Bond vs. Bond

Makes me re-think of the old addage "you are what you eat"...

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What's up with all this cattiness? It's PR! Keeping the name in the papers and papers that need stories. I wonder if any of this crap is even true or just made up!

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Calling Lazenby on his assanine statements and lack of acting experience is pretty accurate. You don't even have to be cranky to make them.

As for cattiness, that should be right up the alley of anyone that uses Contact Music as a "news" source worthy to remark on. Meow.

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Hmmph. Sean Connery and Roger Moore always managed to get along just fine. Didn't Connery once say something about Pierce's Bond as well? Ya don't see Pierce going after him.

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Actually, Connery said very complimentary things about Pierce's Bond, though Connery had negative things to say about Dalton's.

George has been saying snide things about Pierce as Bond before he even made a film. George also says he's never seen a Bond film since his own, 36 years ago because he can't take the pain. Funny, pained is how I feel when I watch Lazenby as Bond.

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Yet they both could probably agree that casting Craig is a franchise dooming mistake...

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LOL! I'm sure they can all agree on that and my bet is Lazenby is thrilled he's about to bumped off the most unpopular Bond list with short, blonde and craggy.


Sorry for the double post. Cinematical sent a dual confirm message.

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Actually, I enjoyed George Lazenby's "On Her Majesties Secret Service." I considered this among the best Bond films along with "From Russia With Love," "Thunderball," "Living Daylights," and "Licensed to Kill." The first three were very good adaptations of Fleming's original novels, and the two with Timothy Dalton came closest to the personality in the book. I can do without Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan's Moore-lite.

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Anything good in OHMSS has nothing to do with Lazenby's dire wooden green performance. TB is a fun large Bond film and it's not very alike in tone with the more taut and dark FRWL. TLD was an OK Bond film, undermined by the usual overlong sloppy script, poor villains and that hack director John Glen. LTK has all of TLD's faults and none of it's pluses and Dalton didn't have the charisma to rise above the dreariness. Bond was never that dreary and unlikeable in any Fleming work.

Only Hugh Grant is lighter than Moore and Brosnan played a rather dark ruthless Bond and physically was excellent in the role unlike Moore. It's just that unlike the dire Dalton he also had charisma and humor. But then so did Connery.

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Anything good in OHMSS has nothing to do with Lazenby's dire wooden green performance. TB is a fun large Bond film and it's not very alike in tone with the more taut and dark FRWL. TLD was an OK Bond film, undermined by the usual overlong sloppy script, poor villains and that hack director John Glen. LTK has all of TLD's faults and none of it's pluses and Dalton didn't have the charisma to rise above the dreariness. Bond was never that dreary and unlikeable in any Fleming work.

Only Hugh Grant is lighter than Moore and Brosnan played a rather dark ruthless Bond and physically was excellent in the role unlike Moore. It's just that unlike the dire Dalton he also had charisma and humor. But then so did Connery.

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Please, i would like to see Pierce Brosnan in a fith 007 outing... Please, Mr.Wilson, bring him back... Do it for the Bond fans... Unfortunatly, we do not have a Fleming book that doesn`t belong to EON anymore, for him to come back as an non-offical movie...

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Actually, the comment following my own helps prove my point. The Bond of the book had virtually no sense of humor at all, and at times seemed almost suicidally depressed. Lazenby's performance helped ground the more romantic aspects of the story with Diana Rigg, making the character much more romantic than usual. James Bond was almost the bread and butter of Playboy magazine at the time, so Lazenby's performance was more like a playboy than some of the other actors. In fight scenes, Lazenby sometimes seemed like he was tearing apart the sets. My main disappointment in the movie was that James Bond and Theresa de'Vincenzo never fought the baddies together, since Riggs had a tendency to tear apart the scenery as well. Of course that would've made it too similar to the future "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," and "True Lies."

I gave up on Pierce Brosnan after his second outing, and we'll just have to agree to disagree on him. Bond actors are like US presidents, and shouldn't bad mouth each other.

