31 days, 31 questions

Not the most original idea, I know, but one question each day for December, as a sort-of Advent Calendar (and a few days beyond) of speak-your-Bond-brain. Fire away…

December 1: 2022 marks 60 years of Dr No. Good Sign, Bad Sign – your major like and (if any) your major dislike about it?
December 2: 2022 marks 20 years since The Man with the Red Tattoo, the last Benson Bond. Were you speaking to someone who hasn’t read them, of his six novels which one would you recommend to the reader and which one would you recommend to the recycling?
December 3: 2022 will be the 35th anniversary (gulp) of The Living Daylights. Your Daylights Highlights and Daylights Lowlights are…?
December 4: 2021 saw 50 years of Diamonds are Forever and 40 years of For Your Eyes Only. Nobody really noticed, but that’s because they are Diamonds are Forever and For Your Eyes Only. Time for salvage work, or will you kick them off a cliff?
December 5: Across their 60 years, the Bond films have won five Academy Awards. Whose contribution to the Bond films seems to have been the most overlooked when it comes to handing out the occasional prize?
December 6: 2021 saw the 15-year tenure of the 6th Bond come to an end. Best moment? And most glaring missed opportunity?
December 7: It seems pretty unlikely we’ll ever see one Bond in seven films again, so… Roger Moore’s best Bond scene? And least lovely?
December 8: According to Wikipedia (probably wrong) Italy is the 8th largest world economy. How remains a mystery, given the massive tax breaks granted for shooting so many recent Bond films there. Still fecund with possibility though Italy may be, where would you like to see Bond go (country, city, or specific location/attraction) that he’s never been (onscreen) before?
December 9: 2021 saw the passing of John Pearson (RIP). If The Authorised Biography were to have a sequel, pitch your idea… here.
December 10: 2022 marks 55 years of You Only Live Twice. Twice is the only way to live; on that basis, one good thing and one bad thing about it.
December 11: Credited with the score for 11 Bond films, what’s your favourite John Barry piece for a Bond film (whole score or specific doo-dah-diddle)?
December 12: With 25 Eon Bonds now out there, 12th place is just-about-top-half. That’s maths, that is. What’s your just-about-top-half 12th place Bond film, and why?
December 13: M. The thirteenth letter. Favourite M scene? Least favourite?
December 14: 2022 will be 65 years since the publication of From Russia With Love. Often regarded as Fleming’s best novel – is it? Why? And if not, which one is?
December 15: Suppose we have to do this one, so… 2022 will mark 20 years of Die Another Day. Time to draw the line. There must be something to like in there… isn’t there? Limit yourself to one dislike, too.
December 16: (Slightly tenuous) Wikipedia again (it says hi!): between Diamonds are Forever and Never Say Never Again, Sean Connery appeared in 16 non-Bond feature films (excluding short films and documentaries and fifteen-second appearances in the UK hiding from the tax man). What’s your favourite non-Bond Connery film (made at any time)?
December 17: Q being the seventeenth letter of the alphabet… best Q-bit? Least necessary/most violently egregious Q-bit?
December 18: In 2021, Ian Fleming Publications surprised Bond fans by announcing a series of novels based around the japery and mapcap scrapes of other 00 agents. Looking forward, or dubious? Any other Bond universe / Mondo Bondo angles you would pitch to them?
December 19: 2012-2022: the Skyfall decade. Still a great success, or primarily responsible for laying the stony path to subsequent dodgy decisions?
December 20: 2022 will mark 25 years of Tomorrow Never Dies. Surely it’s the “Best Brosnan”. Surely? No? Why not?
December 21: Octopussy found itself unleashed in Bond’s 21st birthday year. Which bit of it gets your golden egg? Which bit deserves a whack around the head with a clown shoe?
December 22: 2021 saw 40 years of Licence Renewed. Should you find yourself consorting with anyone unfamiliar with Gardner’s Bond, what would be your number one recommendation? And one to commit to a Crimson! Fireball!?
December 23: Christmas! Jones! Really the worst Bond girl? No other candidates? Really?
December 24: Christmas! Eve! Your favourite and least favourite Moneypenny scenes?
December 25: Now I have some radioactive lint and a photocopier the size of a family hatchback. Ho-Ho-Ho. On the basis Die Hard might be considered a Christmas film – OHMSS: a Christmas film? Yay or nay?
December 26: Ah, Boxing Day. We’re told that Bond set up a judo club and also boxed whilst at Fettes. What sport/pastime as yet unseen in the Bond films would you like to see him participate in?
December 27: Not counting short stories, Young Bond, Moneypenny Diaries and novelisations, there are 27 James Bond novels not written by Ian Fleming. Which one would you wish to see filmed?
December 28: 2021 saw 10 years of Carte Blanche, and an equally blank card for anything directly following it. Acknowledging that 2022 will bring the final “in-period” Horowitz, is the future of Bond-lit to keep it in the Fleming era and slide stories in somehow, or bring it up-to-date? Or – just stop now, there’s already more than enough?
December 29: 2022 marks 45 years of The Spy who Loved Me. What a handsome craft; such lovely lines. Best line, worst line?
December 30: (Time for a bit of creativity) Hello from the future. I have just staggered out of Bond 30. Wow. I thought Bond 25 was pretty brutal… but this… what did I just see?
December 31: Other than the possibility of a new Bond being announced, and various books finding themselves hurled our way by the usual suspects wanting our attention, validation and money, anything you would really like to see done to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Eon series / 70th anniversay of Fleming starting to write Casino Royale? (Accepting that Eon26 isn’t going to happen).

