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James Bond in the role of a policeman?

DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
edited December 2012 in Literary 007 Posts: 18,269
This has long (1998) been one of my pet projects after I discussed it with a friend at school - that James Bond (on occasions) assumes the role of a policeman. The film version of Dr. No sees Bond referred to as a "stupid policeman" by No at one point, he refers to his "beat". In DAD Bond and Britain are said to be "the world's policeman". In many of the Fleming Bond novels, Bond uses a euphenism like "I work for the police/MoD/govt" etc. and on occasion he actually works with the Special Branch of Ronnie Vallance (MI5) (for e.g. in Risico). In the films - DAF - when Bond questions Tiffany Case, she says "Hey, you sound like a cop to me!" Then there are the John Gardner continuation James Bond novels where they unfold more and more like mysteries - from NDMB onwards - see Scorpius, WLOD and (especially) Never Send Flowers where Bond and Flicka von Grusse work as two homicide detectives/cops to follow the clues leading to a serial killer. In TSWLM novel Bond was also treated as a cop by Horror and Sluggsy.

Can anyone here think of any other instances from either the novels or films?

This has the potential to make a very interesting article - something I've been working at on and off on for years.

So, what are our thoughts on PC Bond?

Can Bond ever really be a policeman - should this angle of his character be pursued in a novel or film in the future?

Or is Bond too identified as a secret agent/spy/secret intelligence officer/trouble-shooter to ever really fit the role of a policeman?

Comments

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    Any interest in my (possibly controversial) theory?
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,111
    Bond is considered as a policeman by some, often in a deragoratory way. I remember in the novel OHMSS when he goes hunting Blofeld, he thinks that this is police job, not MI6's. So I think at least in Bond's mind, he is more than this. Let's not fortget that MI6 is under the authority of the Foreign Office and conducts illegal activities in foreign countries. This is far from police work.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    edited December 2012 Posts: 28,694
    Maybe Dr. No was right?

    "You're nothing but a stupid policeman."     :))
  • moore45moore45
    Posts: 47
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote:
    Maybe Dr. No was right?

    "You're nothing but a stupid policeman."     :))
    Are you a smart ass ?
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    moore45 wrote:
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote:
    Maybe Dr. No was right?

    "You're nothing but a stupid policeman."     :))
    Are you a smart ass ?

    Are we five? This is the second time this week you have called me that, and I get sick of flagging posts for inappropriate content. It's called a sense of humor. The long sought after, hard to acquire treasure of our times. Old tales from histories past say that to acquire it, one would have to traverse the deadly Kraken filled Seven Seas, climb the Hills of Hell amid ghastly creatures of war, battle their way through a valley of giant ogres and dragons, and survive a maze of trap doors and booby traps that test both your wits and physicality before you may enter the golden treasure room, where your reward lays waiting for you on the silk padded seat of a throne. The quest is there, you only have to have the determination to set off on your journey to finally attain it so that you can come back to use and understand the complex art of comedy and sarcasm.
  • Dalton12Dalton12
    Posts: 1,107
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote:
    moore45 wrote:
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote:
    Maybe Dr. No was right?

    "You're nothing but a stupid policeman."     :))
    Are you a smart ass ?

    Are we five? This is the second time this week you have called me that, and I get sick of flagging posts for inappropriate content. It's called a sense of humor. The long sought after, hard to acquire treasure of our times. Old tales from histories past say that to acquire it, one would have to traverse the deadly Kraken filled Seven Seas, climb the Hills of Hell amid ghastly creatures of war, battle their way through a valley of giant ogres and dragons, and survive a maze of trap doors and booby traps that test both your wits and physicality before you may enter the golden treasure room, where your reward lays waiting for you on the silk padded seat of a throne. The quest is there, you only have to have the determination to set off on your journey to finally attain it so that you can come back to use and understand the complex art of comedy and sarcasm.
    Don't bother with fools 0BradyM0Bondfanatic7.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    edited December 2012 Posts: 16,351
    moore45 wrote:
    0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 wrote:
    Maybe Dr. No was right?

