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| "Looks like your out to get me... ." Connery's legendary debut as 007. |
It was 50 years ago this month that the first James Bond
film, DR. NO, was released. Sean Connery debuted his famous dialogue of
“Bond…James Bond” and the Production team of Harry Saltzman and Albert R.
Broccoli started what has become the longest running film franchise ever.
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| Illustrator Mitchell Hooks designed the first Bond movie poster. |
I wasn’t even born when Connery made his Bond debut.
Somewhere around 1971, 9 years after Dr.
No and 7 years after the Bond craze hit orbit with the box-office shattering
“Goldfinger,” I had my first
exposure to 007. My father loved to tell stories (did I inherit this trait, or
what?) and proceeded to weave such a tale of British Agent James Bond 007 fighting
the baddie Odd Job, leveling karate chops and punches against Odd Job’s deadly
steel rimmed bowler hat. Like any
wondrous kid full of imagination, I demanded the real thing.
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| "The Criminal Mind is always superior. It has to be." Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, and Sean Connery in the third act of DR.NO. |
Bond was playing on weekend matinees at the time, and since
Dad couldn’t change his work schedule, he requested that Mom take me. Starting with a double feature of You Only Live Twice followed by Thunderball, my expectations for action movies were set that
day! Equally great was my disappointment. Disgusted by too many “mushy” kissing
sequences (and God knows how many sexual suggestions for a first grader to
fathom) my Mom dragged me out of Thunderball
kicking and screaming before the grand action climax. But I would always have the memory of
Bond’s “Little Nellie” Gyrocopter and his assault on Blofeld’s volcano lair to
keep me warm.
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| "Stay where you are!" Don't mess with Ursula Andress as Honey Rider. |
Much has changed with the many iterations of Bond throughout
the years. For me the true Bond experience will always be a grand scale, plot-driven
spectacle, without the character arcs of recent films.
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| My unfinished illustration for the Crab Key battle. |
While developing my now defunct Bond video game pitch a few
years ago, I experimented with some illustration and vis dev paintings in
Photoshop. In addition, I studied
lots of stills from my favorite Bonds. What was started 50 years ago is clearly
timeless today.
