Invisible Men Shouldn't Obscure Invisible Women

I am a stay-at-home dad. Or possibly, I'm a house-husband? I don't really know what to call what I do because none of these labels seem to fit. I hate the moment in a conversation where I have to try and describe who I am, normally to a near total stranger. Sometimes I go with housewife - it gets a smile more often that not and it doesn't seem any less untrue. I have to say something because I am always asked 'what do you do?' whenever I meet someone. I get asked this because I am a man and the expectation is that I have at least a job, if not a career. Women, I have noticed, are asked a subtly different question: 'do you work?'

I've just read this article in the paper about British fathers who stay at home to perform childcare duties whilst their partner works full-time. I'm still trying to understand what I think about it. It seems to be suggesting that this is something that is happening under the radar, a phenomenon which requires attention by policy-makers to avoid men becoming 'ghettoised'.

Adrienne Burgess, head of research at the Fatherhood Institute, feels there is little understanding in government about family life and that more men could be househusbands. "What's changing is not the fathers but the mothers," she said. "More mothers at the time of their first child are earning as much or more than their partner. So couples make rational economic decisions. By the time the child is 18 months old, three quarters of mothers are back in paid work and those who aren't tend to be the most poor or disadvantaged who don't have the options because of the cost of childcare. The fully fledged stay-at-home parent is a dying breed. [...] Motherhood is still in that flux and, while men are seeing being the primary parent as an option, their voices aren't heard. They are ghettoised. What holds a lot of men back is a lack of confidence and a culture that is sometimes hostile and excluding of men."

And then there was this:

[A man] has started working again part-time now that his children are at school, but remains the primary carer. "Leaving work to pick the kids up still gets comments from other blokes. There is the sense that I'm not putting in a full day. It can be hard going at times."

I have nothing but respect for men - and women - that juggle working and parenting, either individually, or as a couple, or whatever. But the subtext of this article seems to be 'Gosh, these men have it tough'. And this is something I take issue with.

Before I was a stay-at-home dad, I worked part-time. Thanks to flexible working legislation brought in by the Labour government I was able to halve the hours I worked when my wife's maternity leave finished. She went back to the job that she loved and I was delighted to get out of the office at lunchtime every day and pick up my son from nursery. I loved it. My immediate boss was brilliant. He backed my application and continued to support me throughout the remaining five years I worked with that company. But that didn't mean that it was easy.

Upper levels of management (both male and female) seemed bewildered at my choice. I was made to feel that I had somehow offended them by suggesting that I would rather have less money and more time changing nappies. Once, at a Christmas office dinner, I mentioned my wife's career to a member of senior management. There was a frosty silence, the implication being apparently that if my wife had a career then I had abandoned my own. And, beyond my immediate team, colleagues were perplexed that I wasn't around in the afternoons. I was made to feel that I wasn't pulling my weight and eventually work started to bypass me entirely and I ended up with almost nothing to do, as if I couldn't be trusted.

That could have gone on indefinitely I suppose. Luckily my wife's career meant we ended up moving abroad and here I have no work visa. It seemed a good fit - the children, still small, would benefit from having me at home full time whilst we got used to our new surroundings. Furthermore, my wife would have to travel quite a bit and I would be able to be the permanent presence for them. That was four years ago.

I can't say there aren't downsides to this arrangement, and the article mentions some of these, but I can't support the idea that the experience of being a male stay-at-home parent is somehow worse or harder or uniquely challenging when compared to that of a mother.

When I was working, there were many female colleagues who had to leave early to pick up their kids, or who worked part-time. They suffered the same criticisms and aspersions that I did - the only difference is that both they and their employers expected it to be this way. The women knew they were expected to work harder; the company probably felt, having given these women jobs, that they were a necessary evil. Being a man, it never occurred to me that I would be treated differently once I went part-time. But the anxieties, the pressure to be in two places at once that I felt were just the same.

And it's the same for stay-at-home parents. Speaking to other mums it's clear that we both have the same problems. The article talks about men resenting their wives' freedom, feeling their 'ego turn to mush'. You think this doesn't happen to women? This has been most women's lives in the developed world for generations. We're all swirling above the plughole of an existential crisis, trying to cope with the threat that our identity as individuals could be entirely eroded, that our domestic role could subsume us. The sense I get from these conversations is that I, somehow, have the right to complain about this because I am a man. Like me, these women also get uprooted from their friends and support networks when their husbands relocate them. They feel the ludicrous pressure to keep up appearances at the school gate. They get defined and identified by, even measured against, their children, their spouses, or their homes. And all this is worse where economic factors force someone to be an involuntary stay-at home parent. 

