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Fans Who Remember James Bond in the 1950s and 1960s?

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  • Cameron_MottCameron_Mott
    Posts: 53
    OHMSS69 wrote:
    I remember the Bondmania that swept the nation and world after GF. I remember the ripoffs on TV and in the cinema. I remember the Beverly Hillbillies episode when Jethro, after seeing GF was so intent on being a secret agent. (A very funny and enjoyable episode BTW). It was so funny when he told Jed Clampett that he wanted an iron hat, just so that when someone threw one at him, "they were gonna get one right back at them." Priceless.

    Jethro wanted to be a "double-naught spy".

  • Villiers53Villiers53
    Posts: 802
    Birdleson wrote:
    Villiers53,
    I went back and read your story. Mother's are important to one's Bond appreciation, for sure. My Mother took me to every one form GOLDFINGER (as stated, DR. NO was also on the bill) - DIAMONDS (except OHMSS), after that I could go alone. Years later we saw LICENCE TO KILL in the theater together. Fortunately, she's still around. She flies out to see me annually and we always make time to watch at least one Bond on Blu-Ray per visit.

    One of the things that I find interesting about the Fleming literary phenomena is the impact the Bond novels had on introducing readers to fiction.
    I well remember that my prep school banned them and rated them as pornography.
    As a result many boys disguised them with covers from other permitted works.
    Fortunately my mother was quite broad minded about these things and encouraged my reading albeit she created quite a hiatus when she sent me a beautiful JC hardback first edition of TSWLM for my birthday (Fleming initially didn't allow it to be published in paper back) and it was opened by my house master who passed it to the head who duly went on to accuse mother of irresponsible parenting!
    Happily I stole it back from his study and took it home at the end of term.
    I know many school friends have Fleming to thank for a lifetime of literacy and the morale of the story is that parents shouldn't be too uptight about what their children read. The important thing is that they read!
  • timmertimmer
    Posts: 4,622
    I think by the time I started reading Fleming in 1972, Fleming was old news or more to the point very mainstream, so parents didn't worry about banning. The books were easy to find too. They were all stocked in the local bookstores, just as they are now.
    I bought my titles willy nilly. Basically I bought the titles first, that I recognized from the film titles and then worked from there.
    Quite exciting times, buying the Fleming books and reading them, that first time around as an adolescent.
  • connerybondconnerybond
    Posts: 163
    @Villiers53 "the morale of the story is that parents shouldn't be too uptight about what their children read. The important thing is that they read!"

    We encouraged our son to read Roald Dahl when his teachers were not enthusiastic
    in Dahl novels. Yes, that was an inner London primary school! Our son read all Dahl's books, and his interest in reading means, borrowed books from the local library , and read the books. He is now a doctoral student in biosciences at a top UK university and is known for his excellent grasp of reading and understanding very difficult research papers in biological sciences and interpreting them to help his co-doctoral mates. I read Fleming's Bond novels in 1958 to refresh my reading ability although I was a university student then.
  • connerybondconnerybond
    Posts: 163
    When I first read the book Dr NO in 1958 and watched the film in 1962, I never thought then that I would be talking about Fleming and Bond 50 years later, and certainly never imagined then I would be watching a new Bond film 50 years later! Reminds of what Ben Johnson said about Shakespeare: "He was not of an age but for all time"
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