    "You're nothing but a stupid policeman."     :))
    Are you a smart ass ?

    @moore45 read these before you consider calling another member here a smart@$$.

    http://mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/1/community-terms-conditions-of-use >:P
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited December 2012 Posts: 18,269
    Could we return to the topic at hand, please? Enough of this diversion.
  • moore45moore45
    Posts: 47
    Dragonpol wrote:
    Could we return to the topic at hand, please? Enough of this diversion.
    No. Smart guy.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    I'd say Bond could be a policeman after he retires from MI6.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    moore45 wrote:
    Dragonpol wrote:
    Could we return to the topic at hand, please? Enough of this diversion.
    No. Smart guy.

    Smart alec yet dull alec, methinks.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    Murdock wrote:
    I'd say Bond could be a policeman after he retires from MI6.

    Yes, that's another good point.
  • JWESTBROOKJWESTBROOK
    Posts: 5,745
    I can't see his police chief taking it as M did when he starts killing people he feels are better off dead than to escape.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    JWESTBROOK wrote:
    I can't see his police chief taking it as M did when he starts killing people he feels are better off dead than to escape.

    Well, yes, of course police rules are very different from those of the secret service/the spying profession as a whole. that goes wiothout saying...although the Bond of the Fleminf novels often acts like a detective of some description ,as I hope to illustrate in a new article that will be posted at some point on The Bondologist Blog

    http://www.thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,111
    There are parallels between crime fiction and the Bond novels, as well as parallels between Bond and the hardboiled private eye immortalised by the likes of Raymond Chandler. And between the mobsters of pulp fiction and the Bond villains. Fleming was certainly influenced by crime fiction. However, there are key differences, in scope, in the area of expertise, in the plot.

    In a way, I think Bond is maybe closer to a private eye than a police officer: serving justice both inside and outside the law (as Her Majesty's agent, yet as a spy against foreign enemies), with a tendency to drink and love of women. However his tastes are more refined. And he is a government agent, a major difference.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    Ludovico wrote:
    There are parallels between crime fiction and the Bond novels, as well as parallels between Bond and the hardboiled private eye immortalised by the likes of Raymond Chandler. And between the mobsters of pulp fiction and the Bond villains. Fleming was certainly influenced by crime fiction. However, there are key differences, in scope, in the area of expertise, in the plot.

    In a way, I think Bond is maybe closer to a private eye than a police officer: serving justice both inside and outside the law (as Her Majesty's agent, yet as a spy against foreign enemies), with a tendency to drink and love of women. However his tastes are more refined. And he is a government agent, a major difference.

    Good points here - crime and spy fdiction come from the same source, after all!
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,111
    Dragonpol wrote:
    Ludovico wrote:
    There are parallels between crime fiction and the Bond novels, as well as parallels between Bond and the hardboiled private eye immortalised by the likes of Raymond Chandler. And between the mobsters of pulp fiction and the Bond villains. Fleming was certainly influenced by crime fiction. However, there are key differences, in scope, in the area of expertise, in the plot.

    In a way, I think Bond is maybe closer to a private eye than a police officer: serving justice both inside and outside the law (as Her Majesty's agent, yet as a spy against foreign enemies), with a tendency to drink and love of women. However his tastes are more refined. And he is a government agent, a major difference.

    Good points here - crime and spy fdiction come from the same source, after all!

    Yes. And DAF is as much, maybe even more, a crime novel than a spy novel.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited December 2012 Posts: 18,269
    Ludovico wrote:
    Dragonpol wrote:
    Ludovico wrote:
    There are parallels between crime fiction and the Bond novels, as well as parallels between Bond and the hardboiled private eye immortalised by the likes of Raymond Chandler. And between the mobsters of pulp fiction and the Bond villains. Fleming was certainly influenced by crime fiction. However, there are key differences, in scope, in the area of expertise, in the plot.