I have it easier than them. I have a suspicion that I get away with murder because people's expectations of me as a stay-at-home parent are not those they would have for a woman. I think I feel less guilty about marking out time for myself, about saying 'screw the housework today'. If I ever went back to work (please God no) I'd get paid more money than them.

This isn't a criticism against working parents. I know they have to, you know, work really hard and that they suffer tremendous guilt at not being with their kids as much as they would like. I am not, either, saying that I have a hard time. Now both kids are at school, this is (on the whole) a cushy number, let's be clear. And, yes, this can be a disorientating and demoralising experience for men who have been brought up to think that self-worth can only come from a rewarding career. But do these men need special help? Do we need targeted government policies to help us? No. Social policy should be aimed at helping families, whatever the permutation of workers and stay-at-homers, men and women, adults and children. And it is still women that have the hardest time of it. They face the greatest expectations, required by society to be perfect mothers as much as productive workers, whilst continuing to be undervalued thanks to the gender pay gap.

It's great that more men are occupying this traditionally female role. I hope the trend continues because I think it will help improve legislation and make things easier for parents, men and women, working and stay-at-home. But whilst this social change is unfolding around us it would be a crushing disservice to women, to our wives and mothers and grandmothers, to claim that men have a tougher time of it just because this is, for us, uncharted territory.      

Live And Let Die

Whilst DAF set off in a new direction, it packed a lot of the old baggage. This much becomes clear on watching Live And Let Die, which shakes things up further still. There's an iconoclastic mood about the way it explores new areas (blaxploitation movies and urban environments) and seems to enjoy cutting ties to previous films (no Q, no briefing in M's office, no dinner jacket, no martini). Even so, it works surprisingly hard to hark back to DRNO, throwing in casual references to the original Bond film with seemingly no anxiety that, eleven years later, they might not be understood. But in the main, yes, the sense is of a new broom.

At a time when spy films were old hat it must have seemed a challenge to keep Bond relevant. They certainly are trying hard here although it all seems a little desperate, and never more so than when Bond sneaks into the Harlem underworld. Moore, in suit and tie, is hopelessly out of place in a room full of pimps and gangsters. 

I've thrown together a quick visualisation of how 007 comes across in this scene (NB normally Bond should sit rather closer to half-way along on this continuum):

Bond is not only white but utterly not 'with it': an instrument of the British establishment, a public school boy policeman, working hand-in-hand with Nixon's CIA. Not cool at all. It's an unfortunate juxtaposition and one that hardly serves to make Bond anything other than a reactionary throwback.

Of course this wasn't the intention but, having decided to adapt Fleming's novel, no other outcome was really ever likely. But if we consider the book as a starting point (written in the early-Fifties and not the most politically correct thing ever-written) then the film becomes rather more acceptable. 

Fleming, I think, is straining to be even-handed but he is a product of his own times and of the Empire. This extract, from the 1957 edition, is typically privileged high-handedness.

'I don't think I've ever heard of a great negro criminal before,' said Bond, 'Chinamen, of course, the men behind the opium trade. There've been some big-time Japs, mostly in pearls and drugs. Plenty of negroes mixed up in diamonds and gold in Africa, but always in a small way. They don't seem to take to big business. Pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought except when they've drunk too much.'

'Our man's a bit of an exception,' said M. 'He's not pure negro. Born in Haiti. Good does of French blood. Trained in Moscow, too, as you'll see from the file. And the negro races are just beginning to throw up geniuses in all the professions - scientists, doctors, writers. It's about time they turned out a great criminal. After all, there are 250,000,000 of them in the world. Nearly a third of the white population. They've got plenty of brains and ability and guts. And now Moscow's taught them one of them the technique.'

Murky waters indeed. Then there's this little gem. Having been shown around Harlem by Felix Leiter, Bond finds an occult shop selling Voodoo trinkets. 

Bond reflected it was no wonder that [Mr Big] found Voodooism such a powerful weapon on minds that still recoiled at a white chicken's feather or crossed sticks in the road - right in the middle of the shining capital city of the Western World. 

'I'm glad we came up here,' said Bond. 'I'm beginning to get the hang of Mr. Big. One just doesn't catch the smell of all this in a country like England. We're a superstitious lot there of course - particularly the Celts - but here one can almost hear the drums.'

It's all horribly patronising and offensive, but note how Fleming includes a swipe at the Welsh here and how Mr Big's gift for evil is due to his (gasp!) French ancestry. The intent surely is to deflect accusations of racism against blacks by making it clear that the Englishman's problem is with all foreigners and is nothing to do with skin colour. In any case it makes for grim reading today and I'm sure it did in 1972 as well. 

