The Golden Age of James Bond

Though it appears to be continuing to this very day, the James Bond movie franchise actually came to a crashing halt in 1974 with the release of “The Man With The Golden Gun”. Roger Moore’s second foray as Bond was so unlike Ian Fleming’s original creation that it shouldn’t even be considered a proper “James Bond” film. For all intents and purposes, the Bond series ended with “Live and Let Die” which, flawed though it was, at least has the benefit of being a relatively sincere attempt at putting Fleming’s famed spy character on the silver screen.

Sean Connery was the definitive Bond. George Lazenby took a shot but didn’t have the right screen charisma to pull it off. Roger Moore didn’t have what it took either… but the producers discovered that it they beefed up the comedy and toned down the violence audiences would come to see his version of the character anyway. Roger Moore’s Bond seemed to have more in common with Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau than the superspy popularized by Connery but as long as the movies made money the owners of the popular film franchise didn’t seem to mind.

“Dr. No” was the first James Bond film, released in 1962. It was not intended to be the first of a series but just another film version of just another popular action novel. The stylized sets of Ken Adams, the wonderful Monty Norman/John Barry score, the crisp direction of Terence Young and, of course, the stellar screen presence of Sean Connery served to make the movie a spectacular hit. (The near-naked appearance of Ursula Andress didn’t exactly hurt either.) Though most of the familiar elements of the Bond franchise were not yet in place the movie was such a success that the screen adaptation of another Ian Fleming adventure was quickly planned.