Agent 007 Blog | Your favorite Bond boys from Connery to Craig, and plenty of Bond girls too

Ian Fleming: The Man Who Created James Bond

James Bond is one of the most mysterious, popular, beloved, and misunderstood characters ever to exist in action-adventure flicks. What some Bond fans don’t know, however, is that he was featured in several novels before he ever graced the big screen. Although the films are now the most famous display of Bond’s charms and intrigue, the novels are definitely worth reading.

With the 007 (pronounced Double-Oh-Seven) code name, James Bond was created by novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. The book was so successful that Fleming ended up writing 12 novels and two short story collections that featured Bond as a main character. “The Times” even named Fleming as the fourteenth greatest writer on its list of the best British writers since 1945.

Born Ian Lancaster Fleming on May 28, 1908 in Mayfair, a wealthy section of London, England, the future author was no stranger to tragedy early in his life. His father, Valentine Fleming, was killed during World War I just over a week before young Ian’s ninth birthday. Ian spent many years at the Dumford School, a preparatory school that was very harsh on the sensitive young man. He endured bullying and hated the food. He later went on to Eton College where he edited the school magazine, his first serious adventure into journalism and writing.

As we all know, Ian later became a novelist. In addition to the Bond series, he penned the much-loved “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” which Disney later adapted into a feature film.

Several other authors wrote books on James Bond after Fleming passed away in 1964, but the books of the original author and creator of James Bond is especially beloved and remembered.

James Bond as a Duke for Christmas?

Hallmark announced on its Facebook page that it is giving away $2,500 during its airing of “A Princess for Christmas.”

Sir Roger George Moore, who is better known as James Bond to 007 fans, is set to play in a Christmas movie that’s debuting on the Hallmark channel this Saturday night, December 3. The film, “A Princess for Christmas,” will be shown on the network this holiday season. In the film, Moore plays the role of Edward, Duke of Castlebury, a character that seems tailor-made for the sophisticated actor.

As if that didn’t give tried and true Bond fans enough of a reason to tune in, Hallmark announced on its Facebook page that it is giving away $2,500 during its airing of “A Princess for Christmas.” In order to enter to win, you need to have a computer or other device that can get online open to HallmarkChannel.com/countdown during the movie and follow the given instructions. Maybe $2,500 won’t go far in today’s world, but it’s certainly helpful in this economy.

For fans of rock music, Michael Damian is a big draw of the film as well. Michael has had such hits as “Rock On.” He’s beloved as Danny Romalotti on “The Young and the Restless," and he also had a brilliant run on Broadway as the lead in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” About the film, Damian recently Tweeted via his page, @MichaelDamian1, “Wow! My film "A Princess For Christmas" that I wrote and directed is #26 of hottest shows to watch!Thank you so much!”

Moore played Bond in seven films that spanned from 1973 to 1985. His predecessor was Sean Connery so he had quite some shoes to fill. He was a hit with the fans, though, and many still consider his portrayal of Bond among the best interpretations of the character to hit the big screen.

Reasons Why Cars 2 is Better Than Any James Bond Movie

I absolutely hated Cars 2. I thought it was stupid, not funny, unoriginal, predictable, and worst of all, way too violent for the children it was intended for. In short, it was anti-Pixar. But I despise James Bond so much that I think that Cars 2 is still better. Here’s why.

No STDs

Guys (and girls, I’m sure) might think about sexy romance scenes when they think of Bond; all I can think about is how many sexually transmitted diseases he and his harem are spreading around. I can’t help it! It might be sick but it’s true.

Cars 2 is Less Sexist

It’s still not great, without many female leads or racecars—but at least the female cars are not explicitly sex objects. They don’t have anatomically disrespectful names, either.

Cars 2 is Booze-Free

Do we really need martinis in spy movies? I hope it doesn’t make me sound sexist, but I really do prefer my guy to have either a large coke or a mug of Guinness rather than a tiny martini. The presence of either in a movie, however, is trite.

Pretty Colors

A bond movie is all skin and suits, with some pyrotechnics thrown in. Where is the fun in that? I’ll take animation over that any day.

A Wider Variety of Cars

Forget the snooty Bentleys; there are plenty of racecars, tiny economy vehicles, and of course Mater, the star old pickup truck, in Cars 2.

