Original subtitles

[Music]

[Music]

ever since a british secret agent named

bond

james bond embarked on his first mission

a large global corporation has been

keeping tabs on his every move

[Music]

there's such a lot of bond to see isn't

that is there no end now after more than

60 years of tracking 007 in print and on

screen

we open up the bbc vaults to reveal the

forgotten files on the world's most

celebrated secret agent the world's most

famous hero assumes a natural position

he's tall

and he's dark through candid

interrogations

how much of that action do you enjoy

i enjoy all of it i particularly love

scenes

[Music]

technical briefings

but this slides away to

let the missile come out of the volcano

and foreign assignments we assess bonds

ability to survive in a changing world

the bond move is generally a simply a

licence to print money his

transgressions

his victories

and his innermost secrets explored this

is the sort of question

that you should not be asking this is a

license to view james bond unguarded

unrestricted and unseen

[Music]

in 1964 the bbc filed a report from the

united states gold bullion depository at

fort knox

and their man on the ground bore more

than a passing resemblance to the spy

himself

incidentally that's not fort knox it's a

film set here goldfinger and

buckinghamshire pinewood

i'm not james bond he's a fictitious

character

sean connery had taken a break from

filming goldfinger to reveal for the bbc

for the very first time the true

identity of bond's armorer

queue

my name is audroid jeffrey boltroyd

certain inaccuracies in the book made me

write to fleming and say that

i didn't think bond was going to last

very long if he used a 2-5 beretta

pistol which is a ladies gun i'm not a

very nice lady at that

well this is the gun boothroyd objected

to bond's favorite beretta bond was

using the shoulder holster at the time

but his favorite holster was uh shammy

leather because you see it didn't spoil

the line of the jacket

i take you over now to a film clip you

see here where major boothroad is

convincing 07

in the company of m

um of fleming's mistake so now on you

carry a different gun show you mama

valtter ppk 7.65 mill with a delivery

like a brick through a plate glass

window

takes a brush silencer with very little

reduction in muzzle velocity the

american cia swear by them thank you

major brother

[Music]

having exposed queue's real identity the

bbc sought to uncover the model for bond

himself but his creator proved evasive

people do connect me with james bond

because i happen to like some of the

things that james bond does but he's the

sort of mixture of commandos and secret

service agents that i met during war

but of course entirely fictionalized so

i certainly haven't got his guts now his

uh very lively appetite

however his close friend and neighbor in

jamaica was far less guarded

i think the james bond

was ian's dream fantasy of what

he would like to be you know

ruthless and dashing and

it's got

as ian had a schoolboy quality

and further revelations came from a

certain flirtatious secretary

the first meeting with ian was

at a reception after we'd finished from

russia with love

and suddenly he said money penny i want

to thank you because when i first wrote

about uh miss moneypenny i described her

as a tall elegant woman

with the most kissable lips in the world

and he said you are so perfect and he

was coming closer and closer to me much

to my delight

and when he was about this far away

i said

what do you want me to say prunes or

cheese and he said

prunes and just as he was about to kiss

me his wife said oh ian

bedford wants to speak to you

[Music]

