Bond is back in the new Casino Royale. Remember the original Casino Royale? Over 30 years ago. Look it up. This brings me to my three favorite Bond characters. Everyone argues about "The best Bond." They're all good. It's the supporting cast that make the movies good for me. Thousands have appeared in Bond movies. After careful consideration, I have selected my top three
Non Bond characters ever. I don't know why these three stuck with me all these years, but I always root for these three. Unfortunately, Bond killed them all.
Charles Gray, the Best Blofeld. There have been many Blofelds. Telly Savalas & Donald Pleasance come to mind. This Blofeld makes you want to shoot him in the forehead with a rock climbing rope shooting gun.
Peter Franks about to eat it in Diamonds are Forever. He really gives Bond a run for his money, but in the end - as always - dies. Bond stole this mans identity before anyone knew what identity theft was. AND killed him. I think Franks got a raw deal.
The ugliest Russian woman ever. In all Bond Movies. Not all Russian women look like this. Don't you think that maybe this woman was a way to "stick it to" the Russians during the cold war? Her parody is in the Austin Powers movies. Still ugly.
Charles Gray, the Best Blofeld. There have been many Blofelds. Telly Savalas & Donald Pleasance come to mind. This Blofeld makes you want to shoot him in the forehead with a rock climbing rope shooting gun.
Peter Franks about to eat it in Diamonds are Forever. He really gives Bond a run for his money, but in the end - as always - dies. Bond stole this mans identity before anyone knew what identity theft was. AND killed him. I think Franks got a raw deal.
The ugliest Russian woman ever. In all Bond Movies. Not all Russian women look like this. Don't you think that maybe this woman was a way to "stick it to" the Russians during the cold war? Her parody is in the Austin Powers movies. Still ugly.
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4 comments:
How about the best Bond lines? For example, "Named after your father perhaps?". Or "Burt Saxby? Tell him he's fired!".Two examples out of possibly thousands of great one liners.
Russian women: You've never seen "those" pictures of Masha?
Oh, baby.
But I don't have any...my hard drive would melt down and I'd be on my way to Marion.
Herny flerny!!
Stanley Fulk???? Stan Lewis??? Hey pal. Write me. brian@wnns.com
Here are 0070 things you never new about the super spy:
1. Ian Fleming got the name James Bond from one of his favourite books, Birds of the West Indies. Fleming said he wanted "a really flat, quiet name" and James Bond fitted the bill.
2. Bond author Ian Fleming was initially sceptical about Sean Connery playing the role in the first film, Dr No in 1962, and dismissed him as an "overgrown stuntman".
3. But Fleming ended up liking Connery's performance so much he added a background to the character in his novels to make 007 Scottish by saying Bond's father was a Scotsman.
4. The first time that James Bond sports a beard in a James Bond movie is in Die Another Day. Pierce Brosnan is shown having more than just a few day's growth after being held captive for months. The closest shave to prior to this was the James Bond send-up OK Connery (1967) where Sean Connery's brother Neil Connery had a beard spoofing his brother's James Bond image.
5. Stuntman Bob Simmons was the man silhouetted in the gun barrel sequence which starts the first three Bond films. He was a stunt double for Sean Connery and stayed with the franchise in various stunt capacities until A View to a Kill in 1985. He died in 1988.
6. Bond began the tradition of introducing himself as "Bond. James Bond" when he sat down at a card table in Dr No because a woman introduces herself as "Trench. Sylvia Trench" and he replied in the same way.
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7. In Goldfinger Bond tells Jill Masterson that drinking Dom Perignon '53 above 38 degrees is as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs.
8. Infamous villain Ernst Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE, is seen petting a cat in many of the early Bond films. His face was first seen (the face of actor Donald Pleasance) with a scar down the eye, in the fifth film You Only Live Twice in 1967.
9. Bond finally loses the fedora hat he is seen wearing in the gun barrel sequence in Live and Let Die, the first Roger Moore film. A few times in the 80s, Moore carried a fedora into Miss Moneypenny's office, but he never wore one.