A Thumb to the Snootiness

In Bond movies, his snobbery is considered ideal, something that fans seem to enjoy (though I’m not sure why; because they want to be rich and carry a gun, too?). In Cars 2, the one theme I did enjoy was that though McQueen’s embarrassment regarding Mater and Mater’s own parochial attitude were played originally as negative, in the end it was the snooty car who was the villain—and Mater, small-town boy as he is, was the hero. (That said, I don’t like it when we glamorize being a redneck, either!)

Humanness

The very reason I don’t like Cars 2—how they substituted cars for humans so they could do torture and death scenes without consequence—actually makes it better than the literally human but unfeeling coldness that is James Bond. The characters in the cartoon actually move you—at least, they did so much in the original film that they left the moving feelings with you in this movie, even if there aren’t many—and seem much more human, despite their metallic parts.

Biggest Exhibition of Bond Cars Planned for 2012

For the two of you James Bond fans out there (just kidding!), there is some exciting news about your favorite Bondmobiles: beginning in January, the largest display of Bond vehicles in history will be on display at the UK’s National Motor Museum. Of course, general car aficionados would probably enjoy the exhibition, too.

The Motor Museum is holding the exhibition in honor of the Bond series’ 50^th anniversary. The show will last for nearly the entire year, allowing anyone visiting the UK in 2012 the opportunity to view the cars. I’m sure there are plenty of people who will work the exhibition into their vacation plans.

A few of the vehicles that will be on display include:

Goldeneye’s 1964 Aston Martin DB5
Die Another Day’s 2002 Jaguar XKR
Goldfinger’s 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom III

Altogether, there will be 50 vehicles on display. It will also be the 50^th anniversary of the museum itself, which will also be sure to attract tourists. To plan your visit, click here for a virtual tour, a list of all of the events and attractions at the museum, and all of the historic buildings along the way. The gorgeous Montagu family palace can also be seen there.

Secret Lover: James Bond (Daniel Craig)

I honestly don't mind that you have a problem with alcohol and violence - in fact, I bet I can change you! Give us a chance, will yah?

I guess I have a thing for big guns and even bigger personality!

James Bond > Darth Vader?

I would give this answer a wholehearted no, along with a derisive chuckle, myself. Not only is Vader so much more layered and interesting and, though admittedly flawed, just more cool than Bond, he’s also more meaningful—more important to history and a much, much deeper character. Yes, he had some annoying angst-ridden years and yes, he murdered a bunch of poor Jedi children in one of the most chilling massacres ever, but he did it all in the name of love—and not just after a pretty face and loose pair of panties, but real, true love, however misguided and cruel the actions turned out to be.

But apparently Bond is more popular—at least according to a recent British auction. At Christie’s auction house earlier this week, a single stupid Bond prop—a gun used by Sean Connery for not one of the Bond films, but one of his photo shoots to promote a Bond movie, From Russia with Love—outbid a whole Darth Vader costume worn during Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back. Seriously—a prop for a promotion was sold for $439,000, while Vader’s costume wasn’t even sold!

Estimates between $212,000 and $305,000 were given for the costume, but ultimately bidding was so low—below the reserve price—that it didn’t sell at all. Either the bidding room was full of men who thought that a gun held in a stupid promo by a guy who played a guy who got laid a lot rather than Star Wars nerds buffs, or it came down to a Brits vs. Americans thing. After all, Connery was born in the UK, and is knighted—while Star Wars is an American epic tale. (Note, of course, how I include the word epic here, to denote Star Wars as being an incredible sweeping saga rather than B porn.)

Now, I know there are plenty of Bond fans out there. I’m simply not one of them. Even so, it’s pretty hard to reconcile a gun prop outbidding an actual Darth Vader costume—let alone the costume not even being sold in the first place! In fact, the Bond gun brought in more than 15 times what people thought it would. If it’s not going to sell, ship it to the U.S., I say; I’m sure it’ll be sold pretty quickly—especially if you sell it at the latest sci fi convention.

The Bond Girl: Culture, Feminism and Storytelling

As long as there has been a James Bond, there has been the Bond Girl, that rare category of action star vixen that has been at the center of everything from adoration to outrage. Just like so much of the Bond mythos, the Bond Girls follow a formula that has only been broken for a postmodern effect on the story. The classic setup involves two girls, one an agent of the antagonist and the other an unlikely ally to Bond. In the first film Dr. No those two roles went to Miss Taro and Honey Ryder, respectively. It wasn't until the famed reboot with Daniel Craig that this equation got jumbled.

