Bond wearing a hat in opening gun barrel sequences
nobody
Posts: 110MI6 Agent
Just watching “Diamonds Are Forever”. Wondering why they have Connery wearing a hat, which he rarely does throughout the series. I know that in the first few movies, he was doubled by Bob Simmons, for whom the hat served to camouflage the fact that it wasn’t Connery. But it is clearly Sean Connery doing the walk,turn,crouch,shoot thing in DAF.
Comments
Did he shoot two sequences, then, over his tenure? The first one for DN-GF? And, if so, why?
Well they reshot it for Thunderball presumably because the aspect ratio of the film changed- TB is in much wider widescreen than the first three movies and Bob Simmons probably didn't walk far enough in the first one to get to the middle of the screen
Bizarrely exactly the same thing seemed to happen for Roger: his first two were in a relatively narrow aspect ratio so he ended up reshooting the gunbarrel when it went widescreen again for TSWLM. I reckon his second one is way better though.
When did Bond last wear a hat with his civvies? Octopussy? Not that he wears it of course; he just seems to bring it along to toss onto the hatstand!
I've always thought that it is quite strange that a couple of the later Roger Moore films have him arriving at the office with a trilby when he's never seen wearing a hat in the films. As well as the scene in Octopussy, I think in FYEO he also tosses a hat onto the stand.
Regarding the gunbarrels, I've always liked the sillhouette with the hat in the 1960s gunbarrels. Somehow it gives the Bond character an extra air of mystery as he is being tracked in the gunbarrel.
I also find it amusing that in Moore's later gunbarrels he still has the distinctly 1970s-style flared trousers all the way until AVTAK.
Moore comes in to the office with a trilby in FYEO, OP and AVTAK. It's a nice callback to Connery and Lazenby (though I'm sure they didn't think about the latter), but it would have looked odd to see him wearing it. It's a fun way to bring the hat back to make Bond look traditional without it making him look old-fashioned.
I find it odd that they didn't want to go through the trouble of shooting gunbarrel sequences more than they had to. They only reshot them with a change of actor or a change of aspect ratio. The flares from The Spy Who Loved Me look out of place by Octopussy, but at the same time I like the silhouette they create. Ultimately, using the same gunbarrel sequence for five films is plain laziness.
I do like how the Spectre gunbarrel has the lights go down on Bond so he becomes more of a silhouette as the blood falls. Almost seems odd they didn't do that more previously.