Bond, Jimmy Bond

I suppose that you know by now of my interest in history.  Film history is only one area of research for me.  My wife and I have been studying all sorts of history.  We even had our honeymoon in Gettysburg, PA.

A film series as popular and successful as James Bond had to have a history.  Everyone knows that Ian Fleming (1908 - 1964) wrote the stories about the British super secret agent known as 007.  It is fun to dig a little further.

Fleming wrote 13 novels and two story collections about James Bond.  According to Wikipedia, there have been 22 Bond films released, with a 23rd in the works for release next year.  They also state that the total box office take (so far) has been over $4.8 BILLION.  I'd call that successful.

The very first Bond novel was Casino Royale, written in 1952.  It is also the very first story used for a screen appearance of Bond, but here is where history gets to be fun.  In 1954, Casino Royale was presented on live television, making it Number One of the complete set.  I saw it for the first time this week.

Fleming reportedly sold the story rights for $1,000.  The story was then Americanized.  James Bond became Jimmy Bond, played by Barry Nelson (1917 - 2007), and he was an American spy.  He receives additional help from Clarence Leiter (name changed from Felix Leiter) who was a British spy.  In the later movies and the books, Leiter is American.  You can read my post about Leiter here.

The first Leiter was played by Michael Pate (1920 - 2008), and they spelled his character's name wrong in the credits, as Clarence Letter!  We also see the wonderful Peter Lorre (1904 - 1964) as Le Chiffre, our ruthless villain.  Nelson only took the role as Bond so he could have a chance to work with Lorre.

The female lead was played by Linda Christian (b. 1923).  She gets to kiss Bond, but there is no other hanky-panky.  It was only a one hour program!  She was good in the role as a double agent who lets emotion get involved in her character.  Well done for 1954 television.

Le Chiffre's henchmen were played by Gene Roth (1903 - 1976) who has 267 acting credits, and Kurt Katch (1896 - 1958) with 88 titles.  I suppose I have two more Bit Actor names for research!  These guys and the unidentified third bad guy were nasty!

The special edition set shown in the Amazon link above includes the 1966 spy spoof, Casino Royale, and also the 1954 TV presentation.  It is well worth owning.  It also has an interview with director Val Guest (1911 - 2006) who tells about the confusion of making the psychedelic movie.

In 1954 we had a lot of teleplays presented, and they included some big stars from Hollywood.  "Casino Royale" was one presentation of a series called "Climax!" which aired from 1954 to 1958.  The only problem is that video tape wasn't perfected yet.  Shows were either filmed for later editing and then broadcast, or they were presented live.  Most live shows were recorded on kinescope.  It is a rather crude process where a film camera is aimed at a television monitor.  The results are usually contrasty and have dark halos around some subjects.

The kinescope of this teleplay was lost until 1981 when Jim Shoenberger found it in his collection.  It was labeled "Casino Royale," but he thought it was the 1966 film.  When he saw it was black and white film, he looked more carefully.  Lucky for us this piece of history was re-discovered.

The copy has been released and is worth watching.  The story moves quickly, and it has the telltale signs of being a kinescope, but I enjoyed seeing it.  It is typical of teleplays in the 1950s.  You can tell that the sets are small and whenever you have something live on TV, someone will drop a line or fumble a word.  That's what makes it all so special.

Barry Nelson

I don't believe that Barry Nelson (1917 - 2007) was ever much more than a Bit Actor, at least on film.  He was a well respected actor on Broadway and television, and no one would deny that he had great talent.

He has 86 titles listed on IMDb.  His first film was Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) starring William Powell (1892 - 1984) and Myrna Loy (1905 - 1993), and you know how much I like the Thin Man series.  He has a starring role the next year in A Yank on the Burma Road. 

Also in 1942 we find him working with Lew Ayres (1908 - 1996) and Lionel Barrymore in Dr. Kildare's Victory, and then with Abbott and Costello in Rio Rita.  The war years brought some war movies.  Bataan and A Guy Named Joe in 1943, and Winged Victory in 1944.  Winged Victory has a great cast and is something I will look for.

Barry starts early on television in 1948.  He is in several teleplays on "The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre" and "The Ford Theatre Hour."  Do you think spelling it 'Theatre' adds some class to the small screen?  I believe those years were the start of the best part of Nelson's career. 

