Quantum of Solace (2008) | Bond

Actors and Allies



Like in Casino Royale, trust is still a huge issue between M and Bond, but it's not about Bond's ego anymore. Part of it's just about knocking off the rough edges from his personality. As Vesper said in Casino Royale - and we learn more about in Skyfall - M tends to recruit orphans. But the lack of attachment M's looking for in candidates has to be moderated if they're going to be good agents. Bond's big problem is that he doesn't trust anyone. He learned to trust Vesper, but now he believes that was a mistake. He's still drinking the drink that he named after her - lots of them - so he's clearly not as over her as he claims, but he simultaneously loves and hates her. And that's wreaking havoc on his black-and-white worldview.

M sees this - and that Bond isn't being honest with himself about it - so that puts up another barrier to her trusting him. He keeps killing people who are potential leads, which is irritating for the investigation, but also suggests a deeper issue to her. It may not be just that he's an immature spy. She's worried that he's more interested in revenge than his duty to uncover Mr White's organization. He can always mature, but if he learns to put his personal feelings above his job, it'll make him useless to her as an agent.

His anger is fueling his distrust of everyone, so it comes full circle and M stays on him about both issues. "When you can't tell your friends from your enemies, it's time to go," she says. And Bond's relationship with Mathis is a great example of that.

Bond gets in a lot of trouble over Mathis' death, not just with the Bolivian police, but also the CIA and apparently with MI6. I've often wondered why anyone entertained the idea that Bond might have killed Mathis, but seeing the story through M's eyes, I get it. Bond totally considered Mathis an enemy at one point and Bond totally still has trust issues. And Bond totally has a habit of killing his enemies before he asks them any questions. I can see how M might wonder if Bond temporarily teamed up with Mathis to get to Quantum and then killed him. It's shortly after that when she outright says that she doesn't trust Bond.

But of course Bond had learned to trust Mathis, which is a beautiful thing. I've always liked Mathis in the novel Casino Royale and Giancarlo Giannini plays him wonderfully. Fleming writes him as a fun, friendly character, but Giannini adds a ton of heart. Quantum makes great use of him and turns him into the only person after Vesper that Bond learns to trust. (Bond trusts M, too, to an extent, but that's a different relationship. Bond knows that M will always put Britain's interests over his. In contrast, Mathis - and Vesper, he'll argue - were intensely loyal to Bond as a person.)

Mathis has no reason to help Bond look into Quantum's activities in Bolivia, but he does it because he's a good man who believes in forgiveness. Bond, on the other hand, isn't, but Bond's goodness isn't a prerequisite for Mathis' mercy. Bond never even really apologizes or seems to regret his distrust of Mathis, but that's okay. In the simple act of turning to Mathis for help, Bond has admitted that he was wrong. And that's all Mathis needs to find hope that Bond can be redeemed.

Mathis helps Bond investigate Dominic Greene, but his real mission is to put Bond on a better path as a human being. He encourages Bond to forgive Vesper and to learn the right lesson from knowing her. In spite of everything, he's truly concerned about Bond, even with his dying words: "Vesper. Forgive her. Forgive yourself." He's completely selfless. If for no other reason, Quantum has a special place in my heart for doing right by him. I love that character so much.

For his part, Bond leaves Mathis' body in a dumpster and takes his money. Camille is there and she's horrified. "Is that how you treat your friends?"

"He wouldn't care," Bond replies. And he's right. Mathis is the freaking Giving Tree. But Bond should care. And when he doesn't, it reveals that he doesn't deserve a friend like Mathis. That's the whole point though. That's why Mathis is the only person Bond can trust for most of the film.

Bond even has reason to distrust Felix, his unequivocal ally in Casino Royale. The CIA is in bed with Greene and that makes Felix look guilty by association. Happily, Felix is able to turn that around. His hands may be tied - and the implication is that the CIA isn't any happier about it than Felix (his boss notwithstanding) - but they recognize in Bond a way to make things right. They can't move against Greene, but Bond can. Ironically, his withdrawn independence gives him freedom to be the force for justice that the establishment can't be.

M recognizes this too. Once it's revealed how connected Quantum really is, M is told by the Foreign Secretary to call off the investigation. "Mr. Greene's interests and ours now align." After that, M goes to Bolivia, finds Bond, and suspends him. Again. Seriously, this is the third movie in a row. But while I believe that she has multiple reasons for relieving Bond of official duty, I also have no doubt that one of them is to free him to do what she can't order him to do. She puts a detail on him to get him out of the country, but as soon as he escapes - which is right away - she tells Tanner that Bond's "my agent and I trust him." She says that she knows he's onto something and she wants him followed, but not interfered with.

Her comment about trusting Bond is curious, because she explicitly stated earlier that she didn't. In fact, she's riding him hard about rage and trustworthiness earlier in that scene. The only thing I can see that's changed is that when he escapes his escort, he doesn't take off into the night, but comes back to talk to M some more about Agent Fields. He's concerned about Fields' reputation, but he's also concerned about his relationship with M. "You and I need to see this through," he says, reminding her that they're a team and reassuring her that this isn't about his grief. It's quick and subtle, but it seems to be enough for her.

He puts duty before revenge a couple of more times, too. First, he saves Greene's life in the exploding hotel just on the slim chance that he has a chance to question the villain later. Even more importantly, he also lets Vesper's boyfriend live; the man who'd betrayed Vesper and caused her to betray Bond.

And he forgives Vesper, too. After her boyfriend is taken away, Bond tells M, "Congratulations. You were right." And when she asks him about what, he clarifies, "About Vesper." It's a reference to a conversation they had at the end of Casino Royale where she asked if he ever wondered why Quantum hadn't killed Bond. "Because," she suggested, "she made a deal to save your life." Bond hadn't accepted it then, nor had he accepted it at the beginning of Quantum when Mr. White outright confirms it. According to White, if Vesper hadn't killed herself, Quantum would have used her to control Bond, too. That's how they operate.

But thanks to Mathis and M and even Felix and definitely Camille (whom we'll talk about tomorrow), Bond has made peace and learned that he's not alone. Mathis was right, and he'd be pleased.

M, on the other hand, was wrong about Bond. She was right about Bond's not facing his grief, but wrong about how that affected his job. Bond was certainly angry, but his mission to uncover Quantum was never about revenge. It was always about duty and serving her. At the end of the movie, he's technically still on suspension, so M tells him that she needs him back. His response is lovely. "I never left."

Best Quip



"We are teachers on sabbatical... and we have just won the lottery."

Worst Quip



"Thank you. She's seasick."

