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NEW YORK - Whether it’s cocktail hour in Manhattan or Mumbai, is there anyone in the developed world who doesn’t know who likes his martinis “shaken, not stirred”?
Teens are as likely as octogenarians to toss off the answer: Bond. James Bond. That’s a reflection of just how long the debonair Agent 007 has been dashing around the globe, seducing women, slaying bad guys and hardly uttering a four-letter word or wrinkling his dinner jacket.
And he’s still going strong. Which is remarkable given that he was in his mid-thirties when the late novelist Ian Fleming introduced him in “Casino Royale” 55 years ago.
Fleming, who wrote 14 Bond novels before his death at 56 in 1964, would have been 100 years old on May 28. The American publisher Doubleday is commemorating his centenary by releasing the latest Bond novel, “Devil May Care,” written by Sebastian Faulks, the sixth literary incarnation of Fleming. In November, Daniel Craig, the sixth film incarnation of Bond, will be back on movie screens in the 22nd Bond adventure, “Quantum of Solace,” a Cold War tale set against the background of the heroin trade.
In this summer of celluloid superheroes, it seems appropriate to ponder why it truly seems “Tomorrow Never Dies” for the enduring superspy Bond. After all, he has about as much in common with “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk” as the Hotel Ritz in Paris has with the Motel 6 in Paducah.
“There are some things that have to come together as a magical confluence to create a phenomenon like James Bond,” said Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the film studies department at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University. “First, you need a great star to embody the character. Second, you have to have a great character, who can sustain himself across stories. And three, the times have to be right.
“When Bond emerged as a kind of brutal, sexy and appealing masculine figure to fight the Cold War, he was absolutely perfect. Had he been too elegant, he would have looked like a sissy. Had he been too brutal, he would have been unappealing. So, it was a fabulous confluence,” she said, adding that with the important element of humor, “his own, tongue-in-cheek attitude about himself, James Bond becomes a character for the ages.”
The Bond character is so established that, like Batman, audiences have not been overly upset that the actors portraying him have changed steadily since Sean Connery first defined him on the screen in 1962’s “Dr. No,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “It’s almost like James Bond is like the president of the United States: the role continues on but it has a limited term,” he said.
While the essence of Bond stays intact, every actor brings his own style to the role and everyone has their favorite Bond. For Basinger, it’s Connery. “As any woman would say, the first is always the best. There’s a James Bond line for you,” she said, chuckling.
And, of course, some things never change in the world of Bond. Since the very beginning, there has been a “Bond Girl” in every movie.” Always beautiful, sometimes dangerous and often equipped with a naughty-sounding name, she is a heady blend of smart and sexy that can appeal both to men and women. Setting the tone for generations of Bond Girls, the first was Ursula Andress. Making her entrance as Honey Ryder, in “Dr. No,” she famously emerged from the sea like a tawny huntress in a white bikini with a dagger strapped to her hip.
Perhaps Fleming’s greatest gift to his fans is Bond’s dependable blend of brio and bravery, elegance and grit, sybaritism and sang-froid on the screen, no matter what awful things are happening out in the real world. Especially for the British, coming to grips with the dissolution of their empire as the first Bond book appeared, Fleming played a special role, according to Simon Winder in 2006’s “The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond.”
Through 007, Winder wrote, Fleming assured readers that the sun might no longer rise and set over the British Empire, but “secretly, in a luxury hotel somewhere in the world, one man (a man who would today be in his eighties) was slipping a .25 Beretta automatic into his chamois-leather shoulder holster, examining his rather cruel mouth in the bathroom mirror, putting on his dinner jacket and going out into the night to save their world.” (Yes, Bond packed a Beretta before adopting his signature Walther PPK.)
For Americans, who tend to find the British accent bewitching, Bond remains the epitome of class, cool and chivalry. Said Thompson, “You get the sense that James Bond pulls the seat down when he’s done.”
Quite.
