for his risky methods and often chides him for his indiscretions.
Universal Exports is used as a cover name for the British Secret Service in the films. It has been featured repeatedly in the films in various ways such as a direction sign in Dr. No, the abbreviation "UnivEx" in From Russia with Love, a brass name plate in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond's helicopter in For Your Eyes Only, a building with a sign in The Living Daylights, an identity card in The World Is Not Enough, a folder in Casino Royale, and a business card in Quantum of Solace. Bond has also given his introductions as a Universal Exports employee in You Only Live Twice, Octopussy, Licence to Kill, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day.
The character of M does not appear in For Your Eyes Only, which was made shortly after the death of long-time M actor, Bernard Lee. Bond gets his briefing in this film from M's Chief of Staff, Bill Tanner, and the Minister of Defence, Frederick Gray. Beginning with the Brosnan series, M was a woman played by Judi Dench, a Shakespearean actress well-known for playing authority figures. Altogether, three actors have played M: Bernard Lee for Connery, Lazenby, and earlier Moore films; Robert Brown for the last two Moore films and the two Dalton films; Judi Dench for all the Brosnan and Craig films to date.
After getting his assignment, Bond is often sent to Q Branch for the technical briefing in which he receives special equipment to be used in his mission. Originally, in the novels, gadgets were relatively unimportant. This did not change in the first Bond film, Dr. No. However, they took on a higher profile in the film version of From Russia with Love (a key example where a gadget, the trick briefcase, is used in the original source novel), and their use has continued ever since, exceptions being On Her Majesty's Secret Service and For Your Eyes Only in which Bond was given few gadgets. In Dr. No, the head of Q Branch is the Armourer, Major Boothroyd (not yet called Q), who instructs Bond on a new firearm, the Walther PPK. Beginning with From Russia with Love the briefings involve various gadgets and technology, and Boothroyd is referred to as Q starting in Goldfinger. Each Bond film thereafter up until Die Another Day contains a technical briefing of some kind, usually given by Q, with the exception of Live and Let Die, in which Q does not appear and Bond himself describes his mission equipment to M and Moneypenny, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service in which Q does not brief 007 but is demonstrating to M.
Q is sometimes shown joining Bond in the field, taking with him a portable workshop and his staff. These workshops are established in unusual locations, such as an Egyptian tomb in The Spy Who Loved Me and a South American monastery in Moonraker. On two occasions, in Octopussy and Licence to Kill, Q takes active roles in Bond's missions. With the 2006 Casino Royale reboot and the subsequent instalment, Quantum of Solace, the character of Q was, like Moneypenny, dropped, and although Bond still receives a supply of mission equipment, no technical briefing is shown on screen.
There are several running jokes in the lab. Established in Goldfinger is Q's continuing disgust at how his equipment is often lost, damaged or destroyed by Bond during missions (though Q's expectations of the "pristine" return of his equipment are clearly unrealistic). Another is how easily distracted Bond is in the lab ("Now pay attention") as Q rattles off details about the use of the equipment which Bond needs to commit to memory. Another running joke is Bond's amused reaction to the latest devices and the Quartermaster's indignant response ("I never joke about my work"). There are also sight gags showing prototype equipment. In the field, however, Bond always remembers the details and takes full advantage of the tools supplied.
Desmond Llewelyn played Q in every pre-Craig film except for Dr. No (Q's first appearance), Live and Let Die (from which Q is absent) and Die Another Day (in which the character has been replaced). Llewelyn is the only actor to have appeared opposite five actors playing James Bond. However, his death after the release of The World Is Not Enough forced producers to find another actor to fill Llewelyn's role as Q. After appearing as Q's assistant R in The World Is Not Enough, John Cleese appears as Q in Die Another Day.
Throughout the series, Q provides Bond with a variety of useful automobiles. However, 007's most famous car is the Aston Martin DB5, seen in Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. The production team have used a number of DB5s for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in Arizona for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. It was originally sold for £5,000 in 1970. Bond also shows his taste for aircraft: a gyrocopter features in You Only Live Twice and an Acrostar Jet in Octopussy. Marine vehicles include a submersible Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me and others that resemble an iceberg (A View to a Kill) or an alligator (Octopussy). One of the Lotuses was sold in December 2008 for £ 111,500.
For the most part, Bond is sent to do his work in attractive, exotic locales. Occasionally he will be assigned to war-torn or gloomy locations, but at some point his villains will be encountered in sunny paradises like Nassau, Jamaica, or Greece, or in exotic places like Istanbul, Thailand, India, or Japan. He averages about three foreign countries per film. In all, Bond's adventures have taken him to over 60 countries (not including the UK), as well as outer space.
Once in the field, Bond frequently meets up with a local ally upon arrival. These can be his foreign counterparts like Tiger Tanaka in Japan, Vijay in India, CIA operatives like Felix Leiter, or his own staff in a secret location. Such characters can also be female, some of whom succumb to Bond's charms. Some allies are of only passing help and others are essential to the mission. For example, Tiger Tanaka opens up a world of possibilities to Bond, while secret agent Saunders is a bit inexperienced.
