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Yes, I can remember seeing TLD very well. I must admit that I was disappointed at first when I heard that Roger Moore would no longer be Bond. I was too young to understand that it was time for him to step down. Dalton quickly won me over though and it was exciting to watch a brand new Bond make his debut for the first time in my life.
I'm loving reading all these stories about how you got to know Bond and how he was there in some pivotal moments of your lives. I already shared some of my personal stories with Bond, from how Bond is disease that has been inherited from my grandfather to my mother and then to me, to my earliest memory being watching TSWLM title sequencing, or how my mother thought my father (then prospective boyfriend) looked like Roger Moore. Like Babs I too thought Bond was an actual person and would one day show up for dinner. In a nutshell Bond has been there every moment of my life more than any other fictional character and I hope he always will be.
With DN the theatre was fairly empty and with each weekend more folks visited the screenings who were either in the morning or early in the afternoon as not to interfere with the regular showing.
I do remember telling very excitingly about this on the earlier version of this forum and perhaps even on CBn.
Anyhow after OHMSS suddenly they stopped with the weekend shows. So I asked them why they did stop as they were really getting a more than decent crowd which must be profitable and a decent Bondfan fest. The manager told us that they had gotten a summons from the lawyers of EON to stop showing the movies or risk being sued for showing "illigal" copies in his cinema. And while the man had really enjoyed the growing group of fans he did not want to cross swords with any lawyer or EON.
I felt really shitty for some time as I figured that my excitement might have alarmed EON into action. So ever since I do accept that EON remains a presence on all websites and fora covering their product to keep an eye on stuff they dislike or like.
So this somewhat confused lad dumped into a warm dark cinema seat next to his father who had gone to the flicks because there was nothing better to do,and as he'd always enjoyed Bond films thought his son would! and even if he wasn't much of a dad MY GOD he got it right that day it is still up there with the very best of my memories of my childhood and just about the best thing that dad and I ever did together along with my first bike and the day that the stabilisers came off there are others of course my childhood was quite a decent one but this is about Bond so I won't trouble the reader with any small stories ,anyway that took place in 1970 as I said a long time ago ( yes I am that old !) and to this day both of the films are at the top of my list of favourites, shortly afterwards life delt me an uncertain hand and within a year my father was dead and gone Bond then came back to me when my mother and I took on the task of clearing his possessions from the flat to which he had removed himself and along with the remains of a lifetimes reading matter were several Pan paperback copies of the Bond stories which I persuaded my mother to let me keep From Russia With Love being the first that I read later that year and still to this day it is my favourite of all Flemings stories .
As you will understand life was quite difficult at this time and as 1971 came to a close I found myself having to endure my first Christmas without my father I however had one thing to look forward to and that of course was the return of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever ! my first new Bond film and I was going to get to see it as it was released , only one small problem Who was going to take me you see being only 9 and a half I could not go on my own! MUM as its Christmas would you take me to see the new James Bond film Pleeeease NO SON that was the sort of thing your father did I AM NOT going to see that! Oh dear back to square one then so Grandmother who by this time had come to live with us ,grandma would you take me to the new Bond film? Oh no dear you're not old enough for that sort of thing Blast now what do I do !. Christmas came and went and still no joy in going to see the film now it's new year and back to school and some of my mates who were that bit older had been to see it and spent hours winding me up about it saying how good it was and that they had been with their dads!!! Just what I wanted to hear so with a heavy heart I had just about given up on seeing it came home from school at the end of the week it's cold and it had been snowing mother turns to me and says I have to work this weekend at least all of Saturday so no matter how much I try I've no way of getting her to change her mind ,and then she says I want you to get the bus into town on Saturday afternoon and come to the office be there for five thirty ,so the next day I turn up on time and take a seat in reception where I wait for her and in comes my mothers switchboard operator a young woman of about eighteen or nineteen called Tracey with her boyfriend Martin I think , mum comes down from her office and says that Tracey and her chap are going to see the Bond film and that if I like they will let me go with them well I didn't need to be asked twice, off we went out into the snow in Martins old Mini van with he and Tracey in the front and me holding on in the back sitting On an old packing case and freezing , worth every moment of discomfort as at last I got to see Diamonds a film that I will never forget As a footnote I never got to see Martin again and Tracey stopped going out with him a while after
But I will always be greatful to him for letting a nine and a bit year old boy tag along with him and his date to the movies believe me there is no way I would have been so kind especially if I had been with a lovely girl like Tracey
I didn't know about girls then, but at fifty two now I like to think I have a least a working knowledge ! I probably had my first crush on and older woman at the age of nine and a half I went with her to a Bond film. Her name was Tracey and I've never forget her. These days I can take or leave hotdogs but I still love chocolate raisins !!.