Gadgets



No gadgets in this one unless you count the fancy computer interfaces at MI6.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Iceberg boat (A View to a Kill)
5. The Q Boat (The World Is Not Enough)
6. Aston Martin V8 Vantage (The Living Daylights)
7. Glastron CV23HT speed boat (Moonraker)
8. Acrostar Mini Jet (Octopussy)
9. Crocodile submarine (Octopussy)
10. X-Ray Specs (The World Is Not Enough)

Casino Royale (2006) | Music

To fit the tone of Casino Royale, the filmmakers wanted a strong, masculine voice to sing the theme song. They hired Soundgarden's Chris Cornell to co-write it with David Arnold and sing it. I was never a fan of Soundgarden or Cornell, but man, that song is perfect. For the music, Arnold kept the feel of the Bond Theme without actually referencing it. Cornell's lyrics are basically a letter from Bond to Le Chiffre (or any victim, really) and he belts them out with as much conviction and confidence as Bond himself. As a rule, I prefer Bond songs to include the name of the movie, but not this time. It describes the feel of the movie too completely to want the words "Casino Royale" forced in just to satisfy tradition.

Daniel Kleinman also outdid himself on the credits sequence. Anyone could have predicted the card motif, but the two-dimensional, papercut look is surprising and unique. Kleinman mixes games and violence by turning spades and hearts into bullets, diamonds into blades, and using clovers to suggest gunsmoke. He also creates roulette wheels out of crosshairs.

On another occasion, crosshairs move over a Queen card to reveal the face of Eva Green. She's the only woman in the credits. This is too serious a business to mess around with naked assassins or female-shaped oil spills. The only silhouettes are of men fighting and killing each other, reminding me of the covers to the '80s Berkley editions of the Fleming novels.

The credits end with two bullet holes being shot into the 7 of Hearts, turning the number into a 007. That transitions into a computer screen that reads, "James Bond - 007. Status confirmed," letting the credits sequence also serve as a narrative transition from the teaser to the movie proper.

Because "You Know My Name" is so brash and badass, Arnold is able to use it as an action theme throughout the movie. He's never been shy about including the Bond Theme in the films, but except for a few, suggestive notes here and there, he withholds the Theme this time, because Bond hasn't earned it yet. He finally lets Bond (and us) have it at the very end, making it super powerful and important. And making viewers super impatient for the next film.

Top Ten Theme Songs

1. A View to a Kill
2. "Surrender" (end credits of Tomorrow Never Dies)
3. "You Know My Name" (Casino Royale)
4. The Living Daylights
5. "Nobody Does It Better" (The Spy Who Loved Me)
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
7. Diamonds Are Forever
8. You Only Live Twice
9. From Russia With Love (instrumental version)
10. The World Is Not Enough

Top Ten Title Sequences

1. Casino Royale
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Dr No
4. Thunderball
5. Goldfinger
6. GoldenEye
7. From Russia with Love
8. The Spy Who Loved Me
9. Die Another Day
10. Tomorrow Never Dies

Casino Royale (2006) | Villains

Everything else about Casino Royale is more complex than previous Bond films, so that goes for the villains, too. The two, earlier adaptations of the story uncomplicate Le Chiffre by de-emphasizing the reason he's playing cards, but not this one. The Climax! episode and the '60s spoof both acknowledge that Le Chiffre needs to win some money, but that's just backstory and Le Chiffre is the clear and ultimate villain. The Eon version not only highlights the threat to Le Chiffre's life; it also builds the threatening organization into something big and scary that Bond's going to have to deal with later.

That means that on paper, Le Chiffre is really only a henchman in the Eon movie. But he functions in the story like the main villain. He has people whom he answers to, but he's the one driving the plot and making Bond react. That's true in both the 2006 movie and the novel.

Le Chiffre was previously played by Peter Lorre and Orson Welles, so Mads Mikkelsen had an impressive legacy to live up to, but he nails it. He's not as grotesque as the literary version; he's just super creepy and menacing. It's easy to believe that he gives Bond a hard time.



Because Le Chiffre is part of a larger organization, there are a lot of bad guys in Casino Royale. Most of them are henchmen who either work for Le Chiffre (or work for people who work for Le Chiffre) or work for the people whom Le Chiffre works for. There are so many that I didn't want to write about each of them separately, but significant ones are Alex Dimitrios (who's running Le Chiffre's operation to blow up a plane prototype), Obanno (a terrorist whose money Le Chiffre invests in the plane project), Mollaka (the parkour dude who's supposed to blow up the plane until Bond kills him), Carlos (the person assigned to replace Mollaka), Gettler (the one-eyed assassin who finds Vesper in Venice), and Kratt (Le Chiffre's bodyguard).

And then there's Mr. White, who seems to be running the whole show on behalf of his organization. I'd call him the true villain of the movie, except for two things. First, he's clearly got other people whom he answers to. If we were to compare Casino Royale to Thunderball, White would be Largo and Le Chiffre would be Count Lippe. One of the cool things about Casino Royale is that we never get to meet its Blofeld. We don't even so much as hear a name. Or hear the name of the organization, for that matter. White is a high-level henchman, but he's still technically a henchman.

The other thing that keeps him from being the real villain of Casino Royale is that he's never directly opposed to anything Bond is doing. For most of the movie, Bond isn't even aware that White exists, much less know enough about his plans to try to stop them. That changes at the end, of course, but that's epilogue to the main story and really just sets up the next film where his role in relation to Bond becomes more clear.

I'm going to leave White off my Top Ten for now, but I won't be surprised if he pops up on one of lists after Quantum of Solace.

Top Ten Villains

1. Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger)
2. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Never Say Never Again)
3. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (From Russia With Love and Thunderball)
4. Ernst Stavro Blofeld (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
5. Maximilian Largo (Never Say Never Again)
6. Francisco Scaramanga (The Man with the Golden Gun)
7. Dr. Kananga (Live and Let Die)
8. Le Chiffre (Casino Royale)
9. Doctor No (Dr. No)
10. General Gogol (For Your Eyes Only)

Top Ten Henchmen

1. Baron Samedi (Live and Let Die)
2. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
3. Grant (From Russia with Love)
4. Nick Nack (The Man with the Golden Gun)
5. Zao (Die Another Day)
6. Gobinda (Octopussy)
7. May Day (A View to a Kill)
8. Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker)
9. Naomi (The Spy Who Loved Me)
10. Oddjob (Goldfinger)

Casino Royale (2006) | Women

Dimitrios' wife, Solange, shares some superficial characteristics with her namesake from "007 in New York," but she's serving an entirely different purpose. This is the kind of relationship that Bond is used to: dating married women who can't afford to get attached to him. That's one of the great things about her. She's not just there for Bond to seduce and get information from. She's also there to show us something serious and important about who Bond is.