money penny may have been smitten but

there were those who did not warm to

fleming at all as bbc viewers found out

when malcolm muggeridge quizzed a former

mi6 agent turned spy novelist

i'm not sure that bond is a spy seems to

me that he's more some kind of

international gangster with as i said a

license to kill

he's a man with unlimited movement but

he's a man entirely out of the political

context it's of no interest to bond who

for instance is president of the united

states

but these highfalutin intellectuals had

failed to notice

that it was actually the president

himself who had brought bond to the

world's attention

in an article for life magazine in march

1961

john f kennedy had included from russia

with love in a list of his 10 favorite

books and this was just the break that

two movie moguls needed

american cubby broccoli and canadian

harry saltzman

had already bought the options on

fleming's novels

and with paperback sales rocketing after

kennedy's endorsement they flew to new

york to secure the deal with united

artists that would put james bond on

screen

normally the question from the

distributor is who is going to play in

it cary grant or

or james mason or someone and when you

surprise him by telling him you don't

want uh a known name and then you want

an unknown he's further confused and

it's a little more difficult to get the

financing

but under pressure to cast a leading man

the producers stood their ground for a

little-known scottish actor called sean

connery who they believed best displayed

the degree of masculine virility that

bond demanded

cubby and i went through i would say 200

actors

i like the way he moved

and the fact that he had a lot of acting

experience

but he moves extremely well there's only

one other actor who's about to see this

albert finish

he moves like cats

very delicious we're a big man to be

light on his feet most unusual

however fleming remained equivocal

thinking connery to be an over-developed

stuntman without the social graces to

play his hero

but his opinion was swayed when female

friends of his pronounced connery as

most definitely having it i met fleming

two three times and uh

we were

going on very very well i liked him

enormously he had such curiosity and his

knowledge was

oh

so wide terrible snob but terrific

companion

um but i think in the main he wanted

somebody unknown

uh

so

that they would not overshadow the

character of james bond

to the british public james bond

perfectly caught the mood of the times

and brought a sense of reassurance to a

country in the grip of cold war spy

mania

if there was a third man were you in

fact the third man no i was not

well

he's uh a free agent as i said at the

present time to go as he pleases

dr no released on the same day as the

beatles first single introduced a new

emblem for a modern britain

and when bond's silhouette or rather

that of stuntman bob simmons

came sauntering across cinema screens

audiences broke into spontaneous

applause

it was with goldfinger the third film in

the series that the producers served up

their winning cocktail and the pre-title

sequence is a stimulating aperitif of

its own with all the bond ingredients

beginning with a typically witty gadget

the sequence combined sleek interior

sets

stylish posturing

[Music]

flagrant seduction of a dispensable fam

fertile

all culminating in a perfectly delivered

throwaway line positively shocking

and a door slam to cue a knockout song

[Music]

[Music]

as both an establishment figure and icon

of pop culture james bond was an easy

target during what was the satire boom

of the early

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

doesn't think much of you 1960s a start

i mean she says you've got a cold finger

gold finger

[Music]

how she ever found that out i don't know

but that's herpes

casino royale and diamonds are forever

from russia with sex

fish

[Music]

for your thighs only doctor in the know

carry on spy moon finger and mutt

breaker

[Music]

oh well there goes cuba there's such a

lot of bond to see isn't there is there

no end we're proud to present tonight

bye bye bondi the latest indeed one

might almost say the last episode in 007

it was a black letter day of a bond he

received someone and lost no time

against the office of m his chief when

bond entered m was inscrutable as always

david frost's co-host double m melissa

martin would spoof bond on her own show

and her choice of guest star would prove

prophetically

perhaps this year would like to take

drinks on salvation

yes

that's quite a nice little casino

it was almost as if he was auditioning

for the part a decade early

a nice secluded corner over there mr

bomb

yes well i uh am on holiday

thank you yes mr smith

[Music]

oh oh yes and i'm 07 as if you didn't

know

james bond what are you doing at my

hotel and what may i ask is sonya

slickova russia's master

[Music]

by 1965 nothing it seemed could match

bond

not even the beatles

the soundtrack to goldfinger outsold the

mop tops

and during the filming of thunderball in

the bahamas

bond mania reached new heights or rather

further depths

[Music]

a press release given to the bbc on

location

described the hysteria around connery

when a group of american students swam

out to his filming boat

speak to us one of them called to him

you are our leader and we are your

people

the globetrotting spy was now a

trend-setting brand whose personality

and paraphernalia saturated public life

[Music]

the bond films set a complete style and

had a tremendous influence on design and

throughout the whole range of the visual

arts did it come as a surprise to that

in fact um the population took up many

of the sort of bond images and carried

them we never expected that tremendous

success but after the first we saw there

was a market the second we very

carefully accentuated the

successful parts

[Music]

bond's iconic car from goldfinger the

aston martin db5

proved a gift for merchandisers

and corgi's miniature version would go

on to sell in its millions

whoops hello there now this is the star

of the show i think because this is the

model of the car that was made for james

bond in goldfinch you press that knob

there

out come the two overriders and the

machine guns now you've got somebody

sitting next to you in the car and you

don't like him just watch the roof wait

how she comes there goes odd job

now every child could have their very

own bond gadget

or if you have the clout you could just

pop along to the factory and pick up a

scale model for your son

[Music]

but some bbc pundits were worried that

bond as a commodity was just a smoke

screen for a character with very little

depth

there's no mystery about james bond it's

too easy you see with all this

imitation equipment that the man himself

is nothing but you respect mr conrad

personally i have never been uh

able to collapse into the arms of mr

bond i see a a sort of uh new hero

emerging now and the new one on the way

is the

transvestite like

[Laughter]

a damning rule would make a

[Laughter]

