Film critic Stephen Whitty analyses 007`s greatest on-screen moments

21-Dec-2008 • Bond News

Some 007 trivia: The new James Bond film - which I caught last week -- is the shortest one in the series so far, shorter even than "Dr. No," and "From Russia With Love," when the franchise was still finding its legs - reports nj.com.

It's also one of the fastest, with non-stop action. There's a good side to that (you never get a chance to catch your breath) and a bad one (you never really get a chance to know the bad guys, or the "Bond girls") and I'll go into both next week in my review.

But for now, it had me thinking about some other Bond firsts, lasts - and worsts. After the jump, a baker's dozen -- and a request, of course, for your own.

YOUNGEST BOND: Bond requires a certain world-weary experience - something that sets his movies apart from the various missions "Impossible" and "Bourne" whatevers. Boyish doesn't cut it. So George Lazenby, the baby of the bunch, was 30 when he made "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - but only two years younger than Connery was when he began the whole thing with "Dr. No."

OLDEST BOND. Bond requires a certain athleticism, too, as well as plausible desirability - and since 007 femme fatales are rarely out of their 20s, it's important they don't look like they're kissing their fathers in those love scenes. But Roger Moore was a distressing 58 when he made "A View to a Kill" - and a full five years older than Connery was when he finally decided to "Never Say Never Again."

MOST UNDERESTIMATED BOND: Timothy Dalton. Yeah, I know he doesn't get a lot of love among 007 fans - and even less attention. (Even George Lazenby is more of a presence - chiefly because his single installment was so much better than either of Dalton's.) But Dalton - serious, sour and 40-ish - was the first, necessary step away from the Lost Moore Years. Without Dalton's change of direction, there would have been no Brosnan - and definitely no Craig.

BEST "BOND GIRL": Yes, you always remember your first time, and for me it was seeing the shining Shirley Eaton in "Goldfinger" at the age of 5. (What were my parents thinking?) But to be calmly dispassionate about such a passionate subject, I think we have to declare it a three-way tie - and an eternal swimsuit competition between Ursula Andress in "Dr. No," Jill St. John in "Diamonds Are Forever" and Halle Berry in "Die Another Day."

BEST BOND WOMAN: For Bond, like Sherlock Holmes, there was only one woman, The Woman - and that was Tracy, as played by Diana Rigg in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," who left him forever shattered. (Although in the books, Vesper, as played by Eva Green in the latest "Casino Royale," was probably the first to truly crack his heart.)

BEST BOND SOUNDTRACK: It'll be one from John Barry, of course, and most fans will go for "Goldfinger" - but I think the music in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is far more beautiful and complicated. (Well, except for when Satchmo sings, which is a bit much.) Meanwhile 007 fans with a sense of humor will want to check out the CD to the original "Casino Royale," in which Burt Bacharach and the Tijuana Brass combine to create a kind of 1967 time capsule of pop.

BEST BOND FIGHT: The "Goldfinger" battle in the Fort Knox vault is fun, but the presence of Oddjob and that lethal bowler are the first signs of a silliness that would eventually climax in the ridiculous Richard "Jaws" Kiel. Even better is Bond's fight with Red Grant in "From Russia With Love" - hand-to-hand in an enclosed space, with a minimum of gadgets (thank heavens for that briefcase, though) and everything at stake.

BEST BOND OPENING: Poor Roger Moore. Let's give his films some credit, at least, for having one of the great jaw-dropping starts to a 007 picture - the beginning of "The Spy Who Loved Me," which featured a high-speed ski chase, a dive off a cliff, a surprise Union Jack punchline - and then Carly Simon singing "Nobody Does It Better" over a snazzy credits sequence.

WORST BOND ENDING: The finale of "Moonraker" which, trying to capitalize on the new "Star Wars" craze, sent Bond into orbit. A tiresome mess, made worse by the fact that the Fleming source novel - completely ignored, of course, as most were by now - actually has some of his tensest, tightest plotting.

BEST BOND VILLAIN: For me, the absolute best is the least known - Peter Lorre playing Le Chiffre in a 1954 TV version of "Casino Royale." A wonderful actor, Lorre caught perfectly that mix of sadism, snobbery and slight ennui that make up the best Bond bad guys. Once you get past him, it's mostly interchangeable -- character actors in Dr. Evil skullcaps, stroking white pussycats -- although I'll always have a fondness for Gert Frobe's Auric Goldfinger.

WORST BOND VILLAIN: Once Connery left for good, it was definitely a matter of doing Moore with less - and the villains he encountered tended towards cartoons like Christopher Walken in "A View to a Kill." Still, even a caricature was better than a bored non-entity, and perhaps the dullest of the bunch was Louis Jordan in "Octopussy."

BEST NEW BOND TRADITION: Connery's Bond could be a bit of a cranky imperialist (snapping "Fetch my shoes" to Quarrel, in "Dr. No," or dissing the Beatles in "Goldfinger") and an unapologetic sexist (with examples too numerous to list). So the era of Craig and Brosnan has come as a nice enlightenment - giving Bond some capable female partners, a formidable new M in Dame Judi Dench, Green as a woman he can't quite control in "Casino Royale" and a challenging African-American CIA comrade in Jeffrey Wright.

WORST OLD BOND TRADITION: Pussy Galore. Holly Goodhead. Plenty O'Toole. There was a dirty-minded 11-year-old boy inside Ian Fleming, and the movies continue to put his sniggering jokes on display, even when they've forgotten to give the double entendres a double meaning. (The latest lovely with a silly name? Strawberry Fields, in "Quantum of Solace.") I'm sorry, but it's about time the smirking 007 met that lovely Greek agent, Ima Sickathis.