You Only Live Twice

James Bond is kind of an old man and at least a little older than most people think. Indeed, he first appeared in Ian Flemming’s Casino Royale in 1953 (that’s 53 years ago for those of you keeping score at home) and continued to appear in ten more Flemming novels before the first of the famous United Artists films, Dr. No, debuted in 1962. In just another week, the first of those novels finally becomes an official entry in the filmic Bond (a parody film called Casino Royal was made in the seventies with David Niven and was the featured story in a fifties episode of the TV series Climax!). My feelings on this one are a little mixed. Sure, it’s nice to see the last of Flemming’s unadapted novels finally make its way to the silver screen (I think the last Bond film based on a Flemming novel was A View to a Kill, although, I think, in name only), but I’m a little concerned about some of the turns the story has made on its way to a theater near me. I’ll get to that in a moment, though.

The fact of the matter is, although I only turned on to the movies in high school, I am a big James Bond fan. However, Bond has so many faces, that it’s hard to be a fan of every single facet of the character. Hell, it seems to me that it’s even hard to know every one of those faces. After all, Bond, to date, has twenty feature films from MGM, a handful of so-called “un-official” or even “apocryphal” films, the Flemming novels, novels written since Flemming’s death, video games, and even a cartoon series (James Bond, Jr anyone?). Some time ago, Umberto Eco, a novelist, postmodernist, and film theorist who I’m a big fan of, wrote an article that has had a big impact on how I think of not only James Bond, but any number of other long running characters, like Superman and Batman, for instance. That article is called The Moments of Bond. In the article, Eco dissects Bond’s long history, presenting us with a series of moments or time periods in which Bond existed in a particular way. The Bond of Flemming’s novels, which tend to be darker and more adult, is different from the somewhat family friendly, light hearted, Roger Moore Bond, who is different from Connery’s sophisticated adult (in the Playboy After Dark mold) Bond, who is different from Dalton’s dark, vengeful Bond, and so on. Though the article was published before his day, Brosnan seemed to me to be more of a teenage girl’s idea of Bond: safe, somewhat sophisticated, and just plain dreamy, and it will be particularly interesting to see how Daniel Craig’s moment as Bond is ultimately defined. That said, I think Bond is character of such diversity of portrayal that he has had a moment to everyone’s taste as well as moments to everyone’s distain. For my part, while I do like their movies to some degree, I am not a huge fan of either the Brosnan or Moore James Bonds (although I do really like Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, For Your Eyes Only, and, to my shame, The World Is Not Enough, hell, I like every Bond movie to some degree). I do, however, adore Connery’s Bond. His cool attitude, quick wit, suave sensibility, and raw machismo are much more to my ideas of who Bond should be. Yet, I think that Bond is very much a Bond of his time. I don’t believe Connery’s Bond can truly exist out of the sixties. As I implied before, that Bond has the sensibility of vintage Playboy, back when Playboy was an ethos that including publishing Fahrenheit 451 in its pages, and simply cannot exist today. So, my alternative Bond is the darker Bond, adult in a different way. I like Dalton’s Bond a lot. I like his violence and his brooding. I like the ideas of a Bond driven by things from his past, like the death of his wife or the crippling of his friend, Felix Lighter. This Bond is the consummate agent. He has his vices and he is still suave, but beneath that he’s a man who does a sometimes dirty job on her majesty’s secret service.

