[doctor no] when taken in context

Tiberius Gracchus would be the first to admit the principle that one can’t judge the past by present day standards.

As many of you know, the original Bond films have been re-released in cleaned up digital format; the visual and sound quality is excellent in one sense but a bit clinical in another. It seems not unlike the early CDs against the vinyls – tonal qualities are missing.

What’s also missing is the societal context in which the Bond films appeared.

It’s obvious to say that the early sixties were a follow on from the fifties but it’s as well to dwell a little on that time, the era of Stalin-Krushchev, the Rosenbergs, the reaction against McCarthyism, Britain getting back on its feet and the post-war death of its cuisine, the early years of the youth revolution, of Philby, Burgess and Maclean, immediately pre-Kennedy assassination, an era of Dien Bien Phu and the fall of French prestige, despite or perhaps because of de Gaulle; this was the time of The Manchurian Candidate, the Sinatra rat pack and the advent of the Beatles and the Stones.

Watch clips of ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah’ or ‘Not fade away’, even watch the Yardbirds’ ‘I’m a man’ on Youtube, with the naive dancing floozies high kicking and that was the context of Dr. No.

Quite frankly, I don’t find Wiseman in the least menacing and his demise was a bit pathetic; like Buddy Holly, the early guitar quartets and the days of the 12 song LP, [no more than 12], comprising two hits and the rest fillers - it all seems nice but a bit thin in production values.

The trouble is, Bond films don’t bear scrutiny.

They’re all about image, in the context of its day – fine for what it was at the time but eventually dating; even Moore is now so dated and yet Live and Let Die was vibrant at the time and the graveyard voodoo sequence a bit unnerving. The Connery era largely passed me by and I was brought up on Moore’s Moonraker et al and let’s face it, it was escapist, fantasy entertainment.

For me, OHMSS and The Living Daylights were far superior films, the only problem being the lead actors. Bond films really must reflect current realities, as was shown by the way Licence to Kill did not do that, a good film, set in a boring part of the U.S., as was Diamonds are Forever … but years ahead of its time.

People were not ready for that Dalton darkness then and yet Craig today has quite acceptably reprised the revenge motif in Quantum of Solace, doing the scrunched up scowl better than Timothy Dalton but still leaving one wondering whether he has any other tricks up his sleeve.

Having grown up in the Moore era, that doesn’t mean we have to like the lightweight flippancy and I’d vastly prefer the brooding menace underlying From Russia with Love and in the new[ish] Casino Royale … but does Connery deliver?

I’d say, on balance, no.

Look at the moment when he appears to Honey Rider, crooning behind a tree and getting a silly look on his too young face. Connery doesn’t stand the scrutiny of time, sad to say. Yet the overwhelming memory most have of those early Bonds was of Connery at his peak, at his most dangerous.

Ursula Andress is a puzzle to me. Did people really find her beautiful or the way she appeared from the sea remarkable? I thought Halle Berry did it better but the setting was better in the original. No, Andress I find far too masculine with that strong body, as was Caterina Murino, a man in a woman’s shell and perhaps Eva Green and the huge Olga Kurylenko also failed to excite. People even found Grace Jones beautiful so it takes all kinds, it seems.

I’d hardly expect any man to agree with me here.

Maryam d’Abo, whilst her character in TLD was annoyingly cloying, was at least tall, elegant and feminine. Sigh. Why can’t women be women, like Carole Bouquet [who can actually act, by the way – see For Your Eyes Only] and why can’t men be either less than neanderthal [Vin Diesel] or with more testosterone than the average, present day, oppressed, emasculated, weaker sex [take your pick]?

Someone like Topol [Columbo in For Your Eyes Only] or Gabriele Ferzetti [Draco in OHMSS] would be two candidates for role models.

Why can’t men pack a bit of menace to them any more, like Telly Savalas [OHMSS] or even Goldfinger himself? Rick Yune [Zao in Die Another Day] was a good example. Sean Bean was always good [e.g. in Golden Eye]. Why can’t men be both horribly intelligent and dangerous and when they pause to look at you, you squirm a little inside?

Also, why do we have to put up with bland bores like Modern Woman Miranda Frost [played by Rosamund Pike in DAD]? Newsday sums it up:

Miranda's view of Bond as a sexual dinosaur puts him refreshingly in his place. (Don't worry, boys, she gets hers.)

Refreshingly? Yawn.

Associated Press’s Christie Lemire’s take on Halle Berry:

She's strong and sexy, a great match for the dashing Brosnan. She's more than that, though; she's his partner …’

… which no one would dispute the desirability of, is then spoilt by the modern female fixation:

‘and every bit his equal.’

Yawn, yawn, yawn.

Why tf does the Modern Woman always have to compete? Why can’t she complement her man? It was Boy George who sang [in a different context, of course]:

You're my lover, not my rival.

By the way, speaking of appalling modern day women, did you read the other day about Angelina Jolie’s ‘need for other lovers’? What a poor excuse for a human being she’s always been.

Having said all that, the three most lethal agents in my own little trilogy are all women – a Russian called Ksenia, a European known as Thirteen and an Indonesian called Frederika [who exists in RL, by the way and I miss her a lot] although there is a maniac man, Zhenya, to partly redress the balance. Women run security sections, women are strong but they’re lovely in the arms.

People get fixated about Bond’s neanderthal sexual politics or the leading lady’s kick-butt, ‘she can’t be oppressed’, sleep inducing politics but the simple truth is that they’ve misjudged what’s really going on.

Bond gets the woman because he knows how to treat her well, it’s as simple as that – he’s always treated his women well at the point of contact and they appreciate it.

Yet can you imagine him doing his thing without a woman by his side, not for eye-candy reasons but for mutual support? Brosnan would not have overcome Graves on the plane unless Halle Berry had been doing her thing as well. Look at the eye contact between the two – there’s real chemistry there and the mealy-mouthed, begrudged thanks of Kurylenko Camilla at the end of Solace was an insult. It would never do to actually appreciate your partner these days, would it, you ingrates?

Do you detect the smoke coming from my nostrils?

Craig was tamed by his love for a woman and Moore was saved by two martial arts savvy schoolgirls. Even Tell Savalas’s Blofield could not have done it without the excellent Ilse Steppat’s Irma Bunt. She, in turn, was the one who facilitated his vision.

Look, you can’t have bread without butter, you can’t have savoury food without salt, you can’t have an overseas trip without somewhere to stay, you can’t have a real man without a proper woman and you can’t have a proper woman without a real man. Period. Full stop.

For me, that’s the real world and this current travesty we’re enduring today will hopefully become a thing of the past.

Long live the Bond franchise.