The James Bond Thread

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So my brother and I have been re-visiting the James Bond film series of late. We both grew up watchin' the Bond sereis on TV with our Dad and later on in theatres, as we got older. He works with a guy who's a major Bond geek and who's been loaning him his DVDs of the early films, and after listening to my bro talkin' about how cool some of 'em were put a bug in my ear to re-visit some of 'em too, so I hit the local library and got "Diamonds Are Forever," "Live and Let Die" and "Goldfinger." Till this week, I hadn't seen any of the Connery films or some of the early Moore films in more than 20 years, so it's been like watching them for the first time. At the moment the only Bond films I own are the more recent ones starring Pierce Brosnan. So let's hit the Way-Bac machine and set it for the swingin' 70s...

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I started my retrospective with "Diamonds Are Forever" and thought it was great fun. A little campier than I remembered but Connery, as ever, was bad-ass and the presence of Jill St. John as "Tiffany Case" provided the necessary eye candy.
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Next up was LIVE AND LET DIE which was Roger Moore's first spin in the Bond suit.
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Being that it was 1973 and 'blaxploitation' cinema was at its peak, this one sends Bond on a quest that takes him through New Orleans (?), Harlem (!) and the Caribbean in search of a major heroin smuggler (Yaphet Kotto). I laughed a lot at this flick, and not always because the humor was intentional. It is horribly dated nowadays (The fashions! The music! The slang!) but still a fun flick. It's got arguably the best theme song in the Bond series, and you get to hear a Harlem crime kingpin tell his henchmen, "Take this honky outside and WASTE him!" which you'll probably never experience again in a Bond film.

So that's a start. "Goldfinger" is next up and then I guess I'm gonna have to see which other vintage Bonds I can get thru my library. S.D.'s comments in another thread have got me in a mood to see "Moonraker" again cuz it's been umpteen years ,and I'd like to re-experience "The Spy Who Loved Me" as well.

So what are your favorite Bond flicks? Who's your favorite Bond actor? Your favorite Bond Girl? Let's talk it up yo!!

The setting in Harlem is actually in the novel Live And Let Die, of course that's about as far as the similarities go, but the setting wasn't changed.

Cool!!! Love the Bond flicks!!!!!

Connery is the best Bond!!!!!

Craig did an excellent job in Casino Royal, which is probably one of the best of the flicks. I also liked his other one, Quantum Of Solace. That one wasn't as good, but still enjoyable. The new one, Skyfall, comes out in November!

My favorite Bond flick is probably You Only Live Twice - enjoyable all the way around. The screen play was written by Roald Dahl, though it got the the "Hollywood" rewrite.

I've enjoyed all of the Bond flicks, but some are worse than others. Of the recent ones, The World Is Not Enough is pretty bad and by far the worst of the Brosnan flicks and probably one of the worst. I mean, come on, Bond thinking about killing a bitch that betrayed him who is ready to set off a nuke? Denise Richards as a Nuclear scientist? The last line about Christmas coming more than once a year? Lame......

I think I have seen all of them since For Your Eyes Only in the theater and the ones I missed I caught back when ABC used to air all the bonds flicks on Sunday nights every few years.

Got three more Bond flicks comin' to me from the library (they don't have any of 'em in house, so I have to request 'em and they order 'em in from libraries in the surrounding towns)... "From Russia With Love" w/Connery and "Man With the Golden Gun" and "Spy Who Loved Me" w/Moore. Hopefully I'll have one or more of 'em by this weekend since I don't care about football and therefore will need something else to watch...

Now we're talking! "Man With The Golden Gun" is one of my favorite movies ever, especially for that cool-ass duel at the end. In fact you can't go wrong with most of the Moore or Connery films

theJOKERiv wrote:

I've enjoyed all of the Bond flicks, but some are worse than others. Of the recent ones, The World Is Not Enough is pretty bad and by far the worst of the Brosnan flicks and probably one of the worst. I mean, come on, Bond thinking about killing a bitch that betrayed him who is ready to set off a nuke? Denise Richards as a Nuclear scientist? The last line about Christmas coming more than once a year? Lame......

Pssh no way man, "Die Another Day" was the worst Brosnan film by far. And is their a Bond movie that isn't 'lame'?

The only flick with Brosnan I really like is Goldeneye. The others each have their moments, but there was always something lacking there.

S.D. wrote:

The only flick with Brosnan I really like is Goldeneye. The others each have their moments, but there was always something lacking there.

Goldeneye was by far the best of the Brosnan era. I got to see the radio observatory where they filmed the climax when I was in Puerto Rico last year - very impressive. I agree that something was lacking in the other Brosnan flicks - good writing!!!!! I did like Tomorrow Never Dies and I really liked Die Another Day (my second fav of the Brosnan flicks). Looking forward to Skyfall!

Goldeneye is one of my faves in the entire Bond series.

I remember when Brosnan finally got the role, my Mom was all happy cuz she'd had a crush on him for years going back to when he was on "Remington Steele." When my brother and I came back from the theatre we told her "Mom, your boy KICKS ASS!" Hahaha

My company also had a very prim-and-proper British lady as a receptionist at the time, as a goof I asked her "So how do the folks in Merrie Olde England feel about an Irishman playing James Bond?" and her reply was a curt "I don't want to talk about it."

Another reason Goldeneye works is because for once the female character was well-written and they hired a girl that could really act and not just look hot (though she definitely did). Izabella Scorupco was actually a good match for Bond in the wits department and I think that added to the overall fun.

Famke Janssen ("Xenia Onatopp") was also great in "Goldeneye." She was f*ckin nuts!