Just fewer than half the films prior to Pierce Brosnan have James Bond teaming up with Felix Leiter. Leiter also plays a smaller role in these films than he does in Fleming novels. Specifically, he appears in four out of the six official Connery films, only the first of seven Roger Moore films, both Timothy Dalton films, and none of the four Pierce Brosnan films, but returned for Daniel Craig. He is also not in Lazenby's sole Bond film. He appears both in Connery's unofficial film, Never Say Never Again (1983), and in the early non-EON television Casino Royale adaptation as Clarence Leiter. In the official EON series, there were no Leiter film appearances between 1973 and 1987 and no Leiter appearances between 1989 and 2006.
In the novels, Leiter gets bitten by a shark and loses his leg quite early in the series. He has a wooden leg in most of the other novels in which he appears. This incident was postponed in the films until the second and last Timothy Dalton movie, after which Leiter was never seen again until the reboot of the franchise with Casino Royale.
Jack Lord played Leiter in the very first Bond film, Dr. No, but was unavailable for Goldfinger, in which Leiter was played by Cec Linder, an actor who appeared much older than Lord (though in reality Lord was older than Linder). Since then, Leiter has almost always been played by a different actor, being played by the same actor more than once only by David Hedison prior to Quantum of Solace. Hedison's two appearances as Leiter were years apart from each other: 1973's Live and Let Die and 1989's Licence to Kill. Leiter has been thrice played by an African-American actor, for the first time in the non-EON film Never Say Never Again and in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace by Jeffrey Wright.
Wright's reprise of Leiter in Quantum of Solace marks the second time that the character is reprised by the same actor, the first time in successive films, and the third time Leiter is portrayed by an African-American (including non-EON films).
Fleming wrote twelve novels, of which Leiter appears in six. Leiter also appears in six of the official films adapted from novels. However, in the films he was dropped from The Man with the Golden Gun and added to Dr. No. His appearance in the Timothy Dalton films brings Leiter's film appearances in the official series to eight prior to Quantum of Solace. Aside from the Dalton film The Living Daylights and Quantum of Solace, Leiter appears in no other films with Fleming short story titles (the last three Roger Moore films), and he never appears in any Fleming short stories.
More often than not the Bond villain is a megalomaniacal supervillain, some sort of industrialist or mad scientist with schemes of world domination. They are often charismatic and intelligent but also arrogantly over-confident, inviting a comeuppance. Frequently, Bond has an early sparring match with them which is verbal or over some sport (such as golf) or a casino game. Bond's victory heightens the supervillain's hatred for 007. Often, Bond brazenly tries to lure away and seduce a supervillain's mistress, both to save her and to validate his male superiority over his enemy. In six films, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the Number One of worldwide criminal organisation SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion), is either Bond's main nemesis or his backer.
On occasion, the Bond villain is a more down-to-earth character such as a drug/weapons smuggler or a supplier of money to other criminals. For example, neither of Timothy Dalton's two Bond films had a typical Bond supervillain.
At some point on the mission, Bond meets the principal Bond girl, a character portraying Bond's love interest or one of his main sex objects. There is always one Bond girl central to the plot, and often one or two others who cross his path, helpful or not. They may be victims rescued by Bond, or else ally agents, villainesses, or henchwomen. Many partner with Bond on the assignment, while others such as Honey Ryder are solely passive participants in the mission. More generally, the degree to which Bond girls are pivotal to propelling the plot forward varies from one film to the next. Five of the Bond girls are "bad" girls (or at least working for the villain) who turn "good" (or switch sides) usually due to Bond's influence. (Octopussy's motives for switching sides are more complex however.) In some cases, Bond attempts to get a girl to switch to his side and fails. In The World is not Enough, the villain is a woman who fails to seduce Bond to her side.
Two of Fleming's Bond girls -Gala Brand and Vivienne Michel—appear only in the novels. They were replaced by different Bond girl characters in their respective films in the process of discarding most or all of the book's original plot.
Sylvia Trench is the only recurring Bond girl (unless you count Moneypenny) as well as Bond's off-assignment girlfriend. Swedish actress Maud Adams has played two different Bond girls in two films, The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy. Bond has fallen in love with only Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, but both of them die at or near the end of the respective films.
Bond girls often have highly suggestive names of which the most notorious was Goldfinger's Pussy Galore. Others included Holly Goodhead from Moonraker, Mary Goodnight from The Man with the Golden Gun, Honey Ryder from Dr. No, Plenty O'Toole from Diamonds Are Forever, and Xenia Onatopp from GoldenEye.
An entire book and subsequent hour-long documentary entitled Bond Girls Are Forever devoted just to the history of Bond girls were created by former Bond girl actress Maryam D'Abo in 2002, 15 years after her appearance in a Bond film.
Although Bond sleeps with a fellow secret service employee in Quantum of Solace, this is the only Bond film in which he does not sleep with the female lead during the course of the film, and which closes neither with her in his arms nor with her dead.
Keeping with the greater Hollywood tradition, every Bond film features chase scenes, usually more than one per film. Bond and his allies prove their evading skills in a wide variety of vehicles, from custom aircraft and watercraft to buses, trucks, even tanks and moon-buggies. Perhaps the most unusual is the gondola sequence from Moonraker, which leaves the canals of Venice to continue on land. Notable others include: the original gadget-car chase in the Aston-Martin DB5 in Goldfinger; the ski sequence in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the tank pursuit in GoldenEye. All such sequences in Casino Royale involve Bond following the villain instead of vice versa.
