Discovering Bond
wahwahkits
ellesmere port, englandPosts: 8MI6 Agent
Hi all, with me being new to this site there might be a thread elsewhere but i'd just like to ask how did you all discover James Bond?
I discovered him when my Dad took me to the pics (in my 11th birthday) to watch AVTAK. It was a revelation to me and is still one of my fave films to this day.
I discovered him when my Dad took me to the pics (in my 11th birthday) to watch AVTAK. It was a revelation to me and is still one of my fave films to this day.
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Or so they said, upon watching the actual movie I realized that it was at best a mild homage and that the music appeared nowhere in the film. Still I enjoyed the experience much more than I did with previous encounters with Bond (watching small bits of LTK and NSNA earlier, and being bored/not really caring), and not too long after found myself viewing Goldeneye at my aunt's place, and I became a fan since that day.
(NOTE: Up till that point, of course I know who and what James Bond was, but the aforementioned thing was the first I really got into it)
~Pen -{
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Unfortunatley due to my age, I had not known Bond or any of the movies until maybe the last 5-6 years.
I recieved a N64 for Christmas (the year escapes me) with the hit Goldeneye. After my dad had watched me play it for hours on end, he informaed me that there were plenty of movies to go along with it. The next day after he got off from work he ran by Blockbuster and rented Goldfinger for me to watch. Brought it home and started talking about it. I had no idea that Connery had been Bond or ever that he was the first. I was a big Connery fan, because at the time my father and I's favorite movie was "The Rock" with Connery and Cage. I immediately sat down and watch Goldfinger, and from then on out everyweekend till I had seen all of them, I would rent one and watch it. And so another Bond fan was born.
Then one day I was at a car boot sale and there was a guy selling most of the bond films on video dirt cheap (worked out at about £1 each). Most were the editions with the pictures going along the side, so me being a bit of a completist I bought the rest of the set.
Then I was in Borders looking in the 'bargain bin' and saw all the bond special edition dvd's at £3.99 each, so bought the lot and sold the videos on ebay. Finally bought all the ultimate editions on-line when they became buy one get one free. Again sold the other dvd's on ebay.
When I ran out of the comics and papers at home, if I could afford it I would occasionaly buy a DC Batman or Superman comic. And of course there was the Public Library - but had to settle for books available on a kid's ticket.
When I had exhausted these options I used to delve into my dad's bookcase, although the only books that I remember were a Sherlock Holmes novel and three Bond Pan paperbacks: CR, FRWL & DN (which were the start of my collection).
I enjoyed these three Bond books so much (I was hooked) that I enquired for more of the series at my local library, where I was told that they were in the adults section and weren't available to children (this was the vey early 60s by the way, I was a Junior school pupil, aged 9 or 10). Upon telling them that I had read three of them, they told me to come back the following week when they would have an answer to my query. The following week I was told that I was to be allowed one book at a time after one of the librarians had vetted the book. The only one I was denied access to was TSWLM, I had to wait until we moved and actually didn't get to read it until I started work, when I bought the then current Pan paperback version of it.
I was well and truly hooked by trhe time I became aware of the film GF at the age of 12 (DN & FRWL had managed to pass me by).
My first memory of Bond was the British TV premiere of Dr No in October 1975. I remember my parents sitting down to watch it (they'd seen the films in the 60's at the cinema!) and I remember watching it myself - vaguely. However, the emergence of the dragon tank scared the living daylights out of me and, in my alarm, alerted my parents to the fact that it was way past my bedtime. I was, thus, frog-marched to bed!
Subsequently, I remember the odd, early British TV screenings/premieres of the films but I became a fan on holiday in Carnarveon, North Wales in August 1977. A trip to the cinema (it was a rainy day) resulted in me seeing The Spy Who Loved Me. From the ski-chase to the Lotus to the Liparus to the Pyramids, I was hooked. From women with smoke-jet cigarettes to the underwater emergence of Atlantis, I was enthralled. Jaws' first appearance, cloaked in shadow, was genuinely terrifying. And, to cap it all, Roger Moore as James Bond finally gave me a hero I could respond to; cool, daring, adventurous, funny, assured, sophisticated and, uniquely, British.
