I have a problem bonding with James.
OO7 in yellow capital letters. Photo by Marcel Eberle on Unsplash
James Bond is dead.
I don’t go to the cinema much these days, so the news has just reached me.
But I also hear they are looking for a new actor to play James Bond.
How is that going to work?
Many people claim they have a favourite Bond. Of course, they mean a favourite actor who played the elegant spy, because James Bond, like Sherlock Holmes, is a fictional character.
I suppose many people will plump for Sean Connery as the definitive Bond just because he was the first one in the franchise.
But time has not been kind to those early films, and Connery’s acting seems a bit wooden to me, especially in Dr No.
I have issues with Connery.
In his early days as Bond, he appeared on a chat show and was pontificating on acting and Shakespeare.
He declared that as Macbeth was a Scot, he should be played by a Scot
Which really misses the point of acting. I mean not only was Macbeth a Scot but also a King. Should he be played by a Scot who was also a King?
Sean Connery rose to fame playing a secret agent who didn’t really exist. It used to be called acting.
I don’t think he really thought it through.
I gave up on Bond when Sean Connery strapped a rocket on his back and took off (I think it was Thunderball.) To me that was a gadget too far. Surely his trousers would have caught fire.
I have never seen a Bond film in a cinema since.
So, after Connery abdicated from the Bond throne, we had George Lazenby. I missed his Bond, so I have no opinion on his ability as a licensed to kill person, but he could deliver chocolate I believe.
So, after Lazenby came ace smoothie Roger Moore, he of no hair out of place.
Now it was hard to miss Roger Moore’s Bond.
In the eighties here in the UK, no bank holiday was complete without a Moore/Bond film on TV. We used to say it must be Christmas, Bonds on the telly.
Roger Moore would fight all those baddies, get beaten up, blown up, survive lethal car and boat chases, then step out of those situations just looking slightly annoyed, as if he had just been refused a bank loan.
Now this is where I hit a problem. I never saw any Timothy Dalton Bonds, although I thought he came close to my image of Bond.
I have never seen the next bloke, whose name I have forgotten.
I have seen Casino Royale with Daniel Craig, but on DVD at home.
So, I have little experience with James Bond, and really don’t know why I started this post.
All you Bond fanatics out there tell me who was your favourite 007 and why?
Some more stories from me.
Hot bread and butter and memories of a lost friend.
Are we working our old people too hard?
