Wednesday, February 08, 2006

More on Bond


My slighly batty Canadian friend Marty had some interesting things to say about the never tired topic of who was the best Bond in the comments section of the post below on Vesper Lynd. I thought I would re-post them here since we have very few readers who venture into the comments section:

[O]f course Sean Connery is the best Bond of them all. Of course, Moore turned the franchise into a cheezy parody of itself (a fact redeemed only by Live and Let Die). Yeh, Dalton was a little static, but his dramatic gravitas was a bracing breath of fresh air after Moore. The last couple of flicks with Brosnan as Bond have sucked, its true. But the first couple he did were among the best in the series. The opening sequence of Tomorrow Never Dies is the best of them all.

I didn't actually mind Lazenby; he was a good, low-key Bond in one of the more low-key of the original Fleming novels (he even gets married to the Bond girl at the end!). What I like the most about Lazenby, though, is that he is Australian. This creates somewhat of a precedent for the next Bond being chosen from an unrepresented part of the British Commonwealth. Look at it this way: Connery is Scottish, Moore and Dalton are English, Brosnan is Irish. Surely, the pattern is clear: the next Bond has to be either a Canadian or a New Zealander. It's just too bad that Christopher Plumber is past his prime for this kind of role. Of course, he's not much older than David Niven was when he did the original (satirical version) of Casino Royale.

Now, before you start laughing at the idea of a Canadian Bond, there are plenty of valid historical reasons for making such a choice. Ian Fleming actually based his portrayal of Bond on a Canadian agent (the name of whom escapes me at present) he commanded while serving in the British Secret Service during World War II. This agent was well known by Fleming for his many feats of daring do, including several successful infiltrations behind German lines after the Nazi retreat from Normandy, where he captured several key secret weapons installations (V-I&II launching sites among them). Don't believe me? go look it up. It should also be noted that the renowned World War II spymaster, "A Man Called Intrepid", was none other than William Stevenson - a Canadian.

That all having been said, Let's hear it for the next Bond guy being a Canuck. I hear Paul Gross might be available. Any takers? Oh yeah, and Bond should never, EVER, drive anything other than an Aston Martin.

A Canadian Conservative in America


A few final thoughts:

My friend Raphael thinks that Dalton was closest to the way Bond is in the novels--dark and brooding, among other things.

I forget what the other thing was. Oh well. We'll undoubtedly return to this topic again.

Posted by jwb at 12:50 PM   

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