Full circle

But is James Bond relevant today ? Not really. With TV and Cable and DVDs that can bring all kinds of entertainers into your bedroom, the "girls, gadgets and guns" formula of yore is like Sunday school stuff.

When Ursula Andress (also referred to as Undress) came out of the sea onto the beach oozing sex and oomph it was a new watermark in screen history. Bollywood and ad films copied the scene a hundred times. In the early 1960s sex was yet to be brought out of the cupboard.

Sleeping around, that is bedroom scenes too were few and far between but in the Bond films they went, or at least seemed to go, much further. But only in stages. The Bond image was one of a Casanova who was a good secret agent and an even better lover. Our own Censors too were over-vigilant and prudish and it was only in the 1980s that hey took a more lenient view to sex.

Today, in hindsight one may call them macho films because the women always played second fiddle to the men. It did not go down well with single liberated women who wanted to call the shots (no wonder there later came a film named Woman On Top.). Now the boot is on the other leg and it is women who make the passes and even pop the question.

Bond films also introduced some smashing sex sirens. Skimpily clad and showing cleft that would sink a ship in, it was clearly ahead of the normal run of films.

Honor Blackman, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Barbara Bach, Tanya Roberts, Lois Chiles and Claudine Auger come readily to mind and they stayed on to become medium stars but rarely attained top star status. They had odd names too. One of them was Pussy Galore, quite daring for those near "Victorian times."

There was always something new, like the parachute opening with the Union Jack on it and someone escaping from the plane. Then there was that car going on two wheels to fit into a narrow lane. Bond films took the lead in gimmickry too. Sleek cars with all kinds of gadgets, cigarette lighters, magic pens and their ilk. The 1960s and 1970s marked the height of the Cold War between the two major powers. But now with the demise of the Soviet Union the picture has changed completely.

Though they tried to give it a new look (old wine in new bottle) there was also a certain predictability about them. Like 007 always being called back from leave to take up a major assignment or being in bed with a woman when duty beckons.

And of the Bonds the original, Sean Connery was the best. Then came Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. The others Goerge Lazenby and Timothy Dalton were also-rans. Roger Moore made the most films, seven, followed by Sean Connery, six and Brosnan, four. Which means the newest Daniel Craig is the sixth and the first blonde. Decades ago it was the women who were blondes, remember Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The clock has surely turned full circle.

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