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BOND,JAMES

Sean Connery played , ’s secret BONDagent with a , in seven fi lms, starting with Dr. No in 1962 and bowing out with 1983’s . Having defi ned the celluloid version of 007, The Rake asks if Connery’s legacy will ever be surpassed...

BY GARETH REES

96 ARTICLES

Sean Connery poses as James Bond next to his iconic DB5 in a scene from Goldfinger in 1964

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT James Bond with Italian actor as eye patch wearing in the film ; James Bond’s iconic jet-pack escape, from From Russia With Love; Tailor Anthony Sinclair fits Connery for a suit; Bond dodges assassins in From Russia With Love; Connery and Daniela Bianch in From Russia With Love; Sean Connery In in Rome promoting Never Say Never Again.

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“In 1962, Dr. No, became the fi rst “offi cial” Bond fi lm, spawning a franchise that is still going strong more than 50 years later”

e Cercle, Les Ambassadeurs Club, . The back of a the seven Bond fi lms between 1973 and 1985; L man’s head, his combed into a perfect side parting, in two Bond fi lms, (1987) and Licence to his broad shoulders encased in an impeccably tailored Kill (1989); in the four Bond fi lms between black evening jacket. A beautiful woman in a chic one- 1995 and 2002; and fi nally, the current Bond , shoulderd red dress is losing a game of chemin de fer (the who has played the world’s most famous secret agent in three card game baccarat) to the faceless man, who is in control of fi lms to date, starting with 2006’s , and will the shoe. She does not hide her irritation. The chiseled clean- reprise the role in Spectre later this year. All of these actors shaven jaw of her opponent. The man’s hands: tanned, well created their own unique version of Ian Fleming’s charming manicured but not feminine. He fl ips over two winning cards but deadly spy, and the debate over who is ‘the best Bond’ will with an air of arrogant nonchalance. It’s not hard to imagine rage long after 007 has sipped his last martini, but one thing the look of indiff erence on his face. The woman asks the that Sean Connery has that the others don’t is that he was the house for more credit. Her request is granted. The man’s fi rst to portray James Bond on the big screen. He set the hands again, this time fl ipping open a silver cigarette case and standard. If he had failed, the others (Nelson aside) removing one of a neat row of cigarettes. “I admire your would never have had a chance to even try and rival courage, Miss…” the man says in a languid, refi ned Scottish his performances. burr. “Trench, Sylvia Trench,” replies the woman. “I admire “If you ask what were the three ingredients for Dr. No, it your luck, Mr…” The man’s face: hard but handsome, thick, was Sean Connery, Sean Connery and Sean Connery,” Dr. No’s slightly arched eyebrows, eyes down, concentrated on the director has said. It would be hard to disagree, cigarette tightly clenched between his thin lips and the petrol but Young himself must take a large part of the credit, not just lighter in his right hand. He is wearing formal evening dress. for the distinct look of that fi rst Bond fi lm but also that of its He is comfortable in it. He was born to wear it. He looks up. . It was Terrence Young who introduced Connery “Bond,” he says out of the corner of his mouth not occupied to tailor Anthony Sinclair, the man who created the clean but by his now cigarette. Then, snapping the lighter classic shape that became known as the “Conduit Cut”, after shut, “James Bond.” his premises on Mayfair’s Conduit Street, and made the suits This was the fi rst time the cinema-going public had been worn by Connery’s Bond in Dr. No. It was also Terrence treated to Ian Fleming’s MI6 agent James Bond. And what an Young who turned Connery on to the crisp, timeless Turnbull introduction it was. In 1962, Dr. No, became the fi rst “offi cial” & Asser dress shirts he wore in the fi rst Bond fi lm. Bond fi lm produced by and Albert R “Cubby” Young’s infl uence is no secret. Connery has acknowledged Broccoli’s , spawning a franchise that is still the director’s part in shaping the sartorial style of the fi rst going strong more than 50 years later. If that scene, and those major celluloid Bond. “Terrence Young really took me in that followed it, hadn’t been so powerful, Bond might never hand and sort of knocked me into shape with his tailor and have become the phenomenon it is today. Turnbull & Asser shirts and all the gear,” the actor has said. One actor, , played James Bond on screen Young even made Connery sleep in his fi nely made clothes to before Sean Connery appeared in Dr. No, starring as teach him how hard-wearing they were, vital for clothes worn American agent Jimmy Bond in a US television adaptation of by a man who gets into a few more brawls than your average Casino Royale in 1954. Since Dr. No, six other men have British gent. The fi nal style signifi er of Connery’s James Bond embodied 007: celebrated English actor Niven in the was his Submariner 6538, which he reportedly 1967 spoof Casino Royale; Australian model borrowed from co-producer Cubby Broccoli due to budgetary in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969); in restraints and the Swiss brand’s refusal to supply a