[Music]

as production began on the next bond

bonanza and amidst rumors that connery

was getting itchy feet in the role the

bbc undertook a more probing

investigation into the current state of

double 07 and for such a special

assignment they sent in their top man

japan pinewood style and the first day's

shooting on the fifth film in the

cinema's most spectacular saga they're

spending three million pounds on you

only live twice but it'll probably earn

ten times that around the world

to write the script which involved an

entirely different plot to the book the

producers had drafted in an old charm of

ian flemings but for the author of

charlie and the chocolate factory

writing a bond film would be a very

different

confection did you have a certain number

of things that you had to do for example

bomb normally goes through women in the

film doesn't he know what you mean by

going through them well he disposes of

them they get killed they sacrifice

themselves you know are you yes um

there's there's no question that you

must you must stick to that sort of

formula

i think because i asked that that uh

when i went in first

uh

they said oh yes

uh

i said he wants a woman doesn't need to

chase around and fall in love with

and uh they said well three would be

better

wicker was on hand to watch the

pre-title sequence being shot better huh

no i'm just different

like king duck is different from catcher

a clever tease in which dahl flips bonds

weakness for women into his undoing

darling i give you very best duck well

that'd be lovely

we've had some interesting times

together ling

i'd be sorry to go

[Music]

so james bond's been shot where it hurts

most in bed

as wicker slipped deeper under the

covers test three take one you are a

slippery customer aren't you

he turned his beady eye onto a bevy of

girls submitting themselves to the

casting session

bonds birds seldom last more than 10

minutes before something frightful

happens to them but during their brief

passionate posturing they brave piranhas

and death rays for the pleasure of

sharing his bedroom and his vodka

martinis

what's a nice girl like you doing in a

place like this

you're a handsome looking root

[Music]

eager to surrender their cinematic all

they're screen tested they're still not

exposed to the real james bond they have

to make love to his substitute

and to better understand the bond girl

vetting process wicker sounded out the

film's director louis gilbert

well you know there's a sort of classic

tradition of bond girls but uh this one

is a german or swedish girl yeah but uh

obviously she must be pretty glamorous

but we are trying to do something

different for the bongo this time we'd

like to try and find somebody who can

act so what's a nice girl like you're

doing in a place like this

[Music]

is it a bit too disfiguring when she

goes very hard in

yeah yeah

just let him have his main speed

butters wicker found out when he

followed the production to japan

wherever in the world bond went there

was an expectation to conform to his

values

the armored pearl diving girls went on

strike frightened of overexposure

they're actually starlets and models

there's even a lift girl from the tokyo

hilton but east is east and none of

these big city pearl divers wanted to be

photographed in a bikini they resisted

the american public relations man who

was after some japanese cheesecake mike

let me explain what i'm impressed i i

understand i don't understand what i

want to get all of them lined up right

in modern bathing costumes right and

they don't want to take them off

yes no they don't want them i don't care

what they want yeah i know what's the

trouble guppy what what doesn't happen

oh uh it's not really serious there's

that we have uh

we have uh eight armor girls or girls

who are supposed to be on the girls

they're japanese types

and uh the production department is

having a difficult time getting them to

remove their not their brazilians or

anything just their outer garment

they feel that they're they uh you know

they're not accustomed to walking around

in bikinis

not until broccoli got there they

weren't

but there was further trouble in

paradise and wicker's cameras were there

to capture the bondwagon slowly coming

off the rails now he's an actor he's

here to do a job he's not just a

publicity

uh idol

for that

now he's here and he has not been given

the privilege

and respect of japan for a certain

amount of privacy

[Music]

connery felt he was no longer a human

being but a public institution

and not so much an actor as a commodity

with fears of becoming typecast of being

overshadowed by gadgets and a gargantuan

man-made volcano

connery thought it was time to hang up

his holster i'm very tired because i've

been

take a long uphill grind i'm

i've had

a long sort of images of one and a very

intense innings and i want to

change direction now take another breath

and do something

else so this is your last bond film yes

with sean connery's departure the bond

franchise faced its first crisis

connery had owned the part completely

and a replacement seemed unthinkable

although cubby broccoli remained

optimistic

[Music]

this won't stop us from making another

bond because an audience out there want

to see it we present what we have for

the approval you'd have a headache

breaking in a new bond actually wouldn't

you after five

everything is a headache

in early 1968 the hunt was on for an

actor to fill connery's shoes

when a 29 year old australian model and

used car salesman called george lazenby

suddenly swaggered into broccoli and

saltsman's office

i was standing there in a conery suit a

countering haircut rolex watch crossed

arms saying i heard you're looking for

james bond

broccoli had deep reservations about

hiring a clothespeg as he referred to

lazenby

so over four months they tested him

against the rest of the cast until

finally harry saltzman said he wanted to

see lazenby in a fight scene

they got this big russian guy well i

knocked him on his butt because i didn't

know how to miss and i said oh my god

when this guy gets up he's going to kill

me he's a real russian wrestler you know

but he was okay and harry stepped over

him and says we're going with you

[Music]

