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For me, James Bond will always look like Sean Connery. I don't know what Ian Fleming thought of Connery's portrayal and I don't think he lived long enough to see any of the other actors who have portrayed James Bond over the last half-century. I do think Daniel Craig is a passable version of Bond and I may very well go to see the new Bond film when it comes out on November 9. I'm also hoping to get a look at the Bond exhibit at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto when I go there for my Ex Libris conference.
The first Bond film I remember seeing is Goldfinger, which came out in 1964. But it wasn't one of the first-run movie theatres I saw it in - instead, it was presented as a double bill with another Bond flick (I can't even remember which one), probably some time around 1966. What I particularly remember is counting the number of women and the number of (alcoholic) drinks he went through in the course of each movie, though I don't remember the final tally!
It was a different era then, of course. The TV shows I used to watch in those days included Get Smart, which likewise poked gentle fun at the whole reds-under-the-bed mentality and the spying profession and industry. Disenchantment with the Cold War and the Vietnam War was beginning to be felt but the Iron Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain and the Berlin Wall - and locally, the Diefenbunker - were all very much still with us. My dad worked for the Department of National Defence and my friends all seemed to have parents in jobs that were one way or another related to the military or matters of national security. The Smothers Brothers' comedy hour was axed for being too political.
I was never an avid reader of Ian Fleming's books, though I think it would be interesting to read them now. I do have a certain affection for the "Jane Bond" books of Mabel Maney: Kiss the Girls and Make them Spy, and The Girl with the Golden Bouffant. Maney has also written parodies of some well-known mystery series for young people, featuring "Nancy Clue", the "Hardly Boys" and "Cherry Aimless". In fact, the thesis she wrote for her Master of Fine Arts degree explored the subtext of the Nurse Cherry Ames books, which were popular with girls (and maybe the occasional boy) during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and widely condemned by the more traditionally-minded teachers and librarians of the era.
But my reminiscences in this blog posting seem so far to relate more to the years just AFTER 1962 rather than the year 1962 itself. What I remember of 1962 and my early school years up to that time include, for example, our in-school air-raid or nuclear drills. When the siren sounded, we had to go and get our outdoor clothes on, and then sit hunched along the walls of the corridor with our heads on our knees. I think there may have been another variation of that drill where we had to cower under our desks, though my memories on that one are rather hazy. I don't know if there were ever any bomb threats during my time in elementary school though there was at least one incident during high school where the alarm sounded, the principal came on the PA system to say "This is NOT a drill" and we had to evacuate the building and possibly move to a different location. Getting back to early elementary school, I recall learning some questionable lyrics to TV commercials and Christmas carols, including "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Russian" which featured the line, "Then one foggy Christmas eve, Kruschev came to say, 'Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my satellite?'"
I'm not sure the climate of fear has ever really left us. But are we still fearing the WRONG things? And does fear do any good when some of the worst disasters may not be preventable or even mitigatable? I'm not a total cynic or fatalist but I do have to wonder whether we're just trying to create a false sense of security when we, for example, screen air passengers for shampoo containers larger than 100 ml. and ignore other things that perhaps we should be paying attention to.
The first Bond film I remember seeing is Goldfinger, which came out in 1964. But it wasn't one of the first-run movie theatres I saw it in - instead, it was presented as a double bill with another Bond flick (I can't even remember which one), probably some time around 1966. What I particularly remember is counting the number of women and the number of (alcoholic) drinks he went through in the course of each movie, though I don't remember the final tally!
It was a different era then, of course. The TV shows I used to watch in those days included Get Smart, which likewise poked gentle fun at the whole reds-under-the-bed mentality and the spying profession and industry. Disenchantment with the Cold War and the Vietnam War was beginning to be felt but the Iron Curtain, the Bamboo Curtain and the Berlin Wall - and locally, the Diefenbunker - were all very much still with us. My dad worked for the Department of National Defence and my friends all seemed to have parents in jobs that were one way or another related to the military or matters of national security. The Smothers Brothers' comedy hour was axed for being too political.
I was never an avid reader of Ian Fleming's books, though I think it would be interesting to read them now. I do have a certain affection for the "Jane Bond" books of Mabel Maney: Kiss the Girls and Make them Spy, and The Girl with the Golden Bouffant. Maney has also written parodies of some well-known mystery series for young people, featuring "Nancy Clue", the "Hardly Boys" and "Cherry Aimless". In fact, the thesis she wrote for her Master of Fine Arts degree explored the subtext of the Nurse Cherry Ames books, which were popular with girls (and maybe the occasional boy) during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and widely condemned by the more traditionally-minded teachers and librarians of the era.
But my reminiscences in this blog posting seem so far to relate more to the years just AFTER 1962 rather than the year 1962 itself. What I remember of 1962 and my early school years up to that time include, for example, our in-school air-raid or nuclear drills. When the siren sounded, we had to go and get our outdoor clothes on, and then sit hunched along the walls of the corridor with our heads on our knees. I think there may have been another variation of that drill where we had to cower under our desks, though my memories on that one are rather hazy. I don't know if there were ever any bomb threats during my time in elementary school though there was at least one incident during high school where the alarm sounded, the principal came on the PA system to say "This is NOT a drill" and we had to evacuate the building and possibly move to a different location. Getting back to early elementary school, I recall learning some questionable lyrics to TV commercials and Christmas carols, including "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Russian" which featured the line, "Then one foggy Christmas eve, Kruschev came to say, 'Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my satellite?'"
I'm not sure the climate of fear has ever really left us. But are we still fearing the WRONG things? And does fear do any good when some of the worst disasters may not be preventable or even mitigatable? I'm not a total cynic or fatalist but I do have to wonder whether we're just trying to create a false sense of security when we, for example, screen air passengers for shampoo containers larger than 100 ml. and ignore other things that perhaps we should be paying attention to.