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“The fi nal style signifi er of Connery’s Bond was his , which he reportedly borrowed from a co-producer Cubby Broccoli”

complimentary timepiece. Legend has it that when James Chapman in his book Licence to Thrill. Whilst Honor George Lazenby auditioned to replace Connery in Blackman, who played in Connery’s third Bond 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service he wore a Rolex fi lm, 1964’s Goldfi nger, said it with less pretension: “He is, Submariner and a suit made for Connery that the Scottish I think, without doubt, the sexiest man I’ve ever met. He has a star hadn’t picked up from the tailor’s. That’s how quickly natural authority, charisma, he’s very unique.” Connery, with a little help from his friends, cemented the That “authority” and “charisma” is on show in the scene at Bond style. the baccarat table in Dr. No, but it is the believable promise of Connery wasn’t responsible for the fi rst brutality Connery exuded that made Bond’s dress sense, but he was the man who him the perfect fi t for the hardened wore the clothes with such confi dence. He killer James Bond. can also take full credit for the other vital Another scene in Dr. No, which Bond characteristics: charm and brutality. pushed the boundaries of “good taste” , according to Cubby Broccoli, for the time, demonstrates this had been concerned that it would be hard to perfectly. Having bedded Dr. No’s sexy sell Dr. No to American audiences with a spy Miss Taro and then, without “Limey truck driver hesitation, had her arrested, Connery’s playing the lead”, but it Bond, clad in one of his impeccable was Connery’s rough Anthony Sinclair suits, no jacket, sits in centre that ensured that her darkened apartment, the eerily the dapper Bond never upbeat and sensual ‘Under the Mango became ridiculous. James Tree’ on the turntable, calmly playing solitaire as he waits for Bond is, beneath the the assassin he knows will have been sent to kill him. He elegant veneer, a cold- hears the assassin — who turns out to be Dr. No’s henchman blooded killer. Sean Professor Dent () — approach, as Connery, a former the would-be executioner fi res six shots into the pillows he milkman, coffi n polisher has earlier wrapped in the bed sheets to replicate two and bodybuilder from a entwined bodies, and then forces him to discard his weapon. working-class After a brief, predominantly one-sided, conversation, during family, is the only actor to which Bond coolly lights a cigarette, cruelly prolonging the play Bond, with the inevitable, Dent grabs and pulls the trigger of his empty gun. exception of Daniel Craig, “It’s a Smith & Wesson. You’ve had your six,” says Bond, who looks like he could coldly, before fi ring one sickeningly silenced shot into Dent’s kill with his bare hands. chest and another one into his back. He then unscrews his That unique attribute, silencer and blows lightly down its barrel. All of this without combined with the winking self-assurance of a natural ladies’ getting up from his chair or even uncrossing his legs. If he man, meant that Connery was a rare fi nd indeed. feels anything, it doesn’t show on what is at that moment “Although trailers for the early fi lms described Bond as ‘the undoubtedly the face of a seasoned professional killer. It is gentleman agent with a licence to kill’, he had less in common perhaps even more brilliant and character defi ning than the with the traditional image of the English gentleman hero earlier scene at Le Cercle, and no other Bond actor could have personifi ed by actors like Ronald Coleman, and played it as convincingly as Sean Connery. Most of the Bond , than he did with the rugged masculinity, actors could manage charm and were at ease in a nice suit, but physical presence and sexuality more often associated with perhaps with the exception of the lavishly muscled Daniel American stars such as Clarke Gable or ,” writes Craig, Connery is the only one who could also kill with

