The Golden Age of Bond Films...

maxzorin10

... I'm a Gen Xer and for me the golden age of Bond started with Spy and went on thru Moonraker, FYEO and Octopussy... four back-to-back Bonds that were never matched since then.

Those are the ones I don't seem to get tired of re-watching.

There was two very low points in the series in my opinion, 1st: Diamonds (a truly ridiculous movie) and 2nd: All the Brosnan era which culminated with an invisible car and Tsunami surfing (which makes the gondola scene from Moonraker look credible).

Thoughts ?

Max

superado

For me, the true golden age of the series is DN-OHMSS.

Thunderpussy

https://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/51874/phase-1-connerylazenbymoore-reviewing-bonds-original-run/
This thread might be of interest there's also a phase 2
And 3 thread too.

Revolver66

I reckon the 60s is the golden age and will never be bettered. I think a second great period was 2006 - 2012.

SilentSpy

I see this two ways. The Golden Age of Bond meaning the time line of great Bond movies. For me that is Connery's first 5 movies. No one has a run like that and probably never will.

And also your Golden Age, meaning the time you grew up watching Bond movies. For me that's when I was a kid and a video store girl introduced me to the James Bond series. I wasn't around for Connery's movies in the theater. Nor the majority of Roger Moore's movies. So I had a wealth of Bond movies to watch. And that could be seen as a Golden Age of enjoying all those movies for the first time. Each one a different adventure and only going by the old VHS cover artwork. I can't remember which one the store girl picked first. But I remember being amazed by the artwork and excited about getting home with the tapes.

Wadsy

The 80's definitely. While the entire 60's decade of Bond was great, it falls to second place due to You Only Live Twice being an under-achieving Bond movie for me, and for the plot hole in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, despite it being one of my personal best James Bond movies.

The 80's bond films were all directed by John Glen, my preferred director due to his style. Beginning with For Your Eyes Only, he wanted to take bond back to basics, realism, less focus on gadgets and more on his wits. All of his films took a darker approach (excluding Octopussy), were full of strong characters, action scenes, plots and villains despite being more low key.

Of the five he did, I would them:

For Your Eyes Only (my favourite bond movie of all time)
The Living Daylights (my third favourite bond)
Licence To Kill (my fifth favourite bond)
Octopussy (my eighth favourite)
A View To A Kill (my tenth favourite)

Matt S

I think the entire decade of the 1960s is the Golden Age of Bond. A number of my all-time favourite Bond films come from the 1970s and 1980s, and I agree with Wadsy that John Glen made an incredible run of Bond films. But that to me doesn't make it a golden age. The entire 1960s had more than that going for it. Here's what makes the 1960s the golden age of Bond:

1. The start of the Bond film series.
2. So many films made within one decade (6 films over the course of less than 8 years).
3. Connery's consistent, brilliant performances in his first four Bond films.
4. True Fleming Bond in the first four Bond films.
5. Bondmania during the time of GF and TB.
6. The start of larger-than-life Bond with YOLT.
7. The genius that is OHMSS
8. Countless Bond spoofs and knock-off films and series.
9. Ian Fleming was still writing new stories.

Bond ruled culture at that time like it never did again.

Shady Tree

I agree that the 60s is THE golden age (with 1962 to 1964 establishing the era and 1964 to 1967 glittering with total Bondomania). My personal inclination would be to extend the parameters of the golden age to 1971, maybe even to 1979, but that's subjective and to do with my own generation as a Bond fan: all my first experiences of classic Bond films, and my first experiences of seeing films on their first release, were during that 70s period.

IcePak

Probably the 60s. DN, FRWL, GF, and OHMSS are all really strong films. TB and YOLT are good films too despite having some pacing issues and a ridiculous plot, respectively.

Plus each of these films exudes a particular 60s style that got lost as the series progressed.

The 80s is another strong age of Bond films, taking a more serious, back-to-basics approach to the material and character. FYEO, OP, TLD, and LTK are all strong films. AVTAK has some questionable casting choices (pairing an ageing Moore with a barely 20 year old Tanya Roberts) but is still an enjoyable film. You could also add Goldeneye to this sequence, since it was Brosnan's best and is one of the better films in the series.

Number24

IcePak wrote:

Probably the 60s. DN, FRWL, GF, and OHMSS are all really strong films. TB and YOLT are good films too despite having some pacing issues and a ridiculous plot, respectively.

Plus each of these films exudes a particular 60s style that got lost as the series progressed.

