James Bond's Girls

Positively the Latest wish fulfillment, as you know, is something called the James Bond syndrome, a vicarious mass desire to achieve 007 status. I confess sharing it. Writing screenplays for the Bond films, I can hardly avoid identifying with him. Could anyone? Who wouldn't want to be the best-dressed man, most sophisticated diner, luckiest gambler, top secret agent and greatest lover of his generation all rolled into one? And what woman could resist projecting herself into his arms? Bond and his women have become fantasy figures arousing powerful empathic responses in both sexes. The wish for pleasurable excitement without the headaches of its problems is universal. But let's not overintellectualize. It might spoil the fun—which is all that the novels and films are meant to be. A great deal of it derives from Bond's doings with the dames.

Actually, there are two 007s: one created by Ian Fleming in his novels, the other as he appears on the screen. Kingsley Amis, in his The James Bond Dossier, commenting on Sean Connery's "total wrongness for the film part," plainly indicates which Bond he fancies. I fear Mr. Amis will never find much employment as a casting director. Connery's image is the one generally accepted. World-wide sales of the novels are estimated at 40,000,000, but more than 100,000,000 tickets have been sold for the films. Beyond that, the circulation figures of newspapers and magazines featuring stories and pictures of Connery must be astronomical. The reader of a Fleming novel who has seen a Bond film surely visualizes Sean as 007. If women glimpse Bond's face in their dreams, they see the ski-jump nose and pouting lips, not the book-Bond's three-inch scar and thick black comma of hair falling over the right eyebrow. He speaks to them in a voice tinged with the faint but unmistakably less-than-upper-class Scottish burr rather than the cultivated accent of Eton and Sandhurst which Fleming gave his character. Connery's physique—that of a natural athlete who could have become a professional footballer (a career he once (text continued on page 139) contemplated)—is considerably more rugged than his literary counterpart's. I am not implying that our celluloid tiger is superior to the paper one—only that, somewhat ironically, he is presently burning brighter in the forests of the night. Incidentally, Fleming never shared the dismay of some of his aficionados with what we have done to Bond. He particularly enjoyed our augmenting his quasi-satirical approach to him. Man became superman, yet inexplicably remained man—particularly in the man-woman department.

Much has been made of Bond's equipment—the fantastic arsenal of secret weapons, devices and vehicles placed at his disposal by Q Branch. He is trained in survival techniques implemented with the appropriate apparatus to cope with almost every possible dire eventuality. In extremis, however, as in Goldfinger, when he desperately needs to convert Pussy Galore into an ally, his most potent weapon is himself. The dictates of good taste here restrain me from embellishing the point with a bad pun about what is mightier than the sword.

The two Bonds acted similarly in that situation. Indeed, it is in the sexual area that they are most alike, although Connery-Bond's women find him physically stronger than Fleming-Bond's. In Thunderball he is capable of strangling an adversary by bending an iron poker around his neck. He is less introspective, brooding no more about his ruthless exploitation of sex than the moral issues involved in exercising his license to kill. He is veined with more sardonic humor, expressing it in flippant throwaway quips. His wits are quicker, computerlike at times. Conversely, he is capable of more glaring blunders. Larger than life as Fleming's 007 is, our James is even larger. On the record, both are fabulous fornicators, toujours prêt, infallibly satisfying. Bond in the books is somewhat subtler, but at times approaches susceptibility. Fleming once described his senses as being "lashed." In the films it is Bond who does the lashing. Both exercise their invariable proficiency for ulterior motives. This undoubtedly accounts for the high pleasure level attained by their female partners. They are not only icy killers, but also cold-blooded lovers. Efficiency is often inversely proportional to heat. I sometimes wonder if the most secret drill in their training as M's agents must not concern itself with this aspect of their work. Like mastery of karate and jujitsu, such yogalike muscular and psychic control can only be achieved by constant practice. Or is it perhaps done pharmaceutically? Certainly it is not beyond the capabilities of Q Branch to have developed aphrodisiacs with the specified delayed reactions. However it is accomplished, Fleming's Bond seems to derive more of a kick out of his work. But this is a dubious advantage for a Double 0 operator. In the film version of Thunderball our Bond unequivocally states, "I'm not a passionate man." Despite our close association, I am forced to admit he is also rather more of a cad than the other chap.

