Entertainment Weekly’s Best & Worst Bond Girls

Riding the wave of Bond news, EW has put together a list of its best and worst Bond girls. (But not in time to get the name of the new movie into the article.)

There’s plenty to agree and disagree with in their choices. Way too much hate on Octopussy, in my opinion, and while I agree with them about Tiffany Case, most fans’ heads will explode at the thought of her on a “Best” list.

I’m sure that they did this same list when Eva Green was cast, but now I can’t find any record of blogging it. Anyway, it’s always fun to look at someone else’s list.

Favorite Film Weapons

The Press Association reports on a survey of 2,000 film fans on their favorite movie weapons. Coming in #1 was the Star Wars light saber.

Bond weapons made the list twice: Odd Job’s bowler hat and Scaramanga’s golden gun were #10 and #6. The idiot Press Association reported both of those weapons as belonging to Bond, but we know better.

Top 20 Gadgets

Here’s a blogger with a top 20 gadgets list. It’s a fun list. My personal favorites, the car remote control from TND and the lockpick credit card from TWINE, come in at #7 and 17, respectively.

The Emergence from the Sea

Andy York of Matchflick has written a column on the Top Ten Entrances in Movie History. Honey Ryder arising from the sea makes #5.

It’s a fabulous moment, iconic, startling, memorable. One of half a dozen stirring, stunning impressions that even people who are pretty much unfamiliar with the world of Bond recognize. She is a goddess, she is beauty personified, she is striking, strong, athletic, independent, and oh, I dunno…perfect.

Today’s IMDb poll asks members to pick their favorite among York’s top ten. So far, Honey is placing fifth, so run over there and give her your vote!

My top six Bond films

At first, I was going to post the whole list, but then I thought, this might generate a lot of discussion, and a few at a time seems better.

I’m doing a top six because Casino Royale upset the top five I had settled on and gotten happy with, and I sort of agonized over that.

Anyway, here it is:

1. From Russia with Love
2. GoldenEye
3. The Spy Who Loved Me
4. Casino Royale (2006)
5. The Living Daylights
6. Diamonds Are Forever

I am pleased with a list of excellent films that represents the full range of actors and eras and sensibilities of the James Bond franchise. Five of the six actors, and two very different faces of Sean Connery. Hardcore spying is dominant in all of these movies, except Diamonds Are Forever, but even that film has a powerful thread of true espionage and horror mixed in with the humor. (I will defend DAF unto the death. Possibly it needs its own thread; we’ll see.)

Top Bond Films

From my surveys of a few hundred hardcore Bond fans, asking for a top five, the top ten vote-getters are:
1. Casino Royale (2006)
2. From Russia With Love
3. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
4. The Living Daylights
5. Goldfinger
6. For Your Eyes Only
7. Thunderball
8. Licence to Kill/Dr. No (tie)
10. The Spy Who Loved Me

From the IMDb’s survey of over 11,000 users, asking only for one favorite Bond film back in December of 2006, the top ten vote-getters were:

1. Casino Royale (2006)
2. Goldfinger
3. GoldenEye
4. From Russia With Love
5. Dr. No
6. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
7. The Spy Who Loved Me
8. Live and Let Die
9. You Only Live Twice
10. Thunderball

Casino Royale is a HUGE hit with the fans

I’m in the process of re-doing the statistical portions of the Ultimate James Bond Fan Book. I do several different sets of statistics.

First, and most labor-intensive, I tabulate as many “ranking” lists as I can find. That’s where fans rank all the Bond movies in order. I use this massive amount of data to develop a “master” ranking list. Such lists, though, are only produced by hardcore fans who are really obsessed with that kind of thing. It isn’t going to represent the general public.

So I also look to sources like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb and general media surveys (which I’ve pulled out of magazines, news reports, and the like) to get stats on movie ratings (how many “stars” or “thumbs” or whatever), and on people’s #1 Bond film, and on people’s top five.

Top five is interesting, because it shows movies that are consistently very popular but may not hit #1 that often. You can also get a lot more fans to tell you their top five than their full list, so it’s more “general public” and less “geeks (like me).” I assign five points for a #1 position, four points for #2, and so on.

So last night I finished tabulating the Top Five stuff, and Casino Royale got twice as many points as the next nearest contender. That’s like…unbelievable.

Now, I fully believe that’ll moderate a bit over time; newest movies get the strongest reaction. I don’t think, for example, that Die Another Day will stay as low in the rankings as it currently is; it’s that low because people were angry, not because it’s objectively worse than A View to a Kill. But Casino Royale won’t moderate much, and it’s really damn impressive.

Henchman Countdown: #1

(Excerpted from The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book.)

1. Jaws, The Spy Who Loved Me

Few villains have ever created such a stir. Jaws is a famous a bad guy as Darth Vader or Norman Bates.* And rightly so. The moment we first see Richard Kiel in the role, we can’t help but be intimidated by his looming presence…then he smiles.

Jaws had comedic qualities in The Spy Who Loved Me, but he wasn’t a clown. He has one of the best “jump scenes” in the franchise, scaring the bejezus out of Anya and the audience when he appeared in the train compartment closet. His vampiric killings and attempted killings were horrifying, so that his jokier side functioned as needed relief. Jaws has superhuman qualities, but no more so than Oddjob, who is also impossibly strong. He works in the Bond tradition as a nearly-unbeatable henchman who nonetheless fails to stop 007.

Jaws is one of the only three undefeated major henchmen; the others are Baron Samedi (Live and Let Die), who survived, and May Day (A View to a Kill), who changed sides. (Minor underlings and control room operators may have survived various adventures, and the minor character Professor Kutze survived Thunderball by switching sides.)

*Jaws was nominated for AFI’s 50 Greatest Villains list, but didn’t make the final cut. Both Bates and Vader were in the top 50, along with Goldfinger.

Henchman Countdown: #2

(Excerpted from The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book.)

2. Donald “Red” Grant, From Russia with Love

Without strange deformities, bizarre attributes, or superhuman qualities, Robert Shaw’s Red Grant holds the screen and freezes the blood. He is the coldest of cold-blooded killers, the angriest, and the most confident. Only Grant ever suggested that James Bond should kiss his foot.

People often talk about Scaramanga as Bond’s counterpart, but Grant is Bond’s shadow. He follows Bond, anticipating his moves, and killing on his behalf before their final showdown. The most committed assassin of all, Grant, in the novel From Russia With Love, had gone over to SMERSH because the British wouldn’t let him kill for his country, and all he wanted to do was kill. This is suggested in the movie when Morzeny refers to his psychological profile.

Henchmen Countdown: #3

(Excerpted from The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book)

3. Oddjob, Goldfinger

Oddjob was the first really weird henchman, the first to make us say, “What the…?” Like Jaws, he has a comical quality, but he is ultimately too deadly to laugh at. Harold Sakata’s gleeful devotion to Goldfinger and to killing are amazing—even Kisch thinks he’s crazy to evince such loyalty.

I think Oddjob is a major part of what made Goldfinger the phenomenon it was and is. Surely Auric Goldfinger is among the greatest of villains, but without his deadly sidekick, he would not be as strong or as memorable.