    In a way, I think Bond is maybe closer to a private eye than a police officer: serving justice both inside and outside the law (as Her Majesty's agent, yet as a spy against foreign enemies), with a tendency to drink and love of women. However his tastes are more refined. And he is a government agent, a major difference.

    Good points here - crime and spy fdiction come from the same source, after all!

    Yes. And DAF is as much, maybe even more, a crime novel than a spy novel.

    Yes, I suppose that you're right there. DAF is the most Chandleresque of all the Bond novels - more akin to the private eye/gumshoe than any other Bond novel. Bond meets gangsters etc. and the seedy underbelly. I've got an article on The Bondologist Blog http://www.thebondologistblog.blogspot.co.uk/ on this coming up some time next year.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    I'd love to hear more of your views on the subject of James Bond as a policeman. I think that we can get some more discussion out of it.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,111
    Let me think about it and come back to it. It is a good topic.
  • Sir_James_MoloneySir_James_Moloney
    edited April 2013 Posts: 388
    I think Bond is very much set up as an international policeman in DN. In addition to being called "a stupid policeman" and telling Felix "it's my beat", he also conducts his initial investigation on the island very much like a policeman, interviewing Dent in his lab and looking for clues in Strangways office. He says "book her, Superintendent" when he packs Miss Taro off in her 'taxi'. And when Honey says "I've never met a detective before", Bond doesn't correct her.

    But after that, I don't think Bond assumes the role of a policeman at all.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,111
    Sir_James_Moloney wrote:
    I think Bond is very much set up as an international policeman in DN. In addition to being called "a stupid policeman" and telling Felix "it's my beat", he also conducts his initial investigation on the island very much like a policeman, interviewing Dent in his lab and looking for clues in Strangways office. He says "book her, Superintendent" when he packs Miss Taro off in her 'taxi'. And when Honey says "I've never met a detective before", Bond doesn't correct her.

    But after that, I don't think Bond assumes the role of a policeman at all.

    I think it depends of his missions. Many involve some kind of police work, finding the culprit, putting an end to a criminal conspiracy, etc. That said his work is not essentially the one of a policeman, as he has to commit illegal acts. That is why I find James Bond more akin to the private eye archetype than the policeman, even though like a policeman Bond works for the state. How Raymond Chandler describes the private eye fits Bond in many ways:

    ''In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.
    .
    He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with a rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.
    .
    The story is this man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.    "
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    Sir_James_Moloney wrote:
    I think Bond is very much set up as an international policeman in DN. In addition to being called "a stupid policeman" and telling Felix "it's my beat", he also conducts his initial investigation on the island very much like a policeman, interviewing Dent in his lab and looking for clues in Strangways office. He says "book her, Superintendent" when he packs Miss Taro off in her 'taxi'. And when Honey says "I've never met a detective before", Bond doesn't correct her.

    But after that, I don't think Bond assumes the role of a policeman at all.

    Yes, although that is all in the films. I'm interested in the novels and the films both although the novels came first, of course. I think those comments come from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2001) by Marcus Hearn, who notes this fact about Dr. No.
  • Sir_James_MoloneySir_James_Moloney
    edited April 2013 Posts: 388
    Well, to look at the novels, I think the earlier novels like LALD, MR and DAF are probably the closest to putting Bond in a detective role (but notably not CR). But I think it should be noted that, even here, Fleming goes to some trouble to distinguish Bond from the police. See, for example, the distinction he draws between Bond and Gala Brand.

    The later novels and short stories move away from Chandleresque investigations and have more in common with the old Edwardian 'shockers'.

    I can't comment on the Gardner novels as I've only read Licence Renewed and that was almost 20 years ago.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 15,111
    Like I said above, DAF is in a way more crime fiction than spy fic, where Fleming borrows a lot from Raymond Chandler.
  • Sir_James_MoloneySir_James_Moloney
    Posts: 388
    Ludovico wrote:
    Like I said above, DAF is in a way more crime fiction than spy fic, where Fleming borrows a lot from Raymond Chandler.

