Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Memory Bank: Bond-Mania


Okay, so this week’s Memory Bank is a bit of a cheat.

I must acknowledge I wasn’t born yet when the great James Bond/Spy Craze of the mid-1960s -- circa 1964 – 1968 -- occurred.  I didn’t arrive on this mortal coil until the last month of 1969. 

And yet, I did experience Bond-Mania after a fashion.

Rerun fashion.

By the time I was six years old in the mid-1970s, many of the Bond imitations, knock-offs and parodies were airing on daytime television, or in the afternoon, on WABC’s 4:30 PM movie, for instance. 

So I did see all of those productions, even if they preceded my first experience with authentic James Bond: 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me,starring Roger Moore.

But the James Bond/Spy Craze of the 1960s began in earnest, I would estimate with the release of Goldfinger (1964). 

It was the third film in the franchise (following Dr. No and From Russia with Love) starring Sean Connery, and the entry that seemed to cement all of the crucial ingredients, from the colorful death of a prominent character (Jill Masterson, her nude body painted entirely in gold), to the pop hit title track (from Shirley Bassey).  It also featured unforgettable villains (Goldfinger and Oddjob) and amazing spy gadgets.  It was Goldfinger, after all, that gave the world Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, replete with ejector seat, rear window shield, and rotating license plate.

Thunderball (1965) isn’t my favorite Bond film because I feel it is overlong, the villain is dull, and the editing somewhat sloppy.  But if I had seen it as a kid or as a teenager -- in theaters -- I readily admit I might have felt quite differently about the movie.  Importantly, Thunderball capitalized on all the elements that made Goldfinger so memorable, and featured great new gadgets, like Bond’s jetpack, used in the pre-title sequence.

After Thunderball’s success in theaters, the floodgates really opened in terms of James Bond’s impact on film, television, and merchandise.  

Casino Royale (1967) spoofed the 007 franchise and starred David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress and Woody Allen.  It was either the greatest disaster in film history up until that point, or a post-modern masterpiece, depending on one’s perspective.   

Another (strange) Bond parody of the era was Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965).  

Competing “spy” franchises of the Bond-Mania Era included the Matt Helm series, starring Dean Martin, and the Flint series starring James Coburn.  Matt Helm got four movies (The Silencers, Murderer’s Row, The Ambushers and The Wrecking Crew) whereas Flint only appeared twice, in Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). 

Lesser lights -- like Operation Kid Brother (1967) starring Neil Connery and Super Agent Super Dragon – soon (failed) to take the world by storm.

On television, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964 – 1968) starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, Get Smart (1965 – 1970) starring Don Adams, and Mission: Impossible (1966 – 1973) conquered the air waves and, at least at first, were smash hits.  

Audiences just couldn’t get enough of suave secret agents, their amazing gadgets, and their efforts to prevent the rise of forces like KAOS or THRUSH at the height of Bond-Mania, it seemed.

At toy stores, James Bond -- 007 himself -- also had a welcome presence thanks to toys and vehicles from Gilbert and Corgi, a road race slot car set, and a series of board games.

But Mattel was the toy company that outfitted the pre-adolescent spy of the mid-1960s most ably with its Agent Zero M line of toys, which included a sonic blaster, a cap gun, a radio gun, and a movie-camera gun.  The Sears Secret Sam Attache Case also got in on the espionage action.

As a Generation X’er who grew up with the Star Wars craze of the mid-1970s, I can only imagine how exciting it must have been in the mid-1960s to have Sean Connery headlining Bond films year after year, new spy toys in the stores, and a new secret agent TV show – funny or serious – on television week after week.  

As I stated above, I caught all this stuff on the second go-round, and enjoyed it tremendously, but that’s still different than being there when it all began.  If you lived through Bond Mania, consider yourself lucky.   I envy you!
































7 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:22 PM

    And let's not forget that amalgam of 2 populat genres, spy and western, in Wild Wild West.

    I'll also note that Matt Helm was also a long series of novels before hitting the silver screen. The Matt Helm books are very gritty indeed. In those, Matt is a 40-something field agent usually given the same task -- we don't know what's happening, so you go in and act as though you're a little too old for this sort of work and draw out the bad guys. The movies are strictly camp.

    Bond, on the other hand, while being different in the movies is different in a different way. My reading of the Bond novels is that the literary Bond is a complete screw-up whose missions only succeed because of a deus ex machina. A good exmaple is the assassin at the end of Casino Royale. In fact, Bond is chosen for the Casino mission rpecisely because he's the only agent foolish/stupid enough to gamble in the way necessary to the scheme. One presumes that the other agents are just too calculating to take those sorts of chances.

    By contrast, the movie Bond is hyper-competent.

    I'm pretty sure the literary Bond is a satire perpetrated by Fleming.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Anonymous,

      Great comment! Thanks for bringing up Wild, Wild West, definitively a Bond western, for sure!

      I haven't read the Helm books, but I should...

      Delete
  2. Anonymous3:44 PM

    John we missed out on all the '60s Bond merchandising.

    SGB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi SGB,

      I know, it's a bummer, right? We are lucky to have the Star Wars craze (and the launch of Space:1999) in our lives, but I would have loved to be present for Bond Mania (and also Dalek Mania...).

      Delete
  3. Wonderful memory bank entry, John. BTW, out of the American film attempts in reaction to the success of James Bond, my favorite easily remains Derek Flint. James Coburn had a wonderful aura with the character, and it had a fantastically antithetical American spin to it all.

    Well done and thanks, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Le0pard13:

      I love the Flint movies. They are such fun movies. I should review them here.

      Thanks for the kind words, my friend...

      best,
      John

      Delete
  4. I had two odd introductions to the world of Bond. I was born in April 1962 -- I'm as old as the Bond movies -- and when Thunderball came out, my father bought the soundtrack LP album (I don't know why -- he NEVER used our stereo). I used to just sit there and stare at the album cover -- Great McGinnis art -- and wonder who the heck this James bond guy was. When I was in the 4th grade, my teacher (who was that year's MISS NEW JERSEY in the MISS AMERICA pageant--YOWZA!) and her equally beautiful younger sister came into class one day to tell us about the amazing double-date they had the night before when they went to see DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (so this must have been 1971). I still remember them describing the Mustang going sideways down the alley. I still hadn't seen a Bond movie yet...but I made my parents let me watch Diamonds Are Forever when it finally came on ABC...And I was hooked!!!

    ReplyDelete

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