Faced with having to adapt this subject matter, the popularity of blaxploitation movies like Shaft (1971) must have seemed to offer the producers an opportunity. If nothing else they proved that there was an existing film language with which black criminals could be depicted. All they would need to do was insert Bond into a version of this world. Even better, it was modish, urban and cool - all things Bond desperately needed to be.
 
The major saving grace is that the movie Bond doesn't have the internal monologue of his literary counterpart. When he enters a room, we never see it through his eyes and we never hear his observations or judgements like we do in the books. We can only imprint our own opinions into his mind and therefore if the movie Bond is racist it's probably only because an audience member has decided he is. 

Despite all this there is still something a little unsettling about Bond and Solitaire (and Leiter) being the only white characters in the story - it's a bit like Abduction from the Seraglio, with Bond marching into Kananga's palace to rescue the white woman kept in thrall by the black man. And there's the added problem that all the black characters are either evil inner-city gangsters or savage superstitious islanders. Well, not all, no. But of the remainder, they are either in on the conspiracy (like the waiters) or they're Rosie and Cutter, and there we're into a whole other problem. 

Rosie and Cutter are both agents working for Leiter. We're originally led to suspect Cutter as being 'one of them' until he dramatically reveals himself to be a goodie. He's a no-nonsense, hard-talking bad-ass operative, albeit conservatively dressed - a sort of Shaft-lite - and he even gets to rescue Bond in Harlem. Rosie is sent by Felix to help Bond in the Caribbean and within two minutes she's shown to be insecure and hapless, superstitious and hysterical. She can't work the safety catch on her gun, mistakes Bond's ally, Quarrell Jr, for an assassin and then turns out to be a traitor herself. In short, she is rubbish. For once in LALD, race has nothing to do with it - Rosie's problem is that she's a woman. 

We've seen glimpses of this before (Tiffany replacing the already-swapped cassette in DAF), but with Rosie, here, and especially with Mary Goodnight in TMWTGG, this notion goes into overdrive. No matter how much race-relations have improved since Fleming wrote his novels, things aren't getting any easier for women and this depiction of the uselessness of female agents is seemingly inherited from the first book, Casino Royale, (1953).

Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them.

Actually, there's no hint there that the woman might be incapable of her doing her job, just that she would be an insufferable hindrance to Bond doing his. So really, the portrayal of Rosie and Goodnight, twenty years later, is a step backwards...

Anyway, that's enough liberal hand-wringing for now. If you can put such thoughts from your mind (as one is invited to do) then this is a decent middle-ranking Bond film. It suffers from a more limited budget compared with some earlier films, and, as I've mentioned, Moore is a little too uptight throughout - but there's just enough excitement and humour around to make this watchable. 

The excitement is nearly all delivered in one long sequence - a speed boat chase through the Louisiana bayous that starts with an incredible stunt (see Best Bond Moments below) - but the humour is trickled throughout, starting with an early scene where M visits Bond's flat. Instead of the traditional briefing we get a full-on farce, complete with a woman in her underwear hiding in a wardrobe and a disapproving elderly relative (M). Bond later deadpans his way through Harlem and San Monique before accidentally giving an elderly lady a crash-course flying lesson, smashing up an airfield as he slowly taxies about. When Sheriff J. W. Pepper (o' thuh Looweezeeahnnah State Pohlice) calls him a doomsday machine it makes Bond sound like an international Frank Spencer. No surprise that the tarot card that alerts Solitaire to Bond's imminent arrival is The Fool. 

Moore doesn't shine on his début. He's wound too tight here, not yet relaxed enough to find the twinkle Connery was able to conjure up in DAF. He'll get there, but for now he cuts an unfamiliar and slightly distant Bond with his very short hair, foot-long cigars and three-quarter length overcoat.

An incredibly young Jane Seymour (just 20, fact-fans) does well with what could have been an awful part, saving Solitaire from being another of those dull, demure damsels from the early Connery films. There's a tangible edge to her anxiety, having been deceitfully deflowered by Bond, that she has lost her supernatural powers her character is a lot more interesting as a result. Yaphet Kotto provides the villainous Kananga with a decent mix of sophisication, egotism and (unknown in Bond baddies to date) real anger. Unfortunately he's undermined by his rather dull scheme - no matter how grand the scale of his operations, he's still just a drug pusher.

If this all leaves the audience a little distanced from the drama then George Martin's score more than closes the gap. We haven't had to cope without John Barry before but Martin delivers a thumping, blaring, funked-up soundtrack that forces real excitement into some potentially underwhelming moments (Rosie gibbering at a scarecrow, for example.) 