aside from the small matter of finding a

new bond on her majesty's secret service

would see him get hitched and in

choosing an actress of diana rigg's

caliber the producers hoped to increase

the power of the film's romantic scenes

the bbc caught up with rig on location

in portugal to ask her what she felt the

issues were for women in bond's world

from the woman's point of view mainly

the fact that the women are victims

and um in our society at the moment

women are being very busy trying to

prove that they aren't victims but

inflaming definitely definitely puts

them in sort of subsidiary position and

bond uses them they are vessels either

for his lust

or to uh

uh get to the big bad boss or something

you know they're they're cyphers they're

not real people

alongside rigg these ciphers come in the

form of a deadly harem under the control

of the arch villain blowfelt but in this

story fleming at last allows bond to

fall in love

in a sense it's a game but also it's

quite quite a clever trick because the

man who heretofore has been absolutely

unobtainable

suddenly

decides

through love or whatever to to marry

this girl

and um and and he subscribes

but ian fleming only allows him to

subscribe for an hour after his wedding

and then i i get a bullet through one

ear

and out the other

it's gloved

it's blow though

you know it's quite quite a good trick

because it means that he has all the

right

um uh motives

deep down underneath in other words he

is prepared to get married if he loves

the girl but then by some terrible trick

of fate she's taken away from him and

he's suddenly available for all those

females again

slightly embittered you know

but becoming bond was to leave lazenby

embittered too

reports had circulated that he was

awkward and arrogant on set overwhelmed

by the responsibility of the role

the critics rather brutally pounded him

with such comments as his lines carry

about as much conviction as an

insecticide salesman at a fleet circus

but in spite of the critics mr lazenby

appears to know his own mind and has

maintained a stubborn sense of

individuality he grew a beard for

instance and refused to shave it off for

the film premiere

and i said well anyone anyone can

understand that james bond isn't a real

person

and then i don't mind the fact that i i

haven't had a shave for a month

everyone knows that james bond must have

a beard even though you never see it in

the film what about the reports that you

were deliberately awkward and hostile

yeah well they were true in a way

because

i was very uptight lots of lots of the

times because i didn't understand

exactly what was going on

and the only person you could ask

the only person who knew what was going

on was the director and he didn't really

feel that

an actor was important in the role he

felt that you could get any guy i'd put

him in that part and make him james bond

providing he looked similar to

what the public feel james bond looks

like

and and this came that vibration came

off the director onto me all the time

lazenby had begun to feel that bond

wasn't quite as far out as he could be

in 1969 this was now the era of peace

not war he thought

well how about the director did he agree

with your idea of one

well no they they had a set formula

which was a winner uh previous and you

can't blame them for not agreeing with

me because i was a learner i i felt

quite confident that if they did change

it you know like putting pop music

behind it and uh

rather than

uh

the sort of light music they have

and uh things like that would have

lifted the whole thing up again into an

another

decayed 1970.

lazenby feeling that bond had no place

in the emerging counter-culture kept the

beard and hit the road

with lazenby gone a plan was hatched to

lure back sean connery who was only too

aware of the strong bargaining position

he now found himself in as he candidly

let slip to the bbc

having been away for four years i think

one had made the point too with the lack

of success of the one previous one that

i wasn't in anywhere

and

coming back in to do this one

uh

the wicket was better

for me

to make the conditions

of not being so much a pawn in the

circumstances

also i didn't think i got a fair piece

of the cake

you mean financially yes

connery had been tempted back not only

with the promise of a tremendous fee

but also by the quality of the script

drafted by a young american screenwriter

called tom mankowitz

i hope that uh guy hamilton the director

and myself and

with the assistance of tom mankovic

who's written the screenplay

relationship incidentally i think is

probably the best one they've had

certainly

construction-wise for a beginning and

middle and end of the story it's very

good it's a very good script

i hope it's

got enough

i think that there's

the humor in it and for this moment in a

las vegas casino connery and mankowitz

shared the writing honours

hi i'm plenty

but of course you are plenty of tool

named after your father perhaps would

you like some help

on the craps i mean

it's very kind of you

the camp and breezy tone of diamonds are

forever with its liberal use of smutty

humor was a new throw of the dice for

the bond franchise

to see if this gamble was paying off the

bbc dispatched one of its top

entertainers to sin city

derek nimmo arrived just as connery was

shooting his first scenes

[Applause]

