The SEAN CONNERY Appreciation thread - Discuss His Life, His Career, His Bond Films

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  • quantumspectrequantumspectre argentina
    edited October 2021 Posts: 61
    he was one of those actors that you could believe what they are doing. not everybody can be 007 and after play action movies and still work good.I have seen alot of connery movies besides the 007 and he always was in character, never let you think you are watching a actor.
  • EinoRistoSiniahoEinoRistoSiniaho Oulu, Finland
    edited October 2021 Posts: 73
    Daniel Craig's reign lasted for 15 years. Sean Connery's reign lasted for 43 years! And he did play Bond on 4 different decades: the 60's, 70's, 80's and 00's!
    Kinda fitting isn't it? Connery, the definitive Bond, played 007 for the last time in 2005, just before his equal, Daniel Craig, made his debut.
  • edited October 2021 Posts: 6,709
    Still, and forever, the one true King.

    IMO
  • DwayneDwayne New York City
    Posts: 2,847
    JoBlo Videos: James Bond Revisited: SEAN CONNERY


    I'm assuming that this will be the first of a series of videos summarizing the films of each Bond actor.
  • Posts: 3,327
    Univex wrote: »
    Still, and forever, the one true King.

    IMO

    One thing NTTD proved, no actor will ever come close to the King. B-)
  • Posts: 2,918
    The spy who loved a modern, subversive secret agent: Sean Connery's long-time collaborator recalls the late star's respect for Daniel Craig, says Paul English

    (Sunday Times, Sept. 26)

    Many have tried, and most have failed. But as far as Sir Sean Connery was concerned, nobody does James Bond better than Daniel Craig.

    The original 007 applauded Craig's subversion of the legendary character, although he didn't tend to watch the films on television and didn't expect the series to amount to more than "ephemera" when he picked up his licence to kill in 1962.

    As the 59-year-old franchise returns with its 25th film, No Time To Die, Connery's regular collaborator, Murray Grigor, has recalled how his late friend rated the outgoing secret agent as the best since he had played the role.

    "When Daniel Craig's Bond is offered a martini 'shaken and not stirred', he says: 'No, straight.' He deconstructs the Bond myth," Grigor said. "When [Sean] first took the role, his [first] wife Diane Cilento said he should take the mickey out of it. And that's what he did with all those one-liners about 'pressing engagements' and so on. And I think Sean liked the fact that Daniel Craig does that now, too.

    "Sean was surprisingly very positive about Daniel Craig. He wouldn't say anything about the rest, but he thought Craig was very good and that he played Bond very well. He praised him quite a lot, and saw how he'd revived Bond and took him in a different direction. He has subverted things, even criticised it, and I think that's what Sean brought to it, too.

    "But Sean didn't really rate the Bond films and told me he never watched them on television. He actually didn't think the films would last, that it was all ephemera. Here we are all these years later."

    Speaking to The Sunday Times before the first anniversary of his friend's death last year at the age of 90, film-maker Grigor, who wrote the book Being a Scot with the late star, said Connery established a minimalist blueprint in his approach to playing the spy.

    "He realised something that very few actors realise, that you can take the dialogue out of your film. Most want to put dialogue back in. But he knew that the camera can photograph thought, and he had that confirmed when he worked with Alfred Hitchcock. When you see that eyebrow go up, it's visceral."

    The character has come a long way since Edinburgh-born Connery first donned the tuxedo for 1962's Dr No, the first of seven Bond films he starred in until 1983's Never Say Never Again.

    ...In 2012's Skyfall, Craig's character even hinted at 007's possible bisexuality. Would Connery, held up as an archetypal figure of traditional heterosexual masculinity, buy that character twist? "I would think not," Grigor said. "But Sean was streetwise enough to know he would have been attractive to men, too. Alex Baldwin said Connery was the most incredible version of a man that the cameras had ever filmed. And he did have an incredible physique. He was probably a gay icon. Nowadays, it's Daniel Craig stripping down and coming out of the water, a reversal of Ursula Andress.

    "Bond has had to evolve. It has been criticised because there was some pretty rough trade with women at times; shoved around, thrown in the bath, all that sort of stuff. You can't get away with that now."

    Grigor made the film Sean Connery's Edinburgh with the star in 1982, and also the documentaries Ever to Exceed and Ever to Excel about St Andrews University, which bestowed Connery with an honorary doctorate in 1988. He also tried to convince Connery to make another film, in part to address the notorious interview he gave to Barbara Walters in which he defended comments attributed to him in an earlier interview with Playboy magazine about hitting women.

    "I don't think it's that bad. It depends entirely on the circumstances and if it merits it," Connery told Walters, in a 1987 clip widely circulated on YouTube and quoted in many of the eulogies penned upon his passing. Grigor said: "Micheline [Roquebrune, Connery's widow] said: 'I wish they'd asked me because he loves women.' I think he probably loved too many women. I tried to persuade him to do a film so he could deal with that Barbara Walters one when he stupidly said a woman needs a bit of knocking up from time to time. It was silly of him. That really didn't do him any good. But it was never possible."

    Connery's death at home in the Bahamas was followed by reports that his ashes were to be scattered at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St Andrews.