The other great thing about her is the performance by Caterina Murino, who totally sells how lonely and sad Solange is. She wants to be a good person, but she's weak and that's what gets her into trouble.



Before I get too deep into thoughts on Vesper Lynd, let's pause for a moment and acknowledge the weird way she's introduced to the movie. She joins Bond on the train to Montenegro and announces, "I'm the money." "Every penny of it," Bond replies. I don't know what we're supposed to pull from that joke. Moneypenny isn't in the movie, so I imagine that it's just a way of acknowledging her absence, but it's strange to do that in connection with Vesper, who has nothing in common with M's assistant. Moneypenny is a consistent, but minor friend to Bond. Vesper is exactly the opposite.

She's only with him for a short time, but - especially in the novels - Vesper is the defining female presence in Bond's life. I don't think he truly loves her in the novel, but she certainly changes him and remains a powerful influence on him for years. At least until Tracy shows up. That means that there was a ton of pressure on the movie to get Vesper right. Happily, not only did it do honor to the literary version, it improved her.

Fleming's Vesper is a complicated, mysterious person for a reason. Fleming famously wrote Casino Royale while sweating over his impending marriage and his fears about that are channeled right into Vesper. She's an enigma that Bond can't figure out and he's almost ruined by trying. Eva Green's Vesper is also complicated and has secrets, but she's not as inscrutable as the literary version. That's partly because we can see her face and read her body language - and because those elements are controlled by an extremely talented actress - but it's also in the script. Her character is going on every bit as much of a journey as Bond is.

When they meet, they totally fall into the Belligerent Sexual Tension trope, but it resolves more naturally than your typical couple in a romantic comedy. They never actually hate each other, but they have opposite goals. Bond's there to risk MI6 funds on an uncertain mission, while Vesper's job is to protect those funds by minimizing the risk. The conflict created by that situation deflates though once Vesper is caught in a violent situation and has to participate in killing someone. She's devastated by the trauma of it and - shockingly - Bond is sensitive and gentle with her as she breaks down.

He doesn't appear to have been traumatized by either of the murders he committed in the cold open, and certainly not by any that he's committed in the movie since then. But some part of him is able to empathize with Vesper's reaction and comfort her through it. That beautiful moment in the shower connects them, so that later, when they undergo even more serious suffering together, they become inseparable. That's so much more powerful than it is in the book where her love for Bond seems to be mostly driven by guilt over her role in his torture.

Her treason and death are different in the book and film, too, but I like both versions. The reasons each Vesper does what she does are connected to the unique relationships they have with their Bonds, but what they're trying to achieve is the same. In both book and film, Vesper tries to move past her betrayal, but it catches up to her and she dies trying to protect Bond.

That really confuses him. He's learned to trust her, then learned that his trust was misplaced, but ultimately has to wrestle with the knowledge that she was still on his side to the very end. That's a crazily uncertain place for him to be in as the movie ends, but resolving that uncertainty is what makes Quantum of Solace so powerful. Spoilers for my feelings about that movie.

My Favorite Bond Women

1. Tracy Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
2. Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale)
3. Melina Havelock (For Your Eyes Only)
4. Kara Milovy (The Living Daylights)
5. Wai Lin (Tomorrow Never Dies)
6. Paula Caplan (Thunderball)
7. Tatiana Romanova (From Russia With Love)
8. Natalya Simonova (GoldenEye)
9. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
10. Domino Derval (Thunderball)

Casino Royale (2006) | Bond

Actors and Allies



For the first time in ever, Bond has a character arc in a movie. He begins with a huge chip on his shoulder for undisclosed reasons, though Vesper later observes that it's a personality type that often pops up in Double-O recruits. Bond's all rough edges at first. He's not just a misogynist, but a misanthrope, too. M has some major work to do with him if she's going to whip him into shape.

She calls him a "blunt instrument" (borrowing the term Miranda Frost used in Die Another Day), but that's not what bothers her. On the contrary, also like in Die Another Day, M relies on his being that way. After he refuses to follow her orders and lie low, he confronts her. "You knew I wouldn't let this drop," he says. Her response is, "I knew you were you."

Her real problem with Bond is something that she tells him early in the movie: "Take your ego out of the equation." Bond's ego defines his character in Casino Royale. Her telling him to lie low after his mistake in Madagascar is another interesting connection to Die Another Day. She doesn't outright rescind his license to kill this time, but his ego has again put her in a spot where she needs him out of the way. The irony is that in Die Another Day, she took him out because she thought his ego had been torn down to the point that he may have betrayed secrets. It's just the opposite in Casino Royale. His ego is very strong and it's making him sloppy.

Vesper has a similar crisis of faith in him, because she believes that his ego is blinding him to the possibility of losing to Le Chiffre. He's not playing as smart as he needs to. In order to win, Bond has to confront his own fallibility and let the experience make him stronger.

A huge symptom of his inflated ego is his lack of trust in people. In the same conversation where M scolds Bond about his ego, she also tells him, "I need to know that I can trust you and that you know who to trust." Her trust in him is all about his ability to control his ego, but the comment about his knowing whom to trust is also important. It's not that she wants him to become super trusting. Later in the movie, she asks him, "You don't trust anyone, do you?" And when he says that he doesn't, she says, "Then you've learned your lesson."

But at the same time, Bond's egotistical reliance only on himself makes him a weaker agent. M criticizes him for his emotional detachment, and it's his instinctive distrust that makes him so ready to believe in Mathis' betrayal. Along the way though, Bond does learn to open up, like when he meets Felix Leiter, his "brother from Langley." It's a big change from the book that Bond hasn't yet met Felix before the card game. In the movie, Felix doesn't introduce himself until Bond is at his lowest: beaten by Le Chiffre and getting no additional support from MI6. Bond has decided that his only choice is to murder Le Chiffre - calling back to his tactics at the beginning of the movie. But Felix offers Bond a way to complete the mission as planned and Bond grabs onto that life preserver with both hands. Felix is kind of perfect that way. He doesn't require a lot of trust from Bond; all Bond has to do is accept Felix's chips. But it's a baby step towards Bond's learning that he's stronger when he's part of a team.

The tragedy of course is that when Bond finally does open himself up to trusting Vesper, she betrays him, too. It's a deep wound and he finishes the movie no more trusting than he did at the beginning, but his experimenting with trust has deflated his ego significantly. He's still not all the way there, but he's on his way toward becoming the agent M wants him to be.

Best Quip



"I'm Mr. Arlington Beech, professional gambler, and you're Miss Stephanie Broadchest..."

Runner Up: "How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathizes."

Worst Quip



"I'm sorry. That last hand nearly killed me."

