Carry On Bond

It is with childlike excitement that I await the new James Bond film, Skyfall. Sad, I know, but the opening gun barrel sequence and accompanying Monty Norman/John Barry riff still sends a tingle down my spine - the Petit Madeleine that never fails to transport me back to my childhood (although a Breville toasted cheese sandwich would be more autobiographically accurate in my case).

For some reason any new Bond film usually precipitates a ‘who was the best Bond?' debate. Pointless, of course, because Connery always seems to win. A case of the original always being the best? Perhaps. I would argue that your favourite Bond is generally the one you grew up with – your original Bond, as it were. Psychologists call it the primacy effect. It’s the same with Dr Who. Both characters are so intrinsically linked with childhood for generations of kids (alright, blokes) it’s impossible to judge objectively and I’m quite happy to accept any opinion, unless you’re unfortunate enough to belong to the Timothy Dalton/Sylvester McCoy generation/persuasion. In which case you’re wrong. Just plain wrong.

As a child of the 70s my Bond was, of course, Roger Moore. I think the first Bond film I saw at the cinema was the ‘Spy Who Loved Me’, still probably my favourite (more evidence for the primacy effect?) I distinctly recall it showing during a summer holiday in either Skegness or Great Yarmouth (if you grew up in Leicestershire you had to have your summer holidays there). To celebrate the opening of the film the cinema had a Lotus Esprit parked outside, possibly with a cut-price East Anglian Bond girl draped over the bonnet if I remember right (although I may be blurring the memory with Whitesnake videos). My dad insisted that it was the Lotus Esprit used in the film which, in my puppy dog giddiness, I accepted without question although said sports car was distinctly canary yellow in hue...

                                                                               

Being a Bond fan in 70s and early 80s was ace. The movies were always the highlight of Christmas/New Year. T.V schedules. New films seemed to come thick and fast (well, every couple of years at least) and each was sufficiently different from the previous, but still retained the core elements of a Bond film (you know the sort of thing: daft pre-titles sequence/ridiculous punnery/gadgets/birds/exotic locations/megalomaniacs in cavernous lairs etc).

I remember 1983 as a particular Annus Mirabalis when we were treated to two rival Bond films – as Sean Connery returned to the role. The battle of the Bonds as it was called. Connery vs Moore, Never Say Never Again vs Octopussy.

Controversially I liked both. Moreover Connery’s new toupee, along with Shatner’s mutating thatch in the various Star Trek movies of the time, fuelled a lifelong interest in toupology. Thanks for that SeanShat.

Connery and 'Bomber' Pat Roach demonstrating the versatility of the Never Say Never Again toup.

'Khaaaaaaan!' Shatner's frustration at Ricardo Montalban getting first dibs in the wig department. 

Yes, 1983 was a special year in popular culture for me, equalled only in excitement by 1986 when, in a similar fashion, the world was presented with two rival versions of Van Halen…

But that, my friends, is another story… And this blog was supposed to be about Rog…

Given the current vogue is for Daniel Craig’s super-tough, Bourne inspired Bond I feel it’s time for a reappraisal of the lighter, er merrier, Moore era.  The criticism usually aimed at the Moore era is that the films were too silly, too camp, that there were too many puns, that Roger wasn’t a very credible secret agent. CREDIBLE? What do any of the Bond films have to do with credibility? As Rog himself often said how can anyone take Bond seriously as a secret agent when every barman in every bar across the world seems to know him, and knows what he drinks…

Bond films have always been cultural signifiers of sorts, products of their historical/cultural context, and were never more so than in the Moore era.

Yes the Moore films were sillier, more camp, full of more innuendo etc But you only need to look what else was going on in British culture at the time. The other popular film series at the time was the ‘Carry On’ Films and they provide a useful comparison. The early Carry On films of the late 50s and 60s, although comedic, had an element of social commentary and feel very much a part of the post-war pre-Beatles Britain. By the 70s The Carry On Films had become built around the lustful, lascivious Sid James persona, and his attempts to bed Barbara Windsor’s busty blonde. The plots and the ‘parody’ were very much secondary to the sexual politics. Also ridiculously popular were the ‘Confesssions’ series featuring Robin Askwith in a variety of erotic scrapes with bored suburban housewives. TV reflected this zeitgeist too; witness the inexplicable popularity of sex-coms: Terry and June, Bless This House, Love They Neighbour, George and Mildred, Are you being served? etc.   

Moore’s Bond films need to be seen in the context of this sexualisation of British culture. Hell, even the innuendo laden name, Roger Moore, sounds like a Sid James character.

