Roger’s best moment: Either kicking Locque off of the cliff or the climb up the Meteora
Worst moment: His “seduction” of Solitaire. Just a horrific moment, made even creepier by how the film plays it off for a laugh.
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This gave me an idea… I dream of an underwater fight in the eerie kelp forest, as seen in My Octopus Teacher (in South Africa)
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Possibly a bit more niche, this one, as it largely depends on having read it (do read it if you haven’t, it’s very jolly).
I wonder how many times the one writer was the biographer of both the creator and the created?
Might have been amusing to see “this” James Bond become more involved in the inner workings and shady practices of SIS and tales ensuing from that, given that such stuff for the “fictional” one held no interest. Perhaps in a “M” like role, and reacting to subordinates (mis-)behaving like the “fictional” Bond. Possibly a bit of a thin joke, but hey ho.
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December 9: Wouldn’t it be time (and fun) to switch the perspective to the Mi6 crew and have M, Moneypenny and Q tell their version of events, in an interview format?
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What a good idea! A sort of Rashomon-gate approach to a Bond adventure. Inspired.
Can half-see this as a way to introduce the new film Bond in a creative way, and not waste the good actors they now have in those MI6 roles.
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December 9th
1974 Bond returns to find Honey gone along with his erstwhile biographer. If the truth gets out it could be irreparably damaging for Western security services. Bond goes south into Argentina to find them. Discovering a plot to clone … Well it goes a bit Boys From Brazil but… 007 versus a group of Neo Nazis in Argentina.
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December 9
I admit with shame that I haven’t read James Bond: The Authorised Biography. This is made even more shameful as I do own a copy, I bought it on a whim on e-bay but never got round to reading it. But as I am familiar with the concept of biographies I’ll have a go.
Volume 1 ends with Bond returning to the field so go forward from there. Show the events of the world unfolding from the perspective of an aging spy, where was Bond when the Berlin Wall fell?
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June 2021. Non-affiliated peer Lord Deighton-Bond of Argyll and Chelsea unexpectedly passes away at the ripe age of 100. By the misfortune of a government clerk (who would subsequently be moved to No 10‘s creative authority department) a hoard of classified government data relating to Lord Deighton-Bond was not deleted but posted to the official HMG Facebook account.
These documents, assessed by experts and pronounced legit, reveal that Lord Deighton-Bond was in fact the very real ‘real’ James Bond Fleming ‘fictionalised’ and Pearson met. After dealing with a desert rat plague in 1973 and various other threats throughout the 70s he was promoted to Head of Secret Intelligence Service.
In his new position Bond set out to put his stamp on the work of the Secret Service by instigating a number of deception and misinformation operations, like the fake headquarter at Vauxhall Cross that is actually made from cardboard and houses just a single landline with a 16 hour holding pattern playing Last Christmas (just try giving them a call) or the deliberate ‘misplacement’ of sensitive intelligence data on tube trains and busses.
From under this cover of idle buffoonery, the real agents of the real Secret Service have been working tirelessly to defend the UK and the free world against laser sharks and genetically altered were-rabbits and their evil creators; also because Bond, from 1974 Admiral Bond, as their CinC erected another line of defence against the opposition’s prying curiosity.
In 2003, in a twist on the original scheme with Ian Fleming, Bond - by then Lord Deighton-Bond - contacted the producers of a modestly successful series of Hollywood productions based on Fleming’s fictionalisations and offered them exclusive access to his personal mission files. In return, he reserved himself final approval of the resulting scripts and the cast.
In this manner, a number of potentially catastrophic international crises could be defused by dazzling and distracting extremist organisations and enemy operatives all across the globe.
When Lord Deighton-Bond finally retired from the Secret Service in 2016, at the age of 96, mainly because his duties as Head of SIS and his seat at the House of Lords didn’t leave him enough time to improve his golf handicap, he insisted Eon’s next production would mirror this turn of events.
Lord Deighton-Bond was married nine times and leaves behind three former and one current wive, as well as seven children and nine grandchildren. Lord Deighton-Bond’s family was contacted for comment.
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December 9: I’ve not read the Authorized Biography of 007, but I am familiar with most of the story. So I’ll give it a go.
1970: Honey Ryder-Bond gives birth to twins James Felix Bond and Monique Vesper Bond.
October 2001: Post-9/11, Monique Bond joins the service as the new 007, while James F. Bond is deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the SAS. Monique is tasked with tracking down an alleged Al-Qaida threat against the UK, while James tracks an Al-Qaida cell in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Along the way, they cross paths with Terrence Leiter of the CIA and an old enemy once thought destroyed. The twins uncover a plot against the west involving the new Russian President (a fictional Putin) that would make 9/11 look like child’s play. They must race against the clock to stop an attack on the post-9/11 G8 Summit in London, that would open the floodgates to World War III and create a power vacuum in the West. One that SPECTRE and Ernst Blofeld Jr. would be in perfect position to fill.