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Bond is the book does have a wry sense of humor, more as the books go along; read Thunderball again. More importanly Fleming has a sense of humor and that humor is what was transfered to the screen from the first film. The books are not realistic Le Carre thrillers. They're pulp spy adventures. The films were successful because they mined that sense of humor as well as the sense of fantastic with a charismatic witty albeit darkened hero. James Bond is not Harry Palmer, definitely not on screen and not even in the books.

The only thing that made the love story believable in OHMSS was Diana Rigg who blows Lazenby off the screen. Watch their scenes together and see how she carries them, and how the editor and director put the focus and responsibility on her. Considering the film was suppossed to be the great love and lost story of Bond's life Lazenby acting lamely like a goofy playboy doesn't fit.

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Fleming often saw his James Bond books as a satire of spy novels, and was clearly influenced by the old pulp/serial cliffhanger stories, and he certainly had fun creating odd names. He even said in one interview, that he considered James Bond to be a somewhat effeminate character, and he was pushing for David Nivens to play the part. However, that being said, the Bond of the books rarely jokes with anyone except with M's secretary Miss. Moneypenney, and his own secretary Loelia Ponsonby. The only joke I can recall his saying to anyone else was in the book "Goldfinger", where he tells this one woman who rear-ends him, "You do that again you'll have to marry me." (Paraphrase). He definitely did not make jokes about death a'la Sean Connery (my favorite Bond), "I think he got my point," or the Bond wannabe Austin Powers.

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Maybe they should remake *OHMSS* with Brosnan in it. And wipe away Lazenby once and for all.

Just a thought.

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Nah, make it with Julian McMahon instead...

But give Brosnan a worthy send-off flick...

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why...daniel craig as bond?
why they never ask james bond fans who do they like to see as j. bond?
they just kickt p. brosnan out , like a dirty towel.
not nice , after he made them so much money.
they should have give a nice final movie and i bet everyone , fan or not fan would gone to see this movie.
please bring pierce back ...please.
we don t need another lazenby..sorry daniel graig is even worse, he is not even handsome.
my friends and i will not go and see casino royal.

come on bring him back
brosnan ...pierce brosnan

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Actually, James Bond has a fantastic sense of humor. The great skill of the Bond screenwriters is that they were able to turn what was in bonds head into clever, witty sayings that have become famous. He was cynical but very funny in his assessment of people especially. If you ever get a chance to read "Goldfinger" again, check out Bonds thoughts the first time he sees Goldfinger in his golf attire. Its really quite funny.

Aso: I liked George, but had Connery done OHMSS, it would clearly have been the best in the series and the closest adaptation of any of the books.

I dont see Craig pulling it off frankly. Its a weird story to begin with, and adding an unknown like this is just stupid!

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I agree with Mike, however, because the joking was within the narrative, I saw that primarily as the writer inserting himself into the novel, and not so much the wit of the protagonist. Just the same, that's like arguing apples and oranges.

I think I have to withdraw "Thunderball" as a good adaption of a Fleming book. It's history is too convoluted. The best I can piece together is that the script and the book were written at the same time. SMERSH was replaced by SPECTRE. The script was written by Kevin McClory (who invented SPECTRE), Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming wrote the book and gave no credit to the other two. Eventually McClory sued and won the rights to SPECTRE. This led to the remake "Never Say Never," and constant rumors about another series of Bond movies by a rival studio. At one time it was Sony, and they were considering Charles Shaughnessy as 007, (he was the boss of Fran Drescher in 'The Nanny.')
So using "Thunderball" as an example of a good adaption, or Bond having a sense of humor in the book is questionable, since there were so many chefs stirring the broth.

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McClory is the homeslice that in his lawsuit claimed that he was in fact the creator of the "cinematic James Bond" and Sony financed the whole fishing-expedition of a lawsuit. This was at the time that Spider-Man was filming, and Sony was looking for a second heroic franchise. Sony threatened to use McClory's *rights* as the basis to launch a rival James Bond franchise.

In hindsight, its become moot since Sony now controls distribution of the franchise thanks to the fact that they gobbled up MGM.

Had Time Warner gotten their hands on MGM, Brosnan would still be in the role with Julian McMahon awaiting for his departure.

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