IAN FLEMING’S JAMES BOND

Photo by Peter J. Cooper

The very first novel and film character I can remember knowing is Ian Fleming’s James Bond. My dad loved James Bond, and when ABC aired a Bond film on Sunday nights, it was a big event in our house. My family would gather around the television, watching movies like Thunderball, The Man with the Golden Gun and Live and Let Die from beginning to end, cheering for our favorite British spy. We made chocolate milkshakes (stirred not shaken), and my mom made popcorn the old school way with kernels, oil and a big pot with a lid. I remember thinking the exploding kernels sounded like gunfire from 007’s Wather PPK. And when he used the electro-magnet on his Rolex Submariner to unzip Madeline Smith’s dress, I could count on my older sister to cover my eyes. I’ve got so many great memories from the early years of James Bond, and they’ve always given me a connection to my dad - something I’ll always cherish.

My Dad grew up in Miami, and as a young man, he read Ian Fleming’s paperback novels, eventually collecting all thirteen of the James Bond stories – which were written almost annually, beginning with Casino Royale in 1953. When I was quite young, I found the paperbacks in my dad’s bookcase – and I was always intrigued by them. The books were small, and the very midcentury covers featured artwork depicting elements from the stories, like a woman on a Vespa (The Spy Who Loved Me), a rocket (Moonraker), sports cars (Goldfinger), and a frogman with a knife (Thunderball). I particularly winced at the image of the tethered floating skull that ran through the cover of You Only Live Twice, which was made less fearsome by my mom’s grocery list handwritten along the side of the cover. After my dad passed away last year, I decided to find the original James Bond paperbacks, and then read them all in the order Fleming wrote them. And thanks to Ebay, I now have all thirteen.

After reading the books, I found something consistently fascinating about Fleming’s writing and the stories he was telling. They were simple. And because they were simple, they were elegant. He took his spy, gave him an assignment, and then the assignment put him in peril against a masterful villain. Within the assignment, a beautiful woman was introduced – and whether she was an ally or enemy was often the enigma of the situation. And just as Bond’s survival was against all odds, he manages to overcome the danger and defeat the villain. And more times than not, the beautiful woman was with him in the end. The films made from Fleming’s novels follow this same structure, but with enormous creative license taken in the screenplays – and for the most part, these films were quite good. But as I read the books, it occurred to me just how far Bond has drifted from Ian Fleming’s beloved character. The past several films have become Marvel-esque, with Bond’s superpower being his ability to stay alive amidst all the nonstop explosions, crashes, stunts and gunfire. That is, until No Time to Die, which left me disappointed to say the least and hoping this would finally be the final Bond film. 

But that doesn’t have to be the end of 007. It’d be great to see James Bond brought back to life in the vein of the show Mad Men – through a period-based television series telling his story according to the novels, beginning in 1953 and going all the way to 1965. Imagine meeting James Bond all over again in period-correct sets, featuring the sartorial aspects of the characters with all the accoutrements, the vintage automobiles that play an important part of the stories, and the overall styling of the Bond world as if it all took place in a series of Slim Aarons photos. We could call it Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Now that would be worth gathering around the television again.  PJC