In a film adaptation released in 2002, James F. Bond would be played by David Tennant and Monique Bond by Kate Beckinsale.
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Confession is good for the soul. For penance you must read three Raymond Benson Bond novels, ater which you may post again.
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Three novels? See you all next year.
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December 9th. A sequel to The Authorized Biography?
Roses, Tanagra figurines and Debussy.
He plays Debussy every afternoon from sunset until it’s too dark to read the music.
Stands on his head a lot, eats royal jelly. Lets his intestines down and washes them by hand (something he learned during his sojourn in Tibet).
Almost forgot to mention the lions.
And a black rose. Not dark red, but black. As a raven’s wing at midnight.
He would not exchange one single petal for anything our world has to offer, including an Aston Martin with lethal accessories.
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Dec. 9:
James Bond: The Authorized Biography Of 007 Part 2 – I would continue on with James Bond’s adventures post-Ian Fleming similar to what John Pearson did the first go-around up through Fleming’s novels. I would start with Colonel Sun, which gets a bare a mention in the original biography, and carry 007’s exploits on through to 1981 to the start of the John Gardner run, whereupon I would stop. You could get a lot of good stuff from the late 1960s through the '70s and into the '80s–at which point Fleming’s iconic 007 would be approaching 60 years old and a good, well-earned retirement–if we’re going literal with the timeline. I, for one, would enjoy reading something like that.
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Seems to be a film that has suffered the most through lampoon. The look of the thing still holds up remarkably well; the volcano set is extraordinary and the rest of Fantasy Japan is all very exotic.
Against it: the “transformation” into a Japanese fisherman seems to involve a lot of scantily-clad lovelies and… a different hairpiece. Perhaps it deserves lampoon. Connery’s performance is often remarked upon as “bored”; I’d call it “embarrassed”. I accept the concept’s from the book but given how much of the book they binned, to have retained this aspect strikes one as an odd choice, and odder execution.
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Dec. 10:
I agree almost exactly with Jim.
The best parts of You Only Live Twice are the winsome Aki played by Akiko Wakabayashi, the affable Tiger Tanaka played by Tetsuro Tanba, and the terrifically Bondian autogyro Little Nellie–still the best Bond aircraft. But the absolute best part of YOLT is the amazingly fantastical volcano lair by the inimitable production designer Ken Adam–complete with piranha tank–the best set/lair in the entire franchise.
The worst thing about YOLT is the Japanese wedding. It brings the movie to a grinding halt for like five minutes and ultimately, story-wise, is meaningless. They could have just as easily made it appear that Kissy’s Uncle Tiger and his English friend James came to visit her on the island. You didn’t need the whole wedding shenanigans. Similarly, turning Bond “Japanese” was a waste of time too. He didn’t look all that Japanese and he really doesn’t use it to fool anybody in the film either, so what’s the point? Lastly, Sean Connery’s overall performance isn’t nearly as bad or bored as it’s made out to be, but there are instances where his lack of energy is apparent, and in those scenes, they do stand out like a sore thumb.
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“Sir…have you noticed that, just before our agents start dropping like flies when we’re working on a project, an “English” man named James with a Scottish accent turns up asking really pointed questions, makes death puns and hitting on our female agents?”
“Just one of those odd coincidences, I’m sure”
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It’s something that works a little easier in literary form. I like the small but potent element of believability Fleming gave the concept by having Bond mute and deaf as part of the disguise. I agree with all the positives you’ve listed too. You Only Live Twice is a good looking and sounding film.
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December 10:
Best YOLT-element: a tie between John Barry‘s score and Gilbert‘s directing idea of showing a bird’s eye view of Bond fighting his way over the roof. Accompanied by a fantastic piece of Barry score, of course.
Worst YOLT-element: clearly the make-up idea for transforming Connery into a Japanese fisherman. That hairpiece made me wince even as a „I love everything about James Bond“-idiot teenager. But I admit: how could anyone have pulled this off convincingly, especially with Connery‘s huge physicality? Maybe just a hat and the clothes?
I do think it’s hilarious though that Bond loses his disguise and nobody mentions it. Kissy probably was too embarrassed to say anything.
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December 10th - prologue
Sean Connery gives us possibly the greatest workingman’s strike ever commited to film. It’s a protest placard rather than a performance and as such is probably closer to the real Connery than anything he has ever done, petulant, bored caustic yet still bloody charming. YOLT could be twinned with Last Tango In Paris as an examination of when an actor truly shows themselves. As such it’s fascinating.
Best part - Not, in my opinion, the bombastic rooftop fight mentioned by @secretagentfan , which is great, but the knock on the head that occurs immediately after which is so iconoclastic that it’s almost punk.
Worst part - the wardrobe some terrible choices worst of all the light grey Ninja outfits, not even Connery can pull that off.
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