Bond encounters many colourful characters who do the dirty work for the supervillain. The first henchmen introduced in the film series are the three assassins (the "Three Blind Mice") who are featured in the title sequence of Dr. No even before Bond appears. The blond muscleman henchman, of which there are six, is introduced in From Russia with Love in the guise of Donald Grant (Robert Shaw) who fights Bond to the death in the tight confines of the Orient Express. Bond also battles an array of femmes fatales, who first seduce and then try to kill Bond, such as Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye. Another notable henchmen is Oddjob, the karate expert with the deadly bowler hat with the hidden metal that he throws at the neck of his enemies like a Frisbee. Jaws (7'2" actor Richard Kiel) with his superhuman dentures is one of only three undefeated henchmen in the series Another surviving henchman of note is Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder), the voodoo villain with one of the most distinctive voices in the acting industry.
The climax of most Bond films is the final confrontation with the supervillain and his henchmen, sometimes an entire army of cohorts, often in his hard-to-reach lair. While the novels typically climax with a terrible ordeal for Bond — usually a heinous torture, which he survives to then confront the villain for the last time, the films have tended to tone down the violence/sadism of the last act, preserving the inventively gruesome fate for the villain and leaving Bond conspicuously intact. The supervillain's retreat can be a private island (Dr. No, The Man with the Golden Gun and, effectively, Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me), mountaintop retreat (On Her Majesty's Secret Service and For Your Eyes Only) or underground base (You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die, Licence to Kill), a ship (Thunderball and Tomorrow Never Dies) or even an oil rig (Diamonds Are Forever) or space station (Moonraker) — among other variations. Bond usually sabotages the lair and, with time ticking down, dispatches the supervillain, rescues the principal Bond girl and they escape as the place blows up. In some cases, the supervillain or their primary henchman escapes either to return in another film (notably Blofeld in many films of the 1960s, Jaws and Mr White) or to launch a final attack on Bond and his lover in the final scene (Goldfinger, Live and Let Die and several others).
So far only two Bond films, Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, have ended with the central Bond girl deceased. In all other films, except Quantum of Solace, Bond is kissing her, making love, or implying that he will do so. Sometimes an embarrassed M catches Bond during his embraces. Most endings feature a double entendre, and in many of the films, the Bond girl purrs, "Oh, James." Every film except Dr. No (1962) and Thunderball (1965) has either the line "James Bond will return..." or "James Bond will be back" at the end of the closing credits. Until Octopussy (1983), the title of the next film to be produced was also named, although these were sometimes incorrect. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) promised James Bond would return in For Your Eyes Only. But after the success of Star Wars, producers decided to make Ian Fleming's Moonraker (1979) instead. For Your Eyes Only followed in 1981.
On 21 June 2005, the line was honoured as the 22nd historically greatest cinema quotation by the American Film Institute, in its 100 Years Series. To date, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and Quantum of Solace are the only films in which Bond does not give his trademark introduction — although in Thunderball, the villainous character Fiona Volpe mocks him by saying it to him (as does Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky in The World Is Not Enough). Similar in-jokes see Bond's introduction being rudely interrupted (in Goldfinger) or greeted with disdain (The Spy Who Loved Me) or even lethal disinterest (in Live and Let Die, when Mr. Big shoots back: "Names is for tombstones… waste him!"). In the 2006 film Casino Royale that reboots the franchise, Bond does not utter this line until the end of the film.
In the 1990 television film The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, allegedly based on Fleming's own World War II spy experiences, Fleming (played by Sean Connery's son, Jason Connery) says his name is "Fleming, Ian Fleming".
Bond usually evinces a preference for vodka martinis, and his instruction on how it must be prepared, "Shaken, not stirred", quickly became another catchphrase. This line was honoured by the AFI as the 90th most-memorable cinema quotation. The description is first said by Doctor No in the 1962 film (demonstrating to Bond that he is familiar with his tastes). Bond himself first uses the line in 1964's Goldfinger. In You Only Live Twice, when Bond is offered a martini "stirred, not shaken" and asked if that is right, he politely says, "Perfect. Cheers." In GoldenEye, Zukovsky mockingly describes Bond as being "shaken, but not stirred" by his recent abduction. In Die Another Day, when handed a Vodka Martini on a turbulent airplane, he says, "Lucky I asked for it shaken." In Casino Royale, the in-joke is a furious Bond's reply — "Do I look like I give a damn?" — to a bartender's innocent query of "Shaken or stirred?". As originally devised by Fleming in his novel Casino Royale, Bond's martini of choice originally had a more complex recipe; this recipe was recited on screen for the first time in the 2006 adaptation of the novel, and repeated in Quantum of Solace. Prior to this the closest thing to a "recipe" given on screen is in Dr. No when the eponymous villain mentions Bond's martini as having a slice of lemon peel.
Sylvia Trench was originally intended to be used as a running gag: as Bond's off-assignment girlfriend who usually has her amorous interludes with 007 interrupted by his being called urgently to a mission. After appearing in the first two films, she was dropped from the series.
