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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Geoffrey T. Hellman interviews Ian Fleming
From 1963, Brendan Gill on "Dr. No"
From 1964, Brendan Gill on "From Russia with Love"
From 1983, Pauline Kael reviews "Octopussy"
All right, pay attention, 007. Here are some things that are great about James Bond movies: the suits, the drinks, the stunts, the cars, the hubcaps of the cars, the men, the women, the posters, the weather, the music, the sex, the life. Here are some things that are not so great about James Bond movies: James Bond movies. Have you ever tried to watch "A View to a Kill," a work so bereft of ideas that it chooses to employ Grace Jones as a special effect? Now is the moment to reflect on this curious discrepancy--between the completed films and the stuff they contain, between the millions of brain cells that will die as you sit in front of "Moonraker" for two hours and the pleasure of hearing Q say to M, "I think he's attempting reentry, sir," while Roger Moore makes interlunar love to Lois Chiles, adrift in what he, of all people, must recognize as zero gravity.
The time is ripe for two reasons. One, because the rumbling hiss you hear behind you is the sound of a 007 project preparing to launch. "Die Another Day" is the twentieth Bond picture, and, as the name suggests, the producers of the series, who long ago ran out of Ian Fleming books to choose from, are no closer to finding titles with a discernible meaning. The last movie, "The World Is Not Enough," took its inspiration from the Bond family motto, and in the future we can presumably look forward to films named after 007's boyhood tortoise, his sockmakers, and the level of his cholesterol. Still, come November 22nd, I expect to be jumping up and down on the sidewalk outside "Die Another Day," agog at the prospect of brand-new Bond. Its virtues include Halle Berry in a flame-hued bikini, more of Pierce Brosnan, more of Judi Dench's M, a song by Madonna, and a baddie who, after a contretemps with 007, has been left scarred with "diamond shrapnel." Love it.
The fuss is more pronounced on this occasion because forty years have elapsed since the release of "Dr. No," the first of all the Bonds. I speak with a vested interest, since my mother went to see James Bond when she was expecting me. I was already two weeks late, enjoying the cinematic darkness of the womb, and my father, with a vague but prophetic belief that I could be induced by sheer excitement, took my mother to see "Dr. No." Sadly, the experiment failed. I am told that I took another three days to appear, although I like to think that my parents spared me the truth, that I was indeed born in a movie theatre, and that the first thing I ever saw in the universe was Ursula Andress's conch.
In short, I have been walking this Earth for as long as 007 has been patrolling our screens, and the contrast does neither myself nor my contemporaries any favors. On the wall of my bathroom is an original poster for "Goldfinger," sporting the tag line "Everything he touches turns to excitement!" This is not guaranteed to inspire good will when you're struggling to fix the shower head. Bond still drives an Aston Martin--his newest model is the unambiguous V12 Vanquish, which will doubtless come with accessories every bit as practical as the ejector seat of its predecessor, the DB5--whereas we grind around town in dented beige station wagons, equipped with state-of-the-art juice boxes and high-intensity dog hairs. Nothing is more galling than Bond's locomotion; still cruising after all these years, he has escaped the inferno of coach class, and, were we ever to glimpse him at baggage claim, glumly awaiting a faded holdall, the magic would drop away. As...
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