For What It's Worth: A Bond marathon

By Larry Hook
The Lookout Adviser

James Bond has had a rough movie life. In 27 movies spanning six decades, Commander Bond has been charged to save the world over and over and over again.

Of course Bond has taken many faces over the years. In fact, seven different actors have portrayed James Bond from 1962 through 2021. Those actors were Sean Connery (seven times), Roger Moore (seven times), Daniel Craig (five times), Pierce Brosnan (four times), Timothy Dalton (twice), George Lazenby (once) and David Niven (once).

I went from clueless about James Bond to a semi-expert over the course of the last few weeks. From May 6 to June 17 (42 days), I watched all 27 of the James Bond movies. I rated each one on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best.

I am a bit sad to say that I didn’t rate any of the movies a 10. Four of them earned scores of 9. Those movies were “You Only Live Twice” starring Connery (1967), “A View to Kill” starring Moore (1985), “GoldenEye” featuring Brosnan (1995), and “Skyfall” starring Craig (2012).

The worst of the bunch was “Thunderball” from 1965, which starred Connery. “Casino Royal,” from 1967, was a spoof of the James Bond movies, but was not nearly as funny as I had hoped. That movie, starring Niven as Bond, earned just a 4 in my ratings.

I grew up watching the Roger Moore versions of James Bond movies in the ’70s, so I would say he is my favorite Bond actor. I thought Brosnan was also great in the lead role. Connery would rank third on my list. I was not much of a fan of Daniel Craig as Bond at all.

One of the reasons I decided to watch all the James Bond movies was to hear all the movie theme songs. Many stars were selected to sing the song during the opening credits of each movie.

These stars included Billie Eilish, Sam Smith, Madonna, Sheryl Crowe, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, A-ha, Duran Duran, Rita Coolidge, Sheena Easton, Shirley Bassey, Carly Simon, Lulu, Paul McCartney & Wings, Louis Armstrong, Nancy Sinatra and Tom Jones.

My favorite of all the theme songs is “All-Time High,” performed by Rita Coolidge for the 1983 movie “Octopussy,” starring Roger Moore. A close second for best theme song is “Nobody Does It Better,” by Carly Simon from the 1977 movie “The Spy Who Loved Me,” also starring Moore.

Here are a few trends I noticed from the Bond series:

• In the early years, Bond was rarely injured. But as the series moved into the 2000s, Bond took a beating, and was constantly bloodied from his various battles;
• Bond is skilled at driving any sort of a vehicle, from sports cars, airplanes, helicopters and boats, to bulldozers, tanks, rocket ships and trains;
• Bond is a sharpshooter who seemingly has eyes in the back of his head and can kill enemies with guns, knives, bombs, fists, karate kicks and poison;
• Bond can literally charm the pants off of any female, whether friend or foe.

Watching the Bond movies was an enjoyable movie marathon for me. However one complaint I have is that most of the movies were very long; some running as long as two hours and 40 minutes.

The action was great, but some of the chase scenes ran so long that, as a friend of mine said, there was time to make a sandwich and get back before the scene concluded.

It was fun to see how the James Bond series unfolded throughout the years. As the decades rolled on, the special effects improved and the story lines became easier to follow.

James Bond persevered to save the world over and over again, with gunfire, gadgets and gamesmanship that kept viewers gasping and guessing for nearly 60 years. It will be interesting to see if the series will continue in the future.

If you have any thoughts on the James Bond collection, or if you want to weigh in on my opinion of the various movies and songs, please email me at hookl@lcc.edu.