10. At the end of the pre-title sequence in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, released in 1969, Bond - played by George Lazenby - gets ditched by a woman. He looks at the camera and says, "This never happened to the other fellow."
11. Bond marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, played by Diana Rigg near the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service but she is killed on their honeymoon. He never speaks of her again, but at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only Bond is seen putting flowers on the grave of Tracy Bond, and in License to Kill Felix Leiter tells his wife that Bond had once been married.
12. Daniel Craig may be the sixth actor to play Bond, but CIA agent Felix Leiter, who appears in nine Bond movies, is played by eight different actors: Jack Lord in Dr No, Cec Linder in Goldfinger, Rik Van Nutter in Thunderball, Norman Burton in Diamonds are Forever, David Hedison in Live and Let Die and License to Kill, Bernie Casey in Never Say Never Again, John Terry in The Living Daylights and now Jeffrey Wright in Casino Royale.
13. In 1970 the Bond producers were contemplating making Bond an American, and considered both Adam West and Burt Reynolds for the part. At one point, TV actor John Gavin was even signed for Diamonds are Forever but was set aside when Connery agreed to return. Gavin had to settle for becoming US ambassador to Mexico during the Reagan administration.
14. Bond is a smoker, but he quits in the 80s films, however, in the first Roger Moore movies Bond smokes cigars.
15. Villain Francisco, Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, has a third nipple.
16. In the 21 official Bond movies, the actress playing the Bond girl has only been older than the actor playing Bond twice, and they have both starred in the BBC series The Avengers. Both Honor Blackman was 37 to Connery's 34 at the time of Goldfinger and Diana Rigg was 31 to George Lazenby's 30 at the time of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
17. Usual Suspects star Benicio del Toro appeared in 1989 film License to Kill, playing Dario, Sanchez's sadistic henchman.
18. When Bond visits Q in Die Another Day, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Bond films in the year of its release, Pierce Brosnan messes around with gadgets from the old films, in tribute. He plays with the jet pack from Thunderball and also picks up Rosa Klebb's deadly shoe from From Russia with Love. Meanwhile, in Cuba, he also flipped through the book Birds of the West Indies the inspiration for the name James Bond.
19. The latest Bond film Casino Royale is based on Ian Flemming's first Bond novel, but it has been filmed twice before. In 1954 there was a TV version of Casino Royale with American Barry Nelson playing Jimmy Bond and in 1967 Woody Allen made Casino Royale - a send-up starring David Niven.
20. Although the first American Bond girl, Jill St John, didn't come along until 1971, there have now been more American-born actresses cast in the part than actresses from any other country. There have bee seven American Bond Girls, four English ones, three French and 2 Swedish. There has only ever been one Bond girl from Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Poland and Malaysia.
22. Bond doesn't always drive an Aston Martin. He drives a Russian tank in Goldeneye, a double-decker bus in Live and Let Die and an oil tanker in License to Kill.
23. Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, Sir Paul McCartney, Lulu, Carly Simon, Sheena Easton, Duran Duran, A-ha, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, Sheryl Crow and Madonna have all sung Bond theme songs.
24. After killing someone in a film Bond has made many flippant remarks, including "I think he got the point" in Thunderball, "Bon appetit" in You Only Live Twice and The Living Daylights, and "He always did have an inflated opinion of himself" in Live and Let Die.
25. Bond's original gun was his Beretta. However, M forced Bond to switch to a Walther PPK on the Dr No assignment after the Beretta jammed on Bond's previous mission. He used the Walther PPK until Tomorrow Never Dies mission where he traded it for the more modern Walther P99 which he continued to use in The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
26. In the novels, Bond's secretary is Mary Goodnight, not Miss Moneypenny. She makes an appearance in only one movie, The Man with the Golden Gun. She is portrayed as a guileless British agent who assists other agents. She is not Bond's secretary in the film.