a frenetic car chase on the downtown

strip

involving real pedestrians and you

couldn't get much closer to the action

than nemo did

as he almost found out to his peril

what the hell are you doing

sure

how are you doing here

derrick nimmo i'm terribly sorry

why are you driving on the pavement i'm

making diamonds up for evan

it's a film well

oh i see you're not in trouble then

matter of fact i rather am in trouble

which i was here for the gambling and

i've

i've won quite a lot really but i'm down

now it's about seventeen hundred dollars

they quite know what to do right well if

i were you i'd get the hell out of it

connery's swift exit after diamonds are

forever would cause the producers to

begin their hunt for what would be the

third different bond in less than four

years

but many including connery were feeling

the series may have run its course

i i came back for the one that was the

understanding and i do the one and

i've got other

things i want to do i mean it's

perfectly possible that the cycle has

ended

but far from ending the cycle it was

mankowitz's sparkling one-liners and

connery's tongue-in-cheek approach that

would set the tone for the coming films

sean connery was the first screen bond

but now that he no longer plays the role

united artists have laid him to rest

sean who they say no no there's only one

james bond and that's roger moore who of

course just happens to be the latest

lowering his gun and raising his eyebrow

roger moore seemed to continue from

where he'd left off on the militant

martin show back in 1964. black queen on

the red king

miss

solitaire

my name's bob

james

i know who you are

what you are and why you will come

you have made a mistake

you will not succeed

did solitaire know something we didn't

[Music]

more determined to play the role for

loves

but there were concerns as to whether he

could really cut it as james bond

when you took over from sean connery uh

because it was new and because it was

different people all said oh well roger

moore is not my idea of

double a7

and he's not like sean connery and it's

all great failure i mean do you mind

that kind of hammering

uh

no not really because i say it before

they do

i think the first time they went to see

uh live and let die

was just to see if i was going to be as

bad as they thought i would be

[Music]

with the uncertainty of a new bond the

producers had felt panicked into chasing

current cinema trends

but james bond sat uncomfortably in both

a blaxploitation media and a kung fu

craze stand back girls

[Music]

in 1975 harry swordsman beset by

financial difficulties was forced to

sell his share in the bond franchise to

united artists

the breakup of his winning partnership

with cubby broccoli together with the

lukewarm reception for the man with the

golden gun couldn't have come at a worse

time

by the mid 1970s film production in

britain was in harsh decline but

undeterred broccoli resolved to go for

broke with his next venture the spy who

loved me determined that bond would keep

the british end up

[Music]

obviously we do make the picture for

worldwide market and i think that's the

hope of the british industry we feel we

have to do something more outrageous

more bizarre

and

more unique

for broccoli and the bond franchise this

would be a very symbolic leap of faith

the film's audacious opening stunt was

filmed from multiple angles but they

went with a single shot and the whole

world held its breath

[Music]

such was the confidence in the spy who

loved me and the feeling that it might

just prove the saviour of the british

film industry

that the bbc in collaboration with the

open university secured unique access to

the film's production as the basis for a

course on promisingly entitled mass

communications and society

my name is bond

james bond

the resulting eight-part series examined

all aspects of bondiana

from giving bond a new soundtrack for

the 1970s

i was very anxious to write a song that

i thought was

completely different than any of the

songs i'd ever written for the blonde

films

and i also didn't want them to quite be

about the villain i wanted a song

written about bond i thought it was time

that he'd be

pretentious enough and vain enough in

fact to have a song written about

him the usual pressures of being a bond

girl

the one thing that sometimes i don't

particularly like

is

the

let's say the

the sex symbol part of it as most of the

bond girls have been because that is not

at all

my scene and camera's eavesdropped as

set designer ken adam explained his

concept for the film's centerpiece to

director lewis gilbert my feeling is as

the submarine goes in into darkness yeah

into darkness and you know with the high

fin and the hunting power i think

that'll give you a very good because i

discussed with claude yesterday actually

that i thought the best way of showing

the set was to suddenly switch on all

the lights yeah

the 380 foot long set is a life-size

mock-up of the interior of a 600 000 ton

super tanker containing three submarines

floating in 1.2 million gallons of water

as if that wasn't enough to keep the 400

guests wondering girls from the cast

stripped off their minks in sub-zero

temperatures all in the name of

publicity

the film is costing over six million

pounds and this set alone one million

appropriately double 07 himself arrived

in futuristic

style and then with his adversary a

female russian super spy accompanied the

ex-prime minister around the world's

largest film stage

believing they had a hit on their hands

united artists spent a record 4.4

million dollars on worldwide publicity

and who better to front it than the man

himself

[Music]

