BOND VOYAGE

I was 14 when I saw Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me. I was also 14 when I saw Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. And I8217;ll be 14 once again, when I watch Quantum of Solace. James Bond is more than four decades old, but every viewer watching a Bond movie at least for those two hours is a kid at heart. Or ought to be.

8220;It8217;s what you expect of an adolescent mind, which I happen to possess,8221; said Ian Fleming who started writing Casino Royale to take his mind off an impending marriage. He was in his early 40s then and had served during World War II as an intelligence officer. He dashed off the novel in a month and called it a 8216;dreadful oafish opus8217; written with 8216;half a brain.8217;

He wanted a dull name for his fictional spy and chose the name of an ornithologist named James Bond, whose book Field Guide To The Birds of West Indies was lying in his library. Twelve years and 14 books later, by the time of his death in 1964, the Bond books had sold over 40 million copies worldwide.

In the late 8217;50s, two film producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli, got into a partnership to make the Bond films. Surprisingly, they found it was not easy. The American studios found the novels too British and except for a stray television show, nothing really happened. But they didn8217;t give up. After all, their company was called EON films, which apparently stood for Everything or Nothing.

There were many spies in fiction and film before Bond. Somerset Maugham8217;s Ashenden, John Buchan8217;s Richard Hannay books, The Saint by Leslie Charteris, Peter Cheyney8217;s Lemmy Caution, OSS 117 by the French writer Jean Bruce and more.

Spy films were somewhat treated like B-movies, though Alfred Hitchcock had made several successful ones like Secret Agent, The 39 Steps, Notorious, Saboteur and North By Northwest. In a sense, N by NW 1959, was actually the first Bond picture. A suave hero chasing diabolical villains all across the country, a lovely femme fatale heroine, action, humour and thrilling set pieces. That was the Bond template.

Cary Grant was offered the part of Bond but the deal didn8217;t happen because he said he8217;d do only one. Hitchcock too turned down the project which was ironical coz it was the huge success of N by NW, that encouraged United Artistes to finance EON8217;s Dr No. Fleming wanted David Niven to play the part but the producers found him too old. They also tried a young Roger Moore who was playing The Saint on TV. And then the producers introduced an unknown actor Sean Connery to the author. Fleming apparently was doubtful, but his woman companion insisted that Sean Connery had 8216;it.8217;

But the man who truly made Bond come alive on screen was director Terence Young who added style, wit and charm to both the script and the lead actor. Young directed three Bond films and the special edition DVDs have delightful trivia about the process of creating the character.

Bond is obviously a romanticised version of a real spy. The plots are outrageous and campy but none of that matters. What matters is the high, the rush and the excitement. The films have collectively made more than ten billion dollars and given trillions of hours of pure pleasure to viewers all over the world.

For me, Bond was pure escape8212;at a time when the Cold War meant my dad not talking to me for four days after seeing my report card.

Barring a few exceptions, the Bond novels are quite different from the films. The books are often dark, more cold-blooded, without any of the sexual innuendo. But they are great reads, full of the spy process, fascinating details about places, manners and more. If you want to know when and where Bond lost his virginity, you8217;ll have to read the books.

My introduction to Bond was through the Roger Moore films. I love the Connery Bonds. But I saw them only on VHS and now DVD. I guess those who began with the Sean Connery films found everyone else an imposter.

What do I love about Bond? Oh, everything. Right from the gun barrel, opening pre-title sequences, to the snazzy titles, the action, the set pieces, the locations, the OTT villains.

And of course, the suave intrepid superspy who we all want to be. In the face of certain death, he8217;s still got a glint in the eye and looking for a way out. Something big has come up, he says with his arm around a girl and I wonder whether he8217;s talking about the case.

Did I forget something? No way, just saved it for the last. The girls. And their guilty pleasure names. Pussy Galore, Plenty O8217;Toole, Kissy Suzuki, May Day, Xenia Onatopp, Holly Goodhead and the one that began it all. Ursula Andress in Dr No, Honey Ryder coming out of the water. And in that scene where she8217;s given a shower to be cleaned of radioactive radiation, was she wearing anything at all. I ruined my first then expensive VCR trying to find out.

Are the girls bimbos? Well, some of them perhaps, but they are also skilled professionals and got spunkier as the movies progressed. Pussy Galore was a pilot and my favourite Barbara Bach was a spy who was more than a match for Bond.

The Bond films kicked off a massive spy craze all over the world. Every country started making secret agent films. Some serious, some spoofy, some campy. They tried to outdo each other with their villains, gadgets and titles. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Secret Agent Fireball, Operation Bloody Mary, Danger!! Death Ray, Code Name Jaguar, Operation Lady Chaplin. How I8217;d love to see some of these.

The Hindi industry jumped into the fray too, with huge hits like Jeetendra8217;s Farz and Dharmendra8217;s Aankhen and Shatranj. And later, the Mithun Chakrabory Gun Master G9 series. It8217;s quite a treat to watch Jeevan, Madan Puri and even Lalita Pawar play chinky-eyed villains.

Bond is the longest running movie character and obviously it8217;s tough to sustain momentum all the time. The series went through huge highs and some lows. The late 8217;80s and 8217;90s were tough times for the superspy. The Cold war got over and suddenly there seemed to be no villains good enough for Bond. Suddenly, he seemed somewhat frivolous and fancy; gadgets like an invisible car seemed simply unbelievable.

The Tom Clancy thrillers, TV series like 24, even heroes like John Maclane of the Diehard films seemed more credible. And hence exciting. And then came the Bourne films. And suddenly it seemed like the end for James Bond. But thankfully, the producers took a chance and went for a drastic reboot of the character. And it worked.

The Martin Campbell-directed Casino Royale was a very faithful adaptation of the original book, sensibly adapted to suit today8217;s situations. 8216;Your martini8230;.shaken or stirred, sir?8217; asks the waiter. Bond says: 8216;Do I look like I give a damn?8217; Wow. This is a guy we8217;ve not seen before.

Casino Royale brought back Bond with a vengeance for a new audience. The film was on every top ten list. This was the best Bond after Sean Connery.
Which movie opens with Bond trapped inside a remote-controlled helicopter being guided by a bald sadist in a wheelchair? Which movie has Bond, watching the reflection of a killer in the eye of the girl he8217;s kissing? In which film does a cobra sway as an Indian snake charmer play the Bond tune on his poongi?

I can tell you the best openings, the best puns, the best villains, the best sidekicks but that would be spoiling the fun for those who only know the last Bond film. Six actors have played Bond and yes some of the films look too cartoon-like, and pretty cheesy now. But there is no such thing as a bad Bond film. Even the not-so-superb Bond films have a certain magic, a certain innocence and enough going for them to make you feel like an teenager for a while. And that8217;s something.

Agent Vinod
No, says Raghavan, before you can jump to conclusions, his film is not going to be a desi Bond. But it will have his stamp of stylized action and pulpy thrills. The scripting is complete and the film, starring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, will go on the floors early next year. 8220;Saif and I both love the original Agent Vinod. That was a Rajshri film with Mahendra Sandhu, done in the semi-serious semi-spoofy style of the 8216;70s movie. Our film is obviously nothing like that. It8217;s a real film set in today8217;s times and of course, I hope and want it to be as enjoyable as the spy thrillers we love,8221; he says.