Question for vintage 007 fans ?

Thunderpussy

On another thread it was mentioned that some members were around before
The Films even started. So I was wondering, Were some people already into
Bond just from the books, eagerly waiting for the next book ? and indeed what
Was your reaction to those first few films ? Was Connery the Bond you imagined.
Indeed did the films live up to your expectations ?
As the films were already up and running when I got into Bond, so I think it would
Be interesting to see some views from fans before it became the huge, world wide
Success and Icon it now is. -{

CmdrAtticus

Though I was not born early enough in the fifties to have read the novels, I remember when my father took me to see DN during my first years of elementary school (or in the UK, junior school). From what I remember, I may have been thrilled by the visuals at the time but probably was too young to understand the more mature parts of the plot.

When FRWL came out, I think I became even more enthralled, to the point that I became thrilled at getting the toy briefcase for a present. This led to a seemingly endless series of summer neighborhood adventures as an imaginative but immature 00 agent fighting off or fighting with my male friends.

By the time GF comes out, the pop culture is screaming for anything Bond as much as it was for the Beatles and the whole EON/Bond culture took off. However, it wasn't until TB came out that I decided to start reading the Fleming novels. My father had all of them in paperback, so after reading TB I read the rest in the sequence they were published and I was hooked.

Not only did I find Fleming's writing to be wonderfully graphic and descriptive, it opened up a whole new world for me of foreign travel, history, cuisine, lanquage (I learned a LOT of new vocabulary from the novels - esp French as well as British colloquialisms), etc. As important, I began to realize the novels and films were quite different animals, which led me to read Fleming's bio and learn everything I could about what made him tick.

Reading Thunderball I could only see Connery as Bond having just saw the film, but after reading Fleming's bio and subsequent novels I started to see more of Fleming in Bond's character. Strangely, after seeing an old black and white Stewart Granger film and realizing how he resembled Fleming in appearance, I pictured him in the novels as I read them rather Connery. It was with extreme irony when I learned later that Fleming had suggested that Granger could play Bond (though at that time he was called James Stewart- which erroneously led me to believe Fleming must have been drunk at suggesting that the star of Vertigo play Bond).

So, Fleming was already ill when I saw the first films and passed away when I had already been in grammar school, all the adults were thrilled by Fleming's work, most literate males owned at the very least some of his paperback editions (or like my father, all of them) and almost everyone from my generation and his were amazed at how his work took popular culture by storm (like the Beatles) then grew into an international typhoon. I certainly remember how everyone in film and television around the planet tried cashing in on it through all the copycat (including Fleming's Man From Uncle) versions (even the Looney Tunes came up with the Daffy Duck short "The Spy Swatters" in '67). I believe the whole phenomenon fizzled out when Connery left. Though OHMSS brought Bond back, by that time the party was already over and the world of Bond never was the same. Since then it has become a huge part of 20th century media history and a cultural icon and generations since have embraced the different versions of Bond, but they will never know what it was to be a part of it's birth and celebration. The closest I've seen was when SF came out and it was the 50th anniversary and we had the Olympics in London and the Queen herself engaging with the icon and there was Bond and Skyfall everywhere, but then it fades away into a DVD memory for most. For those of us who were there at the beginning before reruns on the tele and VCR's, it became a late 50's - 60's cultural event we haven't seen since.

Higgins

I think, that Blackleiter was around when 007 novels have been hammered into stones

CmdrAtticus

As a brief follow up to my last post, I just want to mention how little today's generation realizes how much impact the first images of DN's advertising had when the world first saw an illustrated image of Connery in his evening jacket and flowered lapel (which is laughable to us now knowing Bond would never sport a flower), casually bent over his knee with a cigarette in one hand and dangling a pistol in the other. There had never been an example before in media fiction that displayed so instantly a new icon of elegant masculinity combined with the threat of lethality. It was commercially a staggering effect that showed the mystery as well as intrigue of this new brand of adventure.

Blackleiter

Higgins wrote:

I think, that Blackleiter was around when 007 novels have been hammered into stones

I've actually been around longer than that, but I lie about my age! )

Thunderpussy

-{ , Nice to get a feel for the time CmdrAtticus. From the point of view of someone who lived through it.

Gassy Man

I was born the same year as You Only Live Twice came out, yet another reason I love that movie. As a child, I grew up watching Bond films on TV, when my parents would let me. I don't remember the buzz about the novels, though I did see them on bookshelves and in libraries. Everyone I knew was familiar with Bond through the movies. The funny thing was that I grew up in a fairly working class community, and the general opinion of British men was that they were pasty, snotty, and effete -- but Connery's Bond, in the eyes of many of the men, wasn't really British; he was an American with a funny accent.

Blackleiter

Gassy Man wrote:

Connery's Bond, in the eyes of many of the men, wasn't really British; he was an American with a funny accent

By George, that explains it! )

Barbel

I was an insatiable and precocious reader as a child. My grandfather died when I was 8, in 1966, and I inherited his books, including all the Bonds. I read them over and over, buying the Amis books too.
I had seen GF at the cinema and this being the 60s Connery was Bond, full stop. His image was everywhere, on toys, sweets, magazines etc. I read the books seeing his face and hearing hish voish... er, his voice. I caught the Bond films on double-bills and watched the new ones as they appeared- except CR67 which I first saw on TV years later.
The music had a deep and lasting attraction to me, and I began buying the OSTs then other John Barry albums.

Thunderpussy

Great stories guys, That's what I was wondering, what it was like
To be into the Books before or at the beginning of the films. -{

MooseWithFleas

Thanks for sharing all the stories. Great to hear the level of insight you all provided -{

Mark Hazard

Barbel wrote:

I was an insatiable and precocious reader as a child. My grandfather died when I was 8, in 1966, and I inherited his books, including all the Bonds. I read them over and over, buying the Amis books too.
I had seen GF at the cinema and this being the 60s Connery was Bond, full stop. His image was everywhere, on toys, sweets, magazines etc. I read the books seeing his face and hearing hish voish... er, his voice. I caught the Bond films on double-bills and watched the new ones as they appeared- except CR67 which I first saw on TV years later.
The music had a deep and lasting attraction to me, and I began buying the OSTs then other John Barry albums.

Pretty similar to my own history with Bond. My dad had CR, FRWL and DN in Pan paperbacks, along with Sherlock Holmes and other books, and I read anything I could get my hands on. After reading my dads Bond boks I borrowed the rest from the local library (after getting permission as I had children's tickets and these were "adult" books). I didn't become aware of the films until Goldfinger, and then gum cards, Lone Star guns and Corgi and Airfix cars then became part of my collection (along with newspaper cuttings), as well as OSTs a little later.
Unlike Barbel I did go to see CR when it came out, already knowing that it wasn't a "real" Bond film, and enjoyed it. I'd been prepared for the change of face in OHMSS by newspaper reports and I had seen the Big Fry adverts on telly so wasn't disappointed in the change.

Ammo08

I was born in 1954 and I would read my Uncle Frank's books, he had all the Bond books...I remember seeing Dr. No when it came to Memphis in 1963, I was in the 3rd grade. My brother's took me,,,Mom was not pleased..

002

I was born during the Diamonds are Forever cinema experience. Connery was Bond and he was the first film-Bond I saw, too. (I think it was Dr No that I saw first.)

It wasn't until many years later that I became aware of the books. Casino Royale was my first (and, I'm sure, the first one I was aware of, as well).

Napoleon Plural

Moore was a big fan of S Granger, prob because they are similar physically. Though they never got to share a scene in The Wild Geese, much to his mild dismay. (Ref to Atticus' post).