The first scene in which we are introduced to Moore’s Bond in ‘Live And Let Die’ (1973) sets the tone for his era. I think it is the only time we see Bond at home, which admittedly might seem like a sound way of introducing a new man, but the scene plays out very much like Confessions of a Secret Agent or Carry On Bond.

Inexplicably M and Moneypenny come round to visit Bond at home on a matter of national importance. That’s right at home. But of course our hero isn’t expecting a house call from ‘mum and dad’, he’s too busy ‘keeping the British end up’ with a buxom brunette. So he hides the girl in the wardrobe, before receiving M and Moneypenny, eventually ushering the girl out of the back door with a pinch of her arse and a wink to the camera. I might have imagined the last bit, but you get the idea.  All that’s missing is the Vicar coming over for tea in the middle of it and a chase around the kitchen table etc

Not only did Moore’s Bond movies reflect the concerns of British popular culture at the time but stylistically they reflected prevailing trends in cinema. Again there is a parallel with the Carry On series: they moved from a more realistic grounding in British institutions (NHS, the army, schools) to parodying cinematic trends (Carry On Screaming, Carry On Cowboy, Carry On Emmanuelle etc) This is also sometimes used as a criticism of the Moore era. but one of the reasons for the success of the Bond franchise (and the Dr Who series) is that the central character is essentially an enigma, a cipher, an almost blank persona adaptable to any context and circumstances. And again this was never more (ahem) the case than during the Moore era. In fact Moore’s bond almost functions like the Woody Allen character Zelig (from the 1983 movie of the same name), who, out of a desire to fit in, takes on the character of those around him, whatever the context. A human chameleon.

Blaxploitation Movies - Live and Let Die (1973)

Kung Fu Movies - The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

Sci-Fi Movies after Star Wars, Close Encounters.. etc - Moonraker (1979)  

As well as reflecting the prevailing cultural trends there’s a sense in which incarnations of Bond are cyclical. A tougher more realistic era tends to be counterbalanced by a more comedic, camp Bond. Witness the cyclical progression - the tough/puff see-saw effect, if you will. 
(I choose to ignore the Lazenby Bond as one movie does not constitute an era and in a sense we can view the Lazenby Bond essentially as an extension of the Connery Bond)

Connery - Tough

Moore - Puff

Dalton - Tough

Brosnan - Puff

Craig - Tough

As well received as the Daniel Craig Bonds have been it’s possible that in years to come they’ll be viewed in a similar way to the ‘serious’ Dalton Bonds (which were after all, critically acclaimed at the time, if not commercially successful). And of course, this historical pattern also suggests that Craig will eventually be superseded by a lighter, more comedic incarnation....  

Walliams, less Sid James than Frankie Howerd?

Bad backs and long memories

The guilty pleasures of rainy day movie matinees, Hitchcock and a peculiar British film noir.

Thanks to a slipped disc I find myself horizontal on a sofa with nothing to do but watch movies and count the minutes to the next dose of codeine. Not so bad then.

The first time this happened, some years ago, I attempted to simultaneously assuage the pain and lift my spirits by reaching (carefully) for the funniest dvds I could find. A Will Hay box set as it happens. 

The incomparable Will Hay, Moore Marriot and Graham Moffat in Ask A Policeman (1938)

           
                                 
Others who suffer from back complaints should take note for future reference - films that make you laugh out loud and painkillers that cause constipation aren’t necessarily good when you’re trying to avoid straining back muscles.

This time I’m recumbent on my girlfriend’s sofa and without a dvd collection to call on (discounting her Final Destination Thrillogy), so I find myself at the mercy of the tv schedules.  For me there’s something gloriously nostalgic about watching old movies on tv. Like a lot of people my love of old movies stems from sick days and rainy school holidays when there wasn’t much else to do. Credit also to whoever had the bright idea to include Harold Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, and Buster Crabbe serials as part children’s tv schedules. Of course daytime telly is a different beast altogether these days. So thank god for Film 4.

                                                     ODed on codeine and daytime t.v                                        

Scanning the Guardian guide my eyes immediately seized upon a short Hitchcock season.  I couldn’t believe my luck. Hitchcock was formative in my love of film - discovering Hitchcock was discovering cinema in a sense. Sure, I’d already fallen in love with movies but it was only with Hitchcock that I became aware of the craft of filmmaking, and the idea of a director. It was only after discovering Hitchcock that I started taking films seriously.

