The James Bond Project 2: The Secret Agent

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (Jonathan Cape, London, 1953) Reading Casino Royale some sixty-three years after it was first published, your first impression is  that it has not aged well.  The James Bond we find in its pages is a product of the Edwardian attitudes and behaviours of his creator and consequently bears nothing but a fleeting resemblance to the representation we’re used to from even the earliest of the movies.   Secondly, you can’t help but notice how slight it is as a novel, with a predictable plot and largely one-dimensional characters.   It’s probably kindest and most useful to … Continue reading The James Bond Project 2: The Secret Agent

The James Bond Project

“The name’s Bond, James Bond.” When Sean Connery first uttered these words in the opening scenes of Dr. No, no-one could have known that the character he was playing would so penetrate the popular imagination that the movies would continue in an unbroken fifty-five year run and still be box-office gold. The cinematic incarnation of the world’s most famous and, ironically, most recognised spy has nevertheless had to adapt itself over twenty-six films and five and a half decades to survive the social mores of each successive generation of movie-goers, from the beefy sixties sex beast of Connery through Moore’s … Continue reading The James Bond Project