CIA agent Jack Wade appears as a kind of substitute for Felix Leiter in the first two Pierce Brosnan films, GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. Leiter loses his leg in the final Dalton film as he does quite early in Fleming's chronology, and the producers were apparently unwilling to have the films' Leiter have a wooden leg as he does in the books.
Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky appears in the first and third Pierce Brosnan films. He is former KGB agent who is not well-disposed towards Bond but is manipulated by 007 into helping him.
Rene Mathis from Casino Royale returns in Quantum of Solace, in which he is killed. In Fleming's novels, he appeared in both Royale (the first novel) and From Russia with Love (the fifth) but he did not appear in the film version of the latter.
In Fleming's novels, a Jamaican fisherman named Quarrel helps out in two cases, Live and Let Die and Dr. No, but is killed in the latter. Since the film series reversed the chronology of these two stories, his character in Live and Let Die was replaced by Quarrel Junior.
As of 2008, Mr. White, middleman operative of the terrorist organisation Quantum, appears in the two most recent Bond films, and is still at large in the last one. It remains to be seen if he will be an ongoing presence like Blofeld or a two-movie villain like Jaws.
Sheriff J.W. Pepper is a not-too-bright Southern redneck who gets inadvertently in Bond's way; he appears in the first two Roger Moore films.
After a brief appearance in the second film (From Russia with Love), the villainous head of SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, features more prominently in the fourth through seventh Bond films from Thunderball to Diamonds Are Forever. Ten years later, the film For Your Eyes Only featured a pre-title sequence in which Bond kills an unnamed villain generally assumed to be Blofeld. The character is played by a different actor in every film. He also appeared two years later in the non-EON film Never Say Never Again and is the model of the recurring villain Doctor Evil in the Bond-parody Austin Powers film series.
The last five (out of seven) Roger Moore films and the first Timothy Dalton film all feature both a Western-friendly KGB agent, General Gogol, and Sir Frederick Gray an employee of the Ministry of Defence, who more often than not appears alongside Bond's immediate boss, M. Each role was played by the same respective actor.
Prior to Eon's start in 1961, Casino Royale was adapted as a one-hour television episode of CBS' series Climax!. The nationalities of James Bond and Felix Leiter were reversed making Bond American and Leiter British. Bond was nicknamed "Card sense Jimmy Bond". After Eon's formation, only two James Bond films were produced without the company's consent, due to the production rights of two Ian Fleming novels being lost.
In 1955, Ian Fleming sold the film rights of Casino Royale to producers Michael Garrison and Gregory Ratoff. These were later sold to producer Charles K. Feldman. Feldman initially went to Broccoli and Saltzman with a proposition to produce the film; however, due to their negative experiences with Kevin McClory on Thunderball they declined. Feldman decided to start his own production and approached Connery who offered to do the film for $1 million dollars, which Feldman rejected. Since his previous film, the madcap comedy What's New, Pussycat?, had been a success, Feldman decided to make a satirical Bond film in similar vein. Problems ensued, however, when the star, Peter Sellers, walked off the project with scenes uncompleted, and script re-writes and directorial changes (the film ended up with five) caused the budget to escalate far beyond that of any Bond picture hitherto. The Casino Royale spoof was released in 1967. The plot involves multiple impersonators of James Bond as the real one played by David Niven is now elderly. Thus Peter Sellers' character carries action performed by James Bond in Fleming's novel. Woody Allen was allowed to write most of his own dialogue for this film. He plays an inept nephew of James Bond, called Jimmy Bond. This is ironic as Bond himself is called "Jimmy Bond" in the straight 1955 adaptation of Casino Royale in which Bond is American.
When plans for a James Bond film were scrapped in the late 1950s, a story treatment entitled Thunderball, written by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham, was adapted as Fleming's ninth Bond novel. Initially the book was only credited to Fleming. McClory filed a lawsuit that would eventually award him the film rights to the title in 1963. Afterwards, he made a deal with EON Productions to produce a film adaptation starring Sean Connery in 1965. The deal stipulated that McClory could not produce another adaptation until a set period of time had elapsed, and he did so in 1983 with Never Say Never Again, which featured Sean Connery for a seventh time as 007. The film was a worldwide box-office success, but since it was not made by Broccoli's production company, Eon Productions, it is not considered a part of the "official" film series. A second attempt by McClory to remake Thunderball in the 1990s with Sony Pictures was halted by a legal dispute resulting in the studio abandoning its aspirations for a rival James Bond series.
Eon later acquired the rights for both films. Never Say Never Again was bought from Warner Bros. in 1997, and Casino Royale was traded with Sony, along with the adaptation rights of the novel, in exchange for $10 million and the filming rights of Spider-Man (coincidentally, McClory died on 20 November 2006, a mere six days after the release of Eon's official version of Casino Royale).
James Bond marathons on cable TV generally include Never Say Never Again, but boxed sets of James Bond DVDs do not.
The films have been awarded two Academy Awards: for Sound Effects (now Sound Editing) in Goldfinger (1964) and for Visual Effects in Thunderball (1965). In 1982, Albert R. Broccoli received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. Additionally, several of the songs, including Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", Carly Simon's "Nobody Does it Better", and Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only", have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song.