27. Bond tried to assassinate M, his boss at MI6, at the beginning of the novel The Man with the Golden Gun. The movie omitted this scene. Judi Dench now plays M as a woman.
28. Bond is a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and achieved the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy. He occasionally uses his naval rank when on duty with MI6.
29. In the novels, it is revealed that Bond lied about his age in order to enter the Navy.
30. In the books James Bond began his studies at Eton aged 12 but was asked to leave the school after an "incident" involving some maids during his second term. After leaving Eton, Bond completed his schooling at his father's alma mater, Fettes.
31. By the time that he had left school, Bond had founded the first judo class at a public school in Britain.
32. Bond gained a first in Oriental Languages at Cambridge University, as he mentioned in You Only Live Twice.
33. Bond has one child - a son named James Suzuki. His mother is Kissy Suzuki.
34. Bond was born in Germany, he was raised in Scotland and England, and considers himself to be Scottish.
35. James Bond's astrological sign is Scorpio.
36. Bond's family motto is "Orbis non sufficit", which is Latin for "The world is not enough." The motto was first revealed in the movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service when Bond was preparing for an undercover assignment as a genealogist, Sir Hillary Bray. The motto was later used as the title of the 1999 Bond film.
37. Bond's father was Scottish and his mother was French Swiss. Originally Ian Fleming chose the name James Bond because it sounded like a good Anglo-Saxon name. When James Bond was 11, his parents died in a mountain climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges. After the death of his parents, Bond went to live with his aunt.
38. We all know Bond likes his martinis shaken not stirred. However, in the movie You Only Live Twice, Agent Henderson said that Bond likes his martinis stirred not shaken. James Bond, played by Sean Connery, says, "Yes, that's correct.".
39. Actress Eunice Gayson played Bond Girl Sylvia Trench in Dr No, and returned briefly in From Russia with Love, making her the only Bond girl to appear as the same character in more than one film.
40. The late Desmond Llewelyn holds a record, appearing in 17 of the films as gadget master Q, aka Major Boothroyd, and head of Q-branch.
41. Maud Adams plays Scaramanga, and then Bond's, love interest Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun, and then returned to play the title role in Octopussy. She also appears as an uncredited extra during a scene in A View To A Kill where Bond and a secret service contact meet at the San Francisco harbour.
42. George Lucas has said on multiple occasions that Sean Connery's portrayal of the Bond character was one of the primary inspirations for the Indiana Jones character, a reason Connery was chosen for the role of Indiana's father in the third film of that series.
43. Timothy Dalton, who played Bond twice, was originally contracted for three films, with the third film planned for release in 1991. But legal wranglings over ownership of the Bond franchise led to the series being put on hiatus until 1994. Rumours persist that Dalton's third film was to have been titled The Property of a Lady, however, the story treatment and draft screenplays were titled simply as Bond 17.
44. Bond's most famous car is the silver grey Aston Martin DB5 seen in Goldfinger, Thunderball, GoldenEye, and Tomorrow Never Dies.
45. In Fleming's books, Bond had a penchant for "battleship grey" Bentleys, while writer Gardner gave the agent a modified Saab 900 Turbo nicknamed the Silver Beast and later a Bentley Mulsanne Turbo in his books.
46. The total box office takings for the last 20 Bond films is $3,818,000,000.
47. New Bond Daniel Craig suffers from vertigo, despite having to appear in all the dangerous situations that 007 always finds himself in.
48. In The Man with the Golden Gun Scaramanga kills agent 002 Bill Fairbanks but the bullet is never found. That is because it being worn by a belly dancer as the lucky charm in her belly button.
49. The original title of Licence to Kill (1989), was Licence Revoked. Promotional materials were even printed with the original title, but test audiences didn't like it and so it was changed before the release of the film. Licence to Kill marked Timothy Dalton's final appearance as James Bond.