In 1954 he is cast as the first James Bond to hit the screen.  "Climax!" aired an hour long version of Casino Royale, written by Ian Fleming (1908 - 1964) just two years earlier.  That role has enshrined Barry Nelson in the trivia question world.

The 1950s and 1960s see him in all sorts of television roles, including "Zane Grey Theater," "The United States Steel Hour," "Twilight Zone," "Kraft Suspense Theatre," several with Alfred Hitchcock, and of course "Love, American Style."

In 1970 he is an airline pilot in the blockbuster disaster movie, Airport, with Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) and Burt Lancaster (1913 - 1994).  And in 1974 he works with Carol Burnett (b. 1933) and Walter Matthau (1920 - 2000) in Pete 'n' Tillie. 

In the 1970s to 1990 he is in everything on TV (again), from "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" to "Battlestar Galactica."  He would be right at home doing roles on "Dallas," "Magnum, P.I.," and "Murder, She Wrote."

Barry's last film was The Shining in 1980.  Anyone who can hold their own with Jack Nicholson is OK with me, and worthy to be mentioned as a great Bit Actor.

Robbie Coltrane

Two of my grandsons spent the night so we watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the second installment in the Harry Potter franchise.  It had started on TV, so I threw in the DVD to start it at the beginning, and for some surround sound.

My guess for the most popular character in the series, other than the three leads, is Rubeus Hagrid, played in all of the Potter flix by Robbie Coltrane (b. 1950).  He has an easy going nature and he trusts his charges to be honest.  He also has a passing resemblance (except for the antithesis of hair) to Curly Howard (1903 - 1952) of the Three Stooges. Both are heavy and have a lovable, comedic personality.

I don't know if I can qualify Coltrane as a Bit Actor, but until Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) he was relatively unknown in the USA, unless you were really paying attention.  He has 98 roles listed on IMDb.

In his early film days, Coltrane was in Flash Gordon (1980) starring people like Max von Sydow (b. 1929), Topol (b. 1935) and Timothy Dalton (b. 1944).

He had a small part as a man in the bathroom in European Vacation (1985) starring Chevy Chase (b. 1943) and was in Revolution the same year with Al Pacino (b. 1940) and Donald Sutherland (b. 1935).  He is getting small part work in good movies, and good parts in lesser movies.

In 1986 he was in Mona Lisa where he had a bigger part opposite Bob Hoskins (b. 1942) and Michael Caine (b. 1933).  He has an interesting mix of roles, plus a lot of British TV, probably because he lives in England.

The part that brought him to the attention of the mainstream audience was as a former KGB agent in GoldenEye (1995), a part he reprises in 1999 for The World is not Enough.  ANY James Bond film will do wonders for your acting career.  He was noticed by none other than J.K. Rowling (b. 1965) herself, and at her suggestion Coltrane was cast to play Hagrid.

Of course making eight Harry Potter films in the same number of years would take a majority of your time.  But Robbie Coltrane continued to work in other projects.  We see him in Oceans Twelve (2004), The Brothers Bloom (2008) and he does a voice part in Tales of Despereaux, also in 2008.

He has had a hard life, worked out his problems, and made it into a complete success.  It would be interesting to see how much he made, just for his part as Hagrid.  I like him. He's the kind of actor I'd like to invite to dinner.

Felix Leiter and the CIA

With all the movie channels I get now on FiOS, it is difficult to surf without finding a James Bond film somewhere.  That's a good thing.  It's also a guy thing.

Yesterday was Live and Let Die (1973).  The character, Felix Leiter was featured.  Felix is the CIA contact for Bond in America.  I knew that Felix was played by several actors over the years, but when I did some research, I was amazed at how complicated it became.

Leiter is featured in ten Bond films, from 1962 to 2008.  In those ten films, he is played by eight different actors.  Keep in mind that in those ten films, James Bond is played by four different actors.

The first Leiter is Jack "patch me through to McGarrett" Lord (1920 - 1998), in Dr. No released in 1963.  Of course, nobody remembers anything he did except "Hawaii Five-0," in which he starred from 1968 until 1980.  He was in other things.  He has 68 roles listed on IMDb, starting in 1949, but mostly as guest stars on TV.  Jack Lord worked with Sean Connery as Bond.

Jump to 1964, Goldfinger, still Sean Connery in the lead, Cec Linder (1921 - 1992) plays Leiter.  Linder has 124 roles listed.  A true Bit Actor.  He was in many famous films, in small parts.  Do you remember him as the doctor in Lolita (1962) or as the hospital president in Atlantic City in 1980?