I so enjoy reading both of your posts.
And right now I have to hurry to work, but I've got to say how great that was to read, Mrcoggins! I love your personal memory of Bond, every bit of it. Thanks so much for sharing.
I'll catch up with our thread in about 8 hours.
Cheers, everybody!
My first Bond was Goldfinger, shown at our town hall (Salcombe, South Devon), which during the summer holidays for two nights each week was 'converted' into a cinema (rows of chairs were put out and projection booth set up at the back of the hall) via a company from Exeter. There was always a Bond film during the run and usually a Carry On. I saw several Bond's here, this would have been between 1970 and 1976 (or there abouts), but as I have written all this before, I would like to write about another memorable occasion.
The Spy Who Loved Me had just been released, it was playing in Plymouth and as we had no family car there was little chance of actually getting to see it. One day while waiting for the school bus I told my friend Steve T that I was going to get the Western National and go and see the latest Bond film. Although not a Bond fan, he said that sounded better than going to school so he was coming with me! Which was great really as I had no money for the bus or cinema ticket (didn't really think it through), another mate Steve Y decided to come along too and I think Steve T's older brother Brian (who had left school by then) also came along. So we skived school, saw a great Bond film and had a bloody good day. On exiting the cinema Steve Y asked me what I though was the best bit. I replied "Barbara Bach!" I thought she was gorgeous and sexy (and still do - and I'd have been about 15/16 at the time) and she looked fabulous in that dress (and nightgown).
Spy had a glorious run, stayed in the cinema the whole of the summer hols and I got to see it twice more, once with my mate who had got me into Bond in the first place, (his dad took us down - had to pay him petrol money) and the last time just before it came to the end of its run (the film was really ragged by then, scratches, tears and pops throughout) me and my brother went to the Drake Cinema after a day's shopping.
At the time I thought it was the best (probably) Bond I'd seen, although my opinion of it has changed a lot, I still enjoy it if I'm in the mood for an epic, not-too-serious Bond to watch.
Took my son to see SkyFall, too. Great time, I wish my dad had taken me to the cinema, but it wasn't something he did really.
I do hope you have initiated a family tradition so cherished by many of us. One day your son (and who knows grandchildren) will look back and tell somebody how many great hours he spent with his old dad watching Bond films!
I was lucky enough to have a grandfather and mother (that part is probably unusual) who are not only die hard Bond fans but life long cinema and mostly action cinema fans. If anyone wants to see them happy just take them to see something with plenty of explosions :D very strange for people who are true pacifists but then again so am I :-??
Absolutely going to make a tradition out of it. We go to the movies together quite often and will definitely see Bond 24 together. And all subsequent films as well, I hope.
My first introduction to the character of James Bond came in a rather unusual form: a toy commercial on Saturday morning TV, interspersed with ads for breakfast cereal and dolls that could talk or wet themselves. At the advanced age of 9 I had already learned to generally ignore commercials for the most part. I was there to watch the cartoons -- Mighty Mouse perhaps, or maybe even Popeye. But here, in the middle of an advertisement for (of all the outlandish things!) a briefcase with a sniper rifle hidden inside it, a case that spouted gas into your face if you didn’t open it just so…here was a brief snippet from a current movie, featuring a hero that had Mighty Mouse beat all hollow! The lead character was named James Bond, the movie that I was glimpsing ever-so-tantalizingly was From Russia With Love, and to say that I was fascinated by the dramatically more sophisticated world I had just caught a glimpse of would be to significantly understate the case. Who was this Bond fellow and how was I to find out more about him?
Before long, transistor radios throughout the neighborhood provided my next clue, as Shirley Bassey’s bombastic rendition of the title song to Goldfinger poured through the airwaves. James Bond was suddenly huge news, as seemingly EVERYBODY thronged to the theatres to catch his latest adventure. Everybody except my parents, that is. True homebodies they were, satisfied to watch whatever showed up on their black & white TV screen, as one network or another provided unchallenging filmic fare with Saturday Night at the Movies. Following their lead, I had to learn to be satisfied with whatever showed up on the Sunday night Disney TV show. It seemed as if I was going to have to wait a long, long time for James Bond to make the leap onto the small screen.