Gadgets



Casino Royale almost eliminates gadgets altogether. There were actually more gadgets in the novel, like the gun-cane used by one of Le Chiffre's henchmen. The movie replaces the gun-cane with poison, though, and doesn't offer much in the way of new gadgets to replace it. Bond's car has a fancy glove compartment with shelves holding medical equipment and a gun, but the only other sort of gadget is the tracker that M has implanted under Bond's skin.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Iceberg boat (A View to a Kill)
5. The Q Boat (The World Is Not Enough)
6. Aston Martin V8 Vantage (The Living Daylights)
7. Glastron CV23HT speed boat (Moonraker)
8. Acrostar Mini Jet (Octopussy)
9. Crocodile submarine (Octopussy)
10. X-Ray Specs (The World Is Not Enough)

Casino Royale (2006) | Story

Plot Summary

James Bond earns his Double-O number, but risks losing his soul.

Influences

I always want to give Jason Bourne the credit for Casino Royale, but that's not fair. The Bond series has a history of letting itself get super bloated and crazy before paring back to Fleming-like realism. It happened after You Only Live Twice, it happened after Moonraker, and it happened after A View to a Kill. In all likelihood, the movie after Die Another Day was always going to be a smaller, more serious movie.

But even though Die Another Day grossed more than twice as much worldwide as The Bourne Identity (released the summer of 2002; Die Another Day came out that Christmas), Bourne was clearly the better movie and got people thinking about what a real spy movie should look like.

Eon Productions had had the rights to Casino Royale since 1999, but I guess the timing had never been right to make it as a Brosnan movie. Brosnan was 49 when Die Another Day came out and no one wanted him to overstay his welcome like Roger Moore had, so when it was decided to replace Brosnan with a younger actor, it must have seemed like the right time to adapt the first Fleming novel and reboot the whole thing. And however indirect Bourne's influence may have been, Casino Royale certainly competes with it in terms of tone and sheer action.

The novel is obviously a huge influence, but there's also some speculation about the name of Alex Dimitrios' wife in the film. It's never mentioned onscreen, but the credits list her as Solange. Fleming used that name in "From a View to a Kill" as well as "007 in New York." In "From a View to a Kill," Bond is simply fantasizing about hooking up in Paris and imagines meeting a Frenchwoman named Solange, but the woman in "007 in New York" is actually a friend of his who's in a relationship with a bad guy. She may not have directly inspired the Casino Royale character, but I can see why the filmmakers borrowed her name.

How Is the Book Different?

The film follows the book's plot pretty closely, but adds a lot of stuff at the beginning to make Bond more invested in Le Chiffre's defeat. In the novel, he's called in on the mission just because he's the Secret Service's best card player. That works just fine, but it's even stronger to have the card game be the climax of an investigation that Bond's been working on for a while. That means changing some things about how Le Chiffre lost his employers' money, but it also gives the movie the chance to put in big action set pieces that weren't in the novel.

Even in the part of the story that's directly from the book, there are some significant changes. Instead of Bond's assistant, Vesper has a more important role as the MI6 accountant who decides how much money is going to get thrown at this endeavor. Then there's the switch of the card game from the novel's baccarat to the more popular, but way less classy Texas hold 'em.

The biggest change though is the questioning of Mathis' loyalties. It's left ambiguous (and resolved in Quantum of Solace), but once Bond suspects Mathis, he never doubts the man's guilt. In the book, Mathis is a wonderful character and indisputably a good guy. It's important to Bond's character arc in the movie that he doubt Mathis' allegiance, but it still hurts every time I see it.

Moment That's Most Like Fleming



More than any other movie in the series to this point, Casino Royale drops the jokes. There's humor in it, but it's real-person humor, not quips. Since Dr. No, the Bond films had always taken a light-hearted approach to espionage, though Dalton and Brosnan each added layers to that. Dalton undermined his jokes with a self-deprecating delivery, while Brosnan was explicitly stated to be using humor to cope with his job. Daniel Craig is doing neither of those things. He relaxes around attractive women, but the rest of the time he's deadly serious.

That seriousness fits well with the themes of Fleming's novel, which are adapted nicely to the movie. The film doesn't deal with them in exactly the same way, but there's still a character arc for Bond where he questions his life as a cruel, emotionless spy and then comes to terms with it.

Moment That's Least Like Fleming



I'd argue that the movie deals with Bond's character arc better than the novel does. The book has Bond flirt with the idea of abandoning the Secret Service and his relationship with Vesper is really just something for him to hold onto when the rest of his world seems to be falling apart. In the film, Vesper isn't a distraction, but a vital part of what's pulling him away from MI6. It's her - not Le Chiffre's torture - that makes Bond question his life. "You do what I do too long," he tells her, "and there won't be any soul left to salvage. I'm leaving with what little I have left." And what little he has, he's offering to her.

The real, least-Fleming moment comes much earlier in the film, but it's related. Bond begins the movie with a childishly willful attitude towards M. That changes by the end of the movie as a result of his character growth, but it's a disposition that the literary Bond never would have dreamed of expressing, even when he thought M was wrong.

Cold Open



Casino Royale lets us know right away that it's breaking formula. There's no gun barrel before the teaser, first of all, and then the teaser is in black-and-white.

We're told that we're in Prague and Bond is waiting in the office of the MI6 section chief for that area. Apparently, the chief has been selling secrets to the enemy and M has sent Bond to put a stop to it.

The chief laughs about this at first. He clearly doesn't respect Bond and muses that if M was really bent on killing him, she would have sent a Double-O. He even states that he'd know it if M had promoted Bond to that level. "Your file shows no kills, and it takes..."

"Two," Bond interrupts. Smash cut to a brutal fight in a bathroom between Bond and the section chief's contact.

The implication is clear. Bond hasn't yet been promoted to Double-O, because he's just now earning it with this mission. From here, the teaser jumps between the two scenes; contrasting the ferocious murder of the enemy contact with the cold-blooded assassination of the traitorous chief. That's another thing the movie has in common with the novel, where Bond reminisces about the two murders that got him his number. They're unrelated missions in the book, but one was an emotionless sniper shot while the other was close and messy.

The chief obviously knows Bond from before this meeting. He tells Bond, "We barely got to know each other," suggesting that Bond has been stationed in Prague for a short time. Probably, I imagine, on assignment from M to investigate the chief.

Bond murders his boss and then we get one last cut back to the bathroom. It looks like Bond's won his fight, but there's a little life left yet in the enemy agent, who draws a gun on Bond. As he does, the camera moves us inside the gun barrel looking out as Bond pivots and shoots and the blood comes pouring down the screen. This may be a different sort of Bond film, but it's still a Bond film.