If James Bond has a weakness, it's the fairer sex. No one comes closer to killing Bond than the women he shouldn't have gone to bed with. At the same time, it's obvious in most of his adventures that Bond never would have succeeded without the help of the other girl. She's frequently not as exotic, alluring or otherwise fantastical, but she also usually has more depth and compassion than the killer ladies in Bond's life.

Say what you will about the exploitative nature of the Bond Girl, the dual-girl setup is still an impressive bit of social commentary. Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond stories in the 1950's and 60's, just in time for the sexual revolution. Bond Girls are a way to reconcile the Free Love ideals of the counterculture and the considerably more conservative views of the establishment. For Bond, sex can indeed lead to death and damnation, but only the wrong kind of sex. The better Bond Girl is more often than not self-possessed, successful in her own right and socially conscious. So, even if Bond himself is an unrepentant misogynist, Fleming's stories have a much stronger (if a bit sneakier) moral voice.

Daniel Craig's Bond hasn't been so lucky in love, but he came about in a time when the dust of the sexual revolution had settled and then some. Today's Bond has to face the woeful realism of his makers. For him, sex and love aren't cultural forces, they're elements of his own psyche. Craig's 007 can't enjoy himself because all the alluring women in his life represent the gentleness his career and disposition have made impossible.

But what's bad for Bond may be good for real men. James Bond is in the top tier of male fantasies. For a large subsection of men, there's no greater aspiration than to be suave, capable, strong and an all-around winner with women. The evolution of the Bond Girl has to be in line with the changing perceptions of the intended audience. If Casino Royale's Bond longs to run away with his smart, beautiful lover and leave behind all of the nastiness of the world, then maybe that means the men who want to be Bond dream of the same. That's a world away from the cool killer who gets to nonchalantly bed whatever stranger he wants.

There's no word yet on when Bond's next outing will hit theaters. Given the lukewarm reception of Quantum of Solace I wouldn't expect it any time soon. Still, it'll be interesting to see what the new decade's take on the Bond Girl will be.

The Changing Face of Felix Leiter

James Bond is the quintessential British spy. He harks back to the days when Britain had an empire and a hefty political influence on the world. Even if the colonies were gone the British were still present in every country, peeking in and meddling in every plot and foiling the bad guys time and time again. The idea of friendship between the UK and the US is always handled carefully in the Bond movies. The relationship is clearly one based on expediency than any real affection. The only American character to repeatedly appear in the franchise is Felix Leiter.

Felix is actually a friend of James Bond, perhaps partly because both men are willing to flout the orders of their superiors in order to get the job done. He appears throughout the novel and film series but he pops up in various guises and is played by a host of different actors.

In the novels Felix is a Texan who graduated from the Marines into the CIA. He helps Bond defeat SMERSH in Casino Royale. He loses an arm and a leg in Live and Let Die after being fed to a shark. He then pops up as a detective with a prosthetic limb and hook hand in Diamonds are Forever before returning to the CIA in Thunderball. His last appearance was in The Man with the Golden Gun.

In the movies Felix has slightly better luck but his relationship with Bond is less straightforward. He is played by a variety of actors and seems to flit between being an accomplished agent type and being a gung ho glorified cop. The low point for Leiter comes in License to Kill where his new bride is raped and murdered and he is fed to a shark. He was dropped from the series after this film until the Casino Royale reboot which ignored the previous events.

There have been eight different actors in the role over the years. Jack Lord was the first to play Leiter and apparently he demanded a bigger role and co-star billing for Goldfinger which led to the part being recast. The casting of a new actor for each film became something of a tradition until David Hedison reprised the role he had taken on in 1973 with Live and Let Die to make the 1989 release License to Kill. The most recent Leiter is Jeffrey Wright and he looks set to the take record with a third appearance as Felix in the next Bond film.

For a while the introduction of Leiter in each new Bond was something the film makers would mess around with. Since it was a new actor every time the audience never knew it was him beforehand. The idea of bringing Hedison back was to make the horrors which would befall him more emotionally affecting for the audience because, in theory, they would recognise him even though he last played the part over 15 years before.

Felix generally only has a small part in each film but he often helps Bond at a key moment. It will be interesting to see what befalls Jeffrey Wright’s Leiter as he gets tangled up in an uneasy friendship with Bond.

Villains: Max Zorin

There have been a lot of memorable Bond villains over the years although many of them have been played by average actors. One of the exceptions is Max Zorin, the baddie from A View to a Kill who was played by the excellent Christopher Walken. This psychotic German is a big businessman and a rogue KGB agent who branches out on his own and causes all sorts of problems for Bond.