But perhaps the real star here is Geoffrey Holder playing Baron Samedi, a mysterious voodoo figure who lurks around in the background throughout the film, usually laughing at the main characters. It's never explained who he is or how he fits into Kananga's operation (although it's hinted that he is pretending to be the real Samedi in order to scare locals away from the poppy fields, Scooby-Doo style) but he is killed by Bond, pushed into a coffin full of snakes. And then, in the last shot of the movie, he reappears sat on the front of a passenger train laughing his head off straight through the fourth wall at us. Apparently this supernatural ending was added so Baron Samedi could be brought back if desired - well, why not? I'd rather watch Bond fight a lascivious undead voodoo spirit than sit through Die Another Day.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: Here's a strange thing - a PCS that doesn't involve Bond at all and only serves to kick-start the plot with the tropical murders of British agents. In other words, it's DRNO again. 

Theme: Paul McCartney's theme is probably the most famous after Goldfinger. It's a great song and, at this point, it's a radical departure: a fast rock track with a hint of reggae and some powerful orchestration courtesy of George Martin. The visuals are.. getting boring now. As a concession to the particular setting/subject of the film we have black women and flaming skulls, but there's nothing clever or cheeky about it and the best bit is when a lowly fibre optic lamp appears. Poor Maurice seems to have rather fallen into a rut.   

Deaths: 13 and this is the lowest since DRNO. I'm going to skate over the thorny question of whether Baron Samedi's 'death' counts.   

Memorable Deaths: Kananga swallows a compressed gas bullet and explodes but surely the most memorable death is the one that doesn't happen (see above).    

Licence to Kill: First time out Moore dispatches 7. Seeing as there are only 13 deaths in the movie that's not an inconsiderable tally. 

Exploding Helicopters: Nope, not one.

Shags: 3. Still 007's PB. 

Crimes Against Women: Moore's Bond doesn't have an auspicious start, tricking Solitaire into bed with his stacked deck. Poor Solitaire hasn't much of a life so far, stuck in a abusive relationship with Kananga. 

Casual Racism: I think it's probably fair to say that the tobacco chewin', dagnabbitin', J. W. Peppah is as much of a stereotype as any of the black characters. He's also the most racist, but just you wait until next time.

Out of Time: The blaxploitation, the voodoo, the clothes, the hair, Bond's ghastly kitchen - it could only be more 1973 if there were Giant Maggots in it.

Fashion Disasters: Bond has become rather foppish, sporting three different dressing gowns/house coats throughout the film (the first of which is monogramed) and picking ties from a tailor's proffered selection. That he obviously cares so much about his appearance makes it all the more odd when he turns up in a denim shirt and white vest. 

Eh?: Bond gets sent a tarot card, the Queen of something or other, to tip him off that Rosie is a wrong'un. Having googled it, Bond learns that, when upside down, the card means a deceitful woman. But how does he know it's supposed to be upside down if it was posted to him? And who sent it anyway? Solitaire? >> Why, when Bond hang-glides into Kananga's estate does he turn his jacket inside out to make it white? Why can't he just wear a dark suit? >> Why do the tarot cards have '007' printed all over the backs of them? (I know why really, but how can it be justified within the logic of the film?) >> Lover's Lesson #4 is, apparently, 'Follow the scarecrows.'

Worst Line: Oh, there's nothing absolutely terrible. Moneypenny gets a 'ciao' (told you this was full of DRNO references) but it's an ironic one so fair enough. 

Best Line: "What ARE you? Some sort a DOOMSDAY MACHINE, boy?" Sheriff J. W. Pepper's hysteria is all the more enjoyable when served along side Moore's imperturbable sang-froid. And there's a nice snarky exchange between Bond and just-shagged turncoat Rosie when 007 threatens her with his gun:

ROSIE:  You wouldn't. Not after what we've just done.
BOND:  I certainly wouldn't have killed you before. 

Worst Bond Moment: Bond evokes nothing but Gareth Hunt with his coffee-making efforts. And the cigar does nothing for him.

