50 years of 007: what a change there has been

Thinking about the new James Bond film coming out later this year, we really have come a long way since the first films staring Sean Connery. Connery wasn't really Ian Fleming's choice for the now iconic role, although his perfprmance in Dr No (1962) and From Russia With Love won him over and Fleming later acknowleged Connery by making him half Scottish, with a Swiss mother. You can learn more about how Sean Connery became James Bond here.

The early Bond films were quite close to Ian Fleming's stories, although it is certainly true that they added humour that was never in the books. Connery's one liners help relieve the tension, and are well thought out and delivered. However, after Fleming's death the filmmakers deviated from his material almost completely. You Only Live Twice has little to do with Fleming and became far more fantastic. Unfortunately, after returning to Fleming with On Her Majesty's Secret Service (with George Lazenby), they once again abandoned Fleming with Diamonds Are Forever and continued in that line throughout the Rogert Moore era.

In Diamonds Are Forever they also started to reply much more heavily on humour and Roger Moore's output was marred by the fact that the films became self parodies and playing nearly everything for laughs. Despite Timothy Dalton's more serious portrayal of 007, his films continued in the same line with poorly judged comedy and unbelievable gadgets; and so it continued with Pierce Brosnan.

The film makers pushed it so far with Die Another Day and an invisible car that they struggled to find a way forward. In the end they ditched Pierce Brosnan and made Casino Royale with a actor, Daniel Craig; they also rebooted the series and took it back to the beginning of James Bond's career as a secret agent for MI6.

While that film was well received, introducing us to a Bond who was more series than any other incarnation, the follow up was not. However, with Skyfall released later this year (check out info via TJBD) fans are once again awaiting the release with more than the usual excitement after a four year wait; it was originally due out last year, but MGM's financial problems meant that it couldn't be started.
Fingers crossed that they deliver the goods this time!

Casino Royale - the first James Bond book

One of the reasons for the success of Casino Royale - the first of the James Bond books - and indeed, the success of the James Bond books and then the films is the combination of girls, guns, fast cars and exotic locations, all of which combined to produce a mixture that was unlike anything seen before by 1950s readers.

Here was escapism featuring the glamour of the Casino, fine wines accompanying haut cuisine and cold war villains that definitely played outside the rules. While the films made us get used to a huge range of improbably gadgets, the literary James Bond mainly relied on his wits.

In Casino Royale the gadgets are missing completely, although it does cross 007's mind that he might be able to extricate himself from a problematic situation if only he had a hidden weapon, with nothing to save him but his wits or just plain luck; only when these both appear to have deserted him does he wish for a quick death.

Compared with the films that came the following decade, the plot of Casino Royale has a straightforward plot which is easy to follow. With a single location too, it is a far cry from the continent hopping secret agent we are accustomed to today.

And while northern France may not seem particularly exotic a location to a modern reader, Normandy casinos were only for the wealthy in the days before mass tourism, bearing in mind that post war rationing was still in place when the book was published.

Even his relationship with the Bond girl might be unfamiliar. Vesper Lynd is a dark haired beauty who Bond initially finds quite cold. However, Vesper thaws out and James Bond falls in love with her, and gets close to marrying her. It is only at the novel's end that we find out that she wasn't all she appeared to be and rather than helping Bond had actually betrayed him.

You can easily find the Bond books, which are available from Amazon and all good bookstores.