Top 10 Cold Opens

1. GoldenEye 
2. Casino Royale
3. The Spy Who Loved Me
4. Moonraker
5. Thunderball
6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
7. A View to a Kill
8. Goldfinger
9. The Man with the Golden Gun
10. The Living Daylights

Movie Series Continuity



Since it's ostensibly a reboot, there's not much movie continuity in Casino Royale. Really, the only clear connection is M, played again by Judi Dench and tying this movie to the Brosnan ones. For that reason, it's hard to accept Casino Royale as a hard reboot.

Bond also wins a 1964 Aston Martin DB5 from Dimitrios, which feels like continuity, but can't be. It's clearly a reference to 1964's Goldfinger where the car first appeared, but there's no way that Casino Royale takes place before Goldfinger or that this is the story of how Bond got that vehicle. For one thing, the Casino Royale DB5 has a left-hand driver seat, but that's a relatively small issue compared to trying to make the Brosnan movies lead into Craig's which then loop back around as a prequel to Connery's. It just doesn't work.

The only theory that makes any amount of sense (just barely) is that "James Bond" is indeed as much a code name as 007, but that in addition to the name, MI6 is also implanting memories. Not only of Bond's wife, but also - as we'll see in Skyfall - of his childhood. There's no good reason for MI6 to be doing this (they'd have to have a similar program for Moneypennies, by the way, and the CIA would as well for Felixes), but if we foolishly insist on a continuity for the whole series, this has got to be it.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming

It's been a while since we've visited Ian Fleming's Bond, so let's catch up real quick. The last time he appeared was in The Spy Who Loved Me, which offered a complex Bond. As I said at the time, the answer to the protagonist's question about him is that yes, Bond can be nice and he can be kind. He's not a shining hero and he should be nobody's "image of a man" as she put's it, but he's come a long way since Casino Royale and is becoming more human. The Spy Who Loves Me demonstrates that clearly even as it warns us that he's not quite there yet.

When I started this project, I mentioned how Casino Royale's Bond is a man whose selfishness has prevented him from ever having a meaningful relationship with a woman. I looked forward to watching him grow out of that, and knew he kind of would because I knew what would happen in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's been fun watching him mature and become more selfless and I was eager to see him finally meet Tracy and to learn what kind of effect - if any - she would have on him.

Fleming intentionally calls back to Casino Royale many times in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, starting with the casino itself. He reveals that Bond's made an annual trip to Royale-les-Eaux to visit Vesper's grave and it's here that he meets Teresa Draco. Tracy, as she likes to be called, is clearly supposed to be the second major woman in Bond's life and there are lots of similarities between the two of them. When Bond first meets Tracy, she's clearly under a lot of stress and is emotionally manic with him, just like Vesper. Fleming's not explicit about this, but I think it's an easy connection to make that Vesper is on Bond's mind and that Tracy reminds him of her.

Even though I believe that Vesper wasn't actually Bond's first great love, I don't doubt that Bond imagines her that way. I think he cared more honestly and selflessly for Honey Rider and perhaps also Domino, but any man who makes an annual trip to the grave of a woman who betrayed him is obviously carrying a torch. Fleming doesn't show readers a lot of chemistry between Bond and Tracy, but her similarity to Vesper - especially at this location and this time of year - explains why Bond is drawn to her. Beside her being beautiful and an awesome driver, I mean.

He totally takes advantage of her at first, which is something I found creepy. It became no less disturbing and offensive the more I thought about it, but I do at least understand where Bond's mind is when he meets her. It's still very demeaning that he lets her pay off a huge debt to him by sleeping with him, but I think some of that is revenge against Vesper. Not that that's an excuse.

It's not all revenge though, and Bond clearly cares something for Tracy and wants to protect her, however imperfectly (which is very) he goes about it. Fleming has made it very clear that Bond is no hero and that's very true in the opening chapters where Tracy is concerned. He's no good for her and at one point he realizes that "for the first time in his life" he feels totally inadequate.

Bond's flaws are made even more evident when he meets Tracy's father, the head of a criminal organization in Europe. Though Draco tells stories about raping the woman who would become Tracy's mother, Bond admires and even relates to the man. He describes himself to Draco as "ruthless," and it's true. When Draco offers to pay Bond to look after Tracy, Bond's refusal isn't because he has a sense of honor. It's because he knows he won't be any good at it and doesn't especially want to try.

As the story moves away from Tracy and onto its main plot though, she doesn't leave Bond's mind. For example, back at MI6 Fleming introduces us to Bond's new secretary, Mary Goodnight. We've already met Goodnight in "The Property of a Lady," which takes place before On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but was written after it, so this is her real first appearance. Bond seems much more fond of Goodnight in OHMSS that he did in "Property," but he was already in a bad mood in "Property" and it's possible he was just taking that out on Goodnight. At any rate, he's got a playful relationship with her here, but he doesn't pursue it because he's still thinking about Tracy.

He's not all romance though and he's also doing a lot of thinking about Ernst Stavro Blofeld. It's tough to fit "Property of a Lady" anywhere in Bond's timeline than before OHMSS, but it also doesn't fit perfectly before this book either. For that matter, neither does The Spy Who Loved Me. The second chapter of OHMSS claims that Bond has been fruitlessly searching for Blofeld non-stop since the end of Thunderball and that Bond is getting tired of it to the point that he now wants to resign. The best I can do to reconcile that is to say that Bond hasn't actually been looking for Blofeld non-stop, but only feels that he has. He's had some other cases; it's just that the hunt for Blofeld now seems pointless to Bond after so many dead ends.

That changes after Bond meets Draco though. Tracy's dad gives Bond a lead on Blofeld and gets the plot moving. Apparently, Blofeld is interested in setting up a new identity for himself that includes a noble heritage, so Bond poses as a genealogist to get close to the criminal mastermind. His preparation for that role brings out a couple of interesting facts about Bond's past, including that he's from Scotland. Since OHMSS was written after the production of the movie Dr. No, that's not a coincidence. Fleming is retconning in a Scot heritage to fit Sean Connery, just like he includes Ursula Andress as a guest at Blofeld's mountain resort.

As Bond went undercover, I couldn't help but wonder how that was going to turn out. I've talked a lot about Bond as a blunt instrument and his undercover assignments have never gone very well. He gets tired and impatient with them as in Diamonds Are Forever. Surprisingly though, Blofeld brings out the best in Bond, who's able to commit to his cover remarkably well. He makes some mistakes that raise Blofeld's suspicions, but they're understandable mistakes and his cover stories for them are plausible. It's only Blofeld's extreme paranoia that makes him distrust Bond and sends Bond looking for an escape route.

