Bond...James Bond

I recently read the original novels by Ian Fleming.  With the exception of Dr. No, which I read out of order, I tackled them in the order they were written, instead of the order in which the movies were made.  While I enjoy the movies, I found the books to be immensely more informative.  Any well-written novel delves into a character’s subjective thoughts, feelings and impressions, explaining why he does what he does, instead of simply coldly demonstrating his actions on film.  Given that I’ve seen every Bond movie, and most of them in the movie theater – including the older Connery films which I saw in Paris on the Champs Elysees – I suppose it’s odd that it took me so long to read these books.

 To review every book and movie would be prohibitive here.  I’ll focus on trends I’ve noticed in the books, and give brief bits on the books in the order they were released.  Unlike the movies, which were released in a completely different order and have no continuity, the books follow each other.  In some cases, such as From Russia With Love>>Dr No, the story ends abruptly and is “epilogued” at the beginning of the next one.  The plots of the books are considerably more straightforward and far less byzantine than the movies.  Unless noted otherwise, references are to the books and not the movies.

 Bond…

…smokes.  He has a Turkish blend made special order.  Although “reefer” is mentioned occasionally (e.g. Live And Let Die) he doesn’t toke.

…carries a .25 Beretta automatic, until Dr. No, when the armourer recommends – and M orders – that he carry the .380 Walther PPK.  But sometimes he carries a .45 revolver when some extra firepower is called for.

…takes cold showers.  Some kind of manly thing.

…doesn’t necessarily drink his custom “vodka martini, shaken, not stirred.”  He loves wines, champagnes (Don Perignon and Taittinger), and various liquors.  Occasionally he’ll have a beer, though this is very rare.  He does drink his ass off fairly often and suffers hangovers.

…doesn’t like Paris.

...falls in love with women fairly easily.  This is actually not really promiscuity, as he actually develops sincere feelings for the girl. 

...frequently gets nervous and doubts his own abilities, but somehow manages to keep his wits and figure a way out.

 M.  He’s the head of the Secret Service, a former admiral in the Royal Navy.  Generally he refers to Bond as “007”, but when the matter is private or personal, he’ll refer to him as “James”.  In the more recent movies they made M into a woman, played by Judi Dench.

 Q.  Frequently played by Desmond Llewellyn, more recently by John Cleese.  I haven’t noticed Q showing up in the novels, which have very little of this business of “secret gadgets”. 

 Moneypenny.  M’s secretary.  Bond himself has secretaries, Loelia Ponsonby at first (very cool, professional relationship), later Mary Goodnight (considerably warmer relationship!), who never show up in the movies.  In the movies she’s portrayed as a spinster who lusts – unsuccessfully – after Bond.  The books explain that the various female staff members at the Secret Service are for all practical purposes “married to the Service” as intermarriage is against policy (see below).

 Cover.  CIA personnel typically claim to be “State Dept.” as a cover.  For Bond, the cover within the British world is “Ministry of Defense”, and to outsiders as “Universal Export”.

 Felix Leiter.  Bond’s American CIA counterpart, a white guy from Texas – though in these PC days, they’ve now made him black.  Leiter varies in importance from book to book.  Sometimes he’s simply “the Cavalry” saving Bond’s ass at the very last moment – e.g. Goldfinger – whereas in Live and Let Die, Diamonds Are Forever, and Thunderball, he has a more substantial role, more like a partner.

 Americans.  Bond generally has a favorable attitude towards Americans, especially Leiter.  But two groups of Americans he despises: gangsters, who he looks down on as being unprofessional and ostentatious, and greedy, nouveau riche bastards who think they can buy their way into anything; recall that SNL skit with Dana Carvey as Ross Perot, in which he pays total strangers obscene amounts of money simply to humiliate themselves, expressly to flaunt his financial omnipotence.  The Secret Service tends to get along with the CIA in the books, but occasionally he’ll run up against Americans who are arrogant bastards who consider the English to be provincial losers, and clearly he has a problem with these jerks.

