A great excitement enveloped me, when my cousin Tilak narrated the movie Goldfinger during my early school days. I must be around 10 years old, and I was studying in the Loyola, Guntur. The moment I reached home for holidays, like a prisoner freed for a few days stint, I could never wait to meet my cousin whose home was only a few houses away.
The name James Bond was very popular and whoever never heard or seen any of the movies was only a fool of the century. My cousin’s narration was a thrill the way he acted and made sound effects of the exciting action sequences was much more than the modern DTS and I just loved it. Whoever was the Bond and this Scene Connery (that’s how most of my known used to pronounce), I was a great fan of him even before I saw my first debut Bond film of his. We somehow begged the elders to go for the most exciting movie, gathering 60 paise for the ticket and another 30 paise for the bus fares. The bonus of 10 paise was for refreshments that we never could resist the fried chilly bajjie. The total of rupee one, for each and we set off to Leela Mahal the famous destination of all English movie buffs in and around Vijayawada, and ultimately I would have visited this theatre many hundred times until I shifted from my home thirty years later to Chennai.
Availability of tickets was another major hurdle and Tilak had planned for an early trip and we could manage. We wanted to save the 15 paise and we decided to walk over the bridge on the railway station and it was fun as my cousin kept on narrating throughout the way with more exploits of the infamous Bond. He had seen it twice and he was very fortunate I thought. I was never allowed to visit any outside theatres by my elders and it was considered a bit of extreme liberation and indiscipline in those days. Apart from my first Bond film with him, I also persuaded sometime later and I have seen the first Dracula movie also. It was an evening show and I doubted whether we could reach home alive. Every dark alley we turned on the way, looked as if the Christopher Lee was there prying in the dark to have a bite of our necks. Tilak was very brave and I just kept close to him.
Experience of my first Bond film was as if I was in a different world and I found my hero. Shammi Kapoor, Dara Singh were already there and of course NTR for the fantastic folklore and those wonderful mythological movies. But I immediately dumped them all for Connery and his style. The movie was a dream ride. Watching Goldfinger, even though we never understood a bit of the dialogues, my cousin had the capacity to explain his own version which seemed better than the original script, and I listened gaping and never was tired.
My romance with the character Bond and my fanfare of Sean Connery started in such a fashion and it continued for 42 years. One Sunday morning I returned from hostel, and to my surprise as soon as I arrived, I was allowed to see the morning show of a new Bond movie calledThunderball. This time it was Navrang, the best theatre I can ever mention for its best up keeping and discipline one can ever imagine. Theatre management was not a joke those days.
The ticket fare was Rs 1.60 paise being an air-conditioned theatre, and also the first in our town. The sound effects, the projection, the comfort was mind blowing. The movie was much more exciting than I imagined. Being the first movie shot under water for the maximum footage in the history of cinema, Panavision, the monopoly company designed special modern underwater camera equipment for this movie. London symphony considered the best in the world those times in orchestra was roped in to score the back ground music. It was sensational and classic. Nothing of John Williams can also convince more thematic. The several back ground themes from this landmark movie are still used in subsequent sequels; the first chase scene in the latest Casino Royale could not resist using one of it.
Thunderball was and is my favorite Bond movie of all the sequels. Sean Connery as Bond (now I knew how to pronounce his name properly) was dressed in all casual wear and he looked macho and no hero can ever match him. He was ages in advance to any hero in Hollywood. I began to note the technical and production highlights from then on. Connery was irresistible, as Mike Myers stated recently at facilitation to Connery, ‘Women want him, and men want to be him’. This is a perfect tribute to the man made by God to play Bond. He was rejected in the preliminary selection during the screen test for the character of the Ian Fleming novels. I do not remember the name but this British actor was in the Ice station Zebra, a Rock Hudson starrer, he was the one preferred I heard, and what a disaster it would have been if this fellow was selected.