Of course, other things struck me too; Ken Adam's giant, gleaming sets, Marvin Hamlisch's shimmering, exciting score and the compact and ingenious gadgets (I have never looked at ordinary objects the same way since!). I was too young to appreciate the libidinous quality to the film - that came later - but I did enjoy the humour. The little knowledge I had informed me that there were such things as Polaris submarines and Lotus cars and Pyramids and so the story actually seemed scarily possible to my young mind! (However, a little knowledge is always dangerous - later, I had nightmares when I read the publicity about Moonraker being "not science fiction but science fact"!).
Remember, this was 1977. In the next few years I was to be bombarded by Star Wars, Star Trek and Superman, all of which I would love. But Bond held me and the damage had been done! My theory is that we become Bond fans after the second Bond film we see. This is because we connect the dots and see the similarities between the second and first Bond film we see. The gunbarrel, the music, the titles, the continuity characters trigger a sense of connectivity in us that makes us want to track down the whole series. Anyway, I digress.
In 1978 I saw The Spy Who Loved Me again (in a double bill with The Pink Panther Strikes Again - tag line; "Nobody Does It Better Than Bond and The Panther Together!") as well as a double bill of the first two Roger Moore Bond films (chosen in preference to a double-bill of DAF and OHMSS - heresy!). From that point on, I would always watch the "Bond is Back to Back/Double Double-O-Seven" double bills that traditionally followed in the Easter after the release of a new film (usually consisting of the latest two films) which are now, alas, extinct due to video and DVD.
I began to anticipate the each film on TV or the cinema. In those days, when Bond films were due to be shown on TV, it was a BIG thing. They were advertised heavily, sometimes months in advance and I (and the nation - they garnered record viewing figures) would eagerly await each screening. In September 1978, I remember rushing down to check the TV Times one morning to find that a Bond film called OHMSS had me confused. George Lazenby puzzled and momentarily disappointed me but, after a surprisingly accurate explanation from my parents, my education continued with vigour. Occasionally I stumbled - I remember arguing with a friend, saying that there hadn't yet been a movie of Casino Royale and that if there had, it would never have starred Peter Sellers and David Niven, both as Bond!
Also in 1978, I saw an article in my mother's "Women" magazine (about the return of Sean Connery as 007 in Warhead - "The Battle of the Bonds") which I cut out and pasted in a scrap book. Thus, began my James Bond collection, which was soon followed by the Moonraker soundtrack and brochure!
However, it would only be a matter of time until I discovered Fleming, Ian Fleming.
I had been given an odd assortment of Ian Fleming novels in 1980 and I remember trying to read The Man With The Golden Gun (a dog-eared film tie-in paperback!) and giving up. This wasn't the Bond I knew - where was Nick Nack and Sheriff Pepper? These stories were old-fashioned and action-less and I didn't understand half of what I read. It was only when I was holiday in Devon in the Easter on 1982 that I trawled those beautiful second-hand book shops and bought most of the novels which I then sat down to read, in order. That summer I won a prize in school and the book token I received was used to order a copy of Colonel Sun (it wasn't readily available). That same autumn, I bought the paperback of the new John Gardner Bond novel, Licence Renewed. Thus, my introduction to the literary Bond had a seamless journey from Fleming to Amis to Gardner. Of course, my whole perception of Bond changed and I began to realise that 007 had been vastly misunderstood and mis-interpreted.
Anyway, until they find a cure, I'm stuck with Bondmania!
When my family moved to Australia in 1990, I started renting out Bond movies from the video store (my main aim being to learn English at the time). I remember watching the first few Connery Bonds - Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball, and from then on, I was hooked. The first Bond I went to see at the cinema was Goldeneye, but I have to say that I was extremely disappointed with the way they "modernised" Bond. It remains my second least favourite Bond film today.
I started getting into the literary Bond a few years later when I became more proficient with English, but for some reason, I could never read through an entire book. I found reading as a whole to be boring. It wasn't until a few years ago that I finally bought all 14 of Ian Fleming's novels and read them all, in order. I have not, and refuse to read any Bond novels that are not written by Fleming.
