Thrill permit

How the James Bond phenomenon became the industry's longest-running and most exciting film franchise.

In almost 60 years, over 20 thrillers and half a dozen casting changes, James Bond has done one thing unwaveringly well: spoil his enemies' plans. From his first screen appearance, played by the dashing Sean Connery in Dr. No, a rogues' gallery of megalomaniac tycoons to brutal drug lords to vicious dictators, he's fought cinema's greatest secret agent on land, underwater and in space, unleashing every weapon imaginable, from knives and tourniquets to lasers and nuclear weapons - even a man with steel teeth. And yet, he has never been defeated. Agent 007 may now be facing his most formidable enemy yet. A pandemic has postponed the release of the 25th official James Bond film, No Time to Die, from March to November. But if history has taught us anything, it's that you should never rule it out. As with every 007 cliffhanger in which the villain lets the spy die to allow him to escape, you can bet that Bond will bounce back, more powerful than before. And when audiences finally see No Time to Die, they'll be treated to a saga unparalleled in cinema history. Thanks to 24 official James Bond films, from Dr. No (1962) to Spectre (2015), the series has grossed nearly $2 billion in North America on over 600 million tickets. Adjusted for inflation, this figure would rise to $5.9 billion, according to media analysis giant Comscore Inc.

  No Bond film has ever lost money. The last four releases starring Daniel Craig have grossed a billion dollars at the U.S. box office, and more than triple that worldwide. "In the modern era, it's the gold standard, the all-time champion for longevity, viability and interest," says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. "I can't think of another movie series that started in the 1960s and is still viable, relevant and extremely exciting." "What's so extraordinary is that they're all made in the same style," says Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. "They went effortlessly from Connery to Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and Craig, without wasting a single moment." No Time to Die represents another inflection point: Craig's final turn in the ring, a change of heart after he once said he'd rather slit his wrists than play Bond again. Before postponing the film's premiere, producer Barbara Broccoli, who took over the franchise from her father, Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, in 1996, said "We've reached an emotionally satisfying conclusion." The new film concludes EON's 21st-century effort to bring Craig's Bond back to his roots: the charming, ruthless and deadly secret agent that author Ian Fleming introduced to the world with his 1953 novel Casino Royale. As former Bond Timothy Dalton told the Los Angeles Times in 2012, "Daniel Craig's Bond films are absolutely modern, up-to-date versions, but they're also the rightful heir to Dr. No and From Russia with Love".

  Back when Cubby Broccoli and partner Harry Saltzman made Sean Connery an international superstar with 1962's Dr. No, Fleming's novels were a worldwide success, available in 20 languages. But Fleming, who had worked in British naval intelligence during the Second World War and later as a journalist, wrote the first book in about a month in 1952, to take his mind off his impending marriage. Even when the novels became bestsellers, it was without literary pretensions. "My books have no social significance, except a noxious one," Fleming told The New Yorker in 1962. "They are considered to contain too much violence and too much sex. I think it's an absolute miracle that an old person like me can continue to produce these books with such enthusiasm. It's really a terrible indictment of my own character - they're so adolescent. But they're fun. I think people like them because they're fun. One news item in particular triggered the American popularity of these books: a 1962 reading list from then-President John F. Kennedy, which included Fleming's From Russia with Love. JFK had been a fan since his time in the Senate, and the two men had had an unexpected encounter. As Fleming explained to The New Yorker, "A few years ago, while I was in Washington driving to lunch with a friend, she spotted a young couple coming out of church and stopped our cab. 'You have to meet them,' she said. They're big fans. And she introduced me to Jack and Jackie Kennedy. 'Not the Ian Flemings,' they told me. What could be more gratifying than that?" Fleming's first idea for taking Bond from the page to the screen was unsatisfactory: a 1954 American TV version of Casino Royale, with Barry Nelson as "Jimmy" Bond. Eventually, Fleming was approached by Saltzman, a showman and producer who operated on Fleming's wavelength. Saltzman, however, didn't have the money to make Dr. No-until he teamed up with Broccoli, who had the studio connections to make a deal with United Artists. The two remained partners until 1974, after which Broccoli continued on his own, with his daughter Barbara and son-in-law Michael Wilson. Dr. No (which debuted in British theaters 11 days before the start of the Cuban missile crisis) was a hit. By the time Goldfinger, the third film in the series, exploded into theaters in 1964, James Bond had become a veritable cultural phenomenon. The man who rode this wave was Sean Connery, who was 32 when Dr. No. premiered. For a generation of baby boomers, Connery became the one true James Bond - and Bond made him a star.