The walk and the lanky figure with a slight mischievous smile could never be matched by any subsequent Bonds. This walk was the most attractive and considered like an ornament to this great gentleman spy. The punctuation of dialogues is another. The two liners are again a specialty. ‘How do you know my friends call me Domino’, ‘It’s written on the anklet on your leg’ Bond says. ‘What sharp eyes you have Mr. Bond.’ ‘Yeah, wait until you get to my teeth’. There are hundreds of these which without the Bond movies would be without any flavor.
The next Bond movie I saw was a repeat run of Dr.No, which I had to see a very bad print, but still I enjoyed. Dr.No when I saw many years later was a perfect spy movie made with style. The director Terence Young made a perfect movie for a start and he continued the second venture Russia With love, and Thunderball too with better style and characterization. It was perfect entertainment and even the biggest stars in Hollywood perused the MGM, and Paramount Studios and many of their versions similar which went unnoticed. It was very clear between all these efforts it was Connery who stood out. He was the one who poured life into the Brand Bond and not Ian Fleming (with his not so interesting novels).
Connery blended Bond character with a Shakespearean touch with his own movements. In his speech when he received the famous ‘Key of Edinburg’ he said that, ‘performing Bond on screen is as difficult as playing Macbeth on stage.’ It is absolutely true. Nobody made the audience and me to stop remembering him even now since he stopped playing the role since almost 30 years. I remember the time, You only Live twice released. It was packed with entertainment form the first frame to the last. It was the first 100% family entertainer modernized with production values, Technology, and locales. The Bond movies got better and better and famous since his debut Dr.No, until Sean rejected the OHMSS with a simple excuse that he cannot manage skiing. He got bored and made a personal decision to explore his talents.
Another most exciting incident of the same year, You only live Twice was released was The Good The Bad and The Ugly, a spaghetti western as they called, created havoc at the Box Office worldwide. The highlight of the movie is indisputably the background score and secondly the rise of a new hero after two earlier hits of the trilogy. I was an instant fan of this new rugged, lanky guy with a speech never audible but perfect fit for the much awaited rowdy cowboy. Why I wish to mention this great star at this juncture is simple, both Connery and Eastwood were born for those roles. Connery tried to impress in a western earlier, ‘Shalaco’ adopted from a novel by Le’mar. It had another two box office attractions, Brigitte Bardot and Stephen Boyd. Still it was a disaster. Eastwood on the other hand moved from his cowboy image to Dirty Harry and explored many more. Like Connery, Eastwood also made disaster attempt with comedy. Eastwood belittled the famous John Wayne in popularity.
OHMSS was a disaster, but still somehow I enjoyed for the sake of being a Bond movie. Connery was demanded to return back. The producers, studios, and the world wide fan clubs were in frustration. Both Broccoli and Saltzman begged him to return. The gentleman said,’ Yes’, for the sake of Scottish orphans. The massive fee he charged for the movie, Diamonds Are Forever was donated to for charity. No Actor ever in the whole world did this great act and gesture.
The trailer of the movie opened with, a blast and then, ‘You have been waiting for Him,’ and then a chase scene, ‘You have been asking for Him’, and then he enters, a lady asks ‘Who are you’, the super spy replies with the introduction in a tone and style no Bond ever come closer, saying ‘Bond, my name is Bond’. We have been redeemed of our consideration paid for the entry. The entire world was in a fit of ecstasy. Not only me, but all fans repeatedly watched the movie many time in the first run, knowing fully well that this is last and he will never come back. But he returned back in, Never Say Never Again in the year 1985.
Kevin McClory who had penned Thunderball along with Ian Fleming reserved rights to reproduce the same plot after a gap of minimum 10 years. Sean Connery yielded for 10 million dollars to play the coveted role once again. Never Say Never Again was daringly pitted against the original franchise and grossed much more than Octopussy, which was a sissy. Roger Moore most often makes faces miming Stan Laurel of the great comedian pair of yesteryears and does a buffoonery of the super spy role even enacting as a clown in the climax of the movie.
