When it comes to the Bond films, many fans would agree that the more faithful the films are to Fleming, the better they will be. And indeed, with screen adaptations like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Casino Royale proving to be both riveting and faithful entries to the franchise, this notion certainly has merit.
Yet we’ve also seen 007 prevail well beyond the life of his creator, adapting and transforming with each passing era.
Fleming may have envisioned James Bond as a flawed, somewhat idealized reflection of himself and former acquaintances, but cinema screens would immortalize the character in another guise; a win-at-all-costs superhero with a suave disposition and a Q-Branch trick up his sleeve. Goldfinger would exemplify this cinematic concept of Bond, building upon the source material without betraying it.
But while most of the Bonds merely took liberties with the Fleming source materials, The Spy Who Loved Me didn’t have the same luxury. Following the departure of Harry Saltzman from EoN Productions, Cubby Broccoli set out to make Spy into a feature-length film with only a title to work from (Fleming disowned the original storyline said title was attributed to). This obstacle, compounded with the dismal failure of The Man with the Golden Gun three years prior, had cynics believing that the franchise was dead in the water. (more…)
This essay inspired by The Spy Who Loved Me is the tenth in a 24-part series about the James Bond cinemas co-created by Sundog Lit. I encourage everyone to comment and join in what we hope to be an extended conversation about not only the films themselves, but cinematic trends, political and other external influences on the series’ tone and direction.
Of [In]human #Bond_age_ #10: How The Spy Who Loved Me Can Help You Avoid the Lobster Trap
by James David Patrick
Everyone has a favorite James Bond actor. Typically, the Bond that ushers us through childhood earns a special place in our hearts and minds. If you didn’t grow up with Bond or came to the movies later in life, sentimentality might play a smaller role. And with or without sentimentality, there’s still the risk of falling into the Connery lobster trap whereby one blindly argues that Bond is Connery and Connery is Bond and thus the conversation is done.
Did he just smack-talk Sean Connery’s Bond a little bit?
Yes, but don’t read too much into that. Sean Connery defined the role, a Cro-Magnon womanizer with a million-dollar smile. His portrayal of the character has influenced every other actor that has donned the tuxedo. But we’ve got to be honest with Connery’s legacy as 007. Terence Young, the director of Dr. No had as much to do with the creation of cinematic James Bond as Sean Connery. The late Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny) said, “Terence took Sean under his wing. He took him to dinner, showed him how to walk, how to talk, even how to eat.” Young even outfitted Connery in his Saville Row suits. He taught him how to talk without gesturing with his hands. Other members of the production team have remarked that Connery was just doing a Terence Young impersonation. It is also said that Young likely modeled Bond on the lifestyle of Eddie Chapman, a wartime double agent (codenamed “Zigzag”) who had been a friend of Young’s before the war. Young molded Connery into James Bond, like a piece of unformed clay.
The Spy Who Loved Me #Bond_age_ Collection DVD Cover
I wanted to make The Spy Who Loved Me #Bond_age_ Collection Custom DVD cover to be a little more stylized than the others. To add to this effect I created the tuxedo sleeve and pinstripe shirt using some simple shapes and angles and pieced together a couple found images of the hand and the fish. I layered a couple of different water images and added some textural layers exactly as I’d done to create the sketch-like version of Atlantis… topping it all off with a nice film grain for that always popular 70’s film stock glow. I never thought I’d analyze a paused frame of a movie for so long just to get the appearance of the fish right. It’s meticulous, I assure you.
The Spy Who Loved Me: Reflections on the White Lotus
by Krissy Myers (@krissy_myers)
My first true experience with Agent 007 occurred at some point during the late 90’s. I was young and only vaguely familiar with the name James Bond, thanks to my mother cooing over Pierce Brosnan when he took over the role in GoldenEye. Approaching double digits in age and with TBS’s “15 Days of 007” marathon looming, my mother finally proclaimed:
“You’re old enough now. I saw my first James Bond film [Thunderball] in the theatre when I was your age. Watch some films with me.”
I trusted her completely, as by that point, she had yet to steer me wrong. After all, she was the one who introduced me to Star Wars and the Godzilla movies. By my logic at the time, if she had been treating the Bond films, for all intents and purposes, as a rite of passage, surely this English spy chap had something at least as thrilling in store for me.
I soon became engrossed in the James Bond universe. I watched as many of the films as I possibly could with school and bedtime as my only obstacles. I paid close attention to the commercials made just for the occasion featuring Bond girl Grace Jones as a flight attendant aboard a Moonraker-esque airplane. I remember making a special scheduling chart with the following sections: the name of the Bond film, the time it aired and the actor who played him. After seeing most of the films two weeks later, the inevitable question finally came up.
“You like these James Bond movies, huh, Krissy? Who’s your favourite?”
There was absolutely no question in my mind which Bond actor was my favourite. On my chart, his films would have little stars and hearts around his name to highlight his great importance. I couldn’t at the time put into words the reasons why he was my favourite, only that it was the imagery in his films that replayed the most vividly in my mind. While all of the Bond actors were undoubtedly attractive in their own ways, whenever I watched one of his films, I could physically feel the blood rush to my little schoolgirl cheeks. It was a quiet yet intense crush. (more…)
