Sunday, September 11, 2016

The James Bond Movie List

Hello everyone and thank for coming back for another one of my blog entries. Like the James Bond Book List I posted earlier, this is just going to be a quick and dirty list of all of the 007 films, listed in the order they were released, with a couple glowing exceptions: there are 26 James Bond films BUT only 24 of them are by Eon Productions and therefore are considered canon films. The other two will be covered at the end of this post. I will eventually cover all of the movies individually and in depth, so please just use this as a reference.


Sean Connery

Scottish born Sir Sean Connery KBE starred in the original five James Bond films. Originally hesitant about the choice of Connery, Ian Fleming was quite pleased with Connery's performance. So much so that in Fleming's later novels, James Bond was given a Scotch-Swiss heritage. Connery went on to a long, successful career after the Bond films. For those of you keeping tabs, Dr. No is my favorite Bond film. 

Dr. No (1962)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)

George Lazenby

A lot of things set George Lazenby apart from the other actors who have played James Bond. At 29 years old, he was the youngest to portray 007. As a native Australian, he was the first Bond from outside the United Kingdom. He had also never acted before, aside from modeling. Probably most unique of all is the fact that he only starred in one film. He hated being micro-managed by people who knew the film business and they reportedly said he was a very difficult person to work with. Either way, after deciding not to continue with the Bond films, Lazenby sort of faded away and became a businessman.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Sean Connery (again)


He had grown tired of the role and the fact that not a single movie had been completed in time, causing Connery's other commitments to suffer. But with George Lazenby's departure, United Artists was desperate and they wanted Connery back, price was no object. So Sean Connery was paid a then unheard of £1.25 Million pounds to reprise the role. That was more than the ENTIRE BUDGET for Dr. No. He donated a vast majority of his pay to a Scottish charity he founded.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)


Roger Moore

Picking up from Sean Connery in 1973, Sir Roger Moore KBE went on to play 007 in seven films, spanning 12 years. This makes him the record holder for most films. At 57 years old when License to Kill came out, Moore is by far also the oldest person to play Bond.

Live and Let Die (1973)
Moonraker (1979)
Octopussy (1983)

Timothy Dalton

After Roger Moore was put out to pasture, Eon Productions and United Artists went shopping for a new James Bond. Eventually, they settled on Welshman Timothy Dalton. While contracted for three movies, Dalton would only star in two James Bond films. Before Movie #3 (presumably GoldenEye) could come into being, MGM and United Artists, now merged into MGM/UA planned to sell certain 007 film rights to a French company which touched off a lengthy legal battle and delayed GoldenEye for 6 years, during which time, Timothy Dalton's contract expired.

The Living Daylights (1987)

Pierce Brosnan 

With MGM/UA and Albert Broccoli's legal troubles behind them it was time to make another Bond film. Enter Irishman Pierce Brosnan OBE. Originally considered for The Living Daylights before losing out to Dalton (partly due to scheduling issues) Brosnan was tapped in 1995 to be the new James Bond and went on to be one of the best.

GoldenEye (1995)

Daniel Craig

And last but not least, we come to Daniel Craig. To date, Craig has starred in four James Bond films. Craig's Bond has been extremely popular and has served to "reboot" the series. His future as James Bond is currently up in the air. Everyone wants him to stay, but he has stated that the James Bond films simply take him away from his family to much. In an attempt to rectify this, Eon executives have reportedly offered to shoot the next two Bond films back to back, making the production time significantly shorter.

Casino Royale (2006)
Skyfall (2012)
Spectre (2015)

The Non-Eon Films

Due to the sale of rights to Casino Royal, as well as collaboration, which gave the rights to Thunderball to another non-Eon entity, there were two independent films released. Casino Royal was a comedy, while Never Say Never Again was a rehashing of Thunderball with Sean Connery reprising the role of James Bond. I'll speak more about these in a separate, more specific article.


Casino Royale (1967, starring David Nevin)
Never Say Never Again (1983, starring Sean Connery)

Friday, September 9, 2016

Sir James Bond(s)

Toward the end of Ian Fleming's novel The Man With the Golden Gun, James Bond refuses a knighthood offered to him by M, stating "I just refuse to call myself Sir James Bond. I'd laugh at myself every time I looked in the mirror to shave." So if the film series remains true to the original books, it is highly unlikely that James Bond the character will ever be created as Sir James. Despite that, three out of six of the actors who have portrayed James Bond have been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II over the years. While Daniel Craig hasn't been knighted... YET... he did participate in the Queen's spectacular entry into the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.


