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Comments
I'm afraid FRWL is the one & only.
Dalton was a great Bond but the movies can't be said to capture the spirit when they involve snowboarding in a cello case or lorries balanced in bizarre finales.
The spirit or essence of Fleming was to push the boundaries whilst keeping it real enough that just maybe..... this could happen.
Only FRWL does this and it's probably no coincidence that the best movie is also the best book!
Regards,
Bentley.
The Fleming books contain a lot of internal monologue that the screen actors logically cannot convey. Connery made Bond filmic. Moore made Bond the screen icon. Dalton has been (to date) the truest to the literary Bond. Craig is (while working with the material he's given) the best of both worlds. We'll wait. We'll see... :)
That, to me, shows Bonds ingenuity, just like when Bond uses his watch as a knuckle duster in OHMSS (book). His options are limited and he's thinking on his feet. We need more of this side of Bond
I'm not a big fan of the novels, so I guess it wouldn't matter to me about which movies carried the spirit of the novels.
While not particulary close to the actual novels of the same name I can't help feeling that LALD and the MWTGG have a very Fleming feel to them (obviously not JW Pepper).
In terms of the actual story I agree but I think the tone of LTK feels too American and bitter. There's a "playfullness" to Fleming's writing which Kill doesn't really have.
I'd say FRWL (having listened to the audio book recently Kerim Bay is perfectly translated to the film - though somewhat toned down - and Pedro Armendáriz plays him beautifully), OHMSS and (to a lesser extent) CR and SF.
I'd actually say films like FYEO, OP, TLD and maybe even GE (at least in parts) have more of a "Fleming touch" than LTK.
I have always felt this film captured something most of the other films did not, and that's that it felt like a Fleming novel. In the later films one can't even use the word adaptation. YOLT and DAF went horribly astray. As for the Moore series, they were Bond films in name only. The original screenplays don't feel like what Fleming would have written in novel form.
Of late CR is closest, but FRWL is a true study of what a real Bond film based on a real Bond novel was.
Even Skyfall, which I like, is a mess; Fleming in good health would have written a much more interesting and creative Skyfall.
OHMSS
The Living Daylights
Casino Royale
FRWL
GF
TB
OHMSS
FYEO
If you wanted the Bond film, however, that overall captures Fleming the best, it has to be The Living Daylights.
From Russia With Love
Thunderball
Terence Young directs in such a way that the films occasionally FEEL like Fleming's prose. Thunderball's intoxicating setting and Istanbul being the biggest standouts.
I guess the true Fleming Bond is hybrid of Dalton, Craig, and Connery in DN and FRWL. It'd be interesting to have a vote on those three choices (pretty please moderators [-O< )
But as far the choices we have I believe Craig is closer characterization of Fleming's Bond. In that he portrays him as a sociopath who justifies murder with patriotism. The thing with Dalton was in TLD they made him a bit too jokey at times and in LTK they took the brooding aspect too far and stripped him of his class. Despite the complaints towards Craig, I always saw his Bond as classier and more a swinger than Dalton's.
So I have to give it to OHMSS.
Add Laz to that list aswell. His Bond was MEANT to be closer to Fleming after all. Moore always came to mind the least when reading the books (Brosnan does kind of look like how Fleming describes Bond).