my name's bond james bond and i'm

licensed to kill

there's a royal premier tonight it's the

latest bond the spy who loved me it has

women action and me

so have you tonight on nationwide at 6

20

i'm roger moore so watch the spy who

loved me and you'll love james bond

it still works on the third take

roger you do spoof the part of it don't

you you think it's funny in a way

well of

course the whole thing is that you must

not

laugh at it you must let the audience

know that they're invited to laugh with

you

and so it's it's all a spoof it's fun

the film's most topical gag came in the

form of its larger-than-life villain

jaws

von's most formidable foe since odd job

this marvelous man

who plays jaws he's seven foot two when

he was grappling with you in the in the

railway carriage what was it like was he

is he was

he he is a very gentle man and very nice

but he's very heavy

when he had me squashed up against that

wall there were like 20 stone pushing

this bone here right through to the back

yes

bond's highly choreographed

confrontations with jaws were a large

part of the film's phenomenal success

[Music]

[Music]

and so popular was this mighty mouthed

adversary that when the production

jetted off to rio de janeiro for the

next movie they did the unthinkable

we've done something in this film that's

never been done in any bomb film we've

had to um bring him back and really

that's partly because so many people

around the world vote in saying is he

going to come back you know and that's

so we had to bow to that kind of thing

he should stop all together at one point

and be suspended and be looking ahead

where you you know the other cable car

card over there

from high jinks over rio to laser

battles in outer space

moonraker was quite simply out of this

world

but james bond would come hurtling back

to earth for an unusually close

encounter

it is being said at the moment that

another rival james bond film is going

to be set up with your own original

james bond sean connery playing the part

does that worry you at all

well that's uh that's a legal thing it's

i'm not going to get into any legal uh

discussions about it

but would it worry you if if such a film

works nothing worries me if i'm making a

good film

broccoli may have brushed off the

question but barry norman was on to

something and by the summer of 1983

look who was back

connery was in production on the aptly

titled never say never again

a remake of thunderball the film rights

of which resided with an independent

producer it seemed a bit quite a good

idea after all these years and the

moment i said yeah okay i'll do it there

was a terrific for all

with roger moore then in production on

octopussy the press looked to stoke up a

bitter rivalry

but the double o's were having none of

it

i um made it

quite clear at the outset that i was not

in any way going to get involved in any

silly race in terms of rivalry or

whatever as you well know i've known

roger 20 years or so and i did say to

him you know they're going to try and

play a sort of

hype business but you shouldn't really

pay any attention to it and um we didn't

however the bbc hardly remained

impartial themselves

good evening from the warner theatre in

leicester square where the crowds are

already beginning to gather because

james bond is back the real james bond

at least the real one in many people's

eyes not roger moore the pretender who

has usurped the role for the last 12

years but the original sean connery

welcome back james as it were i must put

it to you this is rather unfair but i

was looking up the double o uh

rule book and it turns out that it's

automatic retirement at 45. did you know

that yeah well i've got two years yet

by the mid-1980s james bond had become

something of a middle-aged man's fantasy

do you hear the muttering do you listen

out for what people are saying about the

movie or about you specifically oh it's

old more again they say

oh raj

roger moore seemed to be a long way from

leaping over crocodiles approaching 60

he now jogged about in a suede blue zone

what was it you were just running away

from then

a bad cigar

38 and in rather less exotic locations

we're in the amberly chalk pits museum

in sussex it's a gold mine

uh presumably in san francisco or near

san francisco

and uh

the mines are about to be blown up

to flood silicon valley because zarin

christopher waltham

is going to take over the world

production of microchips

but when the action itself involves the

chief villain a peroxide walken escaping

at five miles per hour in a mine cart

a damsel in little distress

and a blow up grace jones

the writing seemed to be on the wall

a view to a kill was to be roger moore's

farewell to the character he had

inhabited since 1973.

having led the field bond was now in

danger of being eclipsed by a new breed

of imitator the all-american action hero

but you can't keep a good man down

a new man is about to take on the

villains who want to cause mischief

around the world we have a new james

bond after connory lazenby and more now

it's dalton timothy dalton a welsh actor

who's more used to playing shakespeare

than secret agent

[Music]