 Gambling.  He loves to gamble, but not merely baccarat (which features in Casino Royale) but also roulette, poker, and even bridge.  In Moonraker, Bond is familiar with various cheating methods and is enlisted by M to help catch Drax cheating at bridge.

 Women.  Of course he loves women, but his aversion to “settling down” is not due to any militant promiscuity on his part, so much as a realistic appraisal that marriage simply isn’t compatible with his line of work.  His wife, should he marry, would be an obvious target for hostile powers, and could be kidnapped and used against him – to marry would mean he’d have to resign (and possibly be assigned to a small village with bouncing balloons).  In fact, in Casino Royale (both the book and movie), he proposes exactly that so he can marry Vesper Lynd, though this takes a tragic turn.  Likewise, in the film Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he marries, but his wife dies soon thereafter.  Occasionally he doesn’t get the girl.  He does tend to fall in love easily, but for some reason even the women he genuinely likes and “hooks up with” end up out of the picture by the next adventure.

 Cars.  He tends to look down on American cars, even Leiter’s Studillac (Studebaker with Cadillac V8, considerably more powerful and the “hot rod” of the early 50s).  Although he does get an Aston-Martin, his own car is a Bentley Continental, and the modifications are purely performance mods, not smokescreens, oil slicks, ejector seats, spikes, rockets, or machine guns.

 Villains.  The villains in these stories are frequently eccentric egomaniacs, often German or of German descent.  Dr No was half Chinese, half German, for example.  They think big, and are frequently delighted that someone of Bond’s caliber was dispatched to foil their plans – a “worthy adversary!”  Blofeld is the arch-fiend in no less than three: Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and You Only Live Twice, but is absent from Diamonds Are Forever, unlike the movie.  Oddly, the Russians are rarely the villains, the most notable example being From Russia With Love.  In Casino Royale, SMERSH has a very intriguing role.

 Movie Actors.

Sean Connery.   The first, and in many ways the best.  I’m by no means alone in considering Connery to have essentially created the character on screen.  He brought the right mix of muscle and class.

            Dr No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

 George Lazenby.  Not bad, but he looks like an overgrown Ken doll.  It just didn’t work.

            On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

 Roger Moore.     The third, and after Connery, most substantial.  I always thought Moore was a bit of a pretty boy, sort of a fashion model, not as rugged or physical as Connery.  He always seemed to be in a suit and tie which made him look out of place, overdressed for the occasion. 

            Live And Let Die (1973), The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View To A Kill (1985)

 Timothy Dalton.  Dalton marked a return to the “beat the crap out of you” physical Bond which Connery epitomized.  I especially liked him in “License to Kill.”

            The Living Daylights (1987), License to Kill (1989)

 Pierce Brosnan. Back to style over brute force, Brosnan was clearly emulating Moore rather than Connery.  He's also bringing in his Remington Steele character somewhat.

            Goldeneye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999), Die Another Day (2002)

 Daniel Craig.      Now the pendulum swings back again – Craig is very physical and seems to get beaten up fairly often (as Bond himself was in the books).  Craig is also by far the quietest and understated Bond so far, very similar to Bruce Willis’ various characters, particularly in “Twelve Monkeys”. 

            Casino Royale (2006), A Quantum of Solace (2008).

 Austin Powers.  These are Mike Myers’ obvious parodies of the genre.  His Doctor Evil is clearly based on the Blofeld of “You Only Live Twice” (movie).  While I find them amusing, the sexual innuendo jokes get overdone after awhile.  Like “Love Guru”, Myers likes to laugh at his own jokes a bit too much.

 Novels.

Casino Royale.  Channel coast of France, not Montenegro.  Bond hopes to complicate Le Chiffre’s plans to win big at baccarat to pay back his SMERSH superiors, assisted by Mathis (Deuxieme Bureau), Felix Leiter (CIA) and Vesper Lynd, who he falls in love with - tragically.

 Live And Let Die.  Bond starts off in Harlem with Felix (who serves as a guide to contemporary black culture in the US), then to St Petersburg, Florida, and finally winds up in Jamaica, chasing Mr. Big, who is smuggling Captain Morgan’s treasure from Jamaica to the US.