A couple of things I remember very well.
1) The sound of that reel to reel.
2) Mr. Kidd was creepy!
3) Purple bikinis evoke strange feelings.
4) Why does my dad always have to store his pipe tobacco in old dorito tins?
Well, anyway, I'm a bit proud to say that with the minimal gadgetry in FRWL, I was attracted to the "essence" of Bond despite the larger-than-life, comic book proportions that the series evolved into, which I have yet to witness; don't get me wrong, the gagetry eventually completed its spell on me, when I saw the GF broadcast in 1975, prompting me to ask my visiting aunt to buy me a Corgi DB5.
Absolutely B-)
ABC's "Sunday Night at the Movies." That's how I first experienced Bond as well...and he had my undivided attention
In Lincoln, Illinois, where I grew up, there was a classic 1920's-era movie palace, the Lincoln Theatre. In 1971, at the age of 9, my buddies and I walked the four blocks from our houses to the theatre---which at the time was a bit timeworn---and saw Diamonds Are Forever on the big screen. The moment when Sean Connery hangs outside the Whyte House changed everything for me...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I used to stay up and watch the films when they were on tv with my dad when I was quite young, 5 or 6 maybe. But I really got into it when I was about 14, just as Goldeneye was released. I decided to watch them all again as I hadn't seen them for years and was hooked.
Books:
Before last week I had read CR about 10 years ago. Then i decided to re-read it again last week and again was hooked. As soon as I had finished CR I started FRWL, I'm now on DN. I wanted to read them in order but only had those 3, ive ordered the rest from amazon and im going to read them chronologically when ive finished Dr. No.
I can imagine how iconic that scene would be to a 9-year old Bond 1st timer! Did you also afterwards find yourself fixated with redheaded girls and cassette tapes?
DAF...my grandparents took my two older siblings, my sisters with them to watch that and left me behind because I was too young (and maybe too because I was a fidgety, whiney, big pain in the butt when they took me to watch this really long boring western that had too much "talk talk talk"
Then on a Saturday night in August of 2001 when I was 9 years old I wanted to rent a movie (probably some dumb kids cartoon movie). Then just as me and my mom were about to leave my dad announced that their friends were coming over. My mom said we would go rent a movie as soon as they left as long as I behaved. So i waited in my room while they talked and talked and talked, then finally I was tired of waiting so I went and sat by my mom and whispered "When will they leave?" I didn't think that was so bad,but when they left my mom said that I couldn't rent a movie. I was REALLY MAD X-(!!!!! So then I automatically went to see if there was a movie on tv,and there was! It was Dr.No! But I didn't know what it was, I asked and my older brother and dad said it was a James Bond movie and that I should watch it. SO I DID!!! And I loved it! Then the tv station said next week another James Bond movie called From Russia With Love was on,I thought the title didn't sound great but I watched it anyway and I loved it more than the first one
I began pressing to see the Bond movies ( no DVD or video in the 60s, young 'uns, and they weren't yet on TV; you had to go to the cinema) and soon caught up, mostly on double bills. In those days and in these parts, a new film (or perhaps a re-release on a double bill) would first appear at a big cinema in Glasgow (city). After a few weeks there it would begin showing in Paisley (big town) before ending up in Barrhead (small town). I would therefore see a given film multiple times in the cinema (my record was 14 times, but that was a bit later- DAF).
Hand in hand with all that went my interest- oh, let's be honest- obsession with Bond music. Starting off with cover albums and compilations (The Best Of Bond, Cat!) which were naturally vinyl, then into the OSTs proper and John Barry's various albums.
Apparently a lot of this has rubbed of on Son Of Barbel, who has begun collecting and reading Bond stuff after growing up seeing the movies, playing the games, etc. Of course, it helps that he can see any of the films or read any of the books whenever he wants, which wasn't possible when I was his age!
Kids these days :v
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
(Monty Python mode:) "I remember when I were a lad..." {[]