Out of Bondage

Published in Cinemarolling by antone, on October 21, 2010

A look at the Bond fim series from the first to the latest. As usual it’s a personal view…

OUT OF BONDAGE

ANTHONY LISTON

IT looks as though the only certainty as far as the next Bond film is concerned is that there will be a next Bond film, WE HOPE, whether or not it will star Daniel Craig is another question. The financial problems with MGM looks worse that any scrape Bond ever found himself in. In a recent newspaper article the view was expressed whether or not Bond was still relevant to today’s audiences. Any good movie Producer will tell you if he knew what today’s audiences wanted he would have Hit after Hit, instead of the normal Hit and Miss that most movie companies suffer from. There are enough murky goings on in our world today to keep a slew of secret agents tangled up for the foreseeable future. Bond movies suffer from the same problem that most franchises suffer from FRESH IDEAS. There is no substitute for good writing. If you don’t have a good script that’s well written and fast paced, then no amount of explosions or hair raising stunts will compensate. Bond can and will survive but like any good secret agent he must adapt to his ever changing environment.
Bond started life on the big screen way back in the early sixties. “Dr No” ushered in a new kind of hero or anti hero if you like. Sex and violence were the order of the day. Sean Connery an unknown at the time became the first and for many the best, James Bond.” From Russia with Love” quickly followed. It didn’t have Ursula Andres coming out of the sea in a scantily clad bikini but in every other way it surpassed its predecessor. The train sequence being particularly memorable. It also had a great villain in the guise of Robert Shaw, who later went on to pay ‘Quint’ in Jaws.
By the third movie the franchise had hit the Big-time. “Goldfinger” was the highest grossing film of 1964. Bond was big Box Office all over the world. Connery was elevated to cult status. He enjoyed the kind of fame usually reserved for Rock Stars. Everyone wanted a piece of him. He was mobbed were ever he went, soon the pressure became too much and he began to tire of the role that brought him so much fame and fortune. After” Thunderball” he wanted out. He vowed that “You Only Live Twice” would be his last Bond movie.
The search was on for a new Bond. A bit part actor and former model finally got the part after a long search, his name was George Lazenby. The movie ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ for my money the best Bond film ever bar none. It had everything, a great storyline; Bond falls in love gets married and rides off into the sunset, well not quite, fabulous settings, great action sequences. The skiing scenes are extremely well done. Telly Savalas makes a great bad guy; this is long before he became Kojak on the telly. Dianna Rigg is really excellent as the love interest. Lazenby makes a fine Bond, a little rough around the edges but had he gone on to do more I think he would have made the part his own. We’ll never know. After one Bond he was out and Connery was back in Bondage for one last time, we can’t count “Never Say Never Again” as it is not considered an official Bond movie being as it is a remake of “Thunderball” albeit an inferior one and done by a rival film company to boot, but that’s a whole other story.
“Diamonds Are Forever” is a workmanlike production and Connery is as suave as ever but the old magic seems sadly missing. After the film wrapped the search was on again for the next Bond. Roger Moore was in the fray. He had been considered for the part way back at the beginning but Connery got it instead. He was tied up in the Saint T.V. series at the time. Fresh from the hit T.V. The Persuaders he must have seemed at the time perfect for the part. He brought a lighter touch to the role of Bond. His first outing as Bond was “Live and Let Die” an altogether better film than “Diamonds…” but as the Bond series progressed his touch became a little too light. By the time “Moonraker” was made it was nonexistent. He tried to regain a more serious side of Bond with “For Your Eyes Only”, a direct follow-up to O. H.M.S.S. By the time he made his last Bond film… “A View to A Kill” he was running on empty. A better title could have been “A View To The Old Folks Home”.

Next up was Timothy Dalton; he did for Bond what George Clooney did for Batman, namely almost destroy the franchise. What no villain could accomplish, Dalton did in two Films, KILL BOND. The Living Daylights and Licence to kill are two low points that Bond was going to find it hard to recover from. Even though Dalton is closer to Fleming’s idea of Bond than any other actor has been before or sense and “The Living Daylights” is a good enough Bond film. Dalton has the right mix of sardonic humour and icy cool ability in despatching the bad guys but something just didn’t add up. “Licence to Kill” is just plain bad, it has nothing of the kind of Bond films we had become accustomed to. A revenge film with little or no humour, no class and a lacklustre villain, Bond was in trouble.
It took the look, sorry, Luck of the Irish to get Bond back on track. Pierce Brosnan the quintessential English man, sorry I mean Irishman, does that sound right. Bond had been played by everyone from a Scot to an Australian with a bit of Welsh thrown in along the way, one very English gent and one definite Irish one. Brosnan revitalised the role of Bond and the Producers owe him a large debt of gratitude and so do the fans.”Goldeneye” brought back some of the old magic that had been missing from the series. “Tomorrow never Dies” helped up the standard. It slipped a bit with the well titled but hardly great “The World Is Not Enough” But we were beginning to have enough of Brosnan. That air of “look at me I’m Bond”. After four movies Brosnan was out. His last Bond Film was a mess “Die Another Day”…Bond in the guise of Brosnan is bloated and arrogant and too cocky by half. A terrible film, worse than anything Moore made.” The Living Daylights” is a classic by comparison, even “Licence to Kill is better”.