Bond's quota of dispatched villains per film, about 20, runs higher than in the novels. So is the number of females he beds with. I (continued on page 144)Bond's Girls(continued from page 140) think the average is about four. Our only excuse, in both categories, is that the victims are sacrificed for patriotic purposes. He is not a sadist, only a highly motivated public servant. Undoubtedly, the enchantment of Bond's hordes of female fans must be fraught with masochism.

All Fleming's women fascinate me. They fall into two categories—the monstrous: harpies like Rosa Klebb and Irma Bunt; and the beauteous: Honey-chile Rider, Tatiana Romanova, Pussy Galore, Domino, Tracy, et al., who have appeared in the films already released or being prepared. How long the public's want-to-see continues will determine whether Bond will become involved with Solitaire, Tiffany Case or Kissy Suzuki. Characterizing a Fleming female is not too difficult. We have his version to adapt. Casting is the real problem. Mostly the trick has been to find unknowns; and the producers have been singularly fortunate thus far in their discoveries. In a fast-moving action film, the sort we try to make, character delineation is limited. A new personality, whom audiences do not associate with previous performances, is invaluable in fleshing out the portrait. This is also true about the villains. Gert Frobe, who played Goldfinger, is well known in Germany, but he had never appeared in an English film. Hence, he was not predictable. The unknown beauty is a distinct plus factor for the same reason. She has the piquancy and promise of an affair with someone every man secretly desires—la femme nouvelle.

Bond's sex life as recorded on the screen began in Dr. No with Sylvia, the cool brunette dish he met across the chemmy table. I submit that the single most important moment in the Bond films occurred when Sean Connery introduced himself to her, and indirectly to the audience. "James Bond," he says, casually challenging. If they had not taken him at his word, if Connery had not squared with their preconceived notions of the character, we all might as well have cashed in our chips and gone home. There would have been no further Bond films. Fortunately, his close-up was magnificent. The only one I recall in any way comparable was Clark Gable's introduction at the foot of the staircase when Scarlett first sees Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. In both instances you saw and felt the electric response conducted through the audience. Gable was already a star of the first magnitude when he appeared in Gone with the Wind. That Connery should have been instantaneously accepted in an equally famous role was a tremendous tribute to his innate stellar quality. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, there is no mistaking the impact. Three weeks after the film opened, he was receiving thousands of letters.

When Bond returned to his flat from the gambling club, Sylvia, saucily played by Eunice Gayson, was waiting for him in one of his pajama tops, passing the time chipping golf balls into a hat. What ensued set the pattern. Not that it was unmixed with pleasure, but Bond's immediate concern was to be rid of her and on with his mission. Obviously he made his usual impression, because we saw Sylvia again in From Russia with Love, back for another go in a punting boat. Incidentally, she is the only one of Bond's conquests to reappear in his arms in the same role. Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary, plays a continuing role, but strictly on a professional basis. The banter between her and Bond does insinuate potential intimacy, but thus far has not become overt. I'm not sure why. Perhaps Miss Moneypenny is an anachronistic virtue symbol that Bond unaccountably respects. Perhaps he needs a motive other than pure pleasure to stimulate him into action. Lois Maxwell's attractiveness as Moneypenny inclines me toward the first supposition. Nothing so complex entered into Bond's assault on Zena Marshall's exotic Miss Taro in Dr. No. Here Bond was at his most ruthless. She was under orders from Dr. No to lure him to his death. She deserved no mercy. Presumably she received some recompense in terms of creature comfort. Bond was at the top of his form in the sort of situation he most relishes. And he forgot her the moment he turned her over to the police.