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“Sean Connery is the only actor to play Bond, with the exception of Daniel Craig, who looks like he could kill with his bare hands.

believable coolness. Dr. No possessed all of the characteristics kill Bond. SPECTRE doesn’t succeed, Bond, with the help of that would defi ne every Bond movie that followed it: the the charming, womanising Istanbul station head Ali Kerim distinctive Monty Norman- theme, Maurice Bey (Pedro Armendariz), kills Grant and Klebb and ends up Binder’s iconic gun-barrel opening credit sequence, the girls with the Lektor and the girl. It has all the traits of a classic (most memorably Ursula Andress’s emerging thriller, right down to a prolonged sequence on the Orient from the azure Caribbean seas in that two-piece white bikini), Express. But it also has Sean Connery, who in From Russia the car (a Chevrolet Bell Air), the villain (’s With Love, not only subtly altered the character of the main portrayal of evil mastermind Dr is both admirably protagonist but also developed it and embodied the role with creepy and relatively restrained for a Bond bad guy), the a confi dence buoyed by the success of Dr. No. exotic location (), the martinis, the gambling, the one- Following the wonderful opening scene of From Russia liners (some, such as the “I think they were on their way to a With Love, in which we see Connery’s Bond murdered with a funeral” Bond deadpans when a hearse that had been trying garrotte only for a mask to be peeled from his face to reveal a to force him off the road plunges over a cliff , much darker mustachioed imposter, the real Bond doesn’t appear until 17 than in the subsequent fi lms), the fl irtatious relationship with minutes and 15 seconds into the fi lm, when he is seen , the frosty relationship with M, the canoodling with a women on a riverbank. This introduction violence, the unimpeachable wardrobe. It also had the vibrant hints at a very subtle change of focus. In this second fi lm, direction of Terrence Young, the distinctive visual style Bond is a lover, not just a killer. shaped by production designer and the relentless In a later scene, Ali Kerim Bey expresses his concern that pace created by Peter Hunt’s inventive editing. But it wouldn’t Bond is becoming too enamoured of lovely Tatiana have been the success it was without Sean Connery. His Romanova. “My friend, she’s got you dangling,” he warns. portrayal of Bond was extraordinary. When Kerim Bey is later murdered on the and But Connery was far from fi nished. If with Dr. No he Bond discovers his body, 007 aff ectionately squeezes his defi ned the character of James Bond for the big screen, with friends shoulder and pockets his wallet and cigarette holder, his performance in the second Bond fi lm, 1963’s From Russia which he later gives them to the dead man’s son. These hints With Love, which many true connoisseurs of the franchise at Bond’s humanity represent a slender retreat from the argue is the best Bond, he made sure that nobody else would coldness exemplifi ed by the execution scene in Dr. No, but it ever be able to lay claim to the title of “the best Bond”. is to Connery’s credit that he still manages to convince Again directed by Terrence Young, From Russia With Love, as a killer. as Chapman writes in Licence to Thrill, is “the most old- Having exploded a string of petrol barrels igniting several fashioned of the Bond fi lms” in terms of plot. SPECTRE boats full of SPECTRE henchman and dooming them to a (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, horrifi c death, Bond quips with a heartless grin, “There’s a Revenge and Extortion), the criminal organisation to which saying in : where there’s smoke, there’s fi re”, a repeat Dr Julius No had belonged, plans to lure Bond to Istanbul of the dark humour evident in Dr. No. But it is in the fi ght using a Soviet Lektor cryptographic device as bait and scene on the Orient Express with ’s Red Grant Russian agent (), who has that Connery’s physicality is again on display. Grant is a apparently fallen in love with 007 having ogled a picture of colossus, Shaw a convincing psychopath, and yet Connery him in a case fi le, as an extra enticement for Bond. getting the better of him in what is a cleverly choreographed In Istanbul, psychopathic assassin Donald “Red” Grant and masterfully shot scene is completely believable. The (Robert Shaw), trained by ex-Soviet agent scene, which is just over two minutes long, features a visceral (portrayed with terrifying vigour by ) will hand-to-hand fi ght in a small railway carriage with only two

