Comments on: Weekend Briefing at MI-6

By: Graeme Burk

Graeme Burk — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:28:21 +0000

I really like to watch [OHMSS] around this time of year, because itâ€™s the closest there is to a Bond Christmas Movie. Itâ€™s true! It happens around Christmastime, the freakinâ€™ VILLAIN has a Christmas tree set up in his evil headquarters, and even says â€œMerry Christmas 007!â€ at one point!

That's so true! I never thought of that before! Plus it has a children's choir singing a Christmas song written by John Barry!

By: Essential sequential Bond | Mister 8

Essential sequential Bond | Mister 8 — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:26:56 +0000

[...] Hatcher at Comics Should Be Good has written a nice overview of James Bond comics, with a few other tidbits about album and paperback art thrown in for good measure. He also points [...]

By: Matt Bird

Matt Bird — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:32:04 +0000

"Diamonds are Forever" is one where the book is much better than the movie. It also has the coolest big set pieces that still hasn't been used in the movies: Bond burning down a desert ghost town in the middle of the night while he gets away by handcar! Very cool image.

By: Andy Hajny

Andy Hajny — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:14:55 +0000

Super article! I was first introduced to JB with Diamonds Are Forever. I immeidiately bought the Bantam Book, and lo and behold, discovered that this was not the same Bond, or story that I had just watched in the theatre! I was just fortunate that Bantam betgan reprinting all of the Bond books with the mccarthy covers after that! I still have all of them in my collection!

By: Greg Hatcher

Greg Hatcher — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:49:06 +0000

You're probably right about the content restrictions. If you've seen Maryam d'Abo's documentary Bond Girls Are Forever (which is fluffy but fun, and on DVD now) Ursula Andress and Honor Blackman both point out that in the early sixties no one else dared to do what the Bond movies were doing in terms of sex and violence, and those movies look TAME today. And in Bond's prime in the mid 60's DC had the license tied up. As much as I love Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson, say, I think they would have been horrible for James Bond. I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if DC had tried a tie-in book back then, though.

By: suedenim

suedenim — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:10:09 +0000

Great article. I just recently read an interview with the writer in the Titan "Colonel Sun" volume (the only one I have yet to find in its original novel form.) Anyway, I think he points to the main reason Bond never made much impact in American comics - basically, content restrictions. In comic books, you had the Comics Code, of course, and comic *strip* syndicates were (and are) even more restrictive than that, usually.

By: Eric N.

Eric N. — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:44 +0000

Here's a link to OF Snelling's book on Bond, an updated version that was never printed, available with permission from the rights holder from Wesley Britton's SpyWise website. This is a big PDF file, so beware:

http://www.spywise.net/wbf/microscope.pdf

By: FunkyGreenJerusalem

FunkyGreenJerusalem — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:59:48 +0000

Itâ€™s kind of funny that the new Daniel Craig 007 movies are hailed as revolutionary and new when really, itâ€™s basically just going back to Flemingâ€™s original idea: playing it absolutely straight.

It's even funnier as Dalton was and is rather unpopular as Bond*, but that's exactly what he did with Bond, and in my opinion, did it much better than Craig - I like Craig's take, but he is really predictable as an actor - you know exactly what his face is going to like when it cuts to him, as he reacts the same way ever time (he's got one look for shock, one for angry etc). I quite like how with The Living Daylights, which was written for Moore, he took what would have been said-to-camera-with-a-smirk one liners, and snarls them out - you still get the line, but it's much more fearsome when said straight. It's a shame the legal issues popped up when they did - I would have loved to have seen more with Dalton. I wish he hadn't turned down Goldeneye when offered. *And whathisname in Flash Gordon - he really was in a different film to all the other ham actors around him in that one.

By: Stuart Basinger

Stuart Basinger — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:36:59 +0000

Nicely put.

Just for the record GOLDFINGER aired September 17, 1972 on the ABC Sunday Night Movie.

By: ninjawookie

ninjawookie — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:24:31 +0000

Also didn't Paul Gulacy include a James Bond Lookalike in his run of Batman Vs. Predator II?
God I still hate him for ruining Catwoman...or at least the people who decided to put him on the book. It's still raw.

By: ninjawookie

ninjawookie — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:22:25 +0000

Best Bond movies go

Casino Royale
From Russia With Love
On Her Majestys Secret Service.