and it was to be a stagey entrance

in the pre-title for the living

daylights not one but three double-o

agents are presented to us in a training

exercise on the rock of gibraltar

but it's only when one of them falls to

his death that we first catch sight of a

new hard-edged james bond

both brooding

and byronic

and inevitably the comparison game began

well now how will the new james bond

differ from his various predecessors

i don't make those comparisons

i have a

script called the living daylights a

character called james bond and

i do my best to make it as well as i can

i don't i can't think of uh

copying or being different to i'm trying

to be original i stood at the books and

tried to bring that bond into

this film

how much of the stunt work does timothy

dalton do himself

this is the sort of question

that you should not be asking cinema is

magic

when people pay their money and don't

sit inside a cinema they must believe

and programs like this i mean uh betray

all our tricks you wouldn't expect a

conjurer or a magician to give his

tricks away now the truth of the matter

is that i do as much action as i can

that is until it came to the bedroom

action which would see dalton's bond

forego the usual casual liaisons for a

hitchcockian love story

take me on the wheel

i think this film it's not just an

action adventure film it's the first

time you've seen what could be called a

romantic

mystery thriller

there's an honest and good relationship

with the leading lady

however the press were keen to make

bonds monogamy more topical than the

producers had perhaps intended with

headlines that this was a safe sex bond

for the aids era

but a more likely explanation is that it

was all part of dalton's aim to return

to ian fleming's bond who was far from

being the kind of casanova that everyone

imagined

he has one girl per book approximately

and and that's one a year i think that's

he's a bachelor

and he moves around the world pretty

rapidly and

i didn't see any great harm in that

myself

fleming's bond was

a man who

often was extremely vulnerable you read

passage after passage after passage

throughout the books where

his insides were taught and wrenching

with nerves

where you don't have to have a drink or

a pill just to stay calm in order to do

the job he had to do

coming hard on the heels of roger

moore's long and light-hearted reign the

world was not quite ready for dalton's

tort and unsmiling secret agent

his second outing licence to kill still

rated the most violent bond film to date

would be his last

and by the early 1990s the franchise was

in jeopardy plagued by a series of legal

disputes over copyright

this was a time of dramatic political

shifts in europe and 007 the

quintessential cold war hero suddenly

seemed obsolete

[Music]

it was to be the longest hiatus in

bond's film history

but in 1994 he was back

pierce brosnan the new bond unveiled a

few minutes ago made his name as an

action man in the ustv series remington

steel now he has to prove the bond

formula and the character can still work

in the 90s

it was a shaky start though as shown

when the bbc caught brosnan off guard

well now i'm joined from central london

by the new double 07 pierce brosnan

pierce brosnan congratulations are you

going to be bringing anything new to

this role

uh myself i'm new

um yes but what's going to be different

well i think we we have a

with the story outline we've got now we

have

he hadn't a clue but by the time cameras

caught up with him on location he was

the model bond

the main task at hand is really getting

this film

and telling the story

and we are doing that we have a

wonderful director martin campbell

who's very hungry for this and likewise

myself and wanted to get it right

for a new bond and a new director it was

a daunting task

now what we're filming today is uh the

streets of saint petersburg we've built

the set here at leighton as you can see

of an 18-week shoot i've got four units

at any one time

right you can hear them all yelling and

screaming around the corner probably

want me to get around there on the day

we turned up on set brosnan was

concerned that we weren't seeing bond in

quite the right light

i'm going to be doing action tomorrow

i i will be

more bond tomorrow i promise you barry

i'm sorry bit boring today and it's

[Music]

the next day he swapped his russian

runaround for something a bit bigger in

a scene that took six weeks to film

[Music]

[Music]

as well as witty action scenes director

martin campbell together with his

screenwriters set about bringing back

the familiar such as bond's old aston

martin db5

[Music]

but there was nothing predictable about

their recasting of m

and in handing her the line that had

been coming to bond for more than 30

years

i think you're a sexist misogynist

dinosaur a relic of the cold war

whose boyish charms they wasted on me

obviously appeal to that young woman i

sent out to evaluate you

point taken

stellar rimington the director general

of mi5 at the time was convinced that

they had merged fact and fiction in

casting judi dench

i can't imagine that had my appointment

not been publicly announced the

producers of the james bond film would

ever have thought of making em a woman i

was quite taken aback actually because

she did look quite like i looked in

those days i had a jacket without a

collar and a sort of three quarter

length which is exactly what she was

wearing

[Music]

