I went with proper because im aware Bond doesnt really cast outside of Britain so its a very small pool of actors who play “that role” in British tv and film. Theres two american actors who are in EVERYTHING because theyre local and cheap. It happens alot with Asian actors so you see the same ones playing multiple ethnicities in hundreds of things. I let it pass purely because that circulation around everything gave us Will Yun Lee - Japan in Hustle, China in Sleeping Dogs and Korea in DAD (His parents were south Korean so Bond was closest)
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Proper because casting really is difficult since there are not always tons of actors willing to play bit parts (not even in Bond films, especially not in TMWTGG) as dispensable victims who start out as brutal psychopaths.
And the timing also has to be perfect, the acting has to be at least adequate enough to hit marks and not blabber on while the lead actor has a line. It is astonishing how distracting even extras can be (DON´T LOOK INTO THE CAMERA!!!).
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I don’t know if “proper” is the right word, but it was certainly tradition.
Turkish spy chief Kerim Bey was played by a Mexican actor, Korean Oddjob was played by an American actor of Japanese descent, numerous Russians were played by Austrian, British, German, Polish, etc actors, Moneypenny was Canadian and OHMSS featured an Australian James Bond in a kilt.
Of course today a lot of that would get Eon the stink eye, but at the time it was “proper” enough. Does that make it just institutionally sanctioned racism? Maybe, but it makes it hard to single out Eon for targeted criticism. At one point, actors just asked, “What’s the part?”, got the answer, “You’re a Brazilian businessman” and they just said, “Right, got it. Let’s go.” Ricardo Montalban in particular I’ve seen in Native American, French, Japanese, and most famously Sikh roles without ever bothering to change his Mexican accent. My kids’ generation may have an issue with that, but by now I’m inured to it.
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I must say (must I?) that I do understand the feeling of “they cast a heterosexual left-handed German as a transsexual right-handed Honduran?”.
But in the end, actors should not be cast because they fit the role due to having the same characteristics in real life. They should be cast because they are great actors who can play that particular part.
Otherwise - forget about anybody playing Hamlet who is not a Danish prince?
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Also, adapting The Lord of the Rings would be hellishly difficult…
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…but he’s got blond hair.
Etc.
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Andrew Scott has pointed out he wouldnt have the two roles he’s most known for if the roles had been cast like that being neither a consulting criminal or a sexy priest.
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Or John Wayne as Genghis Khan.
Or Sean Connery as Soviet submarine captain with scottish accent…
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It might be odd to have Daniel Day Lewis play Martin Luther King, Jr. But who knows?
The issue of Asian casting has come up lately with the musical “Maybe Happy Ending.”
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Those are personality traits/behavioral qualities. Anyone can possess them. What Scott lacks, and cannot act, is the melanated complexion to play Thurgood Marshall.
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Absolutely-the actor also has to be able to convincingly portrait someone.
But while Day-Lewis worked well as Lincoln he would have been miscast as Jerry Lewis.
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Sean was great fun, using that wonderful Scottish accent to play not only a Russian sub commander, but also a Norwegian explorer, an Irish cop, an American cavalry officer, an immortal Spanish swordsman, a Moroccan Sharif, a Scandinavian security officer and a certain British superspy, among others.
On the other hand, sometimes attempting to fit one’s accent to the role is an even worse move, as we learned with Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and Roger Moore in Escape to Athena.
My favorite example of working the other way around (“exotic” actor playing “typical Joe”) was Vladek Shebal in Gerry Anderson’s UFO. There he was in all his creepy glory with that “don’t know where he’s from but it isn’t here” face and Polish accent, and what’s his character’s name? Doug Jackson. LOL
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I’m going with “Proper” as that was probably the case at the time. But in the interests of nostalgic second-guessing, it’s clearly “Slopper” in this day and age. Until tomorrow, let me binge watch this old show from the 70s that I found, with “Minstrels” of all things…….
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Can’t believe I forgot to include Joseph Wiseman as the "Chinese/German” Dr No. Eon declared their intentions early.
I suppose it could’ve been worse. Just think, as bad as “fetch my shoes” has dated, what if Quarrel were played by Roy Kinnear with a burnt cork facial?