First up on Monday was the 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much, a film I’d somehow contrived never to have seen. Now I must confess to having a soft spot for Hitch’s early British talkies: The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes and the original 1934 Man Who Knew Too Much particularly. Hitchcock himself was clearly dissatisfied with the original TMWKTM as he took the rather unprecedented decision to re-make his own movie.  
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1934

1956

                

I'm struggling to think of an example of another filmmaker doing this: Michael Mann remaking L.A Takedown as Heat , the same director re-imagining his Miami Vice t.v series as a movie two decades later, George Miller’s threatened Mad Max reboot? Don’t get me started on Gus Van Sant’s shot for shot Psycho remake – the only film I’ve ever walked out of due to the cinema erroneously advertising the original, Anthony Perkins poster and all… Shame on you Loughborough Curzon.

On the subject of his remaking The Man Who Knew Too Much Hitchcock famously said the original was the work of a talented amateur the remake that of a professional. Well… I still prefer the original. The original is a taut 75 min thriller, very much in the vein of Hitchcock’s other spy-chase movies (39 Steps, North By Northwest, Foreign Correspondent etc). The remake feels like a spoilt, flabby older brother. A case of a man knowing too much, or more accurately, having too much studio money at his disposal. The remake clocks in at 2 hours and spends an inexplicable 45mins establishing the main characters on holiday in Morocco, in a picture postcard fashion, seemingly because it can. Similarly inexplicably we have the saccharine Doris Day (was Grace Kelly unavailable?) performing Que Sera Sera no less than twice – presumably it was in her contract? There are some nice touches such as the assassination attempt at the Albert Hall concert with Bernard Herrmann as the conductor, but they are few and far between. No, give me gifted amateurism and Peter Lorre’s studied villainy anyday…   

                                                     The original MWKTM in its entirety

Rear Window was next up on Tuesday. Now there’s a film with a stunning exposition. With a languid tracking shot, and no dialogue whatsoever, the camera establishes the apartment block setting, panning across the various apartments and then finally in through James Stewart’s window. From here it roves like an eye, a curious onlooker, across his apartment, lingering on his broken leg, his camera and various photos of him at work. Through this single movement we have learned where we are, who the principle character is, all about his work, and even how it caused his accident. Pure cinema.

As brilliant as it is, I don’t want to dwell on Rear Window here.  In truth, a repeat viewing seemed a little too close to home given my incapacitated incarceration and my own Grace Kelly’s overactive imagination and rear window ethics.

The film that excited me the most during my sofa-bound cinematic marathon wasn’t a Hitchcock but a peculiarly English take on Film Noir called The Long Memory (1952). 

                                          

British Cinema wasn’t known for its Film Noir. Of course there are great British films that contain noir elements: The Third Man, Brighton Rock, Odd Man Out, etc. and memorably Jules Dassin made the brilliant Night and the City (1950) here, fleeing the McCarthy witch hunts.

                        Jules Dassin's Night and The City (1950) starring Richard Widmark and Googie Withers


The Long Memory's director Robert Hamer was best known for the brilliantly black Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets but he also helmed two other Britnoirs for the Ealing studios Pink String and Sealing Wax and It Always Rains on Sunday.

 Robert Hamer's It Always Rains On Sunday (1947) also starring Britain's leading femme fatale, Googie Withers

In some ways The Long Memory is less reminiscent of American Film Noir than the French Poetic realist films of the 30s that inspired Film Noir. John Mills' stubbly, neckerchief wearing, resolutely working-class hero bears more than a passing resemblance to a number of Jean Gabin characters. 

Jean Mills

Johnny Gabbin

                   

Dassin's London noir depicts the dark underbelly of the Metropolis whereas Hamer largely eschews obvious city locations for the North Kent marshes or bleak industrial docklands (below).

Again, in terms of setting the film recalls the French 'poetic realist' take on noir, particularly Marcel Carne's  Quai Des     Brumes (1938) starring Jean Gabin (below).

In terms of narrative and character The Long Memory is a curious tale even by noir standards. Good old Johnny Mills plays against type as our (anti) hero: snarling, unshaven, fresh out of prison and bent on revenge after being framed for a dual murder he didn’t commit. The conspirators include a femme fatale (Mill’s ex who, during his incarceration has somehow managed to wed the investigating police officer), a retarded ex-boxer (playing away from wife Thora Hird) and one of the murder victims (who it transpires is not dead but is living out a new identity as a scrap merchant with his gay lover/chauffeur). 

Anyone who thinks British cinema of the 50s was dull hasn’t seen this movie. Or has a short memory.