 Moonraker.  After determining that Hugo Drax does indeed cheat at bridge, Bond infiltrates his operation in southeast England (no sign of Rio de Janeiro!) to find out what’s really behind the rocket program of this eccentric and arrogant billionaire.

 Diamonds Are Forever. Bond chases down American mobsters (no sign of Blofeld) at Saratoga Springs, NY, and Las Vegas, assisted by the delicious yet cynical Tiffany Case and the ever-helpful Felix Leiter – and pursued by two gay hitmen, Mr Wint and Mr. Kidd.

 From Russia With Love. SMERSH, upset at having been humiliated by the US and UK, decides to strike back by luring the West’s top spy, James Bond, to Istanbul with the bait of Tatiana Romanova and a code machine.  Knowing this is probably a trap, but going anyway, Bond indeed hooks up with the Russian girl – only to be tracked down by SMERSH’s top assassin, a Brit (played in the movie by Robert Shaw).  This is one of the novels most faithfully done by the movie.  The book ends abruptly...

 Dr. No. ...and is wrapped up here.  Very much a sequel to Live And Let Die (why was it made long before?) this takes place in Jamaica yet again.  Bond determines that the evil Dr. No (no mention of SPECTRE) is up to more than simply harvesting guano [large explanation of all that!] on his dozy island, Crab Key.  Accompanied by Quarrel (who we met in Live And Let Die) – with Felix Leiter MIA here – and Honeychile Rider (wearing far less, yet far more innocent than Ursula Andress portrayed her to be) he gets to the bottom of it all, and takes care of business.

 Goldfinger. Yet another film which was remarkably faithful to the book.  Bond meets – and thwarts – Auric Goldfinger in Miami, then beats him at golf in England.  He then trails him to Switzerland, where he discovers Goldfinger’s secret, is captured, and forced to assist Goldfinger in his plot to rob Fort Knox of all its gold.  There is also a major partnership with the top American gangs, including one gang of women led by Pussy Galore.   Felix Leiter comes to the rescue at the last minute, and Goldfinger is defeated.

 For Your Eyes Only, A View To A Kill, A Quantum of Solace, Risico, and The Hildebrand Rarity.  All short stories.  None of the three whose names were used for movies have anything to do with the movies.  A Quantum of Solace is by far the best, an excellent story.  Bond is involved in each of them, none of which would have been long enough to truly support an entire movie.

 Thunderball. We’re introduced to SPECTRE (Special Executive Committee for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), a freelance private terror organization selling its services to the highest bidder, and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.  SPECTRE manages to hijack an RAF jet carrying two nuclear bombs, courtesy of his #2, Emile Largo.  Most of the story takes place in Nassau, Bahamas.  Felix Leiter yet again has a major role.

 The Spy Who Loved Me.  Written in the first person from the point of view of a girl, Vivienne Michel, from Canada who ends up in a motel near Glens Falls, New York, and is terrorized by two mob gunmen...until Bond shows up and rescues her.

 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The plot left from Thunderball is picked up again.  Blofeld is now in Switzerland, up to no good, and it’s up to Bond to infiltrate the operation, escape, and come back with the Corsican mob to defeat the resurrected SPECTRE.  Oh, and he gets married at the end.

 You Only Live Twice. Distraught over the tragedy from the last story, Bond is a complete washout.  M, on advice of Sir James, the shrink to the Secret Service, sends him to Japan to persuade Tiger Tanaka, the Jap head of intelligence, to turn over what they know.  Tiger treats Bond to a crash course in Japanese culture – including geishas, sake, ninjitsu, and other idiosyncrasies - then sends Bond on an impossible mission: to take down a mysterious gaijin (foreigner) who has set up an evil Castle of Death.  The gaijin turns out to be... BLOFELD!

 The Man With The Golden Gun.  Ok, this has the most remarkable transition from one book to the next – it has to be read to be believed, though highly entertaining if bizarre and implausible.  Bond redeems himself by chasing after the world’s top assassin, Francisco Scaramanga, aka “the Man With The Golden Gun”.  This ends the series.