  The sudden mass popularity of Agent 007 (400 members of the press covered the filming of You Only Live Twice in Japan) took Connery by surprise. "There's an invasion of privacy that comes with it," he said in a 1967 interview. "This Bond phenomenon has never happened in the history of cinema... Nobody foresaw the success of these films. Nobody". Ian Fleming had asked David Niven to give him the role (a role Niven would play in the 1967 imitation Casino Royale, one of two unofficial James Bond films). The producers considered over 100 actors before settling on Connery. As Cubby Broccoli told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in a 1965 interview, "One of the things that appealed to me about Sean was the way he moved. He moves like a cat. Connery also brought wit to the role, a crucial element: "I felt there was a lack of humor in the books, and I talked to Fleming about it," Connery told F. Lee Bailey in 1967, when Connery appeared on the defense attorney's famous TV talk show. "He was quite surprised, because he thought he was humorous. And he was, as a person - but not in the Bond books. Ian Fleming had a wonderful curiosity. He was very funny, very witty, very dry. A little too English for me, but always fun. Connery, a Scotsman, often suggested the flip one-liners that gave a cheeky button to a moment of violence. After electrocuting a villain in a bathtub by throwing an electric fan into it at the start of Goldfinger, Connery examines the result and dead ends, "Shocking." In You Only Live Twice, he undoes the dress of a villain's accomplice before taking her to bed and mumbles with simplistic weariness, "The things I do for England."

  Connery had everything Bond had. The former bodybuilder looked and moved like someone who could throw (and receive) a punch. "Connery's Bond was the perfect guy," says Ed Gross, co-author of Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond. "He was very serious, but with a humorous edge. He was perfect for the '60s. Heroes were changing and he was a different kind of secret agent." With Connery as Bond, the enduring formula was created: a plot involving a threat to world security; a larger-than-life villain and henchman; exotic ports of call; a car loaded with cunning weapons; elaborate action; and even more elaborate settings, such as a missile launch site hidden in a fake volcano or a luxury hotel made of ice. As Roger Moore told Entertainment Weekly in 2008, "There's no hidden agenda. They're just "Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, here's a pretty girl, here's a car chase, let's take down a helicopter". That's about as deep as they get." Guy Hamilton, who directed Goldfinger and several other Bond films, explained the creative process in Bond '73: The Lost Documentary. "We'd lock ourselves in the office with lots of cigarettes, and three weeks later we'd have a story with three acts and the characters involved. The audience knows the ground rules. My job is to surprise and entertain them in a big, wild farce that they never see - except once a year in a Bond movie." That's part of the reason Connery decided to quit after five films. "They got away from the personal aspect. Now he has to walk on water or the equivalent," Connery said in 1967. At the time, Bond was one of the hottest intellectual properties in movies. The market was flooded with merchandise bearing the "007" trademark. Everything from trading cards to men's cologne bore the recognizable insignia, if not Connery's face.

