I agree that Hitchcock used everyman heroes. He was like Eric Ambler, in that sense. Most of his spy films - North By Northwest, Notorious, the 39 Steps, Torn Curtain, the Lady Vanishes etc - all had non spies in a spy situation.
As for James Stewart, Dr No came out the same year as Mr Hobbs Takes a Vacation. His image, at the best of times, was like Tom Hanks’ is now. People would have seen him, not the character, and they wouldn’t have like him to be either deadly or too red-blooded.
Did anyone do series which weren’t Bs in those days? Sequels weren’t really a thing. It took The Odd Couple thirty years to get one.
This is probably starting to derail the thread, so I’ll try to keep this brief…
What later became Thunderball started out as a very different kettle of fish back then: Bond was going to act under cover as a USO entertainer to investigate a stolen bomber with one nuke (IIRC that is) on board. It was a mafia scheme and Bond was to team up with a female agent M had already placed close to the baddies.
Even with this little information it already looked like a very unusual Bond adventure. In my view, if this had actually been the first Bond film, then the series might have turned out quite differently. It might also not have been a very successful film, at least if it had not gotten the extensive rewrites by Whittingham.
Stewart back then was ironically indeed just cast as an agent - FBI agent in The FBI Story. This was more or less an episodic sanitised history of the Bureau up to then, conceived largely as a PR vehicle to drum up support and goodwill with the taxpayers.
If you haven’t read “The Battle For Bond” by Robert Sellers, it is essential reading for any Bond fan, with a few caveats of course,
I wouldn’t call is a ‘fair & balanced’ version of events; It definitely leans toward McClory’s side and gives him a wide pass on a few occasions,
there are also some incidents/events that don’t quite line up with other reports and the writer almost always takes McClory’s side on those disputed events.
It does, however, give you some insight into a number of key events in Bond history that have long gone under-reported;
On Sellers’ book: it does give McClory’s version plenty of room. But I wouldn’t say it always takes his side. McCloy is hardly depicted flatteringly. Alone the anecdote of the house sitter towards the end of the book draws a pretty ghastly picture of him.
That said, no character is spared in this book, Fleming, Cuneo and Bryce all come across as rather less than gentlemen and the whole unsavoury affair leaves most of the people involved stained. In Fleming’s case, that even meant losing what little health he had left.
Yes, I agree too. We sort of got it with Brosnan, who is an American citizen (now), and his films felt too Americanized. Bond is British, keep him British.
It was a very specific slip into a very specific regionally Irish accent , which to some sounds American, I’m pretty sure that Brosnan referenced his reasons for doing this in Irish TVs Late Late Show, as well as naming Goldfinger as the first movie he ever saw when he first moved to London
I remember hearing that the reason John Cleese’s character was renamed Q in DAD was because Brosnan couldn’t convincingly pronounce “R” with a British accent. I don’t think Brosnan intentionally slipped in his Americanish-Irish accent. I just don’t think he could properly do a British accent. Listen to how he says “nice work” to Wai Lin in TND, it is very, decidedly Irish. In linguistics, its well accepted that the “r” sounds are the most difficult to make in any language. That said, there’s no excuse for the “Bahnd, James Bahnd” from TWINE.
I enjoyed that more than I wanted to! The TND and DAD scenes were more than fitting, but also Melania in the hot air balloon. Some of the dialogue works better in this than the original movies.
Still want Rupert Friend for Bond #7. Won’t happen now that Craig is back as Bond for the next one, though, although this could serve as a teaser for a fanfic I’m working on. Oh well, what could have been.
