Bond, James Bond

The following is an excerpt from my future book, Movies with My Dad and Other Tales from a Sci Fi Life.

In 1973, my father took me to see Live and Let Die. My life would never be the same again. It’s not like I hadn't been to the movies before, I probably had to see some re-showing of Bambi or the like but this was different. I was 6 years old and probably way too young to be seeing a James Bond movie. That moment is etched in time. We went to the Ventnor Twin because the Margate Twin, which was in walking distance of our house, was only open during the summer and didn't often show first run movies. The Ventnor Twin had been a full size movie theater with a balcony. Stepping into the main lobby you could see the sweeping stair cases going up either side that had long been closed. In the late 60s and early 70s it was all the rage to make one movie house into the two theaters probably because the box office alone was worth the split.

Roger Moore was my first Bond and, as everyone knows, you never forget your first. The only scenes I recall from this movie were scenes with, what I called then, "headhunters," which were in fact some kind of voodoo guys jumping around. Never mind what it was really about, from that day forward I knew two things: 1. There was only one Bond for me and 2. I was scared to death of headhunters. Seriously, I was. I couldn't even watch Gilligan’s Island if there was a headhunter jumping out and forget about watching the Saturday morning TV show Danger Island - that was a wash! After all, the Danger Island guys were painted like skeletons and that image still freaks me out. Back to my Bond. Something about him, the tux, the accent, the black hair, I'm not sure what lured me in but I stayed. My father took me to every James Bond movie that came out. I would often walk across a room, while humming the music, "dum dum dum dum-dum dum dum dum dum-dum...DA DA!" and spin and turn on my back foot to shoot down the barrel! I could BE James Bond! I often thought I was, even though I was afraid of heights and wouldn't even climb the monkey bars...I could be him. My brother, Jack, and I would get across Margate in two ways. First was across roof tops. They weren't exactly row homes or town houses but some garage roofs were connected. We could jump from our back deck to the garage next door. The distance was probably as wide as a side walk, as our side walkway was between us below, but to me it was like jumping from the roof of the Kremlin to a moving truck...exhilarating. Sometimes I just couldn't do it, even at Jack's behest. When my cousins would come visit, especially my cousin Scotty, they would join us on the adventures on the roof tops. One neighbor had a sort of square peak on one corner of the house and we could each take a slanted peak to lean on and our feet would be steady on the ledge. We would climb up to that one, like monkeys, over the fence, onto the shower house and up on cracked edges of shingles, no doubt our doing. We thought from up there we could see the world. Well, we could at least see several blocks and the beach.  We weren't always James Bond but some kind of spy network for sure. Binoculars were standard issue and Jack's Boy Scout canteen to keep us refreshed. The other way across town, canteen and all, was through people's yards. The houses were big in Margate but close together, side yards next to side yards and shared fences made for quick escapes. Dogs were occasionally and issue and I would be lying if I said we didn't all let out a screetch and high tail it back home when one took us by surprise. The short white picket fences were easy for us to hike over and run. Someone was always chasing us and we were on a deadline in our game of war or spydom to make it through undetected. Sometimes someone was really shouting at us through the window and when we got to the end, about four blocks to where the Pantry Pride parking lot used to be, behind the Margate Twin, we could rest. We wouldn't always dare go the same way back. We would be laughing so hard we would be crying. When we pulled ourselves together we might head back on the beach. Lots for a spy to do on the beach. James Bond lived! He lived to spy another day in my neighborhood.

As my father grew older, I was the one taking him to see James Bond. We saw all the Roger Moore's at the theater and both Timothy Dalton's. My father wasn't sold on Dalton but, like me, Bond was Bond and we are fans of him, not the actor. I was totally sold on Dalton. Funny, how I saw Roger Moore as being like a spy Dad and for the first time I saw Dalton's Bond as, well, sexy as hell. The accent, the hair, yeah it was all there and he had been a girlhood crush since Flash Gordon. I could be Mrs. Bond! Nah, I could still be his partner that would go on adventures with him, yeah, I'd have his back. I knew he wasn't the settling down type. Dalton was a rugged and handsome while still being smooth, oh so smooth! I would ride through the dessert with him any day. For Pierce Brosnan’s turn, I saw those on my own first but came home when I could and if it was still playing I would take my Dad. Brosnan, yes, I would totally be Mrs. Bond. Remington Steele has come home and he is looking good doing it. He brought the grit that the other Bonds lacked while losing none of the smoothness. By the time he was Bond, the Cold War that had been built into much of the series was gone and there were new villains and madmen about. Brosnan was perfect, as we had expected he would be. My father liked him as well. He thought Brosnan brought some real Bond back into the role. We were sorry to see him go.

I never saw another Bond movie, at the movie theater, with my father again after Golden Eye. I never missed one but moved away and was on my own and not home enough to go with Dad. I would tell him all about them and we would rent them when I came to visit. It was never the same. Bond was our thing, our thing we did together. I missed going with him and often found myself going alone. Not everyone shared my passion of Bond and seeing every movie at the theater. I alone had to keep the tradition going.

My husband, Bill, had been a Sean Connery fan. Being a few years older than me, his Bond experience was different than mine. He had his Bond and felt as passionately as I did about his favorite. A line had been drawn. His Mom had been the one that took him to the movies. Bill said Connery was a "manly man" and in the 1960s that was important. He felt Moore looked too old and didn't have the physic for Bond, as Connery did. Bill did think Brosnan fit the bill perfectly because he wasn't brawny but could make it work. He appreciated him as a good fit and compared to Connery. Who could replace Brosnan? Then along came Daniel Craig.

Daniel Craig stepping out of the surf in those short shorts, in that scene from Casino Royale. Stop the press! Yes, it was all about the shaking and stirring after that. People comment that he brought back the tough Bond, true to Fleming, and brashness to the part. I didn't even notice. It was like an epiphany with heavenly angels singing when he donned the screen. And the tux. He WAS James Bond. My husband thinks that Craig is a winner and puts up with my obvious drooling. I still walk through the living room and pretend to shoot down the barrel. Who doesn’t?

When my daughter, Trinity, was 6 we took her to see Skyfall. It was time. The new movies are more graphic than the old ones and more sexy (I covered her eyes) but still Bond. My daughter only knows one Bond now. For her its Daniel Craig. He is Bond to her and there is no other. Funny, how things come around. We were watching Cowboys and Aliens on video for the first time and she commented, "That’s James Bond!" Yes, yes it is.