The spy novelist John le Carré was severely critical of the character of James Bond, regarding Bond as potential traitor material. LeCarre created his spy George Smiley as the antithesis of Bond. Smiley is a shy and cerebral; his spy work is mostly mundane and plodding; he gets caught up in morally ambiguous situations, and his wife is cheating on him. Both LeCarre's Japanese-based novel The Honourable Schoolboy and Fleming's Japan-based book You Only Live Twice have a character based on real journalist Richard Hughes.
Film critic Mick LaSalle notes many believe the older Bond films were superior to the later films, which he disagrees with, arguing many of the older film " mainly from a certain James Bond atmosphere and from a built-up sense of audience expectation". He also feels every James Bond actor was "first rate". Upon rewatching all the films, LaSalle was surprised by how rough Connery's Bond was, and felt it was Moore "who radiant narcissism and effete quality" to the character. He added "Brosnan was superb combining Moore's self-satisfaction with Dalton's sensitivity," while Craig became his favorite Bond by his second film for "reconceiv the role for himself as a young tough guy with a lot of pain going on inside".
In 2007, IGN chose the James Bond series as the second best film franchise of all time, behind Star Wars.
The success of the James Bond series in the 1960s led to various spy TV series, both comical as in Get Smart or straight thriller series such as I Spy, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the last having enjoyed contributions by Fleming towards its creation. There was also an increase in the market for spy films such as the Harry Palmer films which starred Michael Caine.
Bond has also received many homages and parodies in popular media. Especially notable is the Austin Powers series by writer, producer and comedian Mike Myers as many characters in it are parodies of specific characters in the Bond films. Other notable parodies include Spy Hard (1996), Johnny English (2003), Bons baisers de Hong Kong, OK Connery, Undercover Brother (2002), the "Flint" series starring James Coburn as Derek Flint, and the "Matt Helm" films starring Dean Martin.
EON productions or MGM have been known to issue file suit in one form or another if they think the copying of Bond is too close. A suit against the producers of the third Austin Powers films ended in a settlement according which the distributors of the latter agreed to show a parody of the forthcoming Bond film in theaters prior to their film. A season 4 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine entitled Our Man Bashir featured a virtual-reality game on the holodeck with multiple James Bond references in sufficient amount to raise the ire of MGM. The episode was removed from syndication for a period of time.
George Lucas has said on various occasions that Sean Connery's portrayal of Bond was one of the primary inspirations for the Indiana Jones character, a reason Connery was chosen for the role of Indiana's father in the third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies were the first in the series to be released on DVD in 1998. Following The World Is Not Enough on 22 May 2000, the series proper was issued chronologically in single disc "special editions" over the next ten months until 26 March 2001. Boxed sets collectively containing all James Bond films up to that time, still in "special editions", were released over the period between October 2002 (when Vol. 1 was released) and November 2003 (when Vol. 3 was released). Of the three sets, the first two had seven films, and the remaining box had six. The films were not in chronological order.
In July 2006, the entire series was re-released in Region 2 in "Ultimate Edition" two-disc sets that featured frame-by-frame digitally restored picture by Lowry Digital and remixed DTS sound. Throughout 2007 these editions were released in four non-chronological boxed sets, each containing five titles. They were eventually combined in an "ultimate collector's set" that included the two-disc widescreen edition of Casino Royale.
On 20 October 2008, to tie in with the theatrical debut of Quantum of Solace, six non-consecutive titles in the series were released on Blu-ray Disc, along with a special edition re-release of Casino Royale.
James Bond has starred in many video games, with a few being direct adaptations of the films. Between 1985 and 1990, Mindscape made text adventure versions of Goldfinger and A View to a Kill, and Domark produced side scrolling shooter games based on Licence to Kill, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Living Daylights, Live and Let Die and A View to a Kill.
The popularity of the James Bond video game didn't really take off, however, until 1997's GoldenEye 007, a Nintendo 64 first-person shooter developed by Rare based on GoldenEye, along with additional and extended missions. It received the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment "Games Award" and is widely considered one of the best games ever. Electronic Arts released two tie-in games, the third-person shooter Tomorrow Never Dies (1997, PlayStation) and The World Is Not Enough (2000, PlayStation, N64 and Game Boy Color) before starting original games, such as Agent Under Fire (2001, PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube) and Nightfire (2002, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Windows, Macintosh and Game Boy Advance), which were the most similar games to the style of GoldenEye, and GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (2004, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Nintendo DS), which bears no relation to the film GoldenEye, nor the game of the same title. EA also released Everything or Nothing (2004, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Game Boy Advance), a third-person shooter starring Pierce Brosnan in his fifth and final appearance as Bond. The success of this game led to a follow-up based on From Russia with Love (2005, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation Portable), which even included Sean Connery's likeness and voice acting.
Activision studios, Treyarch, Beenox, Eurocom, and Vicarious Visions developed Quantum of Solace which is based on both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. The game was released in November 2008 on six different platforms to coincide with the latter film.
James Bond Jr.