(Incidentally, Bond acknowledges during this part that Universal Export has become a weak, overused cover. I think that's cool and interesting, especially in light of how it's used in the movies and how famous Bond himself becomes in the world of the movies. We'll dig into that more deeply when we discuss those films, but I like that literary Bond recognizes a bad cover when he sees one.)

When Bond does escape, there's a thrilling ski chase down the mountain. At the end of it, Bond is physically spent, but he's also worn out emotionally and psychologically. Fleming really plays up how hard Bond had it on the mountain, but that seems weird  considering so much of the suffering he's endured on other missions. Dr No especially comes to mind, but really all of them put Bond through the ringer a lot worse than hanging out at a resort with a bunch of beautiful women and then having a ski chase. It makes a little more sense though when Bond's back in England and reflecting on how nice it is to be on the job as himself. The implication is that being undercover that long took a lot out of him. More than he - or the readers - realized as it was going on.

Shortly after escaping Blofeld's resort, Bond meets Tracy again. At Bond's suggestion, Draco sent her to get professional help for her depression and it's paid off. Sort of. She's a totally different woman, but I question whether she's improved. Actually, I shouldn't question. In the context of the story, she's clearly happier and healthier. But she's also way less independent and interesting.

I imagine that Fleming saw an inverse relationship between those things; that female happiness and health are somehow in opposition to independence and uniqueness. The Tracy that rejoins Bond at the end of the novel is immature and submissive. She sobs and trembles when he proposes to her and says things like, "I suppose I've got to get used to doing what you say." She makes scenes about the dangers of his job - even using the exact same term to describe it that Le Chiffre did in Casino Royale - which is exactly what Bond's always been afraid of in relationships. He's mused many times over the course of the series about knowing that marriage wasn't for him, because he couldn't put up with that. He hates drama and Tracy is full of the stuff. She's very different in the movie, but the literary Tracy is every bit as bad as all the whiny girls whom Bond has always said he despised. I honestly couldn't understand why he liked her.

And then it hit me. The point isn't that Tracy is some kind of remarkable, new woman that Bond has never encountered before. On the contrary, she's exactly like every woman he's ever encountered before and feared. The point is that she isn't different. He is.

The Bond of Casino Royale would have had zero time for "cured" Tracy Draco. He would have been into "damaged" Tracy, but only for the sex. By the time we get to OHMSS, he's a changed man. He wants her to get well, even if that means becoming someone he's always said he hates. But he realizes, here at the end, that he doesn't hate that at all. He understands and acknowledges that her worry is a manifestation of her love. She's not a drag on him; she's someone who cares enough about him that she wants to take care of him and protect him. And he wants to do the same for her. However imperfectly.

Fleming is either very sloppy about how he communicates this or he's a genius. I like to think it's the latter. None of what I've concluded is spelled out. It's all subtext. On the surface, Bond's relationship with Tracy makes no sense. But in the context of the previous books in the series, he's been growing toward this point all along. He's always had a sappy, sentimental side to him, even back in Casino Royale. It's just that now it's unfettered by his extreme selfishness.

Which makes the last page all the more heart-breaking.

The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming once explained the oddity of The Spy Who Loved Me as his response to young readers' seeing Bond as a hero. Fleming had a different opinion of Bond, so instead of letting readers into the agent's head as usual, The Spy Who Loved Me presents him completely through the eyes of other people.

Mostly that's the first person narrator of the novel, Vivienne Michel, who's left as the sole occupant/caretaker of an isolated motor lodge in the Adirondacks. The novel takes place over the course of an evening. Vivienne spends the first part of it alone, reminiscing over her life and especially her experiences with a couple of men. Then in the middle of the novel, a couple of gangsters show up, sent to burn down the motel for the insurance money, murder Vivienne, and frame her for the "accident." In the last third of the story, Bond shows up and becomes a deadly fly in the gangsters' ointment.

When I first read The Spy Who Loved Me as a teenager, I was impatient with it. It's so different from the other Bond novels not just in structure, but in tone. The first third reads sort of like a romance novel, then the second part becomes a horror story with Bond finally bringing things home at the end. As an adult though, I found a lot to like in the shifting genres. Vivienne is a great character on her own and I enjoyed spending time with her. Fleming's attitudes about women still creep in, but he's written a beautifully complicated person whom I was able to relate to and feel for.

My fondness for Vivienne led me to feeling discouraged though when the novel was wrapping up. She'd been emotionally devastated by a couple of men in her life, so it's kind of heart-breaking to see her fall so hard for Bond who's completely incapable of having a healthy relationship with a woman. (I still don't know what happened with Domino, dang it.) She claims to understand that Bond isn't for keeping, but I despaired a little that her worship of him - because that's what it amounts to - is going to affect her ability to find happiness in future relationships.

She thinks at one point, while watching him sleep after they've had sex, "I would stay away from him and leave him to go his own road where there would be other women, countless other women, who would probably give him as much physical pleasure as he had had with me. I wouldn't care, or at least I told myself that I wouldn't care, because none of them would ever own him - own any larger piece of him than I now did. And for all my life I would be grateful to him, for everything. And I would remember him for ever as my image of a man."

Holding Bond as her image of a man is understandable after the weasels Vivienne had previously known, but it's still sad. He was kind and charming to her and they had great sex, but that's still a pretty low bar to get over. And knowing why Fleming wrote the novel, I believe that's exactly his point. He was concerned that some of his readers were like Vivienne, idolizing Bond and turning him into their image of a man.

So after Bond takes off the next morning, leaving Vivienne asleep, but with a very nice note, Fleming lets the story continue as Vivienne interacts with the police whom Bond has sent to wrap up the affair. She has a long conversation with a middle-aged captain who sees her as a daughter figure and is worried about her. He intuits that she's infatuated with Bond and warns her against romanticizing the experience. Bond, he claims, is no different from the gangsters who threatened Vivienne's life the night before. He operates on the side of the angels, but he's just as cold and just as ruthless as the people he fights.

It's impossible not to hear Fleming's voice in this speech. It's the same message he introduced back in Casino Royale when Bond was recovering from Le Chiffre's torture and struggling to differentiate himself from the villains. But all the lecturing about Bond's being "a different species" and not fit for normal human interaction is undercut by the way Bond actually acts in the novel. No, he's not going to commit to a long, meaningful relationship with Vivienne, but he's also not the same man we met in Casino Royale.

We've been tracking his growth all through the series and The Spy Who Loved Me is an important check point in that development. On the surface, Bond is bad news. The police captain believes it and even Vivienne feels it in those thoughts above. Right after she declares Bond as her image of a man, she realizes the silliness of that and adds, "He was trained to fire guns, to kill people. What was so wonderful about that? Brave, strong, ruthless with women - these were the qualities that went with his calling - what he was paid to be. He was only some kind of a spy, a spy who had loved me. Not even loved, slept with. Why should I make him my hero, swear never to forget him? I suddenly had an impulse to wake him up and ask him: 'Can you be nice? Can you be kind?'"

