New Bond Film, Same Old Hype

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The hype surrounding the production of a new Bond movie has become as formulaic as the films themselves. Here's a couple of quotes taken from Carey Lowell on the set of Licence to Kill (1989, John Glen).

‘The character that I’m playing is very much a modern woman. She’s very self-sufficient and independent and she doesn’t really need a man to take care of her.’ 

‘Timothy Dalton is definitely a different James Bond than we’ve seen before because he’s very human.’

Now here's new Bond Girl Naomie Harris talking about her role in the forthcoming Skyfall (Sam Mendes).

‘What drew me to this was the opportunity to play a new kind of Bond Girl. We are Bond Girls who are multi-faceted, intelligent and capable. It’s not just the women who have changed. James Bond himself has changed and Daniel (Craig) has been a very big part of that. He’s brought depth and humanity to the role.’

This is a pattern that has been repeating itself over the last twenty years and it's become an accepted truth that the old Bond films didn't pay much attention to their female characters or try to get under their protagonist's skin. Except it isn't accurate. While most of the time the Bond franchise coasts along on auto-pilot there are the occasional interesting deviations in formula in films like Licence to Kill. 

Likewise the same is true of Bond Girls. Some are more interesting than others. The Roger Moore era suffered from weak but decorative casting. Jane Seymour and Britt Ekland were pretty vacant. Barbara Bach was better. Bronx-born former Charlie's Angel Tanya Roberts was wasted as the simpering Stacey Sutton in A View to a Kill (1985, John Glen). Only Carole Bouquet as a vengeful Greek beauty with a thousand yard stare and a crossbow really stands out.

But Bouquet wasn't the first strong female character in a Bond film. Pussy Galore might have a suggestive name but she was a pilot and fiercely independent. Even if she was working for a gold-loving megalomaniac. Try telling Honor Blackman she was a silly wee poppet and she'll judo throw you round the room.

Diana Rigg, also a graduate of The Avengers school of leather-clad arse-kicking once memorably responded to a question about why she was cast as Bond's future wife Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, Peter Hunt), "Frankly I'm not all tits and teeth."

There's a lovely moment in the film where Bond is outnumbered and hiding from Blofeld's men by an ice rink. For once Bond looks troubled and afraid until Tracy breaks away from the other skaters and rescues him. Oddly enough despite being considered a failure the most human Bond of all is not Craig or Dalton but poor old George Lazenby who only lasted for one film. 

Ursula Andress is best known for this iconic entrance in Dr No (1962, Terence Young).

Physically she is very impressive in her fetching white bikini. What people tend to forget is strapped to her thigh is a huge knife which she pulls on Sean Connery after being startled by the Scot's rendition of ‘Underneath the Mango Tree.' Later she delivers a monologue about how she dealt with a man who once assaulted her.

“I put a Black Widow spider under his mosquito net. A female, they’re the worst. Took him a whole week to die.”

Except it isn’t really Ursula Andress talking. The producers brought in the delicately spoken voiceover artist Nikki Van der Zyl to dub Andress’s thick Swiss-German accent. Ian Fleming complained Sean Connery looked like a truck driver. Well Ursula Andress has a voice like one, but that’s part of her appeal. Once you know what the real Andress sounds like this rather prissy voice coming out of her mouth seems deeply incongruous.

Andress is better served in Charles K. Feldman’s notorious production of Casino Royale (1967, Guest, Hughes, Huston, McGrath, Parrish). Andress plays double-agent Vesper Lynd and is more seductive and manipulative than Eva Green in the 2006 version.

The scenes filmed by Joseph McGrath with Andress seducing Peter Sellers' Bond-wannabe are charming and handled with a lightness of touch the rest of the film lacks. In the Martin Campbell film and Fleming's novel Lynd is a weak puppet used by her male superiors. In the 67 version Lynd does as she likes eventually massacring a bunch of kilted Scotsmen with a machine gun hidden inside a set of bagpipes.

Scottish director Joseph McGrath tells a fantastic story on the R1 DVD about the moment he foolishly tried to direct Andress only to be imperiously rebuffed;

"You dare to speak to the most beautiful woman in the world like this?"

That's class. McGrath is lucky she didn't skin him alive with her teeth.

Yet there is one major change in the way the franchise is reported. There is more emphasis on the physicality of the actor playing James Bond. Posing like this is no longer acceptable.

Not enough flesh you see. Why only his top shirt button is undone. And what's with all the half naked glamour models standing there? These days people want this.

There you go. Feast your eyes on Daniel Craig. He hasn't even put his trunks on properly. Now that's progress.