James Bond Jr. is a fictional character described as the nephew of Ian Fleming's masterspy James Bond. The name "James Bond Junior" was first used in 1967 for an unsuccessful spinoff novel entitled 003½: The Adventures of James Bond Junior written under the pseudonym R. D. Mascott. The idea of Bond having a nephew was used again in 1991 as an American animated series for television in which the title character defeats threats to the safety of the free world. The series was mildly successful and spawned six episode novelisations by John Peel writing as John Vincent, a 12 issue comic book series by Marvel Comics published in 1992, as well as a video game developed by Eurocom for the NES and the SNES in 1991.
The use of "Jr." in the character's name is unusual in that this naming convention is generally reserved for sons as opposed to nephews and other indirect offspring. Alternatively, it has been proposed that Fleming's James Bond had a brother, also named James Bond, who is the father of James Bond Jr.
The animated series, produced by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson and United Artists Corporation, debuted on September 16, 1991 and a total of 65 half-hour episodes were produced. James Bond Jr. was voiced by Corey Burton.
Like many animated series, it regularly surpasses the Bond movies in terms of implausible gadgets and mad scientists, and the violence of the adult Bond series is nowhere in evidence. Despite this, the show was fully sanctioned by (and produced in association with) Danjaq and United Artists (the rights holders to the James Bond property).
Jaws, a recurring villain from the Roger Moore film era, also made regular appearances, usually partnered with Nick Nack to form a bickering comical duo. Auric Goldfinger also appears (alongside his assistant from the Goldfinger movie, Oddjob), revealing he has a teenage daughter named Goldie Finger with equally expensive tastes. Many episode titles wittily parodied the titles of Bond films, e.g. 'Live and Let's Dance'.
The various inhabitants of Warfield Academy, comprising James Bond Jr., his friends, Trevor Noseworthy and the two featured members of teaching staff, act as the series regulars, and all appear in almost every episode of the series. Sometimes only two or three of James's friends will accompany him on an adventure, leaving the others behind at Warfield to create a B-plot which normally revolves around Trevor's misguided attempts to get James into trouble.
In 1992 Puffin Books published six novelisations of the James Bond Jr. animated television show. The books were written by John Peel under the pseudonym John Vincent, and were all based on episodes from the television run, albeit extended and modified to cater for a slightly older audience. The villains not featured in these novelisations were Odd Job and Walker D Plank.
In the UK, four of the TV episodes were adapted by the young children's series Buzz Books. Although the plots remained basically the same, the books were much shorter and sometimes featured different characters from the TV show; for instance, Freeze Frame, an adaptation of the episode Weather or Not, featured Goldfinger and Odd Job rather than Doctor Derange and Skullcap, presumably since the latter pair featured in the first book, Tunnel of Doom. The only villains never to appear in the books were Dr. No and Walker D Plank.
James Bond Jr. was given a limited 12 issue run with Marvel Comics spanning from January 1992 to December 1992. The first five stories were lifted directly from the TV series, but the other seven were original stories.
The James Bond Jr toy line was met with success. The line began in 1991, and actually lasted longer than the television series itself.
James Bond Jr. was also a 1991 video game developed by Eurocom for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
The 1967 satire Casino Royale, includes a character described as James Bond's nephew, called Jimmy Bond and portrayed by Woody Allen.
M (James Bond)
M is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. M has been portrayed by Judi Dench since 1995.
Ian Fleming based much of M's character on Admiral John Godfrey, Fleming's superior in British Naval Intelligence during World War II. After Fleming's death, Godfrey complained "He turned me into that unsavoury character, M." Other possible influences include Claude Dansey (known as "Colonel Z") and Maxwell Knight. Fleming biographer John Pearson also hypothesised Fleming's characterisation of M reflects memories of his mother.
The third Bond novel, Moonraker, establishes M's personal initials as "M**** M*********". M's first name is also revealed in Moonraker when a character calls him Miles. In The Man with the Golden Gun M's true identity is revealed as Admiral Sir Miles Messervy; this may be where the M comes from, but does not explain the films because there has been more than one M (although the director of the real-life MI6 is known as "C", nominally for "chief" but actually the result of the first director, Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, signing his documents with the last initial of his name). The 2006 film version of Casino Royale gives the audience the following insight when Bond coyly mentions to M that he has discovered her real name. Bond says to M, "I thought M was a randomly assigned letter. I had no idea it stood for--", and M cuts him off by saying "Utter one more syllable, and I'll have you killed!".
In the novels and almost all films, all characters holding the title of M have been aided by Miss Moneypenny (personal secretary) and Bill Tanner (Chief of Staff).
In Ian Fleming's novels, M's real name is Vice Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG; the name, hinted at throughout the series, was finally revealed in The Man with the Golden Gun, Fleming's final novel.
In the novels, M displays a liking for Bond, when he bends the rules for Bond on several occasions. For instance in the short story For Your Eyes Only, Bond agrees to carry out a private assassination for M, while in The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond attempts to assassinate M himself; this is as a result of extreme Soviet brainwashing and M insists that Bond be rehabilitated rather than punished. In the first post-Fleming book, Colonel Sun, M is kidnapped from Quarterdeck, his home, and Bond goes to great lengths to rescue him. In the later books, written by John Gardner, Messervy protects Bond from the new, less aggressive climate in the Secret Service, saying that "sometime this country will need a blunt instrument." In the films, their relationship is similar.