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December 1: What I do like is its capacity to be watched and enjoyed just as much (if not more) in black and white as in colour. I would recommend that. Not massively keen on the music; for all its future-looking design and plot and editing and momentum, the score (save for the Bond theme, which rescues it) seems stuck in the fifties.

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December 1st - like @Jim a black and white watch is highly recommended. For me the endurance of the film series rests on Connery’s performance. It’s as influential to cinema acting, as Brando’s performance in ‘on the waterfront’. The script is at best rudimentary and 60 years on the colonialism is difficult to watch.

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December 1: Sean nailed Bond in his first appearance and defined the role. I love the leisurely, detective vibe of the movie and Ken Adam’s production design. The only lacking area is Monty Norman’s dated score (apart from the hugely iconic James Bond Theme, that is).

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December 1: It has a sincerely unsettling atmosphere, and it is more of an adventure story than the spy thriller its successor became. As a 8 year old, watching it in a cinema during a rerun, I was even scared by many scenes, not being sure how the hero might get out these predicaments. Watching it in b&w is a great idea!

Major like: The freshness of the whole enterprise.

Major dislike: Filled with racist tropes.

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Also watch…
Live and Let Die in Black and White - it works very well

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Maybe DAD could also improve in b&w…

Without sound too

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Harsh.

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I was thinking you could turn the image off and make it into radio.

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DN Likes: a fledgling Bond figuring out the role.

DN Dislikes: its racist tropes

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Dr No is an interesting film and one worth revisiting as it shows the genesis of a lot of the signature of the elements. We get the first Bond girl, fist villain, fist lair etc. If I had to chose a single scene I’d say the confrontation with Professor Dent is the real stand out moment for me and shows just how cold and ruthless Bond can be.
However from a modern perspective it’s not the best introduction to Bond as many elements have aged poorly, particularity those in relation to race with Dr No not being played by an Asian actor probably being the most egregious. As such it should be viewed as a time capsule of the era it was made.

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Dec 1:

Dr. No is a great film and plays very similar to an actual Ian Fleming novel (though, ironically, the Dr. No novel is completely bat-sh*t crazy and OTT). The film feels like a time capsule of the early 60s. That does include the bad stuff too, though. Mainly the casual racism towards Quarrel and casting a white actor as an Asian. That said, Joseph Wiseman still gives one of the best villain performances in the entire series.

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December 2: Although it might not make much sense in total isolation as it is mid-cycle, have always thought DoubleShot is worth a read. On the other hand, Never Dream of Dying is an awful book and probably the worst Bond novel, and by some distance.

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Dec. 1:

Dr. No is a great introduction to the series with a surprising number of items the production team got correct right off the bat. It is a low-key entry but a solid one, nonetheless.

Major like: There’s a lot to like, but I’ll go with the excellent James Bond Theme by Monty Norman and polished off by inimitable John Barry. It exudes super cool, swagger, danger, action, and excitement–often all at once. Much of the rest of the score except for two or three tunes is only so-so, but just for the James Bond Theme alone, I am forever grateful that we got Norman (and Barry) on Dr. No and wouldn’t have it any other way. :smiley: :+1:

Major dislike: As with Goldfinger later, a car–in this case, a hearse–goes over a cliff and explodes before it ever hits anything. Not realistic at all. They should have held off the explosion until the vehicle hits the trees (and in Goldfinger, the building).

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December 2: I have to admit… I never read a Benson Bond and finished it.

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December 2: I’ll do you one worse, I didn’t read all of the Fleming novels until after the age of 30. I read my first one in high school.

I’d recommend Benson’s novelizations before anything else.

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December 2nd - I would suggest to the person to re read Fleming rather than any of the Benson novels
If pressed, High Time To Kill is the one I find most passable. The Man With The Red Tattoo however :nauseated_face:

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December 2:
I found Benson’s work to be very uneven. I really enjoyed Zero Minus Ten and thought it was a great start to his run. High Time To Kill was definitely his best, it was an unconventional Bond adventure and that’s what worked in it’s favour. The mountaineering plot was really innovative, Roland Marquis made a good villain and I thought the final reveal about which members of the party were Union was very well done.

Unfortunately later novels couldn’t keep the momentum going and the Union storyline didn’t live up to the potential of the first installment. I did somewhat enjoy DoubleShot, mostly because I found the detail of Bond’s double having a Welsh accent bizarrely funny. But things definitely fizzled out by Never Dream of Dying.
As for The Man With The Red Tattoo, even though I’ve read it relatively recently I can barely remember the story beyond the first chapter.

But to end of something positive, I think the best character Benson introduced was Bond’s PA Nigel Smith. He was a nice subversion of the trope of Bond having relationships with his PA and I thought the 2 of them had some great banter.

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December 2: DoubleShot is the only Benson I find remotely palatable. While completely predictable, he managed to infuse the action with a touch more gravitas than he did in his other novels. He also, ever so slightly, toned down his cringe-inducing depiction of women which is the chief reason I find his books unreadable (no other Bond author, even Fleming writing in the 50s, wrote women as poorly as Benson).

While I’d like to recycle all the rest, I’ll single out The Facts of Death as the worst of the bunch.

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