The James Bond Questions Thread

007HallY

George_Kaplan wrote: »

Was it common in the 60s for people in English-speaking countries to say 'ciao'? I notice Derval says it in TB, despite him being French not Italian (although the literary character is Italian, so I suppose we can just call that one a mistake), and, perhaps more notably, Bond says it in both DN and FRWL.

I guess in the 60s there were more Italian films being shown internationally? Giallo and Spaghetti Westerns and all that (although I guess they were dubbed so no ciao). I guess in the ten years before there were some bigger American films which showed Italy and were shot there which I guess hadn’t really been seen by as many viewers in the US/UK prior (off the top of my head I’m thinking of Roman Holiday - can’t remember if they jokingly say ciao or anything). That and I guess international air travel/holidays were becoming more prominent….

I don’t know if people widely said ciao in the 60s, but if I were going to guess it’d come down to factors like that as to why Bond says it in the early 60s.

EDIT: Wiki tells me Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms used the phrase and that’s credited to introducing it into English. I don’t know how true that is, but I reckon it’d been a term around in English and ultimately popular culture for a while.

mtm

I remember it was quite popular in the 80s, a bit yuppie-ish, I guess it showed you were sophisticated. I guess folks were doing it from the 60s.

GoldenGun

Bond, apart from being British, has also always been a man of the world. Figs for breakfast, the right saké temperature, wine knowledge, as well as a multilinguist. It doesn't strike me as odd that Connery's Bond says ciao, nor does it strike me as odd that Moore's Bond says au revoir in TSWLM. I quite like it tbh :p