Next came the long lasted bond of all. The novels Live and Let Die and The man with the Golden gun are better than many. Once after joining the fanfare, I try to read bond novels. They are just boring. The novel bond is different, He smokes, and exercises. Fleming writes, ‘and Bond lit his seventieth cigarette of the day and analysed……’ Bond takes a shower of hot water and switches over to cold the next second, I do not know for what. I threw them away. The only plot which attracted me was The Man with the Golden Gun. Bond in his previous assignment is held by the KGB and later no trace. Suddenly he surfaces in London and announces he is coming in. He plots to kill M during the meeting but fails. He is brought back to normality from the brainwash of the KGB and assigned to kill Scaramanga, the greatest shooter and an agent of KGB.
Finally Roger Moore got settled, with a Big Hit, The spy who loved me. The production values increased and Bond became family entertainer just like cartoons to children. No more personas, no quick reflexes and as Newsweek reviewed ‘A View to Kill’, cast a baboon as Bond and still it is a big hit. Indeed it was my feelings and was true.
Golden eye was a comeback for Bond and good start for Brosnan. But later this also has taken cue of those Moore movies with big production values and with the advent of digital it has become very un-real. Enter the Daniel Craig era. Casino Royal was a fitting start and motivating. Except that Bond lost his wit, was reduced to a hit and run assassin, more like a hit and run assassin an athletic person than a sensuous agent. Whatever the minus points still it was the best.
The finale, Quantum of Solace was never in my agenda as I had many assignments in hand, but accidentally we had to go into the city and I was tempted. With much excitement child like, myself and my wife booked tickets for a night show at the totally new Abhirami (Chennai).
It started with a car chase and ended with a walk in the desert. The personality built by Connery was missing. No two liners, no wit. Always running like Bourne and never sleeping. Craig looks like he never sleeps. The friendliness is lost, and passionate expressions with his ladies is also absent. He is confused and hurting himself all the way. He is good for wars not spying. The director has not made any attempt make the movie interesting and fun to watch. If Bond movies were made like this, the character would have never become a legend. He is the Fleming Bond, not what Connery blended with his charm.
Not even before the interval was due I began to slide down my seat and suddenly a roar has woken me, I knew it was not the MGM. No it was the snore of the guy sitting next to me. What an embarrassment!! Snoring when you watch the super spy Movie? I shook him with my elbow, and he wakes up but again continues to make a loud noise. It is no more interesting to him, and also to me.
The climax scenes of many Bond movies have the super hero tied to a bomb or a nuclear arsenal, and the vicious villain bids him, ‘Good Bye, Mr. Bond’. Now it is my turn, I said we had enough, Chao Mr. Craig, Arnold and Stallone were much muscular than you, but not one had the charm of Connery. May be you should try some macho roles like Lee Marvin, in Point Blank (later remade as Payback ) , or some of those Steve McQueen’s such as Papillion, Bullitt, but for God’s sake don’t make another attempt as Bond. Barbara and Smith might have gone out of their mind, crazy, do not have the understanding and the spirit their father Chubby Broccoli had. May be they got carried away with the success of Bourne and Mission Impossible sequels, drifting from the fundamental elements of previous classic Bond movies.
Mr.Criag move away please; try something else where we can see the better of you. You are too dry and lifeless for the enchanting role. Connery might not have done the running and stunts you perform, but the Lion walked gracefully fully dominating the entire environment, and everyone in the world recognized his dominance. He is the King of machoness, and still rated the most dominant star of all times.
Our Bond Fan Club includes apart from me, President Kennedy, who insisted the White House staff to have all Bond movies in the President’s collection; Steven Spielberg who said all those earlier Bond movies were Classics of Cinema History; and George Lucas who said Connery has Screen presence no one actor can match, it is profound and vibrating, and my children who loved the collection from the day one they learned to watch movies.
Good bye Mr. Craig you can never be Bond, may be Bourne, or Rambo or Ethan. Good bye as Bond for me.
After a few days, to recover from the haunting experience of the latest Bond flick, and for an Abundant of Solace, I relaxed at home seeingThunderball my most favourite of all, for the hundredth time enjoying every frame.