In On Her Majesty's Secret Service it is revealed that M's pay as head of the Secret Service was 6500 pounds a year, 1500 pounds of which coming from retired naval pay (by comparison, Bond makes 1500 pounds). Although his pay is good for the 1950s and 1960s, it is never explained how M received or can afford his membership at Blades, an upscale private club for gentlemen he frequents in London to gamble and dine. Blades has a restricted membership of only 200 gentlemen and all must be able to show 100,000 pounds in cash or gilt-edged securities.
In John Gardner's novel, Win, Lose or Die, it is stated that M has one daughter who married and produced two children whom M adores.
In the films, only his first name, Miles, was revealed (in The Spy Who Loved Me), and he also holds the rank of Rear Admiral which his insignia suggests in You Only Live Twice. M was played by Bernard Lee from the first Bond movie, Dr. No, until Moonraker (1979). Lee died in 1981 and, out of respect, the character was removed from that year's For Your Eyes Only (1981), with his lines given to either his Chief of Staff or the Minister of Defence, Sir Fredrick Gray. The film version of Dr. No suggests that Messervy is a relatively recent appointee to the position of M (he boasts about his ability to reduce the number of operative casualties since taking the job), suggesting someone else held the job before him. In the earlier films, he has Bond's field equipment replaced by newer devices, such as replacing his Beretta with a Walther PPK and his Bentley with an Aston Martin DB5. Ian Fleming made a reference to a predecessor by stating in The Man with the Golden Gun "My predecessor died in that chair." Gardner also makes references to M's predecessors in Scorpius, again suggesting that Messervy is not the first. Also, in the film version of Dr. No, M is heard to call himself head of MI7 which actually was the department in charge of propaganda and censorship (the actor originally said MI6, but for reasons unknown was overdubbed with the now-fictional MI7 prior to the film's release, the DVD subtitles also state that M is head of MI6); this contradicts later films that state he is in charge of MI6. Curiously, earlier in the film, the department was actually referred to as MI6 by a radio operator. This M refers to Bond by his first name, James, in both The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, and is referred to by his first name, Miles, only in The Spy Who Loved Me.
Following the death of actor Bernard Lee, M is said to be "on leave" in For Your Eyes Only (1981) but otherwise does not appear in that film. Out of respect, no new actor was hired to take over the role of M. In the film, M's lines were transferred to the Minister of Defence and Bill Tanner, M's Chief of Staff.
The likeness of Sir Miles Messervy is used in the 2005 James Bond video game adaptation of From Russia With Love by EA Games. From Russia With Love is the last James Bond video game that EA marketed before they lost the rights to Activision in 2006.
The character of M is apocryphally based on Rear Admiral John H. Godfrey, Director of the British Department of Naval Intelligence during World War II. During this time, Fleming was his assistant. Godfrey and Fleming were close friends and on first name terms, unlike M and Bond in the novels. Other names that have from time to time been referenced as a possible resemblance include Maxwell Knight, former head of counter-subversion in MI5, and Maurice Buckmaster, head of Section F of the SOE.
After Lee's death in 1981, the producers hired actor Robert Brown to continue the role in the Bond films. Brown picks up the role in Octopussy, however it is never explicitly stated on screen whether Robert Brown's character is intended to be the same person played by Lee, if he was intended to be Admiral Hargreaves, the role played by Brown in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, or if he is supposed to be another character altogether.
Later Bond novels by John Gardner retain Sir Miles Messervy as M. Raymond Benson's 1998 novel, The Facts of Death is more clear by having Hargreaves present at a party hosted by Sir Miles Messervy. Other films hint that they are not the same character. The World Is Not Enough (1999), for instance, features an oil-painting portrait of Bernard Lee as the original M, prominent on a wall behind Judi Dench, as the current M, in the Scottish MI6 headquarters. In the pre-title credits to The Living Daylights, M's insignia suggests he is a Rear Admiral, which would mean if he is Hargreaves then he has been demoted; since Hargreaves' insignia in The Spy Who Loved Me suggests he is a Vice Admiral. Messervy had previously been established both in print and on film (On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved Me as two examples of the latter) as being a navy admiral, the notion of another admiral being promoted/appointed to the position of M is plausible.
As played by Brown, M lacks a sense of humor and has absolutely no tolerance whatsoever for Bond's antics, which supports the theory that this M is Hargreaves or someone else and not Messervy. Brown's M came off tougher than his predecessor, wasting no time to revoke Bond's licence to kill in the film Licence to Kill when Bond went off on a personal vendetta (though he nevertheless felt some sympathy towards the younger man privately in this case). This marked change of chemistry between M and Bond could be seen as another piece of evidence to suggest this is a new M.
After the long period between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye the producers brought in Dame Judi Dench to take over as the new M. The character is said to have possibly been based on Stella Rimington, the head of MI5 between 1992 and 1996. M's real name has yet to be revealed in the films, but recent Bond novelist Raymond Benson gives her the name Barbara Mawdsley (the name given to her in the GoldenEye screenplay). Unlike the ambiguity surrounding Brown's M, Dench clearly plays a new person appointed to the position of M (putting to rest a long time debate over the nature of the character), although in Casino Royale (which rebooted the films' continuity) she implies that she worked in MI6 as far back as the Cold War. She mentions having studied law at Oxford.