The 80s is another strong age of Bond films, taking a more serious, back-to-basics approach to the material and character. FYEO, OP, TLD, and LTK are all strong films. AVTAK has some questionable casting choices (pairing an ageing Moore with a barely 20 year old Tanya Roberts) but is still an enjoyable film. You could also add Goldeneye to this sequence, since it was Brosnan's best and is one of the better films in the series.

Tanya Roberts was actually 30 years old in 1985, but I still agree about the casting. Alison Doody was only about 19 at the time she played Jenny Flex, but she had to endure some cringeworthy puns from Moore about horseback riding.

Remington

To me, 1962-2012 was the Golden Age.

caractacus potts

objectively speaking I'd say the timeframe is very narrow: the first four, maybe five films. plus one or two renaissances in the decades since.

Goldfinger and Thunderball are definitely the centre of this Golden Age.
You Only Live Twice was the Golden Age going decadent, but there were still a helluvalotta spy films, mostly parodic, being released in 1967.
No matter how much we like OHMSS, it was a failed experiment released during a time when audiences were more interested in the New Hollywood era.

the Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker were the first renaissance. EON was fortunate they cranked up the spectacle at the same time Lucas and Speilberg redirected the entire film industry towards bigbudget escapist spectacle.
But again, no matter how much we like the following John Glenn films, they were less relevant to the filmgoing mainstream.
Goldeneye might have been a second renaissance, it was certainly the first time I'd seen civilians so interested in the Bond fantasy since my youth, but the mainstream interest did not seem to last into the second film.

maxzorin10 wrote:

... I'm a Gen Xer and for me the golden age of Bond started with Spy and went on thru Moonraker, FYEO and Octopussy... four back-to-back Bonds that were never matched since then.

subjectively, I agree with you precisely. I got on board with ...Spy..., and had read all the books and seen all the old films (including Casino Royale) by the time Moonraker came out.
I was greatly pleased by the new true-to-Fleming approach of FYEO (whereas most of my friends thought they had suddenly forgotten how to make a proper Bond film), and then so frustrated with the silly final scenes in Octopussy I actually gave up on the series until the hype of Goldeneye a decade later!

Number24

I'm not sure I have a golden age of Bond films. The sixties offers some of my favourite Bonds, , but in between comes YOLT and TB that comes pretty low down on my favourites list. I enjoy all of Moore's films, but his style is not how I really want to see James Bond. Can TLD/LTK/GE even be called an "age"? I like them all a lot, but they differ in style and many years past between the last two. The quality of Craig's Bond movies og up and down a lot. If I have to chose a golden age it's the first three, from DN to GF.

Gassy Man

All the Bonds with Connery and Lazenby. Clearly, they led the industry in what they did.

The Craig era seemed like it would be a second Golden Age starting with the excellent Casino Royale, but the results have been mixed and there are huge gaps between the films.

Firemass

I just finished watching all 24 Bond films in order from Dr No to Spectre. I started on Dec 20th and finished on January 8th. All from the blu-ray boxset on my 100" projector screen.

I'd say the golden age was basically Connery & Moore even if it includes a couple clunkers. Dalton and Brosnan films feel like a more modern era, which are still excellent but not quite as "golden" Seeing Q in the 90's is like something that has been carried over from the golden age to the present.

Reading the list of credits on Moonraker, for example, and all those names to me represent the golden age. Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Maurice Binder, John Barry, Walter Gotell, Cubby Broccoli, Ken Adam, Peter Lamont, John Glen, Shirley Bassey ... etc

Wadsy

For me, The Golden Era were the first four Bond films up until and including Thunderball. These films were all incredibly solid, fun and entertaining.

However, in my personal opinion I will also say the 80's with John Glen's directed Bond films. Besides A View To A Kill, these films are all very memorable, quite serious at times, follow Fleming's novels more closely and include less outlandish gadgets. For Your Eyes Only and both Timothy Dalton films really show these aspects, and in some ways, Octopussy.

Thunderpussy

I was FAR too young for the first golden age, but in my opinion the late 70's
was the 2nd Golden age. Bond was everywhere. I think of that as My Golden
age for the films.

Firemass

Thunderpussy wrote:

I was FAR too young for the first golden age, but in my opinion the late 70's
was the 2nd Golden age. Bond was everywhere. I think of that as My Golden
age for the films.

I was far too young for that 2nd Golden Age, but can still feel the Bondmania when I’m watching TSWLM and MR!

Kabraxal

Don't know if there is just one... but if I had to pick a stretch of Bond films and say "the best so it's the Golden Era"? That would be from For Your Eyes Only through Tomorrow Never Dies. I don't think there is a bad or even average film in that 16 year or so stretch and it has four of the best Bond films in FYEY, TLD, LTK, and GoldenEye.