Of all Bond's affairs, I like the one with Honeychile Rider best. From the memorable moment Ursula Andress waded out of the sea, surely a re-enactment of the birth of Venus, to her eventual surrender after Bond contrives to postpone their rescue, I found it to be Fleming's finest. I think we captured most of it. Director Terence Young's taste was never more discriminating. A she sea Tarzan, Honey easily could have been vulgarized. Instead she emerged as an even more enchanting child of nature. True, she had once been violated, revenging herself by dropping a deadly spider on the insensate rapist, but spiritually she was still a virgin—the only one I can find in Bond's experience. Perhaps it was his total lack of previous involvement with the breed that accounts for his uncharacteristic treatment of her. He is gentle, considerate, protective, even risking the success of his mission by rashly springing to her defense. In the process he barely avoids presenting himself as an object lesson in why gallantry can only lead to disaster for a man of his vocation. We can only plead Honey's innocence, charm and pristine beauty for this temporary deviation from official procedure. Fleming purists have criticized us for not playing Honey, as he did, with a broken nose. They profess to read some deep psychological significance in this mutilation, as with Domino's one shorter leg in Thunderball. The nature of that implication escaped us. Does a single flaw in what otherwise would be perfection somehow enhance it? Or did Fleming mean to introduce a note of harsh, ugly realism to make their characters more convincing? Frankly, no one concerned thought it important. I'm delighted that we left Ursula's lovely nose as it is, and Domino's gimpy leg where we found it: in print. Honey, like Shakespeare's Miranda, her creator's most charming and disingenuous ingenue, needs no blight to arouse either Bond's or the audience's sympathy. More practically, a busted proboscis might have been photogenically disastrous, grotesquely comic.

Despite the old saw about a picture being worth 10,000 words, or rather because of it and the censorship restrictions involved, Fleming was able to deal with sex and violence in writing to a degree not permissible with the camera. His inevitable torture scenes, for instance, cannot be approximated on film. No reviewing board can be expected to pass the torture-scene shocker in Casino Royale involving Bond's testicles and a carpet-beater. The closest we have come is in Thunderball when Largo alternately applies an ice cube and the glowing end of his Havana to Domino's anatomy. But it is in Fleming's descriptions of Bond's lovemaking that he really has the edge on us. Apart from his masterful use of words, he takes full advantage of the license to thrill enjoyed today by the romantic novelist. Perhaps his warmest stretch of erotic composition occurs in From Russia with Love when he describes the affair between Bond and Tatiana Romanova in the stateroom on the Orient Express. Again it was due to Terence Young's taste and directorial skill that the film version, without the detailed intimacies of flesh described by Fleming, managed to capture most of the excitement of the original.

Next to Honey, I find Tatiana the most appealing of Bond's conquests. A great many women have expressed their preference for From Russia with Love to the other films. Perhaps it has a more sustained love story. Daniela Bianchi's engagingly unactressy performance (she was very inexperienced) may also have something to do with it. And, of course, her fresh 4-H-girl loveliness. Even the usually unsusceptible critic of The New York Times, Bosley Crowther, doffed his coronet to her. Personally, I think this general acceptance of Tatiana is occasioned by the recognition she evokes. Unlike most other Bond bundles, she is a working girl, holding down a steady job as a clerk in the Russian (continued on page 205)Bond's Girls(continued from page 144) Embassy at Istanbul. She is alone in being talented at something, having trained for the state ballet. Unfortunately, she grew an inch too tall and was not allowed to continue. She also actually reads books, comparing Bond to her favorite hero in Lermontov. Her sex life, for a modern young Russian, is comparatively normal, two rather innocent puppy-lovish affairs being the extent of her experience. She is patriotic, idealistic, and not informed of the full dastardliness of the plot against Bond to which she lends herself. Until he meets Tracy, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, no other girl falls so deeply in love with him. Pussy Galore rats on Goldfinger for Bond, but Tatiana renounces her beloved Mother Russia. It saddens me that she is the only woman he ever actually strikes, slapping her around in the best Jimmy Cagney tradition when he mistakenly believes she is knowingly involved in the death of his friend Kerim Bey. Despite Tatiana's devotion, subsequently proved to his satisfaction, there is never any doubt about Bond's attitude toward her. He is on an assignment. It has certain pleasurable aspects which he accepts on a purely hedonistic basis. He never comes anywhere near becoming emotionally involved. Although we leave Tatiana in his arms, in a gliding gondola, the audience unerringly senses whatever hopes she may have for the future will be pathetically unfulfilled. Bond, the brute, will never look back.