50. The Spy Who Loved Me was the first Bond film not to based on the work of Ian Flemming, because he wasn't satisfied with the novel. The author insisted he only wanted the title of to be used in the film version. So the movie features an entirely new plot and is considered to be the first completely original Bond film. After the success of the movie, a novelization of the film was released.
51. The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977, was also the first James Bond movie to be filmed in Dolby Stereo.
52. The new Bond film Casino Royale does not feature the regular James Bond characters of Q and Miss Moneypenny. It is the first time the Miss Moneypenny character has not appeared in the EON James Bond series. It is the second time the Q character has not appeared in the EON James Bond series, the first being Live and Let Die in 1973.
53. In the latest film, Casino Royale, the high-stakes casino game of Baccarat from the novel is replaced with the modern high-stakes card game of Texas Hold 'Em. Interestingly, in this game, a hand with a pair of eights is called an Octopussy, the name of the 1983 film.
54. The Bond girl character name of Solange in Casino Royale, played by Caterina Murino has previously appeared in two Ian Fleming stories. She was the name of the girl in the short story OO7 In New York and a girl named Solange was referenced in the short story, From A View To A Kill.
55. Sheryl Crowe didn't know what The World Is Not Enough film would be about when she was asked to write the theme song. She had to guess and put in a reference to drugs in the film, even though the main theme is kidnap.
56. The piece of music that we now know as the James Bond Theme was originally called Bea's Knees.
57. Ian Fleming originally asked playwright and friend Noel Coward to play the part of Dr No in the first film. But Coward turned down the part by replying with a telegram that read, Dr No? No! No! No!"
58. Joseph Wiseman, who played Dr No was the only early Bond villain not to have his voice dubbed by another actor. After Dr No they could not find someone who looked the part and had the right voice, so they would dub over a suitable one.
59. Sean Connery is terrified of spiders. The shot of the spider in his bed in Dr No was originally done with a sheet of glass between him and the spider, but when this didn't look realistic enough, the scene was re-shot with stuntman Bob Simmons. Simmons reported that the tarantula crawling over Bond was the scariest stunt he had ever performed.
60. In the Ian Fleming novel, Pussy Galore is a lesbian, which is why she gives Bond the cold shoulder to start with. She was named after Fleming's pet octopus. The octopus also inspired the title of the James Bond short story and then film Octopussy.
61. Despite being the only Bond to marry, George Lazenby hated Diana Rigg, who plays his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This was a rumour started after Rigg joked to Lazenby over lunch one day before filming a love scene: "I'm having garlic - I hope you are too!"
63. George Lazenby was a car salesman before his one-time appearance as Bond.
64. The villain Jaws is the only time a sidekick villain or henchman has ever returned in a James Bond movie. The character of Jaws first appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
65. In The Spy Who Loved Me Jaws actor Richard Kiel could only keep the metal teeth in his mouth for about half a minute at a time due to the excruciating pain they caused. He has to smile a lot in the film - which he didn't feel like doing.
66. Shirley Bassey has sung more Bond themes than any other artist. She has recorded three 007 songs, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker and Goldfinger.
67. As well as Pussy Galore there have been bond girls called Holly Goodhead, Mary Goodnight, Christmas Jones, Honey Ryder and Plenty O'Toole.
68. Teri Hatcher's love scenes in Tomorrow Never Dies had to be filmed quickly because she found out she was pregnant after she had been given the part.
69. Timothy Dalton first played Bond in The Living Daylights in 1987, but future Bond Pierce Brosnan was actually the hot favourite to replace Roger Moore. Brosnan was then was ruled out because of his contractual obligations to US TV series Remington Steele (1982). Sam Neill was also considered as well as Sean Bean.
70. Never Say Never Again is the only Bond film to be made outside the James Bond EON Franchise. Kevin McClory, who was the producer and co-writer of Thunderball (1965), won a legal battle against Ian Fleming to make his own Bond movie. The settlement stipulated that it had to effectively be a remake of Thunderball. It stars Sean Connery and was released in 1983 - the same year as Octopussy, starring Roger Moore, was released.
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