[Applause]

but despite their similarities the true

inspiration for a female m was revealed

on pebble mill by no less than the

former miss money penny herself

cubby broccoli called me to say that

they wouldn't be using me and i said

well that's all right because i want to

play m

so all those years ago i had given them

the idea that there would be a

tremendous element of surprise if the

new bond walked into m's office

the chair swiveled around

and there was money penny and she never

called him james again because she was

the boss did i see the other day that

the judy dench has been cast in that yes

and i feel rather betrayed actually yes

so because it should have been me and

even if i mean she's a lovely actress

but it just should have been me

across four films pierce brosnan

successfully reinvigorated the franchise

and turned bond once again into a major

box office attraction

but with 2002's die another day they

stretched believability beyond the limit

james bond was now at the mercy of cgi

be it an invisible car or even kite

surfing a tsunami

[Music]

the last seven years have gone very

quickly you you know there's a certain

obviously maturity and just as you're

getting the hang of it they're talking

about someone else coming along

show business it's always been like this

i remember when connery stepped down it

was like who's going to be the next guy

so it's the big circus and the family

the broccoli family have always done it

really well sure enough two years later

with talk of his fifth bond film brosnan

learned that he would no longer be the

main attraction

the circus was moving on and its ring

masters were now scouting for a new and

younger man to top the bill

[Music]

we have decided after the last film to

go back to more realistic bond so to go

back to basics

go back to the classic bond and

and we hope that that's something the

audience will appreciate i think people

are looking for something a little less

frivolous today

the world's changed a lot

and bond always changes with the world

but the world was in for a shock

finally the name's craig daniel craig

after months of speculation the coveted

job of being the next double 07 has been

landed by the 37 year old english actor

but after four decades of tall dark and

handsome are we ready for the first

blonde bond i want to make the best film

we can the most entertaining film we can

and it's not a question of redefining

but it's a question of taking it

somewhere maybe where it's never gone

before

craig had noble intentions but for the

man with the golden hair the backlash

would be vindictive

websites were set up saying he was too

ugly too scrawny too blond but any

doubts the world had disappeared within

minutes of casino royale's first major

action set piece

and jonathan ross was on hand to talk to

the principal players on location in the

bahamas

how's it working out with the crazy

frenchman you've got this frenchman who

jumps off buildings for fun i believe

yeah he's got a quite a big part at the

beginning of the movie he's i think the

world's best free runner so we're

including him in the action sequence

right at the beginning of the uh at the

movie and it's tough it's a very tough

sequence

so i have to climb on the platform

and after i climb under the girder

on on the top and on top i have to jump

to the crane and to the crane i have a

fight with bomb

you know we're not relying on a lot of

cgi for this i will be doing stuff and

some of it will be me and some of it

won't be me for obvious reasons but can

i stop you are you going to be doing the

free running because i know there's that

character earlier some of it yeah how's

that

good terrifying no it's it's yeah you

know what i've had to sort of knuckle

down and get over a few things i'm kind

of approaching every day as it comes

really and i get on set and i'm suddenly

200 feet up in the air and i go okay

well

you signed up

as well as being truthful to the action

scenes craig was keen to be faithful to

the spirit of the book and to show the

raw vulnerability of 007

he's not infallible i just wanted to

sort of see him make a few mistakes

because then i think the drama of it is

sort of better when he gets it right i

want to make the audience sort of go oh

my god it's all going to go wrong

believe that it's going to go wrong and

then when it goes right it's much more

exciting

and it's his tangled relationship with

the enigmatic vesper lind

that causes bond to bear his soul

my character is not like a classic bond

girl she's more like a character from

the 40s movies you know quite dark very

complex many layers

you know she's an equal match to bond

she's you know very mysterious and the

relationship that they have is very

unusual and it's a love story

it's like there's blood on my hands

this was a romance not seen since the

days of dalton and lazenby

but for all the new intensity in craig's

interpretation of the character

there was still one bond convention that

was inescapable

have you said the line yeah do you have

was it okay

yeah how many takes we did a few we did

a few and it wasn't much of that we were

outside there was a lot of wind um that

must have been quite nice anyway though

it was nice to get it out of the way

yeah um i was i didn't think about it i

didn't think about it until the moment

and we did it

you know is it a very key moment in the

movie as well which is

hopefully gonna you know it's gonna hit

home

the name's bond

james bond

[Music]

the resounding success of daniel craig's

07 and of james bond as a british

cultural icon was celebrated in 2012 as

part of the london olympics opening

ceremony

but james i need you

so does

england in a sequence filmed in secret

the world's most famous spy

having given 50 years of dedicated

service to his country all the things i

do for england

with his own brand of unbending

patriotism what do i do to blow up the

room muscle god save the queen

and loyalty to his monarch

i'm having it patched directly to

buckingham palace well i'm sure her

majesty will be fascinated

james bond was finally granted an

audience with the queen

[Music]

reckon you've got what it takes to be

the next bond take the test online with

bbc i wonder now

here on bbc4 though what's it like to be

the girl in the band kate mossman finds

out next

[Music]

you've been together