With the much anticipated Skyfall about to hit theaters in America, I thought it would be good to do another retrospective on one of the greatest heroes in cinema, James Bond. The problem I have is that unlike Batman, Bond has been in now 25 movies! To do a retrospective on every James Bond movie would just not be possible without dedicating an entire month to it. So, instead I've decided to look at the actors behind the iconic character. After so many movies and 40 years, it's actually amazing to think so few actors have played the roll.
But first let's talk about the 1967 movie Casino Royale. While it is a James Bond movie, it's not really considered part of the James Bond collection. Mostly because it was done more as a comedy and done in flashbacks. So, in that movie there was more than one actor playing James Bond. Therefore, I won't be covering Peter Sellers and David Niven but they do deserve an honorable mention.
James Bond is the famous British super spy, Agent 007 of Mi6. He was the star of many bestselling books by Ian Fleming. After his death, other writers carried on the James Bond story with six other books. To this date, the James Bond movies are the second highest grossing film franchise in history right behind the other famed movies based off books from Jolly old England, Harry Potter.
The first person we'll talk about to play James Bond is arguably one of the best, Sean Connery. Connery appeared in six different Bond movies; Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), and Diamonds are Forever (1971). Sean Connery also was in the 1983 movie Never Say Never Again playing a much older James Bond. Never Say Never Again was a closer adaptation to the Fleming novel Thunderball and wasn't produced by EON Productions like the other Bond movies; so many see this as not being in cannon also.
Sean Connery was originally not the first choice to play James Bond in Dr. No. Fleming and others initially wanted Cary Grant, but Grant wouldn't sign for a three movie deal. He only agreed to one. The second choice was James Mason, but like Grant would commit to only two and not the three they planned. Also, if you look at pictures of Cary Grand and James Mason, you can kind of see that they didn't exactly fit the look of what we think of James Bond today. Cary Grant still looked Clark Gable right off the set of Gone With The Wind and Mason could easily be mistaken for Fred Rogers. Connery with the odd looking wig still had the appearance of a guy who has at least seen a fight. He is 6'2" and had some muscle tone. There was some hesitance to him because he didn't look suave enough to give the character justice. Ironic as Connery now is considered one of the sexiest men alive for the last 50 years.
The Bond movies made Connery a superstar but after doing You Only Live Twice, Connery stated that he really hated playing James Bond and decided to turn down the roll for On Her Magesty's Secret Service. Connery came back to do Diamonds Are Forever because Lazenby turned the roll down to do Universal Soldier and because Connery was offered $1.25 million plus a share of the profits the movie made just to come back. At the time that was an extraordinary deal.
The Sean Connery Bond is a much more physical character. He does have the sex appeal and always got the girl, but he's far more known to attack rather than using gadgets like other Bonds we will see later. The Connery movies are some of the most iconic of the franchise. While Dr. No didn't do perticularly well, Goldfinger is still considered one of the greatest Bond movies to date.
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