New Bonds fail to strike a chord with John Barry

"I haven’t been a Bond fan in a long time" he tells The International Express in his soft Yorkshire brogue. "I gave up after Living Daylights in 1987. I had exhausted all my ideas, rung all the changes that were possible. It was a formula that had run its course. The best had been done as far as I was concerned".

Barry identifies co-producer Harry Saltzman’s sale of his share of the franchise to United Artists in 1975 as the turning point. "There used to be one solid school of people. When that broke down, I didn’t know who was running the show anymore. That’s why when you see them on television, you don’t say "Oh no, it’s an old Bond", you say "Wow, it’s an old Bond, that’s great"".

"You see one of the newer films on and you think "Forget it, I’ll watch something else"".

He is still friends with Barbara Broccoli, current Bond producer and daughter of original Bond co-producer Cubby, but Barry will not be rushing out to see the new film (Casino Royale).

Barry sees Bond soundtracks as a clumsy excuse to advertise pop songs, inserted into action with little thought. As a result he does not even visit cinemas now, let alone work on soundtracks.

Barry also talks about his problems with Saltzman, who had told the composer that he hated the song Goldfinger, before it became a massive international hit. The song only made it into the film because it was too late to take it out.

The success of the Bond movies, Barry maintains, was a result of everyone working at the top of their game in a very special period.

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