The producers looked back, however. Nadja Regin, Kerim Bey's insatiable girlfriend, became in Goldfinger the dancer whose murderous accomplice Bond electrocutes in her tub. They also were impressed by Martine Beswick, one of the two wrestling gypsy spitfires in Russia who later confronted him with the challenge of a double-header. She was rewarded with a role in Thunderball, as Paula, Bond's liaison with the Nassau police—liaison in more ways than one, we assume. Nadja, from Yugoslavia, and Martine, Miss Jamaica of 1961, were both found by the producers, Messrs. Broccoli and Saltzman, in their continuous international casting search for unusual femininity.

Guy Hamilton, who directed Goldfinger, evoked from Connery an even surer, brisker, more sardonic Bond than in the earlier films. The effect was to make him more perversely attractive. Goldfinger is the most financially profitable general-admission film ever exhibited, and Mr. Hamilton's approach—along, of course, with such factors as story, scope, sensationalism, and so forth—has much to do with it. Bond's scores over Goldfinger, blackmailing him into losing at cards, outcheating him on the golf course, were highly amusing, but it is his heartless, crafty manipulation of girls that most delights audiences—which casually absolve him of the deaths of Shirley Eaton's lovely Jill Masterson (suffocated because of his attentions by a coating of noxious gold paint applied by Goldfinger's Korean manservant Oddjob), and Tania Mallett's even lovelier Tilly after her acceptance of a lift in his fantastic Aston Martin. Finding two such stunning girls in a single film was a bonus audiences have now come to expect in a Bond picture. Shirley, after a triumphal tour of the United States, is now firmly launched as a star. Tania, whose photogenic face had appeared hundreds of times in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and other leading fashion magazines, made her first screen appearance in Goldfinger. It will certainly not be her last, despite the continuing demand for her services as a leading model in London, Paris and New York.

Forgiving Bond his use of Pussy Galore (we contemplated changing her Christian name in the United States to Kitty) is more understandable. After all, Pussy was a tomboy, to put it as inoffensively as possible, and Bond provides her with a kind of psychiatric therapy. It takes some doing, approaching rape, but Pussy is undoubtedly the better for it. Does she relapse after he moves on? Or does she further develop her newfound taste for heterogeneity despite the scarcity of statures like 007's? It's touch and go, I'd say, and no one's concern but Pussy's. Casting Honor Blackman in the role, after her success as the jujitsu expert, Cathy, in the British TV spy series The Avengers, was a departure from choosing theatrical unknowns, but a showmanship coup the producers found irresistible. Opposite Sean Connery, she was up against sheer masculinity. Their struggle in the barn must surely rate as one of the most offbeat seduction scenes ever enacted on the screen.