A View to a Kill is a Roger Moore outing and although the title was borrowed from a Fleming short story the screenplay was actually entirely new. It was a pretty poor film and an aging Roger Moore was singled out for the tired performance he gave in his seventh and last appearance as Bond. It still raked in over $300 million at the worldwide box office and one of the big draws was the quality villain portrayed by Walken.

Max Zorin was supposed to be the result of Nazi experimentation during the Second World War when they injected pregnant women with steroids in an attempt to make super children. He survived and was born with incredible intelligence but psychotic tendencies. He was then whisked away by a KGB agent who trained him up and he eventually became a big businessman in the microchip industry in France. Zorin’s convoluted plot was to trigger an earthquake in the San Andreas Fault to trigger a flood which would destroy Silicon Valley.

He falls out with the KGB over his intentions and has to act alone. The head of the KGB, General Gogol rebukes him personally but Zorin is past caring. Dolph Lundgren has a cameo role as Venz, one of General Gogol’s henchmen. Zorin’s main squeeze is May Day played the frightening Grace Jones and she pulls that inevitable trick and turns on her evil boss sacrificing herself to save Bond.

Bond teams up with the granddaughter of an oil tycoon who also happens to be a geologist and the pair of them dart around destroying Zorin’s operation. Walken had his hair dyed blond for the role and he does look terrifically dangerous and evil throughout. At one point he captures Bond and makes the classic mistake of not killing him, deciding to try and frame him for a murder instead. The script really was pretty ridiculous. In the end Zorin falls to a nasty death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay.

Funnily enough Walken was not the first choice of the director and the part was offered to David Bowie and Sting before he accepted it. Bowie turned it down saying “I didn't want to spend five months watching my stunt double fall off cliffs.” There were problems later in filming as well when the production discovered that there was actually a company called the Zoran Corporation and they made microchips. They threatened to sue for defamation and the film makers were forced into a settlement which included inserting a legal disclaimer.

Zorin had a decent band of henchmen and a vast business empire but despite his supposed super intelligence his stupid scheme was easily thwarted in the end.

Villains: Largo

Thunderball featured the Italian villain Emilio Largo. In the film he was a white haired SPECTRE operative with an eye patch. In fact he was No. 2 in the organisation and described as the head of extortion operations. He was played by the Italian actor Adolfo Celli. Largo also appears in the 1983 remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again, but his forename is changed to Maximillian and he is played by the Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer.

Largo plays out a classic baddie plot which has been reused several times over the years in numerous productions. He has stolen two nuclear bombs from the careless chaps at NATO and now he is blackmailing the world. If they don’t stump up £100 million in diamonds then he is going to destroy an undisclosed city. It later turns out to be Miami that he is targeting.

Bond meets Largo at his Bahamas hideaway. He is a gambler who likes to play cards and he has a beautiful mistress called Domino. Like a true villain Largo has a swimming pool with sharks in it. Bond inevitably ends up getting thrown into it. Largo also had a lot of henchmen working for him but you get the impression with his attitude to failure that he probably went through them quite fast. He is also ruthless when it comes to his girlfriend and happily turns on her when he realises she is working with Bond.

The action later moves onto Largo’s luxury yacht called the Disco Volante. The Disco Volante is an expensive high tech hydrofoil ship fitted out with a number of underwater submarine crafts. SPECTRE apparently spent £200,000 on it and it features prominently in the finale. Largo is eventually shot in the back with a spear gun by Domino and the ship runs aground and explodes.

The actor Adolfo Celi appeared in over 100 films throughout his career and he specialised in playing villains. Largo was probably his most famous role but he also played the evil camp commander in Von Ryan’s Express the same year. His voice in Thunderball was dubbed by another Italian actor called Robert Rietti. Rietti also provided the voice for Dr. No, Tanaka and Blofeld.

In Never Say Never Again Largo’s plan is exactly the same but this time around he is played by Klaus Maria Brandauer. He is No. 1 in SPECTRE acting as a replacement for Blofeld and he has a yacht called the Flying Saucer and a Moorish castle on the north coast of Africa. His plan is also destined for disaster and he ends up crushed by a missile and then shot in the side by Domino with a harpoon gun.

For my money the first Largo played by Celi is a better villain. He was also closer to the man described in the original novel, although the film makers decided to add the eye patch to give him an extra air of evil. The shark pool and the nuclear theft and threat were classic villainous behaviour and Largo was definitely one of the best baddies that Bond ever had to deal with.

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