Next up, Rick Van Nutter (1929 - 2005) in Thunderball (1965).  He only made 13 films and half of them were foreign.  Not a household name in America, but he did get to work with Sean.  I put "Rick Van Nutter" in Google images, and the first picture was Dick Van Patten.

Diamonds are Forever (1971) brings Norman Burton (1923 - 2003) to the Leiter role with Connery.  78 roles in movies and on TV.

In 1973, Live and Let Die sees the first of two David Hedison (b. 1927) Leiters.  Roger Moore (b. 1927) is now Bond, and has the honor to pull the microphone/cigar lighter out of the car and say, "A genuine Felix lighter (Leiter)."  91 roles listed on IMDb, including "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea."

1983, Never Say Never Again, and we are back to Sean Connery as Bond.  Did you know that he hated playing Bond?  I bet he liked the income.  Bernie Casey (b. 1939) played our first African/American Felix Leiter.  Casey has 78 roles and quite a few good movies listed.  Lots of manly, action parts.

The Living Daylights in 1987 and Timothy Dalton (b. 1944) is Bond.  Probably the worst of all the Bonds.  John Terry (b. 1950, just two days before me) plays Leiter, and we are back to a Caucasian.  Terry has 59 roles listed, with quite a few recurring TV roles.  His latest was on the hit series, "Lost." 

License to Kill (1989) again with Dalton as Bond, and a reprise of David Hedison as Leiter.  I Hope these guys had name tags so they could keep it straight.

Finally some continuity comes with the new millenium.  Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) both with Daniel Craig (b. 1961) as James Bond and Jeffrey Wright (b. 1965) as Felix Leiter, once again of color.  Wright has a very good career going already with 38 roles listed, including playing Colin Powell in W. (2008). 

In my opinion, Craig and Wright should demand being kept together in all future 007 films.  Think of what the Sherlock Holmes series would have been like if Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce kept changing partners, or where would Captain Kirk be with a different science officer on every episode of "Star Trek?"  Many of the truly successful pairings in any series increased the quality of the production, simply because the actors knew what to expect of each other.  James Bond could only improve for it.  (Maybe!)

My Name is Bond

It's Sunday.  We visited my son and his family this morning, and now I am sitting here with License to Kill (1989) on the TV.  I think, next to Moonraker from 1979, this is the worst of the Bond films.  Timothy Dalton isn't a bad actor in the right role, but for some reason in this film (License), he overacts in his zeal to avenge the attack on his American friend Felix Leiter.  Even James Bond shouldn't overact.

Dalton played King Phillip of France in the 1969 film The Lion in Winter, which was an outstanding movie that won three Oscars.  License to Kill, no Oscars, but it was nominated for one Edgar Allen Poe award...whatever that is.

I haven't seen any bit acting roles in License that stand out.  The small parts are mostly thugs that get shot, or blown up, or drown, or fall out of airplanes, or beat up in a bar, or...you get the picture.  You may consider the part played so well by Desmond Llewelyn as Q to be rather small, so he gets my vote for best bit actor in this one.

Desmond was born in 1914 and appeared in 83 roles in film and TV starting out as a headless coachman!  His first Bond film was 1963's From Russia with Love, which was the second Bond film.  In that film he wasn't called Q, he played Boothroyd, and that was the name used before they started calling him Q.  Llewelyn as Q shows up in the next Bond flick, Goldfinger from 1964, when they started using the initial from the Quartermaster Branch that supplies Bond with all the goodies.

Llewelyn continued playing Q in 17 films (including Moonraker) until The World is Not Enough in 1999, the year he died.

He had a small part in the 1958 movie about the Titanic called A Night to Remember.  Honor Blackman was also in that film, before she became Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.

He played a senator in Cleopatra in 1963 with Elizabeth Taylor.  It is interesting that he was in these films but managed to stay pretty much invisible, then he got the break and was cast in the Bond series, and the rest is history.

I once tried to make a list of all the Bond films so I could start a collection, but it seemed to get away from me.  I finally decided to only buy the best ones, but that was after I bought License to Kill on VHS.  It won't be replaced on disc.

The tanker truck scene is now on TV, getting ready to lose control down the mountain.  My favorite part is when the air brake line gets cut and the truck speeds up!  When you lose air pressure in truck brakes, the brakes lock and stop the truck.  Don't special effects people know that?