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Bond as Detective
In watching CR for the umpteenth time, it occurred to me how impressive Bond is as a detective, identifying Demetrius as the sender of the email to the bomb maker, then figuring out the plot to destroy the airplane and foiling it. In a similar way, Bond acts as a detective in DN, figuring out that it is Professor Dent who is behind the killing of Strangways. Just curious if anyone can think of any other films where part of Bond's job is to act as a detective.
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I have an article on Bond in the role of a policeman in the novels and films that I started ten years go. I really must get it finished and posted to my blog. I came up with the idea back in 1998. It was my earliest article idea in fact.
Dr. No is essentially a noir film that just so happens to have Bond in it, and you've got every noir archetype right there that you'd expect to see: Bond as the detective, Dent as the gunsel, Taro as the femme fatale, Felix as the detective partner, Honey as the innocent woman caught up in it all that rushes to the detective's aid, etc. The film only moves along when Bond himself makes plans to uncover more and more of Crab Key, and he does that by vetting leads, doing "interviews" or social greetings with certain marks, and ultimately embedding himself into Jamaica's social fabric to sniff out what led to Strangways getting hot bullets in his back. He even wears a hat you'd expect a detective to have throughout! His twelve-steps ahead thinking in uncovering Dent and killing him in cold blood, the traps he leaves in his hotel to tell if he's being watched and the way he sets Taro up to get caught by the police are rich in noir inspiration.
From Russia with Love has a lot of instances of detective work once again, with Bond observing and planning, but it is very much a spy thriller whereas Dr. No was a detective story with sprinkles of spy content. It still has a noir feeling at times, however, like the focus on surveillance and tracking certain targets, and ultimately the entire final third of the film aboard the train is Bond using a detective's prowess to plan and counter-act an enemy he doesn't see yet in Grant.
Goldfinger has Bond doing a lot of tracking to get at Auric, and the constant death of largely innocent and beautiful women definitely gives it a noir edge. It doesn't feel like a truly overbearing noir type film, however, unlike Dr. No or Thunderball.
Thunderball is the most noir-like of the early films next to Dr. No, once again for how it blends the life of a spy with that of a detective. In this film Bond not only hides behind certain covers and works twelve-steps ahead of opponents, but he also lays traps in his hotel like bugs to tell if an enemy has invaded his space. He's got to think like a detective to find the bombs in the vast Bahamas, and only uncovers them when he remembers Largo showing him grotto sharks, which can only be fished from a particular part of the location. As in Dr. No there are the same archetypal characters, with Bond as the detective once again, Fiona Volpe as the best femme fatale of the entire series (or even gun moll), Domino as the innocent woman caught up in it, Vargas and his fellow stooges as gunsels, etc. I think it's the film that best realizes the perfect blend between spying and detective work in the series in the way Fleming managed in his books, by showing an equal and exciting amount of both. Bond is most interesting when he's left to do much of the legwork himself, and this is the case in this movie; his "case" only develops by his hand and by his leads.
You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service are similar to Goldfinger in that they have detective elements, but ultimately don't become detective films themselves. In the former we still have Bond finding out the mystery behind Osato chemicals, uncovering the use of the lox chemical and peeling back the veil of SPECTRE with some strategic thinking while taking on three major disguises in a detective-like trenchcoat, in an interview with Osato and as a fisherman. In the latter film we have Bond negotiating with a known criminal to earn leads on another criminal mastermind, and at one point he must sneak around into another man's office to get his confidential files to further his leads; these feel like actions a Sam Spade type would take on one of his cases, like in The Maltese Falcon where he must work directly with the criminals to get at what he needs.
Diamonds Are Forever has a surprising amount of detective content, and the noir elements of it have become the prime reason I've taken a recent liking to it after a period of discontent. Bond is a lot older looking in this one, like an exhausted and past it Phillip Marlowe. Because the plot takes place largely around the hot Vegas climate, I view the movie as a detective film starring Bond heading to California to mingle with criminals and integrate himself into the underbelly of diamond smuggling to uncover who is funneling the rocks into the states, because that's basically what it is. Bond does a lot of detective work in this one, not only keeping up a cover of Peter Franks for a long stretch, but also in rubbing shoulders with criminals to get at what he needs in the Spade or Marlowe tradition, of which Fleming pulled from in his own work.
The focus on smuggling and the smugglers who run that network give Diamonds a crime film mood that is only bolstered by the inclusion of Tiffany as the femme fatale jewel thief, Plenty as the innocent lamb, the mobsters as the gunsels, and all the other players in between (Saxby, Shady Tree, etc) as the conspirators in the whole affair that Bond must unfurl and make sense of as the acting detective. The overall theme of the movie, of doubles and deceit in plain sight, not only in the form of Blofeld's doubles but also in his mysterious takeover of Whyte's interests, create a villain that demands for Bond to uncover him, instead of fight him directly. The whole movie until Bond finds the villain at the top of that tower is essentially a noir where Bond works a simple mystery that demands for him to plan and work his cover to bring out his enemies, but even after that point the film still carries a noir-aesthetic. As Bond walks up to Whyte's estate in that cream suit and pink tie, it's like watching Sean play Phillip Marlowe in a sun-baked desert noir as he goes on to hunt for the missing man behind a giant empire embroiled in criminal conspiracy.
A big reason why I love the early Bond films so much is inherently for their adoption of a certain noir tradition, and it's the thing that always thrills me as I rewatch them over and over. It's only natural that Bond would have to work as both a spy and detective to do the job he does, as those traits bleed into each other perfectly to create a beautiful cohesion. He's got the athleticism and skill with weaponry of a spy and the mind and observational keenness of a private dick. In a word, he's unstoppable.
I haven't thought much about it, but I recall investigative work in TMWTGG (I suppose that's one reason why I like the film so much) and in TSWLM as well. There's also quite a bit in FYEO (he certainly doesn't know who took down the St. Georges at the start) and in OP.