  Connery, however, was angry at his small share of what he saw as a windfall for Saltzman and Broccoli. While the producers renegotiated their contract with United Artists with each successive Bond success, they refused to negotiate with Connery, who had signed his multi-production contract even before the first film was made. This led Connery to air his grievance publicly for years. One evening in the mid-70s, Johnny Carson surprised him with a 007 quiz on "The Tonight Show" and asked Connery to name the first Bond villain. Connery brought the house down when he pitched "Cubby Broccoli". The two men eventually reconciled before Broccoli's death. Connery's departure from the role in 1971 triggered what has become an irregular ritual: the hunt for the next James Bond. "Casting was key," says Comscore's Dergarabedian. "After Batman, James Bond is one of the most important casting decisions you can make. It can make or break the future." Roger Moore, who succeeded Connery, had been considered for Dr. No and Her Majesty's Secret Service (but was unavailable), before becoming Bond in 1973. While there are a handful of Bond film villains who smoke cigars - Xenia Onatopp of Janssen fame, Robert Davi's Franz Sanchez - only Moore regularly indulged in cigars on screen while playing 007. In fact, his contract included a clause giving him an unlimited supply of Montecristos. His Bond smoked in most of his films, and even armed his cigar (and an aerosol can) to improvise a flamethrower in Live and Let Die, his first Bond film. NBC refused to release Pierce Brosnan from his contract for the TV series "Remington Steele" when Broccoli asked Brosnan to replace Moore for The Living Daylights in 1987. Timothy Dalton got the part, but was replaced after two films by Brosnan, who was then available. Brosnan, who lights up a stogie at the end of Die Another Day, his final take as Bond, is a cigar enthusiast in real life. When EON announced that Craig was replacing Brosnan in 2005, it created an uproar, with fans rising to admire Craig's blond hair and less refined good looks. But his smashing debut in Casino Royale made converts of the Bond legion.  

  The lingering question is "Who's the best James Bond? From a box-office point of view, the undisputed champion is Connery. For fans, it depends on who you ask - and when they first saw a James Bond film. "People love the James Bond they've been introduced to," says screenwriter Bruce Feirstein. "There's a whole generation that loves Daniel Craig. But for the people who saw Roger Moore first, this is their Bond. Really, I think everyone has been compared to Sean Connery until Daniel Craig." Jane Seymour, who played Solitaire in Live and Let Die, says: "Bond has managed to grow with the times. Sean Connery's Bond was very different from the very ironic version offered by Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. Daniel Craig is more the hero of the Bourne Identity genre". According to Thompson, "James Bond has to evolve. With each new casting, they're able to update themselves. So James Bond never looks like an anachronism. It's constantly renewed. The challenge when they change is to get used to a new one." Die Another Day, Brosnan's final turn as Bond, is remembered as the film that featured both Halle Berry in heroic mode and an improbably invisible car. Between the time this film was shot and its release, the United States suffered the terrorist attacks of September 11, resulting in a reset of 007. "After 9/11, it didn't seem right to have a certain casualness about movies at that time," says Barbara Broccoli in the documentary Everything or Nothing (whose acronym is EON). "We wanted to make the film Cubby and Harry would have made." Writer Ed Gross says: "They realized they had to get back to basics. In the Bourne era, it was the perfect change." Craig gave Bond a tougher edge, but he also added emotional depth, producer Michael Wilson explained in a 2015 TV interview. "Daniel brings out the personal side of Bond," Wilson said. "He has a way of making Bond vulnerable that shows an inner part of him." No Time to Die features Bond, whose feminine tendencies have been less in evidence since Craig took over in the Me Too era. Can Agent 007 still evolve to cope with changing ideas on gender equality? As Gross notes, Bond's attitude and relationship with women had evolved even before the Me Too era, starting with his relationship with Judi Dench's M: "You had a woman standing in The Spy Who Loved Me. And look at the women in Pierce Brosnan's films: Famke Janssen, Michelle Yeo, Halle Berry - very strong female characters. He wasn't necessarily the "misogynistic dinosaur" that M said he was in GoldenEye". Idris Elba, Tom Hardy and Henry Cavill have been mentioned as possible candidates to follow Craig, although Broccoli's ability to spring a casting surprise should never be underestimated. With any luck, future film versions of James Bond will stick to the principle Cubby Broccoli espoused to the CBC in 1965: "We want to keep improving them. It's not easy to increase entertainment and production values and bring new faces to the screen." As Barbara Broccoli told IndieWire in 2012: "We do it, not for the business, we do it because we care as much as they do. And it means everything to them.   Source : By Marshall Fine | From The Bond Legacy, July/August 2020