Finally, late in the first-run release of Thunderball, an opportunity arose that was just too tempting to resist. Understand: I had been gorging myself on every magazine article, newspaper review, and bubble-gum card I could find that revealed information on the Bond phenomenon. I was already hooked without having seen a single Bond movie. And then, a local theatre ran a newspaper advertisement offering a one-day-only special triple-bill: Thunderball, Goldfinger, and Dr. No. Back-to-back, for the price of a single admission, an entire afternoon’s worth of immersion into the spectacular world of James Bond. I begged, I pleaded, I cajoled; and finally my parents capitulated. “What the heck,” I suppose they figured, “it’s a cheap way to get him out of our hair on the weekend.”
So I went, I saw, and I emerged a full-fledged James Bond fan. Even at the tender age of 12 I was beginning to form some critical sensibilities. I decided that Goldfinger was the best of the bunch; that some of the editing on Thunderball had been a bit jumpy, especially in the bit with the jet-pack before the theme song, and that the ending of Dr. No seemed terribly rushed, as if the film-makers had decided once Bond escaped from his cell, “Hey, we’re almost out of money and we’ve still got this island to blow up -- let’s hurry up & get this sucker in the can!” But these minor imperfections in no way marred my appreciation of the series as a whole. Bond fans are Forever Looking to Nit-Pick the Franchise.
Alas, I did not get to see You Only Live Twice in its first theatrical release. Too many other things were going on for me in 1967 I suppose. Please understand: I was born in 1954 and in 1967 I turned 13, advancing to Junior High School. Additionally, to address Sir Henry’s question: I have lived most of my life in the San Francisco Bay Area, near (or sometimes in) Berkeley CA, home of the University of California’s fabled Berkeley campus. Those of you who remember the ‘60s in detail will understand what that means…Protests, People’s Park, the flowering of the Haight-Ashbury. The “Summer of Love,” the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the commencement of the counter-culture…call it what you will and judge it however you like, for me it was happening just a few miles away and to people just a few years older than I. My sound-track for the late sixties and early seventies was supplied by the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane, not by Monty Norman or John Barry.
Additionally: it is my considered opinion that there were three overwhelming pop culture phenomena in the decade of the ’60s, besides which all else paled: Bond, the Beatles, and Batman. “The 3 Bs” if you will. Obviously, I was and remain a fan of Bond or I wouldn’t be here. You can easily guess from my forum handle that I was and remain a fan of the Beatles. If you were to assume (from my bringing up the topic if nothing else) that I am a long-time fan of the Batman, you’d be “batting” 3 for 3. My life-long interest in heroic fiction spurred on by the uber-popular Batman TV show, I quickly became a devotee of the entire genre of comic book super-heroes. At that time, there was a LOT of fabulous work being done in that much-maligned field. Not only were the Caped Crusader and all of his costumed comrades in the Justice League of America at the height of their popularity…but across town, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and their cohorts in Marvel Comics’ legendary Bullpen were revolutionizing the genre with the creation of Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Avengers and many more…including Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Yes, I was an U.N.C.L.E. fan, too!) Suffice it to say, there were a LOT of claims on my attention…
So: I missed YOLT in its original theatrical release. Thunderball and Goldfinger had both run forever, it seemed; and I assumed there would always be another weekend to fit in a viewing of YOLT. Suddenly, one day, it just wasn’t there anymore. Vanished from the theatres far sooner, I felt, than had its predecessors. Suddenly, there was another Bond film coming…and this one (heresy!) without Sean Connery filling out the famous tuxedo. Reviews…were not kind. This new Bond was greeted by the media with suspicion, even hostility…and before the film even premiered, reports were out that he would not be returning to the role for any subsequent films. The Bond franchise was shaken, not stirred. I didn’t even think about attending a theatrical showing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in its initial release. What can I say? I was young and foolish; I had sex and drugs and rock’n’roll clouding my mind. James Bond seemed old-fashioned at a time when The Times, They Were A Changing and I was changing, too, as quickly as could be managed.
