Buying Bonds

Yeah, I thought it should’ve been Clive Owen, too. How could you not after seeing “Croupier”? Owen was dark, sexy, cool to the point of being cold, and he looked great in a tux. The BMW ads sealed the deal. When Pierce Brosnan became too old for the role, I thought, surely Clive Owen would be the next guy to say, “My name is Bond. James Bond.”

Wasn’t to be. On October 14, 2005, Daniel Craig was announced as the new 007. Howls of protest followed and nasty Web sites went up before a foot of film was shot. “He’s blonde,” they complained. “He’s blonde.”

There were other arguments besides hair color in favor of Owen. Owen is taller (6-foot-2 to Craig’s 5-foot-11), and, at the time of the announcement, more of an international movie star. Craig’s one advantage seemed to be youth — he’s 38 to Owen’s 42 — even though, in general, youth has never been a factor in choosing a new Bond. True, Sean Connery was 32 and George Lazenby 30 when each became 007. But that was the last time Bond was even in his 30s. Pierce Brosnan was 42 when he took over the role from Timothy Dalton, who had been 43 when he started. Roger Moore, meanwhile, was 46 at the start of his reign, and an astonishing 58 at its weary end. No callow youth, or any other kind, for the world’s most famous secret agent.

Then I heard that the new movie, “Casino Royale,” the first of Ian Fleming’s novels, would detail how Bond became Bond, and for that, yes, a bit of youth would help. Then I saw “Munich,” in which Craig plays the most intense of the Mossad assassins, and thought, “You know, he could work.” Then I saw the dynamite summer trailer for “Casino Royale” and thought “Wow.” Then I saw the film.

First, a history lesson.

Sean Connery
What’s startling about watching the first Bond movies again is how tepid they are. Since each Bond must inevitably trump the Bond before it — bigger stunts, wilder gadgets, crazier villains — it makes sense that each preceding Bond is, well, trumped. We’re used to Bond whizzing all over the planet, but in the first film, “Dr. No,” Bond flies to Kingston, Jamaica, boats to Crab Key island ... and that’s it. The fights are early 1960s judo flips, the “stunt” a car chase along a mountain road. A tarantula is unleashed in Bond’s hotel room, which he kills by pounding with his dress shoe — more frightened husband, really, than secret agent.

The early films had a sense of continuity. In “From Russia with Love,” the adventures of “Dr. No” are referenced, and Bond shares a picnic lunch with Sylvia Trench, whom he first met at the baccarat table in “Dr. No.” She’s almost his girlfriend. In every film he tosses his increasingly outdated (and rarely worn) fedora onto the hatrack in Miss Moneypenny’s office, and in every film, save “Goldfinger,” the villain is SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Blofeld, whose hand is always seen petting a contented Persian cat.

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The films quickly established a formula and kept to it. In the pre-title sequence we’re shown evidence of Bond’s previous adventure and/or his new opponent’s villainy. After the titles, Bond is given his assignment and gadgets. In an exotic locale, he meets his local, ethnic contact, who usually dies halfway through the picture.

There are chases, attempts on Bond’s life, meetings with the new villain and the new villain’s super-powered henchman. He beds three women: The inconsequential one at the beginning, an enemy agent in the middle, and then “the Bond girl,” with whom he shares the final assault on the enemy’s fortress. There, captured, he learns the villain’s diabolical plot to a) blackmail the West, b) start World War III, or c) both. Left to die, he escapes, kills the henchman, blows everything up, and winds up with the girl on a raft in the middle of the ocean, a double entendre on his lips, sex on his mind. Cue credits and “James Bond will return in...”

Nobody had seen anything like it. Its closest rivals were Mickey Spillane-like detective stories, but those were gritty and small while these were urbane and international. People ate it up. “Goldfinger” was the third highest-grossing film of 1964 and “Thunderball” held the same place the following year. Adjust for inflation, and “Thunderball” is the 26^th highest-grossing film of all time — ahead of “Love Story,” “Spider-Man” and “Home Alone.” And that’s just in the U.S., where Bond’s appeal has never been as strong as it is internationally.

Imitators popped up everywhere: Matt Helm, Derek Flint, “I Spy,” “Get Smart,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Most were American and forgettable. The best was British and anti-Bond: Michael Caine as the bespectacled gourmand Harry Palmer in “The Ipcress File” and “Funeral in Berlin.”

But the pressures of international stardom and the incessant marketing got to Connery, and after “You Only Live Twice,” he bowed out. George Lazenby, a TV commercial actor, took over. Assuming the series had run its course at the end of the sixties, he, too, left after only one fling.

Roger Moore
In a way it made sense. Bond was an establishment figure, given to fine clothes and fine champagne, while the heroes of the time tended to be anti-establishment and rumpled. Think “Easy Rider” and “Billy Jack.”

Even when the producers coaxed Connery back for one more turn, Bond lost some of his polish. He didn’t play baccarat in Monte Carlo wearing a tux; he played craps in Vegas in his shirt sleeves. Jill St. John became the first American Bond girl, and, despite Women’s Lib, or perhaps because of it, she was both less innocent and dumber than the other Bond girls. Bond calls her a twit and slaps her. He rides a three-wheeler through the desert and leads police on a car chase through Vegas. The cops keep crashing into each other. It’s a lot of yee-ha fun, but not exactly high-class.

So it would be throughout the Roger Moore ’70s. Bond was now less imitated, more imitator. SPECTRE, cigarettes and the baccarat table all disappeared, while car chases (a la “Bullitt”) and car jumps (a la Evel Knievel) became essential. “Live and Let Die” was the blaxploitation Bond; “The Man with the Golden Gun” contained elements of “Enter the Dragon.” Bond fought a henchman named Jaws two years after the success of “Jaws.” Bond went into outer space two years after the success of “Star Wars.”

The movies even began to repeat themselves. In “The Spy Who Loved Me,” a megalomaniac is bent on destroying our corrupt civilization and building a better one undersea. In “Moonraker,” a megalomaniac is bent on destroying our corrupt civilization and building a better one in outer space. In “Golden Gun,” a car becomes a plane; in “Spy,” a car becomes a boat; in “Moonraker,” a boat (a gondola) becomes a car and Bond drives it through St. Mark’s Square, where the pigeons do double-takes.

It was all fairly cartoonish ... and lucrative. Bond films would never be as influential as they had been in 1965, nor as popular in terms of getting asses in the seats, but thanks to inflation, they did begin to make more money. “Live and Let Die” was the first Bond film to surpass “Thunderball” in terms of worldwide box office, while “Moonraker” was the first Bond film to surpass “Thunderball’s” U.S. box office take.

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