James Bond Music in the Grammy Hall of Fame

CommanderBond.net is reporting that three James Bond songs have been announced as inductees into the Grammy Hall of Fame. They are:

The James Bond Theme

Goldfinger

The Look of Love

This is a wonderful acknowledgement. The first two, in my opinion, are no-brainers. They are classics and absolutely iconic. The Bond Theme and Goldfinger have meaning beyond their song quality; they instantly create an image and atmosphere that cannot be mistaken.

The Look of Love is a less obvious choice, but it is endemic to its era; it feels exactly like the movie, very 1960s, very mod.

According to the Grammy organization,

The GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Award was established by The Recording Academy’s National Trustees in 1973 to honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance that are at least 25 years old. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of the recording arts.

Goldfinger at the Lafayette Theater

First of all, let’s hear it for the Lafayette! An old-fashioned (1924) theater with a big (46 foot) screen, one thousand seats, a balcony, and a live Wurlitzer player! That’s the environment in which to see classic films.

Second, the movie itself. I’m committed to grabbing every opportunity to see Bond on the big screen. Seeing it brought back memories of the first (and only other) time I saw it in a theater; in 1970! Despite having seen Goldfinger many times since then, many of the sensations I experienced as a child have not recurred from watching it on DVD or television broadcast. The chill of fear when the soldiers of Fort Knox fall, seemingly to their deaths, the terror and fascination of Odd Job, seemingly unbeatable, both human and superhuman, and the suave sex appeal of Sean Connery; all of these flooded back like sense memories.

Goldfinger in Suffern, New York

I got a question about timing for the local Bond showing.

Here’s what a mailing from the theater says:

Showtime for GOLDFINGER is Saturday, November 24 at 11:30 am – tickets are $6.00. Doors open at 11am, come early and hear pre-show music by Jeff Barker on the Lafayette Theatre’s Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ.

Local Bond Showing

My local revival theater, the Lafayette in Suffern, NY, will be showing Goldfinger on November 24. All showings are on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m.

I posted about this some time back but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it, and now I will. Yay!

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

James Bond as a genre

The Washington Post has an interesting interview up with Eric Lichtenfeld, the author of Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie. He is asked why he doesn’t cite Goldfinger as a turning point for the action movie in his book:

The Bond films (“Goldfinger” chief among them) have definitely been an influence on the action movie, just as the action movie has been an influence on the Bond films. I think you can look at the James Bond series as being its own genre; in fact, it’s probably the only franchise we could give this distinction to.
—
Still, I disagree that “Goldfinger” is the first action film. I start in 1971 because I believe that the movie that “started” the genre is “Dirty Harry.” The reason for this is that “Dirty Harry” was the first to combine the elements of other genres that make up the action movie, and became the archetype other action films responded to. (Of course, another ingredient of the action movie is heightened violence; “Bonnie and Clyde” set the stage for this in 1967.)
—
I think the influence of James Bond was felt later, especially as action movies came to feature bigger and more extreme stunts.

So Much Bond News

An interesting interview with Pierce Brosnan in the Daily Mirror:

You get complacent having a role like that – the luxury of doing one every 18 months. It focused my attention on what I want to do with my career and the choices I want to make. Now I’m out there in the field, what’s going to happen next?

Commander Bond has a couple of YouTubes up of Daniel Craig in Italy, and of a crucial action location, with spoiler information about an Italian action sequence in Bond 22.

MI6 News reports that Switzerland remains a possible location for Bond 22:

“As soon as we knew that Marc Forster grew up in Switzerland and would direct the next James Bond film, we had to offer our services”, said André Brice of the Swiss film commission (Film Location Switzerland). “Still nothing is definite, but the chances bode well”, he added.

And, most thrilling of all, my local revival theater, the Lafayette in Suffern, NY, will be showing Goldfinger on November 24 (also on the schedule, The Great Escape; One, Two, Three; Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing; Charade, and more). All showings are on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m.