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“Bond makes quick work of the assassin, pushing him into the bath and throwing an electrical heater after him. “Shocking. Positively shocking,” Bond remarks”

weapons, a small throwing knife and a garrotte, and ends with confi dent performance, the fact that he so comfortably a close up of Grant’s contorted face as he is being strangled embodies the character of Bond, that prevents 007 from with the latter. Director Terrence Young originally planned to becoming preposterous. use stuntmen, but the actors insisted on doing it themselves, Connery didn’t make a bad Bond fi lm, but his fi nal four and the result, shot with a handheld camera at close range, is lacked the vitality and swagger of the fi rst three. Thunderball perhaps the fi nest fi ght in a Bond fi lm. Of the Bond actors, (1965), director Terrence Young’s fi nal Bond fi lm, is plodding only Connery or Daniel Craig could have done it. and Connery seems to be bored of playing Bond, world weary, Connery’s next outing as Bond was in 1964’s Goldfi nger, just going through the motions. He even places his hat on the widely regarded as the greatest of the Bond fi lms. Directed by hat stand in Moneypenny’s offi ce, rather than throwing it as , it is a bigger more expansive fi lm than either he does in the earlier fi lms. In You Only Live Twice (1967), Dr. No or From Russia With Love, and written by celebrated children’s author could be regarded as the high watermark Roald Dahl, Bond is made up to look like of Sean Connery’s run as James Bond. a Japanese peasant so that he can marry The fi lm opens with Bond emerging a local girl and gain access to the from a dock with a seagull on his head, island on which the villain, Ernst Stavro setting some explosives and removing Blofeld (Donald Pleasance), has built his his wetsuit to reveal a pristine white lair in a volcano. It is Austin Powers tuxedo. Before the charge detonates, he territory, but Connery, who looks is in a bar lighting a cigarette. Moments more like ’s Mr later, he is in a hotel suite, where he is than a Japanese native, carried it off with rudely disturbed by an assassin just some degree of aplomb. A little of the before he has his way with a beautiful speed and energy of the fi rst three fi lms woman who has just stepped out of the returns in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), bath. Bond makes quick work of the and it’s a lot of fun, but Connery, greying villain, pushing him into the bath and at the sideburns, his movements throwing an electrical heater after him. noticeably slower, looks distinctly “Shocking. Positively shocking,” middle-aged. he remarks. Cut to the famous Shirley The Scot returned for Never Say Bassey theme tune. Guy Hamilton Never Again, an “unoffi cial” Bond fi lm in accurately described the opening that it wasn’t produced by Eon sequence as “a truly wonderful piece Productions, in 1983, at the age of 52. of nonsense”. A remake of Thunderball, the fi lm has its Goldfi nger boasts many iconic moments, and Connery is a far more characters, scenes and gadgets: the convincing middle-aged spy than the Aston Martin DB5 and its ejector seat; 55-year-old Roger Moore in , Gert Fröbe’s Auric Goldfi nger, the most realistic of the released in the same year. But Connery probably should have megalomaniacal Bond villains; the game of golf where Bond stuck with saying never. out cheats Goldfi nger; ’s Odd Job and his lethal Roger Moore and even have recently bowler hat; Bond’s near castration with an industrial laser decided that Daniel Craig is the best James Bond, and there’s beam; Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore. Much of the fi lm is set defi nitely an argument to be had, but as Charlie Higson, in America and Bond, the quintessentially British agent, ends author of the Young Bond series, told in 2012. up saving Fort Knox, suggesting that the producers were “Let’s face it, though, if it wasn’t for Connery, Daniel Craig targeting an American audience. Goldfi nger is self-assured, wouldn’t even be up there on our screens… Every Bond since slick and at times verging on silly. Connery’s acting talents is Connery can’t help but be compared with him. You can’t beat not always acknowledged, but it is his perfectly measured and the yardstick.”

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