If Bond's conquest of Pussy is a tour de force that strikingly demonstrates his versatility, he gives further evidence of it throughout Thunderball. Indeed, his exploitation of an unusually variegated assortment of willing wenches, with one notable exception, is sheer virtuosity. We see him first teamed on a mission with a mysterious Chinese beauty. In this provocative role, Mitsouko, another screen discovery, projects such overwhelming desirability that it is difficult to escape the implication that they devote little time to official duties. Apparently whatever refined techniques may be required for liaisons with Oriental dolls—who are purportedly more appreciative of delicacy than their Western counterparts—Bond has mastered them. Hard after this heartening triumph in international test play, he again exhibits his amazing ability to change pace and style. This time his know-how is applied to Pat Fearing, probably the most nerve-jangling masseuse ever to manipulate a spinal column. The treatments she gives Bond, featuring massage with special mink gloves to reduce nervous tension, are at first coolly impersonal. In a surprisingly short time, of course, we find him wearing the gloves and Pat undergoing the treatment. From there on, Molly Peters' incredible physical endowments for the part make the course of this mutual manipulation inevitable. Leaving Pat to resume her ministrations with more needy cases, Bond flies to Nassau and there continues his brilliant display of adaptability, seeking out Dominetta Vitali, an international playgirl and the mistress of Thunderball's archvillain, Largo. A one-eyed sea beast, he is busily engaged in collecting man-eating sharks as a front for the nefarious project of highjacking atomic bombs and extorting a hundred million pounds in diamonds for their return. Dominetta, whose friends call her Domino, is one of Fleming's least-convincing ambivalent antiheroines. Fortunately, however, we have the talented, pinup-contoured Claudine Auger to bring her warmly to life. In her favorite costume, a black-net, skintight leotard, she is perhaps the most enticing of all Bond's beauties. An aquatic sports enthusiast, unaware of Largo's colossal caper, Domino spends most of her time underwater, where Bond meets her and woos her. Audiences have thrilled to many memorable motion-picture love scenes, but never one like Bond and Domino caught by the camera flagrante delicto behind a coral reef amid the shifting seaweed. We have a genuine innovation here, and who else but James Bond could have been a party to its consummation?

I regret that this brief libidinous log of Bond during Thunderball ends on a somewhat less-flattering note. Fiona, an ally of Largo's, is not found in Fleming's novel, but was expressly created for the film. She is cruelly resourceful, as evil as the ugly, infamous Rosa Klebb—but incomparably luscious, as played by the delectable Luciana Paoluzzi. Fiona is one of Spectre's top assassins and most seductive femmes fatales, as coldly capable of kissing and killing as Bond himself. Implacably they maneuver each other into the same bed. Which iceberg melts? Certainly not Bond, but neither does Fiona. For once, a playmate does not become a plaything. For once, a woman he makes it with refuses to switch her colors. Perhaps it is Bond's amazement, slowing his reflexes, that enables her to turn him over to Largo's minions. He does not, of course, remain turned over long. But it is to his eternal credit that he accepts the setback without rancor or recrimination. He merely shrugs, commenting wryly as he is led away, "Oh, well, there always has to be a first time."

Fateful words. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which you first read in Playboy and now being screenplayed, a devastatingly unexpected novelty awaits us. All bets are off. Everything 007 stands for is swept away. His image is shattered, seemingly beyond repair. James Bond falls in love. He marries. What sort of woman is it who lures Bond into this catastrophe, the deadliest trap ever to close upon him? She calls herself Tracy, or, to give her full name by a former marriage, La Comtesse Teresa di Vicenzo. She is beautiful beyond description, but no more so than Honey or Tatiana. There is the touchy matter of her being the daughter of Marc-Ange Draco, chief of a Corsican crime syndicate. Psychologically she is highly unstable, at times suicidal. Irresponsibly she plays for high stakes at chenzin de fer without money to pay when she loses. Her personality is scarcely more appealing than several of Bond's other girls'. Except for the greatest appeal of all: She needs him. Unlike the others, she is the only one for whom Bond is the one man in the world. He alone can rescue her from despair. At long last, after gauging the depth of Tracy's love by her willingness to die for him, he capitulates. It means giving up his career, his status as 007. M is inflexible where the regulation forbidding his section members to marry is concerned. Despite everything, Bond accepts the inescapable. James Bond, a husband, a father? James Bond relegated to the humdrum existence from which he releases millions, lifting them to his own marvelously rewarding dream life? Ian Fleming knew it was quite impossible. So he killed Tracy in the novel, wiping her out as ruthlessly as Bond himself dispatches those who stand in the way of accomplishing a mission. We shall do the same with her in the film version. Fleming gave Bond his standing orders when he created him: to be a wish fulfillment.