That brings me to the best Bond I’ve seen in years and he doesn’t appear on the screen or in the pages of a novel, but, rather, the pages of a comic book, specifically James Bond 007: Permission to Die by Mike Grell. I’m a huge fan of Grell and, in particular, his comic book series Jon Sable: Freelance, about a freelance assassin. That series featured a sometimes brooding lead with real character depth as well as some fantastic action set pieces, particularly a story set at the Olympic games. Reading it, I couldn’t help but think that Grell had crafted a character who could easily rival, if not outdo, Bond at his own game. So, when I found Grell’s take on 007 at a recent comic book convention, I was very excited. Permission to Die focuses on Bond’s mission to reunite Doctor Erik Wiziadio, a Russian scientist who had successfully fled to the US some years earlier, with his niece Edaine. Should Bond be successful, Wiziadio will share his new space missile delivery system with England. The three issues of Permission to Die join together to tell that larger story, but Permission to Die is a true comic book in that each issue also can be read as a self contained mission, with all three combining under the larger plot. The first issue details Bond’s travel to Budapest, where he is to smuggle Edaine across the border. This is, of course, the same setting as From Russia with Love, the best of the Bond films, and Grell takes full advantage of this, setting much of the action in a familiar gypsy camp and uniting Bond with Luludi Bey, the gorgeous daughter of Kerim Bey, Bond’s friend and contact from that film. The first issue deals mainly with a traitor in the gypsy camp. The second issue is probably the most action packed, featuring the actual rescue of Edaine amidst a thrilling assault on a Russian train, complete with helicopter fight. At the same time, Bond gets a new opponent for this issue only, an assassin named the Wolf. Finally, in issue three, Bond reunites Dr. Wiziadio and Edaine, while trading in Luludi for a whole new set of Bond girls (indeed, each issue can be seen as having its own set of Bond girls and villains, with Edaine acting more as the Bond girl in issue two), Sulu and Mary Chase (cute pun). Of course, this issue needs its villain and that turns out to be Wiziadio, who wears a phantom of the opera mask and is not at all what he seems, nor, for that matter, is his relationship with Edaine or his missile delivery system. Overall, it’s a really nice mini-series that captures a darker, more adult Bond, in the vein of the novels and the Dalton films, which I quite like. It’s darker, more realistic, and more action packed than the relatively fluffy Brosnan Bonds and, while it’s serial nature would make it a difficult sell for a film, it’s definitely recommended to fans of Bond, Jon Sable, and Mike Grell.

Sadly, aside from an adaptation of License to Kill, Grell never returned to Bond. Hell, it took him more than two years to get these three issues out. Further, Permission to Die wrapped up back in 1991 and the dark moment of Bond passed out of memory in favor of the teen and video game friendly Brosnan. Of course, it looks like that moment is passing as well, with Casino Royal, with new Bond Daniel Craig, set to come out this month. So, what do I think of it? Frankly, I’m torn. I think the idea of flashing back to Bond’s first adventure is a smart idea and may well serve to reinvigorate a franchise which has frankly grown a little stale. Still, I’m a little worried about how they’ve chosen to go about it. It seems to me that if you are going to do a flashback movie, you should do it as a period piece. I understand the reluctance of the producers to actually set the thing in the sixties or even fifties as they’ve always tried to make Bond of an indeterminate age, but I would think you could craft a world that existed vaguely in Bond’s past, in a sort of place out of time with lots of vintage style, but nothing to say explicitly when it is, sort of a dream of a time rather than an actual time. However, it doesn’t look like that’s their plan. Instead, it looks like they’re setting the film firmly in 2007, which is certainly a valid choice, but I’m concerned about throwing out the character’s rich history or, at least, confusing it so completely. By the same token, I don’t like the return of Judi Dench as M. Not only have I never liked Dench in the role, but it just seems strange to do such a full reboot of Bond and not recast that part. It wouldn’t even have to be a man, although maybe it should, just not Dench. After all, this is a woman who’s clearly not the first M Bond has dealt with, GoldenEye makes that clear. So, again, if you’re doing a flashback movie, why not embrace that completely? I have the same concerns with the casting of a black Felix Lighter, Bond’s American counterpart. Again, while Felix has been played by several actors over the years, he’s always been white. I don’t have any problem with giving Bond a black contact, but then it seems like you’d be better off making him a unique character.

Ultimately, I think Casino Royale had and has a lot of potential. I’m certainly excited to see it and the most recent trailer is really kick ass. I think, though, that the true potential lies with the film being one of two movies: an early adventure of the same basic character we’ve been enjoying for the past forty years or a completely new start with as little to do with the previous films as Coppola’s Dracula film had to do with the old Universal Dracula movies. Either of these could have made for a great film. Unfortunately, it appears we’ll get neither.