And yet, we've seen Bond be nice and kind. He's done it with Vivienne, but also with Honey and with Domino and with M and with Felix. Over the course of the series, he's become more human. Earlier, when Bond explains his job to Vivienne and how he just completed a mission to protect a double agent, he talks about the spy business in negative terms. He describes it as a foolish, complicated game that no one will stop playing. Vivienne concurs and says that her generation finds ideas like nationalism and power struggles to be idiotic. To which Bond replies, "As a matter of fact I agree, but don't spread your ideas too widely or I'll find myself out of a job."

There's another part where Vivienne asks Bond why he didn't kill the two gangsters when they were sitting ducks. His response is that he's never been able to kill in cold blood. I've pointed out before how that's clearly false, but it is something that Bond's been claiming for a while and he's obviously uncomfortable with killing outside the heat of battle.

The answer to Vivienne's question then is that yes, Bond can be nice and he can be kind. He's not a shining hero and he should be nobody's "image of a man," but he's getting better and The Spy Who Loves Me bears that out even as it warns us that he's not quite there yet. In that way, it's a perfect leap off spot for the next novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Octopussy and The Living Daylights | "The Living Daylights"

"The Living Daylights" was first published in 1962 as part of a color supplement for The Sunday Times. The Times was a rival to the Daily Express, which had been serializing and adapting Bond stories for about six years by that point, so the Express was naturally upset. In fact, "The Living Daylights" created a big rift between Fleming and the Express to the point that the Bond strip was abruptly ended part way through the adaptation of Thunderball. More about that on Thursday, though. "The Living Daylights" was also published in the United States a few months later in Argosy magazine.

I have a lot of praise to gush on the movie The Living Daylights, which I'll do at the proper time, but one of the things I love about it as that it adapts its short story pretty faithfully, but with a twist that propels the rest of the movie. In the short story, Bond is called to Berlin to assassinate the person who has in turn been assigned to assassinate someone escaping to the West. In the short story, the escapee is a returning double agent instead of a defector, but Bond is still supervised by a tiresome liaison and still changes his shot when he discovers that his target is a woman. And not just any woman, but a cellist he's been watching and fantasizing about as she's come and go from a nearby building over a few days.

One of my favorite lines in the movie version is when Bond lashes back at his annoying supervisor by exclaiming that the worst that can happen is that M will fire Bond, but that Bond would "thank him for it." I've always associated that with Bond's attitude at the end of Casino Royale, but re-reading "The Living Daylights" reminds me that it's yet another element right out of the short story. Bond is uncharacteristically sulky in this story and grumbles a couple of times about not minding if he gets kicked out of the Double-O section.

The best explanation that I have for that is that Bond is changing as a person. He's become less and less selfish since Dr No and has apparently become a happier person for it. Certainly his sense of humor has improved in Goldfinger and Thunderball. There's even a bit in "The Living Daylights" where he acknowledges to someone that the Bentley is a "selfish car." That kind of awareness is remarkable and important. It shows that while Bond still loves his car, he's also a little embarrassed about what it says about his past self. He sees that past selfishness and is able to comment on it, which I don't think he would've been able to do in the early books.

As Bond continues to change, it makes sense that he's becoming less patient with the uglier aspects of his job. His current mission is outright, cold-blooded assassination. He's never been super fond of that (as we saw in From Russia with Love), but it seems to be really getting at him now. The only time he's seemed okay with it was in "For Your Eyes Only," but that was more about his compassion for M than about willingly taking another person's life. My theory about Bond's attitude in "The Living Daylights" is that the assignment has got him especially down and is creating a bad attitude about his job and life in general. If it pops up again over the next few assignments, I'll adjust that theory, but it works for now.

One last thing that bothers me (not about Fleming's writing, but about Bond's mindset) is that Domino doesn't come up at all. From a storytelling perspective, I don't actually expect her to, but from a fannish, continuity-exploring perspective, I wish that there was more fallout from that relationship than just Bond's fantasizing about a pretty cellist. I fantasized myself about Bond and Domino's forming a mature relationship, so it hurts a little that she's just disappeared over the last couple of stories. There may be good, extratextual reasons for that (McClory?), but again, I'm just talking about continuity. Something apparently happened between Bond and Domino to sour things and I want some closure. I don't expect Fleming's next full novel, The Spy Who Loved Me to explain it, but I wish it would. And if not, I'm perfectly willing to come up with something on my own.

[Argosy cover found at Galactic Central]

"Casino Royale": The Comic Strip

Around the time that From Russia with Love was published, the British Daily Express newspaper contacted Ian Fleming about adapting the novels into comic strip form. They already had a relationship with Fleming from serializing Diamonds Are Forever in the paper and were going to do the same thing with From Russia with Love. Based on that experience, they were confident that a comics version would be a hit.

Fleming was skeptical though. He was afraid that the strips would dumb down a series that he already thought was fairly low brow and that he might be tempted to then let the quality drop even further until he and the strips were speeding each other faster and faster down the drain. Always eager to see Bond reach a wider audience though, Fleming ultimately relented and the first strip, an adaptation of Casino Royale, was published shortly after the novel Dr No.

Adapted by the same guy who'd edited Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia with Love for serialization in the paper, the Casino Royale strip is - as Fleming predicted - a toned down version of the story. It gives up the novel's cold-open-and-flashbacks narrative structure in favor of a straightforward approach (even introducing Vesper to Bond in London before the mission officially begins) and some of the violence is reduced. For instance, Bond's famous last line is changed to simply, "She's dead." Another major example is the torture sequence, where Bond is naked and Le Chiffre is using a carpet beater, but the art strongly implies that Le Chiffre is using it on Bond's head.



For all that though, the strip is remarkably faithful to Fleming's story. It matches the plot beat for beat and it's cool to see artist John McLusky interpret the characters. Bond looks just how Fleming describes him, complete with the scar on his right eye and his black comma of hair. Vesper is tall and lovely and reminds me of a slightly arrogant Audrey Hepburn. Mathis is older and dumpier than I imagine him, but it's a fair interpretation. Felix isn't as handsome as I want him to be either, but I get the hayseed approach that McLusky's going for. Moneypenny doesn't show up in the strip, but M does and it's cool that McLusky keeps Bond's boss in perpetual shadow. That might get annoying as the strip continues - especially in Moonraker - but for now it's a justifiable choice. The one design that doesn't work is the SMERSH assassin who saves Bond's life. He not only wears a ridiculous mask, but he's got a sad-sack look that's even less intimidating.



