Universität Potsdam
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

“Grow up, 007!”
James Bond over the Decades – Formula vs. Innovation

Kerstin Jütting

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ... 3

2. The Early Years

2.1. Novel to Film ... 4
2.1.1. Fleming’s Novels ... 4
2.1.2. The Comic Strips ... 6
2.1.3. The first filmic Bond ... 7

2.2. The Development of the Series ... 8
2.2.1. Dr. No (1962) ... 9
2.2.2. From Russia With Love (1963) ... 10
2.2.3. Goldfinger (1964) ... 16

3. Formula vs. Innovation ... 24

3.1. The James Bond Formula ... 24
3.2. Variations to the Bond Formula ... 30

4. The Characters of the Series over the Decades

4.1. James Bond 007 ... 32
4.1.1. The Character of Bond ... 32
4.1.2. The Five Actors of Bond ... 35

4.2. The Bond Girls ... 52
4.2.1. Bond’s Behaviour towards Women ... 52
4.2.2. The Bond Girl Formula ... 53
4.2.3. The Bond Girl Development ... 59

4.3. Villains and their Henchmen ... 66
4.3.1. The Formula of the Villain ... 66
4.3.2. Variations of the Villain ... 67
4.3.3. Villains that stand out from the crowd ... 70
4.3.4. The Development of the Henchmen ... 82

4.4. The MI6 Family and Allies ... 84
4.4.1. M – Head of MI6 ... 84
4.4.2. Moneypenny ... 94
4.4.3. Q – Gadget Master ... 98
4.4.4. MI6 Staff ... 105
4.4.5. Allies and Friends ... 108

5. Conclusion ... 113

6. Appendices ... 116

Appendix I ... 116
Filmography

Appendix II ... 117
The Formula of Goldfinger (1964)

Appendix III ... 119
Teasers: The pre-title Sequences

Appendix IV ... 121
007 Cars
Production Design and Special Effects
Q’s Gadgets
Action: Stunts and Chases
Suspense
Innovative Filmtechniques
Fight between 007 and Grant in From Russia With Love

7. Works Cited ... 138

8. German Summary ... 143

1. Introduction

“The name’s Bond. James Bond.” 007, Dr. No

A handsome man in a tuxedo enters a casino and takes a seat opposite a beautiful woman at a card table - nobody watching this scene needs to be told who that man is: ‘Bond. James Bond.’ Everybody, no matter what age, knows the name and the man. It is common knowledge that Bond will win the game, move over to the bar to order a vodka martini ‘shaken, not stirred’ and enter into a tête-à-tête with the woman. The secret agent with the licence to kill has become a cultural icon, the mere figure ‘007’ calls to mind a lot of images around James Bond and his adventures.

The film series about the world’s most famous spy has become a phenomenon. Twenty (official Eon Production¹) films in forty years have broken all records, not only those of the film industry. The two producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli have breathed life into Ian Fleming’s popular character: James Bond has become more than just a literary figure. Like Robin Hood or Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes before him, Bond is considered to be real, to be or have been part of the real world. He undoubtedly changed the world of spy movies.

Before 007 hit the big screen, there had been various spy films already, but these aimed at de-mythologizing secret agents. Spies were mostly enemies. Very successful and popular were Alfred Hitchcock’s several espionage films such as The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Notorious, The Lady Vanishes, The Secret Agent, to name only a few.² By 1963, ”Ian Fleming’s secret agent had transformed the entire spy genre, creating the longest-running series in film history and redefining global notions of espionage.”³

What makes the James Bond films so successful? What ingredients ensured their longevity? Over four decades, five even, if one considers Fleming’s novels, 007 has appealed to the public, ranging from the United States over the whole of Europe all the way to Japan, and, with the latest movie only three years ago and the next already speculated about, it does not seem to be the end of ‘Bond, James Bond’ yet.

In the following I shall attempt to find out what ensured the success of the James Bond films. I will examine the progress of 007 from Fleming’s novels to the big screen, and thus showing the development of a fixed set of ingredients, the concept behind the films. After ascertaining the James Bond formula, I shall look into the variations of the set formula: How, why and when do the films differ from the fixed concept, and how did they adjust to the times over the last decades.

2. The Early Years

2.1. Novel to Film

”From this angle, things are shaping up nicely!” 007, From Russia With Love

”Bond’s success and longevity remain because the character can be translated from printed page to silver screen to comic strips to popular art, and onwards to toys, music, fashion and technology.”⁴

While Ian Fleming laid out the ingredients and created the original, it was the interpretation of others that made James Bond a phenomenon. Not only were the novels best-sellers, they were turned into comics, and later into films. From there the merchandising set in, reaching never estimated profits.

2.1.1. Fleming’s Novels

Ian Fleming was a well educated man. He had studied psychology in Munich and Geneva and spoke fluent French and German and a little Russian. Before writing his famous novels, he had worked for four years for the news agency Reuters, had been a stock broker and finally joined the Navy, where he became the personal assistant of the chief of the Naval Intelligence Division. He made it all the way to the rank of Commander, trained special forces⁵ and planned high-profile missions.⁶ After the war, Fleming managed the foreign department of the Kemsley Newspaper group, also writing for the Sunday Times. Ian Fleming was a member of three of the most elegant gentlemen’s clubs in London, had a winter residence in Jamaica called Goldeneye (where he wrote all of his novels), played golf in the Royal St. George’s Club in Kent and was married to the former Lady Rothermere. He had clearly led the life of a well-off gentleman when he died on 12 August 1964 at the age of 56.⁷ All these were experiences he could draw upon for his James Bond novels.

[...]

1 The early Casino Royale as well as Oscar-winning Never Say Never Again are not produced by Eon and will not be discussed.

2 Cork, 17-25.

3 Cork Cork, 27.

4 Cork Cork, 28.

5 Tesche, 11.

6 Pfeiffer, 202f.

7 Tesche, 12f.