Sir Thomas Sean Connery KBE

Sean Connery is a member of the Scottish National Party and a lifelong advocate of Scottish independence. This led to Scottish politician Donald Dewar vetoing Connery's nomination for knighthood in 1997 and 1998. Despite this, on July 5, 2000 Sean Connery, clad in full highland dress and a kilt of the MacLeod klan, knelt before Queen Elizabeth II at Holyrood Palace in Edinburg, Scotland and was created a Knight Bachelor. The citation for his knighthood stated it was in honor of his dramatic roles and service to the benefit of the British film industry. 





Sir Roger Moore KBE

Roger Moore was actually created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999. This lesser class of the Order, while still quite prestigious, does not allow the recipient to be called Sir but does allow one to use the post-nominal CBE after their name. 

In 2003, Roger Moore was advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in honor of his work with the many charities he involves himself with. 

According to an article in the Telegraph, when Sir Roger Moore attempted to renew his passport and change "Mr" to "Sir" He was asked why, to which he replied that he had been knighted since he last updated his passport. When asked for proof, Moore said "What would you like? A letter from the Queen?" 



Pierce Brosnan OBE

A month after Sir Roger Moore was advanced to KBE, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced that Pierce Brosnan would be awarded an Honorary OBE for "services to Drama and the British film industry."

Pierce Brosnan's award of Officer of the Order of the British Empire is Honorary because he is an Irish citizen and the Queen cannot legally confer a knighthood (called a Substantive Award) upon someone who is not her subject. While Brosnan cannot use the title "Sir," he is legally allowed to place the post-nominal letters "OBE" after his name.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Rest In Peace: Richard Kiel (Jaws)

September 13, 1939 – September 10, 2014
Richard Kiel, who played the memorable henchman Jaws in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me AND 1979's Mooraker passed away today at St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, California after suffering a heart attack. He was just three days short of his 75th birthday. Bond fans the world over will long remember this larger than life actor and the contributions he made to the world. 

Mr. Kiel is survived by his wife Diane, four children and nine grandchildren.












The James Bond Book List

Disclaimer: This list is specifically of the adult fiction novel authorized by Glidrose/Ian Fleming Publications. There are tons more books, such as reference, non-fiction, and a series of Young Bond books that will be covered separately. In fact, every one of the books listed below will eventually be covered in more detail.

If you are interested in purchasing any of the books, simply click on the title to be whisked away to a magic world where you can exchange your hard earned money for goods and services. If you are thrifty, you can pick up a used copy of pretty much any of these books for a few dollars at the most. 

The Ian Fleming Novels

Ian Fleming (1908-1964), a retired British Naval Intelligence officer created James Bond, Agent 007 for his first novel, Casino Royale in 1952. He went on to write the original 14 books all from his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye, where he vacationed every year. Initially, Ian Fleming's novels did not sell well in the United States until it was revealed in 1961 by Life Magazine that From Russia With Love was one of John F. Kennedy's favorite novels. Sales of all Bond novels quickly took off and production of Dr. No began less than a year later. A lifelong heavy smoker and heavy drinker, Ian Fleming died of a heart attack on August 12, 1964 at the age of 56, after years of declining health. His last two works were published posthumously. Aside from the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming wrote a children's novel for his son, Casper, about a magical car. The book, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang was adapted into a film starring Dick Van Dyke in 1968.

Ian Fleming's novels with date of publication:
Casino Royale, April 13, 1953
Live and Let Die, April 5, 1954
Moonraker, April 5, 1955
Diamonds Are Forever, March 26, 1956
From Russia With Love, April 8, 1957
Doctor No, March 31, 1958
Goldfinger, March 23, 1959
For Your Eyes Only, April 11, 1960
Thunderball, March 27, 1961
The Spy Who Loved Me, April 16, 1962
On Her Majesty's Secret Service, April 1, 1963
You Only Live Twice, March 16, 1964
The Man with the Golden Gun, April 1, 1965
Octopussy and the Living Daylights, June 23, 1966

The One Hit Wonder

After Ian Fleming's death, Glidrose Publications, who owned the rights to  all the characters and copyrights to all the novels (It's called Ian Fleming Publications today) authorized other writers to continue in Mr. Fleming's footsteps. The first of these was Robert Markham, which was actually a pen name for Kingsley Amis. A personal friend of Fleming's as well as a fan of the James Bond Novels, Mr. Amis had previously written the non-fiction James Bond Dossier, a critique of the character and novels. Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) wrote only one James Bond book, which is arguably the best of the post-Fleming novels. Colonel Sun was released in March of 1968 and marked the end of James Bond novels for nearly ten years. It was rumored that Kingsley Amis had been working on a short story where a 70 year old Bond comes out of retirement for one more adventure, but when he approached Glidrose Publications about turning it into a novel, he was rebuffed. Kingsley Amis was Knighted as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990. On October 22, 1995 Kingsley Amis died of what doctors suspect was a stroke.