Best Intro/themes/songs

James Bond is Back/From Russia With Love/John Barry
Goldfinger/Goldfinger/Shirley Bassey
Surrender/Tomorrow Never Dies/KD Lang

the intro to Majestys secret service instrumental is pretty amazing too. The Incredibles theme is pretty much almost a reproduction.

Best Bonds
Craig
Connery
Brosnan
Lazenby
Moore
Dalton

I sought out On her Majesties secret Service when I read Interviews with Christopher Nolan, about how that influenced Batman Begins Action and style. Probably not a coincidence they were both relaunches.

By: John Trumbull

John Trumbull — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:22:56 +0000

Good analysis of the Bond phenomenon, Greg. And THANK YOU for posting the Frank McCarthy art. I've thought his stuff was amazing for years, and some of these covers I've never seen before. There was a great Art of James Bond site up a few years back, but it's been gone for a while now.

Permission to Die was a lot of fun. And I'm still desperately waiting for John Pearson's Bond bio to come back into print.

OHMSS is my second or third favorite Bond movie. A friend of mine & I have been watching it every December for about 3-4 years now. Now, it just isn't Christmas until a certain significant someone dies in a hail of gunfire. Wish they could remake it with Daniel Craig.

By: Greg Hatcher

Greg Hatcher — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:45:48 +0000

Do you have 007 James Bond: A Report by O.F. Snelling? I enjoy his look at the early books of the franchise.

I do, and I like it too. I do think Amis' James Bond Dossier is better though.

By: Jack Norris

Jack Norris — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:56:08 +0000

OHMSS is fantastic, with the theme being one of Barry's greatest instrumentals. Also, Telly Savalas is a sorely underrated Blofeld. I really like to watch it around this time of year, because it's the closest there is to a Bond Christmas Movie. It's true! It happens around Christmastime, the freakin' VILLAIN has a Christmas tree set up in his evil headquarters, and even says "Merry Christmas 007!" at one point!

By: Kiki

Kiki — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:19:38 +0000

Great piece. I've tried to push the Silverfin book to the kids in the elementary library here, but they'd rather read Alex Rider. Not that I have anything against Alex Rider - the early books are pretty good, it's the later ones I don't care for quite so much - but I'd really like to grow them into Bond readers. As you said, Fleming has a great way of pulling you into the story. Do you have 007 James Bond: A Report by O.F. Snelling? I enjoy his look at the early books of the franchise.

By: Zombie X

Zombie X — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:36:28 +0000

Thanks for the great article.

Nice to see another Bond fan who loves it as much as myself.

And now that you mentioned it, it was the music that got me interested too.

Quantum of Solace is one of the worst movies of the series. A waste of Daniel Craig. Bond doesn't use his mind at all in this movie, except briefly in the opera scene.

A good Bond story is all mental except for moments of massive violence. Bond needs to do a lot of investigating and snooping and other mental gymnastics. It was Goldfinger who reminded Bond that curiosity killed the cat.

Thanks again.

By: Eric N.

Eric N. — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:39:59 +0000

Two things keep OHMSS from being the best Bond movie ever:

1. Lazenby, who isn't actually all that bad. But can you imagine this movie with Connery? On Earth-007, Connery was in this, and it set all-time box office records.

2. Every scene with the girls at Piz Gloria. The kilt. The voiceover. The orginess. It doesn't quite jibe with the tender love story we get shortly after.

Other than that, the movie is Bond perfection, the first attempt to retone the franchise in the way that the Dalton movies also failed to do successfully, and the in the way that Casino Royale is now celebrated for doing. OHMSS is by far the best Barry soundtrack (I also like Monty Norman's soundtrack for Dr. No, but it doesn't quite set the standard for Bond). Peter Hunt's directing and the cinematography, especially in that opening fight sequence, was nothing short of breathtaking. Diana Rigg? Beautiful, and tough. The ending? Heartbreaking!

By: DubipR

DubipR — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:02:17 +0000

Moench and Gulacy's Bond mini was extremely solid, but I happen to like the Marvel adaptation of For Your Eyes Only. Cool Chaykin interiors for an adaptation.

By: Coolio Hunt

Coolio Hunt — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 08:31:04 +0000

These illustrated comics & Books are cool. I read all the James Bonds Books including John Gardners & Raymond Bensons. I also have the Devil may care. I wish read the comic version too.

By: Andrew-TLA

Andrew-TLA — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:57:35 +0000

I like Moonraker. Maybe not as a Bond movie, but certainly as the best of 1979 Hollywood's attempts to cash in with Star Wars knockoffs (the others being The Black Hole and Star Trek).