Best Bond Moment: No contest here. It's an incredible stunt and one of the best ever Bond moments. Trapped on an island in the middle of a lake full of crocodiles, Bond runs to safety across the backs of the beasts. It's set up beautifully by suggesting that 007 need only use his much-hyped magnetic wristwatch to escape. But when this gadget fails, Bond has to come up with something spontaneous and amazing instead. And it's all the more brilliant because of how the stunt came about. It wasn't even in the script. During filming in Jamaica the crew found the crocodile farm and wanted to use it as a location. The owner suggested the stunt and offered to do it himself. It took him five attempts as this jaw-dropping (and jaw-snapping) clip shows, look: 

Overall: After all those SPECTRE stories, the grand threat-escalation of the Sixties and all the Lazenby/Connery hoo-ha, LALD is Bond back to normal, business as usual. No surprise then that it's not particularly mind-blowing. But it's a solid, middling Bond film, the sort that keeps the franchise ticking along until someone can work out how to do something spectacular with it again. Job done.

James Bond Will Return: pretty much straight away! In The Man With The Golden Gun.

Bond in the Sixties

I know I'm posting about nothing other than Bond right now. Sorry about that. It's not as if there isn't other stuff going on but this is the first time in many years I've given the series very much thought and, having done so, it's taken up residence, lodged in my mind. There's so much of it to work through! Maybe by November, when Skyfall comes out, I'll be able to clear my bonce of Bond for another long while.

In the meantime, we're making progress! Connery and Lazenby done and dusted; seven films down and only, gurgh, fifteen to go! We'll be fine! Sure we will! What's the story so far?

Let's quickly put poor George out of his misery as there's only OHMSS to judge him on and I've done that already. But it's a good Bond film (albeit one that rather sticks out from the others - before Daniel Craig rolls up), proving that James could be romantic, vulnerable and played by someone else.

Connery himself is the subject of a globe-spanning consensus: regarded by millions, if not billions, as the definitive and the best Bond of them all. It's probably impossible to destroy that conventional wisdom and I'm not going to try (I am) but I do have to disagree. His 007 is mostly a thoroughly unpleasant bastard who does some truly terrible things and doesn't manage to be particularly charming whilst he does them. Unlike the Bond of the novels, his misdeeds are not accompanied by an internal monologue of guilt and contextualisation, so he just comes across as a shit. Still, he looks super-cool and Connery must get the credit he deserves for launching the most successful movie franchise of all time.

His films vary from dull to thrilling, from slick to slapdash. The worst, despite the AMAZING NINJA-FUELLED FINALE, is the messy and meaningless YOLT. The pick of them - and it really is one of the very best Bond films - is FRWL, a cool spy thriller with great baddies. But nothing can compete with the glory that is the pre-credits sequence to Goldfinger and sees Bond operating at the outer-limits of optimum coolness.
 
Keeping tally is a terribly nerdy thing to do, but entirely appropriate of course under the circumstances. Here's the reckoning so far.

Bond	007 Kills	Deaths	Shags	Helicopters
Connery	57	384	13	8
Lazenby	5	28	3	0

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So, Bond has killed 62 people. In serial killer terms that's already very high. The total number of fatalities - mainly service men/women and hired security - doesn't amount to much (Wikipedia doesn't include death tolls for wars unless they're greater than 1000) but that says less about the Bond films, I think, and more about how desensitised I am by the unimaginable disasters and calamities of the real world.

Speaking of the real world, it's interesting how the Bond films have dealt with the geo-political nightmare of the 1960s. Very quickly indeed (about half-way through DRNO) the franchise deliberately becomes lurid escapism from the existential crisis of nuclear armageddon. But that doesn't mean that the Cold War is being ignored. Repeatedly it is there: American rocket tests, SMERSH, China's dirty bomb, Vulcan bombers, Soviet/US space race tensions and finally in DAF the idea of forced disarmament by orbital space laser (in fact it is only OHMSS that doesn't have some reference to the Cold War.)

It's impossible to ignore, like a wobbly tooth. But, very much unlike a wobbly tooth, it is a terrifying concept threatening the existence of a whole civilisation. Of course, this was merely the reality that both the film-makers and the audience had to deal with. Unable to leave it alone, the films end up playing around the edges of the Cold War, using SPECTRE as a proxy with which to explore the threat of nuclear catastrophe. This in itself is an interesting divergence from the books where it is the Russians that are the puppet-masters of, for example, No, or Goldfinger. Is it just that an independent organisation like SPECTRE is sexier than the KGB? Or is it an attempt to make things more comfortable for the audience, to push the real world threat beyond a wall of fantasy that makes it tolerable to consider?

Either way, the Cold War shaped these films without receiving much direct attention and this all happened during a distinct phase of US/Soviet relations. DRNO opened just a few days before the Cuban Missile Crisis but, by the time DAF was in cinemas, both sides were moving towards détente in a world where crises were more likely to be caused by individuals and terrorists. The next time the Soviet Union makes an appearance Bond will find Mother Russia's agents to be unusually cooperative.

