I Wonder...

chrisisall

WHAT IF...
...Ian Fleming came back from the war and didn't decide to write a book featuring a fictitious character based loosely on himself & his comrades during his espionage escapades? Without OO7, what path would the movie & television spy world have taken, & where would it be today?
Danger Man premiered in 1960, but would the idea for it have existed without Fleming's novels? North By Northwest? Influenced I believe, but it may have been in the works independently... no Man From Uncle, no Get Smart, certainly no Wild Wild West or Flint...
John le Carré's first novel was in 1960... would he have written it without Fleming's more fantastic works blazing the literary trail? Would spy movies have been more serious all along like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold? IMO, the absurdity Fleming created around this serious character of Bond would have been sorely missed, and today we'd have no CHUCK or Bourne or even Jack Ryan to balance it out...

Charmed & Dangerous

I think you have a good point, chrisisall. No other author made the jump between the 'heroes of Clubland' (as I think either OF Snelling or Kingsley Amis called them) like Bulldog Drummond, to the sophisticated, exotic spy adventures of Fleming. Without Fleming our spies would still be like Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent or the Le Carre versions, anonymous little men; or stiff upper-lipped patriots.

Possibly the only other outcome would have been authors embellishing their wartime accounts - but certainly without Fleming's panache or sophistication or inside knowledge.

Matt S

Before Bond there was Jean Bruce's OSS117. 007 is very similar to OSS117 in many ways, not just codename.

AlphaOmegaSin

It shows you how influential and important Bond is, Film and Book wise {[]

chrisisall

Is there an English speaking adult alive that doesn't know the name 'James Bond'?

AlphaOmegaSin

I highly doubt it.