The main weakness of McLusky's though is that he has a difficult time with facial expressions. This is a big problem for Vesper, who's supposed to be hysterical at times, but none of the characters have a wide range.



Still, McClusky brings the story to life with lifelike representations not only of the characters, but the world around them. From architecture to clothing and cars, the strip puts the story in an historically accurate setting that pulled me into it all over again. Whatever Fleming's reservations, that makes it worthwhile as a companion to the novel.

Dr No by Ian Fleming

When I wrote about From Russia with Love, I repeated the common myth that Ian Fleming was growing tired of the Bond series by then and wanted to kill off his main character. Turns out, that's not entirely accurate. Fleming was certainly experimenting when he wrote From Russia with Love, but not out of desperate boredom. He was simply interested in improving the series and was willing to take risks to do so.

Part of the myth of Bond's death is that Raymond Chandler is the one who talked Fleming out of making it permanent. But according to one Bond FAQ, Chandler's advice to Fleming was simply to criticize Diamonds Are Forever (I agree that it's a weak book) and suggest that Fleming could do better. Fleming took that to heart and From Russia with Love was the result. But there's other evidence - also dating back to Diamonds Are Forever - that implies Fleming always intended for Bond to live beyond From Russia with Love.

Shortly after Diamonds Are Forever was published, Fleming received a now-famous letter from a fan named Geoffrey Boothroyd who was also a gun expert. Boothroyd criticized Bond's use of the .25 Beretta as inappropriate and recommended the Walther PPK as a superior choice. Fleming also took this advice to heart, but was already too far into writing From Russia with Love to make the change for that book, so he replied to Boothroyd that he'd include that idea in the next one, which turned out to be Dr No. Apparently, the intention was never to leave Bond dead after From Russia with Love, but simply to end on a cliffhanger and get readers buzzing for the next installment. The myth could be the result of people getting Fleming confused with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who did grow tired of Sherlock Holmes and killed him off before later changing his mind.

As Dr No opens, Bond is still recuperating from Rosa Klebb's poison and M is nervous about sending 007 back into action. He discusses the agent's shelf life with the neurologist who's been watching over Bond's recovery and we get some insight to M's thoughts on pain in general and how much he expects his agents to be able to take. He doesn't want to coddle Bond and risk softening him up, but M is also aware that Bond's been through a rough time and doesn't need to be thrown up against another threat like SMERSH right away. Instead, M has a gravy assignment in mind for Bond; what M calls a "holiday in the sun."

From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming

Major SPOILERS BELOW for the novel From Russia With Love.

I’m confused about how much time has passed between Moonraker and From Russia With Love. That’s a weird problem to have, I know, because it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme, but Fleming is so specific about it and his dates don’t match up. At the end of Moonraker, M says he’s sending Bond away for a month until the heat blows over, and Bond decides he’s going to France. Then, as Diamonds Are Forever opens, Bond says that he’s only been back from France for two weeks. But in From Russia With Love, the Soviets discuss Bond’s recent career and date Diamonds as “last year” and Moonraker as three years ago.

The obvious answer is that Fleming simply forgot that he’d placed Diamonds so close to Moonraker. He said at the beginning of Moonraker that typically Bond has only one or two big, dangerous cases a year – and of course the novels were being published once a year – so that’s probably what Fleming was thinking as he wrote Russia. That’s not very satisfying, so my own No-Prize theory is that the France trip mentioned in Diamonds isn’t actually the same as the one at the end of Moonraker. Fleming obviously intended them to be, but if we say they aren’t, then those adventures can be a year apart and we’re back on track again.

The timeline isn’t the only problem the Soviets cause in From Russia With Love. The biggest one sadly isn’t their plans for Bond, but how much of the novel they take over. Stephen King is famous for dedicating pages and pages of background to minor characters, but Fleming did it first. Every contributor to the Soviets’ plan gets at least a paragraph of personal history and most of them a page or two. Red Grant the assassin gets multiple chapters. If I was reading the series a book per year as they were released, this wouldn’t be that big a problem. I might still have been a little put out, but I could perhaps admire the risk Fleming took more than I do now. Marathoning a book a week, I want to keep moving and I had a hard time slogging through the first half of Russia before Bond shows up.

Climax!: "Casino Royale" (1954)

Ian Fleming always intended for Bond to get out of the books and onto the screen. In fact, the US edition of Casino Royale had only been out several months when it was adapted for TV by the hour-long, suspense anthology series, Climax. “Casino Royale” was the show’s third episode following an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye and the Bayard Veiller play The Thirteenth Chair (which had already been made into three different movies, one of which was directed by Tod Browning and co-starred Bela Lugosi).

The show was kind of a big deal. Though the few, remaining prints are black-and-white, the series was actually broadcast in color, which was rare in 1954. It was also hosted by film star William Lundigan (Dodge City, The Sea Hawk). But Fleming would come to regret the hastiness with which he accepted the Climax deal and it’s not hard to see why. The show famously changed James Bond into an American CIA agent named “Card Sense” Jimmy Bond, and while that was the most obvious and horrific alteration, it wasn’t the only one.

The Le Chiffre job is still an international operation coordinated by Britain, but Her Majesty’s Secret Service is represented by Clarence Leiter (replacing the novel’s American Felix), who says he works for Station S (the MI-6 branch in the novel that comes up with the mission). Clarence bankrolls Bond’s initial gambling stake and even debriefs him on the mission, a la M. Bond himself is clueless about the case when he arrives at the casino and at first assumes that he’s supposed to assassinate Le Chiffre.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

When people talk about how they came to know James Bond, the story I most often hear is that they were introduced to the movies by an older relative. When I was a kid in the pre-cable, pre-home video ‘70s, that meant catching the old movies as they aired on network TV. I remember those commercials well and my being intrigued about the suave hero who’d been around long enough to be played by multiple actors and whose adventures had awesome titles like Thunderball and Live and Let Die. The Bond films were family viewing for a lot of folks and it didn’t matter that they were only available sporadically and in whatever order the network chose to show them. There was no way to marathon the entire series in those days, but no one cared. They fell in love with Bond anyway.

I didn’t get to know Bond that way though. My folks were pretty strict about what we watched and the sexual nature of Bond’s exploits kept him off our TV. It wasn’t until I was 16 and able to drive myself to the movie theater that I saw my first Bond film. But long before then, I was able to enjoy his adventures in a different format.

For whatever reason, my folks never policed my books. If I could find it in the library, they were okay with my reading it. So while I was unable to satisfy my curiosity about the Bond films, the world of Ian Fleming’s novels were completely open to me and that’s how I met the superspy. And since I was a compulsive nerd about continuity even then, I had to start with the first book, Casino Royale. It blew me away.