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I guess “Tanner” would run in the family……
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Just a few years earlier and that might have been even likely. Just think of Charlie Chan and Mr Moto - and in Germany we‘ve had our own Winnetou played by Frenchman Pierre Brice as late as 1962 and well into the 1980s, amongst the most successful German productions of the 60s (and the CC/MM serials were a success in our 3rd tv channels)*. It simply wasn’t an age for a critical review of cultural appropriation on a broad scale.
*Interestingly, Chan, Moto and Winnetou were not only cases of yellow/red-facing but already in their source material entirely US/European-centric fiction without any significant authenticity regarding their central characters. And perhaps therefore hugely successful with an audience that just didn’t know better. Who should have told them after all?
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And then there is Joel Grey in Guy Hamilton’s REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS (1985). I prefer to think of his career ending with EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982).
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Thank you. I did not know.
He is my once and forever emcee in CABARET.
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December 2.
Right, The Living Daylights. Tolerate me on this one, it’s a little convoluted but then that’s very The Living Daylights.
Bond and Kara escape Bratislava in the snow for Vienna in the late summer / early autumn, which is only about 50 miles away and it’s not particularly mountainous between the two. One is now at the age to be targeted by river cruise brochures and a cursory glance at the Danube one tends to suggest a relatively flat bit of land between the two capitals.
Not only this, but on the same day it’s lunchtime in Tangiers (Whitaker is feeding his fat face) and Necros is having a lovely swim-swim and Koskov is plotting the death of another British agent to lure Bond into action against Pushkin. There’s no particular evidence the conspirators are aware that Bond has just arrived in Vienna nor in Bratislava at all nor had met Kara, albeit (granted) Koskov knows of Saunders’s existence.
Tangiers and Vienna are at the same time, if not the same timezone - +1 GMT.
On the basis that it takes 5 hours to fly from Tangiers to Vienna even if directly (easyPussy has a stopover in Brisbane), and the scene in the Prater Cafe takes place at (a very busy) midnight at the end of that day, the following has to have occurred:
- Bond watches Kara playing; sees her get arrested; establishes that the bullets were blanks, drops the gun in the river; Kara is released (or is that the next day?); they meet; they go back to get the cello (not a violin); they drive out of Bratislava - that’s surely midday by then. Ice chase and cello escape - got to be about midday earliest. Bond and Kara arrive in Vienna. Early afternoon? Given that he is able to check in immediately at the hotel rather than wait around or pay billions of Schillings for the early check-in con.
- Lunch in Tangiers - let’s say that scene ends at 1.15 or so.
- They have to establish that Bond is in Vienna; there would be little point killing Saunders even if they are sure he is there, which they cannot be. (Indeterminate amount of time to work this out, even if it could be worked out on any evidence available to them)
- Sod it, Vienna’s nice at this time of year even if it’s the depths of winter barely 50 miles from it, let’s go there even if there is no obvious reason so to do. Change out of your appealing speedos, Necros m’love, and hie thee to the airport, where you will have to wait 2 hours for your flight anyway. Easily 5 p.m. by the time he gets onto the flight.
- Five hour flight at least, so let’s say 10 p.m. arrival
- Between 10 p.m. earliest and midnight, Necros has to:
- buy some balloons and some batteries for his one-song walkman. Possibly a pen to write “Smiert Spionam” onto one balloon to ensure Bond, who he cannot know will be there, sees it.
- somehow establish that Bond is in Vienna and will be meeting Saunders and that will be at the Prater Cafe and that will be at midnight. How?
- build/acquire and set the detonator without anyone seeing him. I know Whitaker is an arms dealer and Vienna airport security is lax given that they admit the Taliban in the last scene of the film, but how could Necros possibly know he would need a detonator unless he knew of the Prater Cafe meeting, which unless obvious traitor Sir Frederick Gray has been leaking like a f****d 'fridge again, he can’t.
The death of Saunders is not just brutal, arguably unnecessary but also absolute nonsense.
I know all Bonds can be picked apart but this one picks me apart and has gnawed at me for years. Yes, it doesn’t matter, just bear a couple of hours of light entertainment, but by truncating all this into the events of one afternoon and evening (and considering the significance of the incident to motivate Bond for the rest of the “plot”), is this:
Proper - even if it’s another example of The Living Daylights’ determination not to make things easy for the audience, given that the plot is a mess, and timeframes in Bond films are not to be trusted anyway
or
Slopper - just get it filmed and out there, we have a release date in the Summer of 1987 to meet
- Proper
- Slopper
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