Nonetheless, on Christmas Eve of 1971, when a friend showed up at my door urging “C’mon, let’s get out of here! Let’s go see Diamonds Are Forever! It’s got the REAL James Bond in it, you know!” I made hasty excuses to my assembled parents and grand-parents. We piled into his older brother’s rattle-trap of a car, and tooled off to the local drive-in to see the REAL James Bond one more time. However…we didn’t actually DRIVE into the drive-in. Instead, we parked the car on the street just past the theatre’s exit…and as the “coming attractions” played, we crouched down and snuck in through the exit that was barricaded against cars trying to come through without paying…but of no use against a silent band of agents on foot! The half-full field of cars filled with paying customers took no note of us, and we were crouched too low to be seen by drive-in personnel. We hunkered down in the loose gravel of an unclaimed parking space, grabbed a few tinny-sounding speakers and brought them as close as could be managed…and proceeded to watch the movie, bundled up against the cool of the California winter night. It was my one and only covert operation with the mission of A View to a Free James Bond movie…and it was a complete success!
Do I regret my youthful indiscretion now, from the perspective of an older and supposedly wiser man? Well…not really. It was an adventure I’ll always remember, one that I like to think Bond himself might have undertaken in similar circumstances. Would I make reparations if I could? Possibly…but the drive-in itself has long ago closed, and Eon Productions has seen its fair share of my hard-earned money in the years since. Does it excuse me that I was unaware that my friend and his brother had not informed me of the caper’s plan until we were actually parked behind the theatre, and my only other option was to wait in the car alone until they returned? It doesn’t really matter; what happened, happened; I took part in it and lived to tell the tale. There was no champagne and no girl to kiss at the end of the adventure…but the next day I opened my Christmas presents surrounded by my family. The greatest Christmas gift I received that year was a story I
can tell today.
I suppose I was still resisting the very idea of another actor playing James Bond; any rate, I did not see Live and Let Die in its initial release. Soon enough, though, my resistance wore thin and I attended a double-billed showing of LALD and The Man With the Golden Gun. While Roger Moore was never my favorite Bond I still accepted him in the part quite easily. His was a very different Bond from Connery’s, heavier on the “suave man of the world” element but never quite believable to my eyes as a dangerous man with a license to kill. “Action” in the Moore era was more likely to consist of a car chase or a boat chase or a ski chase or a lady chase than any physical combat. Still, he was Bond officially and for longer than I expect anybody else to serve in the role ever again. Now that I was actually working, earning my own money, and driving my own car, I never missed another Bond film in its initial run in the theatres.
Still had a bit of catching up to do, though. Sometime in the mid-‘70s the ABC network offered the television premiere of OHMSS…spread out over two nights. No matter, I was there! Curiously, the film was substantially edited for this presentation: it OPENED with Bond’s ski escape from Blofeld’s mountain fortress…and hop-scotched, willy-nilly, through the official movie’s continuity, jumping back and forth through time in an attempt to…what? Keep the audience interested in one film split between two nights? Did Eon charge so much for the rights to this movie that ABC felt the need to spread the cost between both Saturday AND Sunday nights? Did they further decide that the only way to keep an audience interested would be to totally bamboozle us regarding the amount of gratuitous sex and violence they had eliminated from the actual film they were presenting? It was confusing, but I managed to figure it all out without too much trouble. I’d already read the book after all…
Then, finally, some time in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, a small repertory theatre house in Berkeley held a Bond retrospective, showing all of the films on…well, if not the BIG screen, at least the medium-sized one. Over the course of several weeks, in no particular order, each Bond film was available for my perusal…and while I may not have gone back for a repeat viewing of some of my lesser favorites on nights when they weren’t showing one of the few I’d missed the first time around, I did finally manage to see OHMSS in its correct sequence…as well as the two Connery offerings I’d missed: You Only Live Twice and (finally! at long last!!) From Russia With Love. My quest was complete -- I’d seen all of the James Bond films and read all of the Ian Fleming novels and short stories involving the character.
And yet: James Bond Will Return, and so will his many fans. Via VCRs and DVDs, through Netflix and YouTube and technology I’d never even considered when I was first introduced to the character, we can now watch Bond marathons of several day durations on cable TV; we can own the entire series to watch for ourselves at any time we darn well please, we can nit-pick and analyze and drain every ounce of what was once special completely out of this series we so cherish. While the socio-political changes of the ‘60s and ‘70s up through today were never quite able to kill this vibrant character, will trolls and demographically-based marketing imperil him now? I just hope Quantum is the most dastardly menace 007 has to face in the future…but one way or another I’ll be showing up at the theatre to find out!
