ALL SCI-FI

[John Thiel]

Sean Connery's facial features have always seemed disproportionate to me, the various parts not working together harmoniously. Perhaps this is due to the way he mugs a reaction to something in the film that's supposed to affect him. He is always shown in the publicity fondling a gun, which doesn't make him look really admirable. In this film Ursula Andress looked dowdy and plastered rather than gorgeous, which is apparently said over the same thing I'm looking at. She also seemed awkward most of the time. For me this makes the film into an existential situation in which the characters don't relate to their environment. Also the bullets when shown always are dum-dum bullets, which don't penetrate a body with very great ease.

Most every Bond film except Casino Royale (I have a copy of the book to prove this one existed) has a science fiction element, for example the atomic bomb in Goldfinger, the machinery in Dr. No, but the only one that came really close to actually being science fiction was Moonraker, which had a sort of science fiction plot going on. Dr. No was somewhat like a horror fantasy in the Sax Rohmer tradition, with that sf element where the doctor had space program interference equipment. But the important thing, as in all espionage books, is how bad he was and how he was messing with the government.
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How do you do, folks? I sure am glad to see y'alls.

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

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I'll say one thing for you, John, you certainly provide a fresh perspective on these things!

What's the fun of message board where everybody agrees? No fun at all, I say!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Well....Since I've been told a number of times that I bear a strong resemblence to Mr. Connery, I don't quite know how to take your comments! And if you think Ursula looked "plastered".....Well...give me a well plastered bird anytime! They always help to ventilate me' kilt!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Custer]

While Ursula Andress in her white bikini, emerging from the sea, is the iconic image in the James Bond series, I see that she later appeared as Vespa Lind... in the first "spoof" version of Casino Royale...

[Bud Brewster]

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In my opinion, Ursula looks better in that sexy dress above than in the bikini, because her shoulders are too wide in relation to her hips for my tastes. She's built sort of like "Big John" from that Jimmy Dean song: "Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip".
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Custer]

Sailor’s belt made Bond film history

(From The Times today, by Anna Behrmann)



In one of the most famous moments in the Bond films, Ursula Andress emerges from the sea in a white bikini, approaching Sean Connery.

For one retired Royal Navy officer, this scene from the first James Bond film, Dr No in 1962, has great significance, because the star was wearing his webbing belt.

Gordon Joslin, 83, then a 28-year-old on HMS Troubridge, gave his belt to Andress, who was playing Honey Ryder, because she thought her bikini was “missing something”. Sailors from the ship had been watching the film being made in Jamaica.

He told The Mail on Sunday that an officer had ordered him to take it off. “He grabbed it off me and it was wrapped around her hips. I didn’t get it back.”

Andress sold the outfit for £41,125 in 2001. Mr Joslin said he did not receive any payment for his belt.

He added that when the film came out nobody believed him.


Mr Joslin with a belt of the same type

Comments on the article online point out that the belt would have been Navy property, rather than Mr. Joslin's...

[johnnybear]

Sean Connery was the best Bond by far! He was as tough as Bond in real life, could charm the beautiful ladies into bed and moved like a panther! He looked a bit rough in his early films just as Fleming had written the character! And Connery's gals were the best of the series and have never been equaled let alone beaten!
JB

[Bud Brewster]

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On the subject of Bond, I agree that Sean was excellent, and his portrayal inspired a generation of young guys who yearned to be cool secret agents.





In the early 1960s I constructed a crude shoulder holster out of elastic from Mom's sewing kit, cardboard from inside the package a new shirt came in, and black electrical tape. I put a pistol which used blanks to start races in it and secretly wore it under my suit coat when the family went to church a few days later.

Seriously.





As for the Bond films, the passage of time has made me less fond of the Connery era movies. As action films go, they don't fare well in comparison to more recent movies, such as the Pierce Brosnan versions of James Bond.

But that's an unfair comparison, because audiences in the 1960s would have been shocked by movies like Die Hard, and they certainly would have been horrified by the brutal action in the newer Bond films with Daniel Craig.

But the Bond films starring Sean Connery weren't meant to be action movies in the strictest sense. They were spoofs of thrillers, with tongue-in-cheek plots and loads of imagination, along with strong ties to science fiction.





They sold us on the idea that Bond battled evil men with wit and charm, relying on violence only when absolutely necessary.





The formula gelled perfectly in Goldfinger (the only Sean Connery 007 film I own) —





— but the franchise drifted away from it's true focus with each subsequent movie. Thunderball spent much more money . . . but if just wasn't as good.





The world itself changed around the fantasy realm of Bond until finally the lighthearted escapism of James Bond clashed with the reality of Vietnam and race riots.

Personally I feel that the Pierce Brosnan films did a fine job of resurrecting the Bond mythos as much as possible, ramping up the action just enough, while keeping the suave character, without making him a parody of the Sean Connery version.





And for the record, the Bond Girls were every bit a good as the ones in the Connery films.









As for Roger Moore, all I'll say is that he didn't work for me in the first film, and all he did after that was get progressively older.

But the Pierce Brosnan movies still work for me. The pre-title action sequence in Goldeneye when Bond skydives to catch up with a pilotless nose-diving plane to escape the Russian soldiers and their mountaintop fortress was . . . draw-dropping!





In short, Pierce is a great Bond, and Dame Judith Dench is a delightful M.

The lovely Samantha Bond (with her ironic name) is a sexier MoneyPenny than Lois Maxwell, even before the lady got WAY to old too play the role.

And Desmond Llewelyn managed to play Q just as well in his last appearance in the role as he did in his first.

The Danial Craig films are gritty, action packed, and deliberately divorced from everything that made Bond a global sensation in the early 1960s. A line in Casino Royal says it all about the current Bond films, when Craig orders a Vodka Martini.

"Shaken or stirred, sir?" the bartender asks.

"Do I look like I care?" Craig replies.

(Oh. Okay. We get the message.)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Bud, if you haven't seen Connery;s second Bond film FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE I would HIGHLY recommend it.



It was the most "spy" centric of the films as well as having a great pair of villians in an exciting story.

A reviewer on IMd site makes the perfect view "

"This has to be my favorite bond. It mixes the best aspects of an action movie with the necessary espionage. Recent Bond attempts have moved away from the "spy-game" aspect and rely more on large explosions to dazzle the viewer. Kerem Bey, the Turkish spy leader, is as much a partner and foil for Bond as there ever was. Any movie with a gypsy fight, absurd helicopter assassination attempts, and boat chase has to be great.

Also, Daniella Bianchi is my favorite Bond girl. Her truceau is as sexy as it gets, though this is a subject every true Bond fan will debate about. The only objection is that they dubbed her voice into a more coarse, Russian accent. Overall, it is a wonderful movie that spans the globe and defeats SPECTRE. James Bond will return, but never with as much intrigue, beauty, and suspense as "From Russia With Love"."



If you haven't seen it....give it a look.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

[Gord Green]

BUD WROTE:

[Bud Brewster]

[scotpens]