Apart from the mania for space exploration there's not much else that is particularly evocative of the Sixties is there? It's not as if these films 'swing' - there's no contemporary music, no reference to culture at all, in fact (counter or otherwise). No thought of Vietnam or political assassinations either. The Bond films are very straight-laced and are only interested in a very narrow slice of high life.

And what of the other great matters of the decade: gender equality and race relations? Maybe looking for signs of feminism in James Bond films is the definition of a fool's errand, but there is some improvement isn't there? By the end of the Sixties, women like Tracy and Tiffany demonstrate independence and bravado that would have been impossible for Tatiana or Tilly. Tracy, at least, is presented as a complete equal to Bond - but for a woman this means 'taming' Bond and becoming the perfect wife for him. What we haven't seen yet is a female character who is entitled to behave the same way that 007 does without being adversely judged for it.

As for race relations? It's not covered at all - perhaps unsurprisingly given that in Britain this was much less of a issue than it was in America. What we have instead is an accidental depiction of the end of empire. DRNO is a colonial story, with the man from London sent to sort out some trouble with the natives, whilst in FRWL Kerim represents the traditional imperial espionage network of local influence and amateur spies. This world fades away over the rest of these films to be replaced by a wholly American sphere - but even in the casinos of Las Vegas we see very little of black America: Sammy Davis Jnr's cameo would have been notable in more ways than one if it hadn't been left on the cutting room floor.

Perhaps the producers sensed an imbalance in their output - or maybe they were desperate to keep their films up to date. Either way, the up-shot was that James Bond's next adventure would be an all out, bad ass blaxploitation movie - albeit one where (uniquely?) the leading man and woman were both white and all the baddies were black.

Racial imbalance redressed!

Diamonds Are Forever

Although I’ve watched these films many many times, I’ve never sat down and watched them in order, as a series. It’s fascinating enough to watch the slow development of ideas over time, but the sudden unexpected lurches are even better. I wonder if there’s a more staggering shift in direction than the one between OHMSS and Diamonds Are Forever.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Connery's fast return meant that the Bond franchise was cautiously reaching for the familiar and the trusted after the (failed?) experiment of OHMSS. But this isn't strictly the case. Yes, there was an initial desire to ape past glories, specifically Goldfinger: director Guy Hamilton was asked back and early script ideas held that 007 should battle Auric Goldfinger's twin brother. But there was also a sense that new blood was needed and a search for a new Bond was undertaken. The strange thing is that, although Connery did eventually wind up in front of the cameras, this film is really just as experimental as its predecessor. It might not be immediately obvious now, but DAF dramatically changed the tone of the series. And the change was made so successfully that, apart from the odd deviation here and there, this new direction would come to define what people expected of a Bond film until, well, the arrival of Daniel Craig. Even better, all this was achieved whilst a new James Bond was being sneaked in right under our noses.

Yes, a new James Bond, albeit with Sean Connery’s face. After offering the part to Michael Gambon, the producers settled on American John Gavin to be the next 007. The studio overruled them, ordered them to make a deal with Connery whatever the cost, and paid off Gavin’s contract. But having done all that, we still don’t end up with the Connery Bond that we’ve come to expect. In fact, he plays it completely differently. There’s none of the cold intensity of DRNO or FRWL, none of the sadistic sexuality of Goldfinger or Thunderball and, most importantly, none of the angst of OHMSS. Suddenly the man is playful, funny even, gently undermining the seriousness of the situation with an arch of his eyebrows and his tongue wedged firmly in his cheek. It transforms Bond, making him, at last, charismatic and likeable. Not only is it a complete departure from how Connery portrayed him in the 1960s, it’s also eerily prescient of Roger Moore.

So where does this new Bond come from? I think the credit (or blame, depending on your point of view) sits with two men: the director, Guy Hamilton, and a writer, new to the series, Tom Mankiewicz. Together they would craft the next two Bond films (LALD and TMWTGG), whilst Mankiewicz wouldthen go on to influence the two after that (TSWLM and Moonraker). It seems to me that they had a clear vision for Bond in the ‘70s and that they wanted a fresh direction with a new 007.

Compare the opening moments of DAF and LALD, for example. In DAF, just as in OHMSS, TLD and GoldenEye, we are allowed only glimpses of the new Bond before his first proper reveal – it’s a careful, introductory tease, making the audience wait before seeing the new man. Whereas in LALD, the same director and writer show us Roger Moore with no fanfare whatsoever. He’s not even on a mission but relaxing at home. Yes, I can see how it could be argued that this is merely a clever way to force an audience into accepting a new actor, but I think the film makers felt that their Bond had already had his debut.