    Grigor said: "I wrote to Micheline after his death and she said his ashes would be scattered there with the possibility of a service at St Giles. But nothing has come of it, and I have heard nothing more since. She is 92 now, and I wonder if she's well. But something will happen."

    And while the loss of such a towering figure has sparked talk of a permanent memorial, Grigor said the star's benefactory fund, the Scottish International Education Trust, which has helped 1,000 young people develop careers in various fields including the arts and medicine to the tune of £75,000, is a tribute more fitting than anything else. He said: "That's the kind of memorial he'd have liked more than a statue."
  • Posts: 1,917
    Remembering Sir Sean on the first anniversary of his passing. Still difficult to believe. I was working at an early voting event that Saturday morning when my colleague mentioned it and then my wife texted me.
  • I was pretty shocked when the news broke one year ago, still feels like it just happened. Still missed!
  • edited October 2021 Posts: 7,427
    Just watched Sean in the film 'Robin and Marian', the other day! He was marvellous in it, lovely judged performance as an aging Robin Hood, and a bonus of Audrey Hepburn as Marian!
    Beautiful score by John Barry too! Terrific take on the legend by Director Richard Lester!
  • edited November 2021 Posts: 1,394
    Good for a laugh!


  • M16_CartM16_Cart Craig fanboy?
    edited November 2021 Posts: 541
    Sean Connery's reign lasted for 43 years!

    He had 1 decade of exceptionally good contribution.

    And the other decades he fell off hard: he did it for the cash, and the companies had Connery again for publicity. But in terms of quality, ehhh
  • Posts: 1,708
    50 anniversary DAF <:-P
  • Posts: 3,333
    Here's Sean Connery probably making his very first American TV appearance in 1957 on The Jack Benny Program. He's playing an Italian luggage porter with that unmistakable Scottish brogue. It's a real blink and you miss it role, but it's interersting to see Connery tower over the two Americans.
    Note: Connery appears at 1:25...



    No need to thank me for this find B-)
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Why does he call her "Sir"?
  • Posts: 16,167
    bondsum wrote: »
    Here's Sean Connery probably making his very first American TV appearance in 1957 on The Jack Benny Program. He's playing an Italian luggage porter with that unmistakable Scottish brogue. It's a real blink and you miss it role, but it's interersting to see Connery tower over the two Americans.
    Note: Connery appears at 1:25...



    No need to thank me for this find B-)

    That was great!
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    edited December 2021 Posts: 25,131
    For UK viewers Sean Connery: Talking Pictures is on BBC 2 Wednesday 29th December 1420.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    edited January 2022 Posts: 25,131

    :)) Hilarious and a lot of wisdom.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489

    :)) Hilarious and a lot of wisdom.

    Nice. Never saw this before.
  • DwayneDwayne New York City
    Posts: 2,847
    For anyone interested (and in the US), Turner Classic Movies will be showing HELL DRIVERS (1957) on Friday, January 14th at 8:00 PM (EST).

    104216230-9d6bae3e-2da6-43c7-b90e-372920db93bd.jpg
  • Posts: 1,078
    Connery and Craig made a movie together?
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,152
  • MakeshiftPythonMakeshiftPython “Baja?!”
    Posts: 8,187
    DVDBeaver just dropped screencaps of the new 4K remaster of MARNIE. Nice to see the colors look improved! I remember the blu-ray causing a bit of a fuss among cinemaphiles because of the picture quality not up to par with other Hitchcock blu-rays.

    http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray_review_150/marnie_4K_UHD.htm
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489

    Apologies if it s been posted here before.
  • For those in the United States, Sydney Lumet’s The Offence is now streaming on Amazon Prime. I haven’t yet seen the movie, but it’s been on my watchlist for ages since I’ve heard it’s possibly Connery’s finest showcase as an actor (and Lumet is a great director as well). Looking forward to finally checking it out soon!
  • Posts: 2,918
    It's a gritty, grinding, feel-bad movie, but Connery is utterly superb in his non-glamorous, non-flashy part. A must-see for anyone who wants to see Connery at his best.
  • edited July 2022 Posts: 3,327
    Revelator wrote: »
    It's a gritty, grinding, feel-bad movie, but Connery is utterly superb in his non-glamorous, non-flashy part. A must-see for anyone who wants to see Connery at his best.

    Yes, definitely his best performance, without doubt.

    I went location spotting round Bracknell about a year ago to find all those scenes in the opening of the film. The road with the school looks exactly the same, even the same place where the police park their car. The underpass where the girl walks off is still there, but now next to a built up park area and a McDonalds.

    What was more apparent was how desolate and barren that new housing area was at the time, yet now its surroundings are built up.

    I also found the funky 60's tower block where Connery lived. Looks exactly the same.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,411
    Quite a nice touch; Pinewood are naming a stage after Sir Sean

  • DwayneDwayne New York City
    Posts: 2,847
    Yes @mtm. That was a nice tribute.
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited August 2022 Posts: 3,789
    mtm wrote: »
    Quite a nice touch; Pinewood are naming a stage after Sir Sean


    And where's The Rock, Indiana Jones and The Untouchables?
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