The "Biography" 

Imagine, if you will, that it is 1973. Richard Nixon is in the White House (but not for long), Edward Heath is at Number 10 Downing Street (but not for long) and a man named John Pearson has just discovered that James Bond is REAL. As the story goes, Ian Fleming was commissioned by MI6 to write of the exploits of 007 while more than 10 years later, John Pearson is recruited to meet the REAL 007 and write his biography, which he names James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007. Bond is retired, in his 50's and living with Honeychild Ryder (Bond Girl from Dr. No)... the book is very good at filling in the missing spaces and minutia of Bond's life. For instance, you get to find out about his parents and upbringing, and a lot of other little tidbits that I cannot tell you about because... I HAVEN'T READ IT! That's right, It is one of the things on the "To Do List" I mentioned in my last post. BUT I did order it the other day so rest assured that it is packed in an 18 wheeled truck speeding its way toward me at 72 miles per hour as we speak. I have been told it is quite a good read so... we'll see. 

The Two Rewrites

Okay, pay attention to this one because it gets a little confusing. Ian Fleming wrote The Spy Who Loved Me in 1962. Christopher Wood wrote James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. Ian Fleming wrote Moonraker in 1955. Christopher Wood wrote James Bond and Moonraker in 1979. Got it? Okay good. 

OK FINE! I'll tell you why. You see, when it came time to turn the two books into movies, they were drastically redone, to the point where their storyline had little to nothing to do with the original Fleming books that Eon Productions authorized the screenwriter for both movies, Christopher Wood, to novelize the screenplays. With Moonraker, can you really blame them? Fleming wrote the original in 1955. It was set in space. How much did we know about space travel in 1955 compared to 1979?

The Gardner Era

With the 1970's rewrites over, the task of bringing Bond into the 1980's fell upon the shoulders of spy and thriller novelist John Gardner. While initially hesitant to write the Bond books, Mr. Gardner eventually accepted and went on to right fourteen original novels, as well as the novelizations for the films License to Kill and GoldenEye between 1981 and 1996. After writing Cold in 1996 (released as Cold Fall in the US) Mr. Gardner retired from writing any further Bond novels, citing failing health. He died of what doctors suspect was heart failure on August 3, 2007. Authoring 16 books, spanning 16 years,  John Gardner has surpassed all other Bond writers, including Ian Fleming in longevity of his tenure and number of books written.


John Gardner's James Bond novels:
License Renewed, May 1981
For Special Services, September 1982
Icebreaker, July 1983
Role of Honour, October 1984
Nobody Lives Forever, June 1986
No Deals, Mr. Bond, May 1987
Scorpius, July 1988
Win, Lose or Die, Early 1989
License to Kill (novelization), Mid 1989
Brokenclaw, July 1990
The Man From Barbarossa, August 1991
Death is Forever, July 1992
Never Send Flowers, July 1993
SeaFire, August 1994
GoldenEye, October 1995
Cold, May 1996 (Originally released as Cold Fall in UK, Only 007 book to be retitled for US)

Raymond Benson

Raymond Benson took over as Bond continuation author in 1997. Benson, the first American to carry on the James Bond legacy, was born in Midland, Texas and received a degree in Drama Production from the University of Texas at Austin. Initially, the fact that this author was American rubbed people the wrong way, as did Benson's ignoring much of the continuity that Gardner had put in place. He gave back James Bond's Walther PPK and had him driving a sporty Jaguar XK8. Benson's books focused much more on action and much less on gadgetry than Gardner's had, and James Bond cusses more with Benson than with any of the previous writers. While this makes Bond seem somewhat crude, Benson's general writing style was said to be much more like Ian Fleming than previous works. In fact, Ian Fleming's agent, Peter Janson-Smith, was quoted saying "It's as close to Fleming as I have seen." in an article of The Australian newspaper. Raymond Benson retired from writing James Bond novels in 2003.

Raymond Benson 007 novels:
Zero Minus Ten, April 1997
Tomorrow Never Dies (novelization), November 1997
The Facts of Death, May 1998
High Time to Kill, May 1999
The World is Not Enough (novelization), November 1999
DoubleShot, May 2000
Never Dream of Dying, November 2001
The Man with the Red Tattoo, May 2002
Die Another Day (novelization), November 2002

The New Ones

Since Raymond Benson retired from writing Bond novels in 2003, there have been four books written by four different authorized authors. First came 2008's Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks. Then Jeffery Deaver got it a shot with Carte Blanche in 2011. Solo by William Boyd was published in September 2013 followed by Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz in September 2015. These books can't even agree what time they are in. Devil May Care was set in the 1960's and went back to the roots of Fleming's bond, while Carte Blanche was set in the post-9/11 era.
Solo was set in the 1960's and makes heavy use of era-appropriate cultural references, while Trigger Mortis is set in the 1950's and includes material written by Ian Fleming but never published. All good books, but all four are rather different and unique.