    I think that's a good analysis. LALD seems to me to be more along those lines too.

  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Sir_James_Moloney wrote:
    Ludovico wrote:
    Like I said above, DAF is in a way more crime fiction than spy fic, where Fleming borrows a lot from Raymond Chandler.

    I think that's a good analysis. LALD seems to me to be more along those lines too.

    Well LALD and DAF are practically the same story when you boil it down. Just replace gold coins with diamonds. Bond goes to America and tracks down a gang on the way utilising the help of the Bond girl who is herself part of the gang. It also ends up applying to GF when you think about it and this is a problem I feel with taking the stories to America.

    The calibre of villain and setting seems to lose its European class and style and whenever Fleming puts Bond stateside it comes across as low rent Chandler. I feel Ian is not as confident writing about America as he is Europe or the Carribbean (and indeed Japan) and doesnt have the same personal experience of American crime that he does espionage and cold war intrigue. I dont think I am the first person to comment that when Bond crosses the pond the results are usually a bit lacklustre.

    I am trying to remember from Flemings life how much time he spent in America. Not that much when compared to Europe and the Carribbean in that he never really lived or worked there and was usually only there as a tourist so perhaps for this reason he doesnt capture it as well.

    Although his descriptions of place and atmosphere and Americana are as good as ever (I like the Saratoga stuff in DAF especially) its more his characters and dialogue that seem cliched and stereotypical. The Spangs are very poor villains and the likes of Sluggsy, Horror and the GF hoods are almost laughably cartoon like.

    This problem also carries over into the films to be fair and I'd be interested if anyone could put their finger on it.

    And this is not some anti American thing just how I feel and I believe I am not alone but what is the reason?
  • LudovicoLudovico
    edited April 2013 Posts: 15,111
    TheWizardOfIce wrote:
    Sir_James_Moloney wrote:
    Ludovico wrote:
    Like I said above, DAF is in a way more crime fiction than spy fic, where Fleming borrows a lot from Raymond Chandler.

    I think that's a good analysis. LALD seems to me to be more along those lines too.

    Well LALD and DAF are practically the same story when you boil it down. Just replace gold coins with diamonds. Bond goes to America and tracks down a gang on the way utilising the help of the Bond girl who is herself part of the gang. It also ends up applying to GF when you think about it and this is a problem I feel with taking the stories to America.

    The calibre of villain and setting seems to lose its European class and style and whenever Fleming puts Bond stateside it comes across as low rent Chandler. I feel Ian is not as confident writing about America as he is Europe or the Carribbean (and indeed Japan) and doesnt have the same personal experience of American crime that he does espionage and cold war intrigue. I dont think I am the first person to comment that when Bond crosses the pond the results are usually a bit lacklustre.

    I am trying to remember from Flemings life how much time he spent in America. Not that much when compared to Europe and the Carribbean in that he never really lived or worked there and was usually only there as a tourist so perhaps for this reason he doesnt capture it as well.

    Although his descriptions of place and atmosphere and Americana are as good as ever (I like the Saratoga stuff in DAF especially) its more his characters and dialogue that seem cliched and stereotypical. The Spangs are very poor villains and the likes of Sluggsy, Horror and the GF hoods are almost laughably cartoon like.

    This problem also carries over into the films to be fair and I'd be interested if anyone could put their finger on it.

    And this is not some anti American thing just how I feel and I believe I am not alone but what is the reason?

    Chandler praised DAF for its authenticity though. But I also liked less the stories set in America. I think it is partially because they are less exotic settings. It may have felt different from British readers at the time, but they all feel so common. In the movies it was worse, especially with DAF. I also felt Fleming was wanting too much to appeal to his American readership by setting LALD and again especially DAF there. And I think the problem is that we already have (had) American crime writers writing stories set in America.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,269
    Very interesting comments regarding Ian Fleming and America. I think there's a good critical essay needing written just there!
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