@BeatlesSansEarmuffs, thanks for posting that! I don't care if you had previously posted it - and I hope others hear me say this, too - if you have put some thought into a great post before, on our thread or on others, but it is relevant to what we are talking about now ... please copy and paste it here, and just edit it or add a little. :) I know the effort it takes to write in detail and I think most of us don't feel like rewriting extensively, when we have already said something at length. But do feel free to copy some of your own writing and put it here. Then add a tad more or change whatever you'd like.
I find your posts so very interesting and fun, Beatles. By the way, I am with you for two of the "B"s of the sixties - Beatles and Bond. I liked Batman but was not a huge fan (big U.N.C.L.E. fan, though). I'll just add my own third B for that decade = British. The British invasion, as so termed, defined my growing up in the 60's. Yeah, baby! ;)
I am off for a while today, but will check in later. Have fun, everybody! Please share some Bond experiences with us.
:-bd
Oh Beatles, you almost have a Japanese nickname! I just realized that (just take off the last s in the first half of your name): Beatles-san. :D
Does anyone have any dating memories connected with a Bond film? I just thought a Bond film would be a perfect choice for a date.
@CommanderRoss, by the way - I think buying Bond films really is the perfect gift for one's self. Or any Bond related item. I have other priorities still, but the top of my list when I can do it is to buy a Blu-ray player and all films, one at a time I am sure, in Blu-ray. So I can totally relate to what you did.
We are going to spend one or two more days on Bond Memories, folks. B-) So give us your personal tidbits, please. Thanks!
Cheers!
The new Bond film [LTK] is due for release and a national newspaper is running a serialisation of it, along with the chance to win tickets to your local screening (mine was in Torquay Odeon) and guess who won a pair of tickets?
Got a friend to drive me to this charity event for the spare ticket. Really had a great time, found the film full of suspense, even had sweaty palms during the night raid on Krest's place.
But probably the most memorable thing that night happened as we were finding somewhere to park. As we went round and round the multi-story car park my friend's Peugeot suddenly took on a starboard list as the off-side front wheel became the off front wheel! And we weren't even going at Bond speed. Luckily there was an all-night garage who came out and fixed the wheel and we eventually got home.
And thanks for sharing some more memories, @BeatlesSansEarmuffs. Every time I read the words "drive in", I think: Why did I not go to them? We had two that I can remember. I barely recall seeing films at them, though. I went to several at theaters with my best friend and certainly several by myself (again, in a theater). And really, I wanted to see Skyfall by myself. It's easier to get totally immerse in the film when you are not with someone, that's true I think.
Oh, my friend and I were mumbling after Moonraker all right. Not so happy Bond fans then; and we had both loved TSWLM so much. But such is the way of our fortunes as lifelong Bond fans - we stick with Bond thru the ups and downs, thru all the years.
Anyone else care to chime in with any memories connected with Bond? I'll be changing our topic this weekend.
Oh - and @Birdleson, how was your recent Vegas adventure? Any car chases? Jill St. John lookalikes wearing hot pants? Moon buggy rides? Etc.? ;)
Oh, I think several or many of us can relate to your story, CommanderRoss. :D
Part of growing up it seems. Hope things are much smoother these days for you. It would be great to find a partner who at least really likes James Bond. We are out there, I'm sure of that!
And CatchingBullets, that was a concern for so many teenagers - LTK was to be rated for adults only. I was glad and relieved it was changed enough to open to a broader audience (I was in the U.S.). And, to be honest, I realize that you have so many Bond memories that you could write a book ... oh wait, you did! :-bd Really pleased you popped into our thread. And yes, I am getting your book but have not yet read it. Looking forward to it very much, though. I am ordering books this weekend (I'm in Asia) and yours is on that list. I haven't ordered in months, so I am way overdue. Anything else you'd care to share is greatly appreciated, of course.
Cheers, everybody! >:D<
Any other Bond memories? Let's share these for one more day.
Oh, I have plenty! My Dad and Uncle once "stole" Goldfinger's car....
That sounds like a corker! Do tell, please!
One more full day for personal Bond memories, and then tomorrow I will change our topic. But do keep in mind that sharing personal memories and anecdotes are really the foundation of this thread, so keep 'em coming.
* For those of you just arriving at this forum, you may possibly not be aware of Catching Bullet's (Mark O'Connell) book. It is his personal memoir of growing up with Bond. It's called (and what a great title it is!), Catching Bullets. I'm happy to share the thread on it today: [url]http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3856/catching-bullets-memoirs-of-a-bond-fan/p3 [/url]
(Just go back to page 1of this thread to find some great details - this book has had rave reviews and is well worth a read.) B-)