There have also been brief references to M's family: one in GoldenEye (where she responds to Tanner's "Evil Queen of Numbers" jab by telling him that when she wants to hear sarcasm she'll listen to her children) and two in The World Is Not Enough (early on when Sir Robert King wishes M the best to her family and later when she remembers how she had advised King not to pay the ransom for his daughter even though it went against "every instinct had as a mother"). In Benson's novel The Facts of Death, she is not married, but has a boyfriend that is assassinated by the book's enemies. She also was shown to be an acquaintance of Sir Miles Messervey.
Dench again played M for the 2006 film Casino Royale. In this film M has no history with Bond, unlike her first appearance in GoldenEye where her relationship with Bond concentrated on the fact that she is a successor to another M. She promotes Daniel Craig's Bond to double-0 status and sends him on his first mission. The new M is shown as more of an eager spymaster than an administrative official, and there is no trace of her predisposed animosity toward Bond. She is patient and tolerant of the new agent's excesses. Also, her home appears for the first time when Bond breaks in to use her home computer's security clearance, and in a later scene she is shown sleeping in bed next to an unidentified man, suggesting a husband.
In an earlier scene, the film suggests Bond found out that "M" stands for something. When he is about to reveal what it does stand for, however, M cuts him short and replies she would have him killed if he continued.
Since Casino Royale is intended as a reboot of the franchise's continuity, it has yet to be established whether, in the new timeline, this M had any predecessors along the lines of Messervy or Hargreaves. In Quantum of Solace she meets with an unnamed British minister, who refers to her only as M. Both Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace contain scenes suggesting that the "reboot era" version of M is more closely tied to politics than in previous films.
Many, including Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster, suggested Dench's casting gave the character maternal overtones in her relationship with Bond.
She also appeared in three James Bond video games.
In 1983's Never Say Never Again (which is not part of the mainstream Bond film series), it is clearly stated that a new M is in post, played by Edward Fox. This M is concerned primarily with making the books balance and constantly testing agents. He is quite open about his low regard for Bond. Film dialogue establishes that since he took over MI6 from a previous M, he has rarely used the 00-section, and at one point another official requests he "reactivate the 00s".
The 1967 satire Casino Royale featured not one but two Ms. The first is played by John Huston. In this film (which is considered non-canon), M's real name is McTarry and he is accidentally killed when (in order to get Bond out of retirement) he orders the military to fire mortars at Bond's mansion when the retired spy refuses to return to duty. The first quarter of the film features Bond's subsequent visit to McTarry Castle in Scotland, on a quest to return the only piece of M's remains recovered after the attack – his toupee, referred to as a "hair-loom". McTarry is said to be married with a large number of daughters, although the exact details are muddled since his family are replaced by agents of Dr. Noah (the fate of McTarry's real wife and offspring is not revealed).
Subsequently, Bond (David Niven) becomes the new M and proceeds to order that all MI6 agents, male and female, be renamed 'James Bond 007' in order to confuse the enemy.
The novel Son of Holmes by John T. Lescroart establishes that the very first M was Sherlock Holmes' elder brother, Mycroft Holmes.
In Kim Newman's 1992 novel Anno Dracula, the chairman of the Diogenes Club (the de-facto British secret service) was Admiral Sir Mandeville Messervy; this was intended to be an ancestor of Admiral Sir Miles Messervy. The chairmanship of the club (and thus the secret service) rotates; the two other chairman were mentioned as being Mycroft Holmes and "Waverly" (supposed to be an ancestor of Alexander Waverly, the intelligence director from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). In the sequel, The Bloody Red Baron, the Diogenes Club is now explicitly stated as being the British Secret Service, with its Ruling Cabal consisting of Holmes, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, and Newman's original character Charles Beauregard. Beauregard became the Chairman upon Mycroft's death during the novel. In the second sequel novel, Judgment of Tears, Beauregard was stated as having resigned as Chairman after the end of World War II, being succeeded by his protege Edwin Winthrop. Among the new agents cultivated by Winthrop was one Hamish Bond. In the short story "Who Dares Wins", set in 1980, Richard Jeperson has become the Club's Chairman.
The graphic novels in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series establish that the 1898-era League (led by Mina Murray) was directed by Campion Bond, who served under a master called M. This M was later revealed to be none other than James Moriarty in disguise, using the League to win a gang war against Fu Manchu. After the death of Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's older brother Mycroft Holmes assumed the role of M. In the 2003 film adaptation of the series, M is played by Richard Roxburgh (who has also played Sherlock Holmes), and the character's nemesis is played by former Bond actor Sean Connery (the script includes an in-joke reference).
In the third The League of Extraordinary Gentlmen volume, The Black Dossier set during a moribund and dystopian 50's Post War Britain, the head of the British secret service, M, is in fact Harry Lime from Graham Greene's The Third Man. This M heads a sinister Secret Service which had previously operated as the Ministry of Love from George Orwell's 1984. The original M is stated as having been Sir Jack Wilton, the chief intelligencer under Queen Gloriana ('M' came from an inversion of the 'W' of his surname).
M appears in the Sherlock Holmes spoof The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It, played by Kenneth Benda. In it, he is killed by Mrs. Hudson, who is really the granddaughter of Professor Moriarty disguised as Dr. Watson.