Published in the December 9 – 22, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Marty Cheek, publisher Morgan Hill Life
When I worked as a reporter for the Los Gatos Weekly-Times shortly after graduating from San Jose State University, I was assigned to write a story about a new art gallery in town — the James Bond Gallery. Fantasizing that somehow the suave British intelligence agent had come to California in his retirement years to spend them selling paintings to wealthy Silicon Valley tycoons, I couldn’t wait to meet the owner.
Thinking I’d start the interview with a joke playing off the famous spy’s name, I asked Mr. Bond if he prefers his vodka martinis “shaken, not stirred.” The glare of hatred I got from the man at that instant was as diabolical as any the fictional literary character received from the megalomaniac villains he faced.
I thought about my experience with James Bond, the art owner Bond, while watching the latest Bond film “Spectre” at the Morgan Hill CineLux last month on the opening weekend. Actor Daniel Craig didn’t disappoint in a story with nonstop action uncovering the sinister intrigue of a secret organization bent on world domination — with the famous hero throwing out a witty one-liner occasionally after dispatching a bad guy. Craig’s performances of Bond in all four of his 007 films creates a mythical persona more in line with the original stories written by British author Ian Fleming during the 1950s and 1960s.
I’m a Bond buff. I got hooked on the character after purchasing several Fleming paperbacks at a Goodwill store while in high school. “Goldfinger” was the first, with Bond going after a ruthless criminal obsessed with the metal gold. After that, I was addicted. I loved exploring Bond’s world of post-British Empire London and going off with him to exotic places to terminate ruthless villains. I hadn’t seen any of the movies before reading the novels, so my view of Bond was more in line with what Fleming intended — a hybrid of singer Hoagy Carmichael and actor David Niven.
Re-reading several of the novels recently, I was surprised by how dated and sexist they are. As a literary character, Bond was born in a Cold War world that faced the continuous anxiety of global destruction from nuclear weapons. Fleming’s writing genius tapped into that psyche with a mythical twist. Bond is a Saint George hero going to battle the dragon to save the woman and the world. But women, as was socially acceptable in that pre-feminist time, are treated in a subordinate manner that would be laughed at today.
In Fleming’s early novels, Bond comes across as a bit of a cardboard character — more of a machine programmed to do a mission than a man of flesh and blood. But he starts to mature with “From Russia With Love” where Fleming turns him into the target of a Soviet assassination attempt which plays out in the end game on the Orient Express rail train.
One time I was in the backseat of a Dodge Omni compact car (a very un-Bond mode of transport) riding back home to Hollister from Salinas where I went to high school. I was deep into the adventure of “You Only Live Twice” when the traffic slowed down for some construction. I heard the squeal of tires behind and turned to see a car careening straight toward me. With a look of panic, the driver turned the wheel sharply and his car rolled into the embankment. No one was hurt. But the irony, if circumstances proved different, later hit me. Perhaps, in that instant, I truly did only live twice.
My favorite Bond adventure is “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” — and I make it a Christmas tradition to watch the video starring George Lazenby as a light-hearted Bond who falls in love with the ill-starred Contessa Teresa “Tracy” di Vicenzo. Much of it is played off with a bevy of beautiful women on the Swiss Alps mountain-top lair of Ernst Stavro Blofeld as Bond maneuvers to stop the criminal mastermind from carrying out his scheme of biological warfare attacking Britain’s agricultural economy. Perhaps this novel best connects with the values Fleming puts into the Bond stories — trust, friendship and courage.
Watching James Bond films, I’m entranced by the world of London that the character lives in. For a few years, I lived in London, and know well many of the sites Bond also knows. In “Spectre,” a scene plays out in Rules, the oldest restaurant in London, a place I know well from several press conferences I attended there. During a bus ride crossing Vauxhall Bridge on my way to watch a rugby match, someone pointed out the marvelously Legoland-like MI6 headquarters on the Thames that, while I was living in London, had been completed in April 1994. The facade is used in many of the recent films, including “Spectre.”
What is it about James Bond that keeps the character popular for more than 50 years? Perhaps it’s his urbane sophistication mixed with rugged self-confidence. The gadgets he gets from Q — jetpacks, gyrocopters, exploding pens and submersible cars — are fun distractions. His total lack of doubt and animal magnetism makes him popular with women.
Fleming described Bond as a “blunt instrument,” and Daniel Craig’s version of him shows this quality of emotional distance and distrust. I suspect the key to understanding his character and the popularity of the stories is that he’s an orphan who has found a family among his co-workers who team up to go against the evil in the world.