How is DAF different then? Quite simply it is the first Bond film that can be described as fun. The Connery movies started as cold spy thrillers and morphed into outlandish Exciting Adventures. But they were never fun. They were pretty much played straight, with an earnest respect for the jeopardy at hand.

That all goes out the window here. The chilling severity that Bernard Lee had previously invested in M is replaced by eye-rolling exasperation in a scene where his new jokey 007 fidgets like a schoolboy. The women (mainly but not exclusively Tiffany Case, played by Jill St. John) are no longer birds with a wing down, but sassy gamblers, conniving and cheeky, up-front and out for themselves. The villains are literally camped up: Wint and Kidd, the homosexual assassins, mince about in a most un-PC manner, whilst Ernst Stavro Blofeld himself (played by Charles Gray) drags up like Dick Emery and lays about him with some very waspish put downs indeed. 

"How disappointing," he tuts, as 007 arrives to thwart his plans. "I was expecting one head of state at the very least. Surely you haven't come to negotiate, Mr Bond? Your pitiful little island hasn't even been threatened."  It's a far cry from the earnest pretensions to relevance that were put forward on Britain's behalf in DRNO, but that's not to say that the series is done flying the flag. When Bond, Leiter and a host of American agents turn up to rescue the kidnapped (Howard Hughes substitute) Willard Whyte, the billionaire peruses the group. 

"FBI?" he asks. "CIA?"

"No," replies Bond, ignoring the muscle on all sides. "British Intelligence."

It's preposterous, bare-faced cheek but it works for a British audience because we loathe our own deluded sense of superiority whilst simultaneously knowing that we really are best, really, on some non-existent scale where wealth, influence, military power and sporting ability are not factors. The new fun Bond template allows us to play with the delusion even whilst we see that it is being torpedoed.

Overall DAF works very well. I certainly was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. There’s the cracking fight with Peter Franks in Amsterdam early on, which even manages to evoke the great Orient Express fight from FRWL. The rest of the film makes good use of its Las Vegas setting: the easy-going brashness of the casinos played against the bleak desert horizon. In fact, Vegas allows John Barry to get really quite jazzy with his score at times - in particular I like the chill lounge version of the Bond theme just before 007 bumps into Bambi and Thumper. There are some lovely smaller roles too – Lana Wood makes a considerable impression in her two minutes as Plenty O’Toole and Ed Bishop is a little ray of sunshine as Klaus Hergerscheimer, from G Section. There are some nice sight gags in the background of scenes - an elephant playing slot machines, or Q Branch boffins struggling to winch a load of missiles into the bonnet of an Aston Martin over Q's shoulder. And the model work for the brief space sequence is even better than it was in YOLT. Throughout,Connery charms and delights, often joking around: whether pretending to be a snogging couple, infuriating Professor Metz by pretending to be the hapless Hergerscheimer or chatting with rats, he manages to do something entirely new with a role he has played five times before.

Of course it’s not without imperfections,but they are slight. There’s a tendency towards silliness here and there (the moon buggy, the ‘comedy’ hoodlums) but it’s mostly kept in check. The script struggles to nail down the diamond smuggling plot in the first half but,really, does it matter? The only major criticism I can make is about the climatic battle aboard an oil rig. It’s rather a mess and slightly cheap-looking, especially compared with YOLT, but my main problem with it is that it ends in confusion and ambiguity with no clear outcome. Bond seems to save Washington DC by gently swinging a small submersible against a wall, like a boy playing conkers by himself, and there’s no attempt to explain whether Blofeld was killed or captured: the finale is literally inconsequential.

But then this is the cleverness of DAF: it is exactly this inconsequential nature to proceedings that ensured the long-term future of the franchise at a time when it was threatening to collapse under the weight of its own continuity.The original six films, like Fleming’s novels, link together to tell a single, internally consistent story – but the books fracture after Tracy’s death in OHMSS, distorted by Bond’s disintegrating mental health. If the films were to try to deal with the fallout from these events, if the Bond universe was going to remain one where events had consequences, then there’s a good chance that audiences might have faded away. DAF makes it clear: from now on these films won’t be serious emotional dramas, or cold-hearted spy thrillers. 

From now on a James Bond movie means fun.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: Bond works through his survivor guilt in record time by punching a Chinaman and an Arab, and molesting a French woman, before offing his nemesis Blofeld into a sulphurous pit. Or so he thinks...