And.... thats it... Thats all of the novels. Of course there are still the movies, the short stories, the Young Bond series of books, the non-fiction books written about the movies and books, the collectables, the list is endless. But for those of you who are interested, This gives you a good starting point.

You can find most of the James Bond books on Amazon or at your local book store. If you are frugal and don't mind used books, I recommend used bookstores, Amazon Marketplace, eBay and the like. I picked a lot of my Raymond Benson paperbacks up on the Amazon marketplace in great condition for just a few dollars each. My local used bookstore, Half Price Books, even has many of the vintage 1960's Ian Fleming paperbacks on it's shelves most of the time. I actually prefer them over new because I like the smell and feel and the old cover art. I hope I inspired you to sit down and read a good book! Til next time!

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Bond, James Bond

As if you expected me to title an introduction to a James Bond fan site anything else? As you have probably deduced, my name is not Bond, James Bond. It Is Luthi, Paul Luthi. Like millions of others, since the moment I was introduced to 007 through one of the (to date) 24 cannon films (Yes, I know of the two others. hold you shorts.) After that I was sold. I have watched all the movies so many times it would almost be embarrassing to tell you. I own all of the books as well... in print, e-book and audiobook editions, although most of the later, non-Fleming books I have not yet read. I buy them and they sit on a shelf and life gets in the way. You know how it goes.

That is a big reason for writing this blog. I want to turn those "I should read/watch/do that" into "check-mark." Just a warning to all reading though: I am writing this blog simply for my own edification. I am really not out to make a profit or anything else. It's just for fun and personal fulfillment. That being said, I reserve the right to delete any offensive or rude comments. I like to argue with people, I like hearing opposing viewpoints and I LOVE learning trivial information that I was not previously privy to, but I am not here to be insulted, berated or belittled. I am sure I will get some things wrong, and if you feel the need to correct me, you are free to do so... in a non-hostile, "hey buddy, you know..." kind of way. ALSO! I will post quotes, pictures and links to other sites from time to time. I am in no way implying that I own the copyright or intellectual rights to anything and will do my best to give credit where credit is due! Anyway, enough of the boring stuff, lets get back on topic.

I may be dating myself, but the first Bond film I saw was 1989's License to Kill with Timothy Dalton. I believe it was around 1992 so I would have been around 10 years old. (Oops, just dated myself.) As memory serves, I wasn't horribly impressed with it, but thought it was a good movie. Then I didn't see another Bond film for about 3 or 4 years. (There was a pretty big gap between License to Kill and GoldenEye, which I'll dedicate an entire blogpost to later on.) At the time, my resources were rather limited. This was the pre-Netflix, pre-Streaming video, pre-Youtube era where if you wanted to see a particular movie, you had to go down to this store called Blockbuster Video (ours was 38 miles away) and if you were lucky enough that they had a copy, then you could rent it on VHS (sorry, no subtitles, directors commentary, deleted scenes or special features here folks.) I think the oldest Bond film our video store had was The Living Daylights.... Although I do remember seeing A View to a Kill somewhere...

Then came the miracle of Cable TV! Woo Hoo! Ok, we had cable in the early 90's but come on, they didn't have TCM and AMC and all those back then. But when those channels started to appear... that was when I saw my first Connery 007 movie (From Russia With Love) and would occasionally catch other older 007 films. Then came the miracle that was The Columbia House Movie Club! For just A PENNY (plus $4.99 shipping and handling) you could select FIVE, yes FIVE movies... as long as you agreed to buy 5 more at regular (inflated) club prices within... a year or two... something like that... But anyway, they had these little stamps that looked like postage stamps but they were movies. you would tear out which ones you wanted, lick (this was before self adhesive stamps) and put them on the handy postcard. Four to six weeks later your movies would arrive, followed my more advertisements for other movies and crap you didn't need or want. (I think I still owe Columbia House $24. I'll have to call and ask.) ANYWAY I remember very clearly that my five movies were GoldenEye, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With the Golden Gun, Live and Let Die and Titanic (shut up.)

Since then I have seen each movie dozens of times. I have my favorites (Dr. No, GoldenEye), my least favorites (Octopussy, The Living Daylights) and one which I really liked but I am reserving my opinion on until I see if the next one holds up (Spectre.) I am in the process of reading all the books (Fleming, Gardner, Benson, etc) in order of publication and I often buy 007 branded stuff just because it is 007 branded stuff. Yes because those 007 breath mints were sooo worth six bucks...

Anyway, how about you? what was your first James Bond experience? What is your favorite movie? Favorite book? Did you enjoy seeing Daniel Craig and HM Queen Elizabeth II parachute into the olympic opening ceremony? Comment below! And lets have some fun! Til next time...