November 1, 1995. Copyright, 1995, Graphic News. All rights reserved

BOND IS BACK IN ACTION AGAIN
By Nicholas Booth

LONDON, November 1, Graphic News- After a six year absence from the silver screen, BritainÕs most famous fictional secret agent is back. Pierce Brosnan plays 007 in the movie ÔGoldeneyeÕ which opens across the world later this month, marking the twelfth official Bond movie. The plot concerns BondÕs investigation of the disappearance of a secret NATO helicopter which pits him against computer whizzkids, the Russian mafia and, for the first time, we see him in action with one of his colleagues Ð 008.

In these politically correct times, the Bond producers have opted to retain the same elements of fantasy, reality and tongue-in-cheek drollery of old. Like the real-life head of MI5, the new M is female, (played by Dame Judi Dench) who views Bond as a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. The Bond girls include a killer who crushes men to death with her thighs as well as the more regular Ôdamsel in distressÕ whom we are assured is not a bimbo. Time will only tell whether the usual heady mix of Ôsex and violence for all the familyÕ, as one early critic reviewed a Bond film, will retain its box office appeal.

But what of that other essential ingredient in the mayhem Ð the gadgets? Though ÔGoldeneyeÕ derives its name from the house in Jamaica where BondÕs creator Ian Fleming wrote all the Bond books, it refers to a renegade satellite the Russian mafia is trying to control. Bond is now seen driving an Aston Martin DB7, which does not feature an ejector seat or have the capability to convert to a submarine car. There is a chase sequence in St Petersburg involving a tank.

With the end of the Cold War, it is curious to reflect how much importance real-life secret agents accorded the world of 007. The KGB took the gadgets very seriously, particularly as they knew of Ian FlemingÕs closeness to the British intelligence services, so much so that the real life ÔSmershÕ Ð its killing department Ð investigated poison pens and other grizzly gadgets. But so too did Special Forces and Palestinian terrorists, who used hang-gliders after Bond had flown one in ÔLive And Let DieÕ. The very same Admiralty which was supposed to have been employing Commander Bond enquired, after ÔThunderballÕ, about an underwater breather that was a totally ludicrous gadget thought up on the set by a special effects man! 

And perhaps most intriguing of all was a suggestion made by Ian Fleming at a dinner party in Washington DC in 1960 to a young senator who had asked about ways of destabilising Cuba. Invent a way of getting rid of Fidel Castro's beard, Fleming told him, in the company of a CIA man. History records that both the senator Ð one John F. Kennedy Ð and the CIA took the suggestion seriously, coming up with toxin-filled cigars to be infiltrated into Havana!


SOURCES: Eon Productions, UIP/United Artists, ÔThe James Bond FilmsÕ by Steven Jay Rubin