Theme: Like the rest of the score there's a laid back feel to the title song - no need for high energy here. And yes, Dame Shirley is singing about penises, not diamonds, at least in her mind. But presumably this isn't the case all the way through, otherwise the line 'Unlike men, the diamonds linger' would suggest something odd about the way she handles break-ups. The visuals are tame as well. Lots of, you won't believe this, diamonds!   

Deaths: A staggering 163. There are roughly 37 regular on-screen deaths (plus one reported off screen), but we do see a Russian nuclear submarine get destroyed at sea. Difficult not to count them, but I know I'm opening a can of worms. I've assumed a crew of 125.   

Memorable Deaths: Mr Wint gets flambéed. There's a scorpion dropped down a man's shirt, and a little old lady dragged from an Amsterdam canal, but other than that not much.   

Licence to Kill: 7. That's a little below the average so far.

Exploding Helicopters: 3! Huzzah. One at the beginning and two during the final battle, although the later pair are clearly superimposed explosions, tsk, tsk.

Shags: 1. Still in mourning, obviously. 

Crimes Against Women: Bond smacks Tiffany across the face. Plenty gets murdered when hoodlums mistake her for Tiffany because she (Plenty) has dark hair they assume she is wearing one of Tiffany's wigs. In other words all women look the same to them.

Casual Racism: There's the obese American sheriff who doesn't seem too bright, but then all the US law enforcement officers, from Felix downward, seem a bit dim here. However, Bond's comedy Dutchman impression ("I can speak Eeenglish. Who is your floor?") is an insult to all Dutch anglophones.

Out of Time: Some of the men in this have quite shocking hair. The guard who gets mousetrapped by Bond during the PCS has mutton-chops that scream 1971. 

Fashion Disasters: Bond tries to get away with a brown plaid sports jacket and a olive green turtle-neck. Big mistake there. Blofeld, even though he's suave and English now, insists on wearing the same awful beige utility suit as in YOLT. Yuk.

Eh?: Why are Wint and Kidd killing their own couriers? Why wait until Tiffany is in the US to kill her if her part of the chain is in Amsterdam? Why not just have the little old lady fly to Nevada? >> What the hell is the Zambora the Gorilla thing all about? >> What the HELL is the Moon landing film set all about? >> Then there's the guard who sits and waits patiently on his bike for  Connery to run over and kick him off. What does he think he's doing? >> Why are the cops in the car-chase wearing motorcycle helmets? Is that normal? >> Wint & Kidd's plan to kill Bond by having him interred inside a pipeline is just bewilderingly unlikely to succeed. >> How does Saxby know to go to Whyte's house when it was Bond pretending to be Saxby that had the conversation about Whyte with Blofeld? (That sentence will make sense if you watch the film, I promise.) >> Thumper stops mid-fight, with 007 at her mercy, to perform some interpretative dance.   

Worst Line: How does Leiter know Bond needs his help? Because "there isn't a low pressure system within 200 miles of here!". So cool.

Best Line: Here's a joke I never understood until I had been living in the States for three years. Tiffany: "Why are we staying in the Bridal Suite of the Whyte House [Willard Whyte's Vegas hotel]? Bond: "In order to form a more perfect union." Tiffany endearingly calls Q, "Mr Q". Gray as Blofeld gets the best lines. "If we destroy Kansas, the world might not hear about it for years!"

Worst Bond Moment: Bond doesn't salvage much dignity from his encounter with Bambi and Thumper.

Best Bond Moment: Several quite good moments. His clambering up the outside of a skyscraper in black tie is good, but I do love that Klaus Hergerscheimer sequence.   

Overall: Well, I've said it already haven't I, but this is a subtle revolution, turning the angst of OHMSS into something approaching comedy. It's by no means a spoof, but there is a lightness, a playful sense of fun that'll stick around for most of the rest of the series.

James Bond Will Return: ... as Roger Moore! In Live and Let Die.

Five Random Bits of Bond

I've been watching Diamonds Are Forever this week  - I'll post about that at the weekend. But look at all this stuff that's been drifting across my screen in the meanwhile! Silly old James Bond, stupidly permeating the collective consciousness of the world, eh?

1) Today's Guardian reported that scientists are complaining that the Bond films have made us prejudiced against nuclear energy. Nothing to do with all those horrible accidents then?

2) Then there's this rather fantastic Ska version of the From Russia With Love theme:



3) Here's a fellow blogger's take on the Connery movies. All the more impressive, having watched them all in one go.

4) Proof that James Bond is a bad man - look he'll even ski on your lunch! (Lyrics are definitely NSFW as they contain bad swears):



5) Finally, via the collective genius of Twitter, a radical reinterpretation might save some notoriously dodgy lyrics:


Ahh, that's better!