Postby stuart.uk » May 9th, 2009, 12:29 pm
My favorite 6 Bond's are
The Spy Who Loved Me
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
License To Kill
Die Another Day
Octupussy
For Your Eyes Only
No Connery Bond's there. I admit I had a soft spot for Roger, as I'd been a fan of his in Ivanhoe, The Saint and The Persuaders, before her he became Bond. In contrast UK didn't get permission to show Dr. No and the other previous Bond's until the early 70s. While I accept Sean was great in those films, especially From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, I also feel their dare I say quite dated with the first couple almost a throwback to the 1950s, for example Connery's Bond wears a soft hat a lot in the early films. I know it's not relevant as to who the better Bond of the two were, but Roger's Octupussy was IMO a far better film than Sean's Never Say Never, both made in the same yr.
One of the things I didn't like about Sean's Diamonds Are Forever was while he was hunting down Blofeld, there was no mention of the fact the villain killed his wife Tracy in the previous film. In fact it was if it never happened. In contrast one of the things I liked about Roger's The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and Tim's License To Kill, Bond is seen as a grieving widower. I sometimes use that as an excuse to explain his shall we say short term relationships.
I think The Spy Who Loved Me was an important film in the Bond series, as there was an introduction of new regular characters, Geoffrey Keen's Minister Of Defence, Walter Gotlel's head of the KGB and Robert Brown's Admiral Hargreaves, who would eventually become M
Daniel Craig I think is physically the best James Bond with his own stunts impressive, but I think for the moment at any rate the others created a better persona. To be fair to him though, how do you introduce a new character, as his Bond was in Casino Royale was a prequel to all the previous ones. I also think the highlights of CR were the ones with Dame Judi Dench, who only had a few scenes.
I think Timothy Dalton to me almost portrayed Bond as a working class secret agent and that in Licensed To Kill he was allowed to rebel against his bosses at TSS, in what was basically a good revenge movie.
One common link in my 6 Bond's is the action heroine. In Bond films, right up to the Pierce Brosnan movies, there seemed to be an alteration between damsels in distress and the action heroine. You could argue the case for both sides for Ursula Andress in Dr. No, while the actress in FRWL was a damsel. Honor Blackman, though was clearly a woman of action as she was in The Avengers. Diana Rigg at the beginning of OHMSS was a spoiled brat, but as the story progress she turned into an Emma Peel like character, she played in The Avengers. OHMSS also saw a sympathisation of Bond with George Lazenby falling in love with Rigg, becoming a widower at the end. In my other films mentioned action heroines included Barbara Bach, Maud Adams, Halley Berry and Roasmund Pike.