Fat Freddy wrote:

Famke Janssen ("Xenia Onatopp") was also great in "Goldeneye." She was f*ckin nuts!

I remember when I saw she was in X-Men and I thought "hey, that chick from Goldeneye!"

theJOKERiv wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Famke Janssen ("Xenia Onatopp") was also great in "Goldeneye." She was f*ckin nuts!

I remember when I saw she was in X-Men and I thought "hey, that chick from Goldeneye!"

I remember when she crushed that dude between her thighs in "Goldeneye" I was like "Daaaaaamn, what a way to go."

Got two out of the three vintage Bonds that I'd reserved from the library today - "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "From Russia With Love." No idea when or if "Man With the Golden Gun" is gonna show up. This is what happens when you live in a boondock town where your library has to have everything cool shipped in from other towns cuz their in-house selection blows goats.

Anyway, did I mention yet that I re-watched "Goldfinger" about a week ago for the first time in God knows how long, and it still holds up extremely well? Hard to believe that movie is nearly fifty years old.

There are movies from the 40's and 50's that hold up perfectly well today, it just depends on how it was shot, the caliber of the actors and who directed it.

If you watch a movie like Vertigo it still looks fantastic...better actually because old fashioned Technicolor is far superior to Eastman Color which was used in the 70's and early 80's. Ever noticed how washed out many of those films from that era are? It's because the color degrades badly in the Eastman process.

However, you can watch Technicolor films from the late 30's and they look like they were filmed last week.

S.D. wrote:

There are movies from the 40's and 50's that hold up perfectly well today, it just depends on how it was shot, the caliber of the actors and who directed it.

If you watch a movie like Vertigo it still looks fantastic...better actually because old fashioned Technicolor is far superior to Eastman Color which was used in the 70's and early 80's. Ever noticed how washed out many of those films from that era are? It's because the color degrades badly in the Eastman process.

However, you can watch Technicolor films from the late 30's and they look like they were filmed last week.

That's interesting Shawn, never knew that before.

Also, I get your point about movies holding up, but come on he IS talking about a James Bond flick. That's pretty surprising.

Interesting, Shawn, but when I said it had "held up well" I meant that "Goldfinger" was simply a pretty damn good action/adventure flick and it's "aged" better than some of the films in the same series that came after it. (Yeah, I'm looking at YOU, Roger Moore...)

Got an e-mail from the library today that the "Man With the Golden Gun" DVD I reserved is in, hopefully I can get over there and pick it up tomorrow before the snow flies. Then I got me a whole lotta Bond for the snowy weekend! Woo.

Good luck! That sounds like a fun weekend!

I need to watch The Spy Who Loved Me again, that was the first Bond film I saw in the movie theater.

Will probably throw "From Russia With Love" on later tonite and get the ball rolling. After having to act as the referee between my two kids while my wife worked tonight, I'm going to need some "Me time." Haha

Fat Freddy wrote:

Will probably throw "From Russia With Love" on later tonite and get the ball rolling. After having to act as the referee between my two kids while my wife worked tonight, I'm going to need some "Me time." Haha

LOL!!!!

I can relate!!!!! Try being a single dad full time!!!!

theJOKERiv wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Will probably throw "From Russia With Love" on later tonite and get the ball rolling. After having to act as the referee between my two kids while my wife worked tonight, I'm going to need some "Me time." Haha

LOL!!!!

I can relate!!!!! Try being a single dad full time!!!!

Hell to the naw, mah brotha. I was a "single dad" for three days when my wife was in the hospital having our second boy... and that was more than enough.

I have a good friend who's a single Dad, I called him up and said "Dude, my hat is off to you, I don't know how the fuck you do it." Haha.

No Kids...no Dogs. Just a low maintenance 12 year old Calico.

Just watched "From Russia With Love" (1963)



Fun flick that takes 007 to Istanbul, where the evil SPECTRE uses both him and a lovely Russian defector as pawns in order to steal a top secret Soviet decoding machine.

This one was a bit more of a "straight" spy movie than many of the films that came after it in the series (i.e. the gadgets were somewhat realistic and the bad guy wasn't a supervillain with a complicated plot to take over the world)... it was basic cloak & dagger stuff. From here on (say, "Goldfinger" and beyond) the series would become more fanciful and over-the-top with each new installment.

...and by the way, Italian hottie Daniela Bianchi, who plays Bond's Russian love interest, definitely ranks up there in the top ten Bond girls in my book...yowsa!

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Stayed up late last night to watch "The Spy Who Loved Me" (cuz it was due back at the library today)



Haven't seen this one in a long-ass time but it was my favorite Bond flick when I was a kid. A couple of nuclear submarines (one British, one Russian) mysteriously disappear without a trace, so the KGB and M.I.6 must pool their resources to get to the bottom of the mystery. Bond is partnered with a lovely Russian counterpart (Barbara Bach, who it must be noted can't act but has absolutely stellar cleavage) and their investigation takes them from Cairo to the bottom of the ocean, where they uncover the plot of the evil Stromberg, an insane multi-billionaire who plans to use the nuclear missiles from the stolen subs to trigger World War III, after which he and his private army will "start all over again" in his private underwater city.

This one is tons of fun. We meet Richard "Jaws" Kiel in this film as one of Stromberg's hired goons (he would make a return engagement in "Moonraker"), plus we see one of JB's coolest gadgets EVER - the Lotus automobile that converts to a submarine!!

Eye candy is provided by the aforementioned Barbara Bach ...
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...and onetime Hammer Horror babe Caroline Munro, who appears as Stromberg's bikini clad helicopter pilot.
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Oh HELL yes. Caroline would later turn up in one of my all time favorite B Movies, the Italian "Star Wars" ripoff "Star Crash."