What would have to be my greatest act of cinematically inspired stupidity watching twenty James Bond movies from Dr No to Die Another day is finally done. Okay, yes, I have been procrastinating on writing any content for it. And yes, there still is the small matter of the Daniel Craig movies and the two non-EON James Bond movies but I will tackle them another day, there is also the Casino Royale that was an episode dramatic anthology series Climax! In 1957. I doubt I’ll be able to find the Casino Royale episode of Climax!

Now, what did I learn about the James Bond movies from the twenty movies that I watched? James Bond movie are not as sexist as people think they are, at best they are a product of their times. Every single female character’s name is not a sexual pun. At best I can think of three female characters whose name is obviously some sort of pun Pussy Galore ( portrayed by Honor Blackman in Goldfinger), Chew Mee (portrayed by Francoise Therry in The Man with the Golden Gun) and Xenia Onatopp (portrayed by Famke Janssen in Goldeneye).

It is interesting to note that actress Maud Adams is the only woman to appear as two different ‘Bond Girls’. Adams appeared as Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun and as Octopussy in Octopussy. Apparently, Adams also had an uncredited role in A View to a Kill. While Joe Don Baker appeared as Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights and as CIA agent Jack Wade, in GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. After some research it turns out that Baker is one of four actors to appear as both a Bond ally and a villain, the others being Charles Gray, who appeared as Henderson in You Only Live Twice and Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever; Walter Gotell, who appeared as Morzeny, the SPECTRE Island trainer, in From Russia with Love and as General Gogol, the head of the KGB, in six films between 1977 and 1987; and Richard Kiel as Jaws, in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, assisting 007 in the latter film.

My favorite example of a minor character appearing in multiple movies is George Clifton James who appeared in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun as Sheriff J.W. Pepper. One of my favorite henchmen would have to be the imposing Jaws (portrayed by Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker) who clearly outmatched Bond physically which caused Bond to come up with ingenious ways to defeat most notable an electromagnet. Though I know it’s a little sappy but the reason I love Jaws so much is because of the scenes he has with his girlfriend Dolly (portrayed by Blanche Ravalec) in Moonraker because they are so cute together.

Speaking of Moonraker it is interesting to note that because of the box office success of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope in 1977, the producers decided they wanted to cash in on the subsequent science fiction craze and it jumped the que and was made after The Spy Who Loved Me even though it said in the credits “James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only”. It should also be noted that Moonraker was the most commercially successful Bond film up to that point (only being eventually surpassed by Goldeneye, 16 years later).

In their own little way Bond movies are very formulaic and it should be noted that it was at least three movies before a ‘Bond movie’ looked like a ‘Bond movie’ (I would like to note that I feel that Thunderball is the first movie that has all the beats that you would expect from a ‘bond movie’. Within the contexts of the Bond Universe before using his iconic Walter PPK in Dr. No Bond had been using a Barretta for 10 years and it wasn’t until Goldfinger that the Aston Martin was featured when Bond asks Q about his Bentley. Of course, it wasn’t until From Russia with Love that there was an actual pre-titles action sequence. I personally feel that the best pre-titles action sequence for a Bond movie was for Tomorrow Never Dies based purely on the delivery of Pierce Brosnan’s line ‘Ask the Admiral where he’d like his bombs delivered’. It was also very interesting to see how many times over the years of the franchise the filmmakers used either an underwater sequence or a chase scene in the snow. Even though Bond’s signature drink is a Vodka Martini shaken not stirred it was interesting to note how many times Bond’s favorite champagne vintage seemed to change over the course of the franchise, I noticed that it happened at least four times.

I must wonder how many of you out there that the Bond movies chronicle the career of one man, or that ‘James Bond’ is a code name that has been given to a several different agents over the years?

If you’d ask me who my favourite James Bond actor is, I will have to say Pierce Brosnan. This probably has something to do with the fact that his movies where being released right around the time I was starting to go to the cinema on a regular basis and developing what has arguably turned into an obsession with movies. But the thing there is something to like about all the actors who have played James Bond. With the Sean Connery movies it is fun to see the structure of what we would recognise to be a ‘Bond Movie’ develop over the course of several movies. It’s a shame that George Lazenby had such a short tenure as Bond but the final scene of the movie with Tracy Bond (portrayed by Diana Rigg) and his reaction to her death gets me every time. Roger Moore the longest reigning Bond (if you don’t count Never Say Never Again in Sean Connery’s total) was the fun Bond, the one that wasn’t afraid to be silly and then there’s Timothy Dalton the Bond that took the franchise to darker places.

Every few years there is debate on who should be the next James Bond and if next said actor should be a woman. Even if it is done for the best of intentions gender-shifting an established character especially a character with the legacy like James Bond is lazy because it shows a lack of vision on the part of filmmakers. Here is what I would have liked to have seen happen after the release of Licence to Kill that Carey Lowell’s character Pamela “Pam” Bouvier should have been given a spin off movie. Come to think of it, Moneypenny should also be given a spin off movie because the character has been in every Bond Movie.