Your “We Should All Be This Contented” Thursday Evening Open Thread

Some follow-on thoughts about Balls’ 1960s James Bond post from yesterday. I was quite the Bond enthusiast during my youth, and yesterday’s post got me to thinking about how influential the films were to young VLTR.

I don’t think I saw Dr. No when it came out, but I would have been three years old when it came out and maybe just don’t remember. I think when I finally saw it on VHS 20 years later, I was triggered by a couple of the scenes, like the three blind guys and Bond pulling the sea urchin spines out of Ursula’s foot, so I might have actually seen it in the theater. My old man was a big Bond fan, had all the Fleming paperbacks, so I guess it is possible he took me along to see Dr. No at the theater. He would not remember at this point.

I can remember my parents taking me to see From Russia With Love at the base theater at McClellan AFB in Sacramento, I must have been five or so. Some of the things that stuck with me were “Bond” getting killed by Robert Shaw at the beginning, the train fight of course, the helicopter and boat chase scenes, and Rosa Kleb’s pointy shoe knife. Really dug it even though I probably thought there was too much mushy smoochy stuff (I was five, for Chrissakes). Related, I lived at a small NATO intelligence gathering station about 90 miles southeast of Istanbul from 1970-73, my dad was the operations office for one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FLR-9 at a place called Karamursel. Being in middle school, we got to take field trips into Istanbul and I visited the Basilica Cistern on several occasions, where this scene was filmed. I didn’t care so much about the history of the cistern, I was just thrilled to be in a place where a Bond film was shot. Our field trip guide, the host nation teacher Mr. Ahmet Aksoy, always played up the Bond connection when we visited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVtwNzF1BP8

Saw Goldfinger at an outdoor screening at the Officer’s Club at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Too many iconic scenes that stuck with me to list here, but I was very impressed despite the crappy viewing experience. I did have the Corgi Aston-Martin; they are pretty valuable these days.

Also inherited at a young age this album. Still have it, took these pix this morning. Not sure what the story is here, it’s obviously not Sean Connery there on the cover, nor do I recognize any of the Bond girls there, and that is not the official 007 logo there up top. Apparently my dad lent it out or took it to parties at some point, hence his writing on the back cover.

My grandad’s initials are on the back of this one (also still in my possession), so I must have inherited it when he got shipped off to the home back in 2010 at age 94 [he’d been living with me since 1996].

Saw Thunderball in the Philippines as well, but it must have been at the base theater rather than the O Club. I really dug the hell out of it. Still fetishize the Vulcan bomber to this day. My dad was a scuba diver, and even when I was six years old, he had initiated me into the thrill of snorkeling on the coral reefs up at Lingayen Gulf and down at Grande Island in Subic Bay, so all the underwater work on that one really made an impression on me.

I saw You Only Live Twice at the base theater at Fort Myers, VA, while my dad was stationed at the Naval Security Agency over on Nebraska Avenue in DC and we lived in Alexandria. I was a real NASA/Space Race geek as a kid, so this one really hit the sweet spot for me. By this time, I WAS James Bond. Had the lunch box, and a while back my mom showed me an old homework assignment I had turned in during 2nd or 3rd grade, it made me remember that I used to add a crudely rendered 007 logo under my name on all the schoolwork I had to turn in.

This is what my lunchbox looked like:

Had the 007 attaché case, as well as the Man from UNCLE rifle, both shown on this ad page.

I must have seen the David Niven/Woody Allen Casino Royale at Fort Myers as well. I was so fucking traumatized at the disrespectful treatment my hero was subjected to that I still haven’t gone back and revisited it, and never will. At age 8, I probably didn’t know the phrase “fuck that shit,” but if I had it’s probably what I would have told my dad.

By the time On Her Majesty’s Secret Service came out, my dad had transferred to the NSA at Fort Meade MD, so I must have seen it at the base theater there. As I mentioned yesterday, I was disappointed that Connery had moved on, but the action set pieces more than compensated for his absence. I even liked the soundtrack enough to buy it, though I can’t find it any more so no telling at what point over the last 50 years I lost it.

Looking back on the 1960s Bond films from today’s perspective, the inherent racism in the portrayal of various characters (can’t wait for Live and Let Die) and Bond’s casual slapping around and enthusiastic sexual assault of women are pretty disturbing for the modern day, but I don’t think they were over the top when compared to a lot of the other movies of the era. Couldn’t be made like that today.