We have a confession to make. Our first installment of this column wasn’t really intended as an official installment. It was just an…announcement to let people know the column was coming.
Luckily, however, we had the presence of mind to begin the piece with a recollection about the early days of being a Bond fan. This struck a chord among our readers, and we got letters. Lots of letters. People wrote us from all over to relay their stories of the first experience they had with OO7.
So we thought this would be the perfect time to relate our own stories of how we found secret agent bliss as impressionable teenagers. Along with some of the letters you sent us, here are Deane’s and Dave’s stories. After reading ours, please send us yours.
Deane’s Story
It was 1981 and my parents had just divorced. I was nine-years-old, and it was my first weekend with my Dad. I don’t know why, but Dad took me to the movies. He had only done this once before – a double feature of The Muppet Movie and Heaven Can Wait on my eighth birthday – - so I was a little surprised. Nevertheless, we went off to the local theater to catch an early afternoon matinee of For Your Eyes Only. At the time, I had no idea who James Bond was.
Two hours later, I wasn’t the same person. Although the JIM diving suit scared the bejesus out of me (had nightmares about it for weeks), I was in love. James Bond was the coolest human being to walk the planet. I don’t know at what moment I came to this realization, but I think it was Roger Moore’s smarmy little nod of the head to his pursuers on the chase down the mountain that did it. Throw in a crossbow, an exploding car, a couple dune buggies, an awesome mountain-climbing scene, and Lynn-Holly Johnson in tights, and you’ve got the recipe for pre-pubescent bliss.
After I got back from Dad’s, I ran over to my friend Joey’s house to tell him what I had discovered. He quickly produced a set of Moonraker trading cards. He’d been holding out on me! The bastard! And there were films before this one starring some other guy? Who knew?! (I didn’t get the pronunciation quite right, and I called him “Seen” Connery for months afterwards.) Turns out a buddy down the street was a fan too. He told me he had the “James Bond car” and produced a die-cast Aston Martin DB5. “What the hell is this?” I said, “James Bond drives a Lotus.”
When you’re a kid, two years between films is a lo-o-ong time. Worse yet, the next film was called Octopussy, and I knew right then that my chances of Mom letting me see it were slim. I desperately tried to avoid telling her the title of the film. My instinct was right – I didn’t get to see that one until years later on video.
By 1985 I was a hardcore fan, and when A View to a Kill hit the theaters, I was first in line at the Cineplex in Pinole, California. True to expectations, AVTAK did not disappoint. It didn’t hurt that I lived in the Bay Area at the time, so the action was all set close to home.
The rest is history. Eighteen years after that first film, I still count FYEO as the best Bond film ever made and I’ll defend AVTAK all day long (I often have to, in fact, as all my co-editors hate it). And to this day, I’m still looking for that set of Moonraker trading cards I bought from Joey with four-dollars I made mowing the lawn.
David’s Story
I have to confess I first discovered James Bond on television. It was 1973, or maybe ‘74, and ABC-TV had just acquired the rights to show the early films. The venue selected was the “ABC Sunday Night Movie.” It may be hard to imagine in this age of “TBS Marathons” and VCRs, but way back then in the dark ages it was a bonafide broadcasting event whenever a Bond film was televised. In some cases it was the first time anyone had seen them in years, and for a lot of us it was our initiation to Bondmania.
Suffice to say the Sunday Night Movie became a ritual in my house, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to sit through dreck like Empire of the Ants week after week, on the thin hope that the “Coming Next Week” commercial would promise a Bond. Invariably, my parents would sit me down before each viewing. “Now David,” they would say, “we’re going to let you watch this, but we want you to understand we don’t approve of James Bond’s lifestyle.” By which of course they meant sleeping with beautiful women. Shooting people with spear guns was okay, as long as they were bad guys.
Twenty-five years is a long time, and eight years old is pretty young, so in all honesty, I can’t tell you which Bond film I saw first. But it didn’t matter much; it was Bond’s world as a whole that appealed to me. Here was a guy who went to all the hottest spots in the world, drove the coolest cars, packed the niftiest gadgets, and got chased by helicopters and airplanes. It was the kind of fantasy a kid like me couldn’t resist. Playing Batman or Superman required tying a towel around your neck, and risking jeers from the other kids, but playing a superspy was different; James Bond performed all his heroics in his street clothes! Even better, you didn’t have to buy a Batarang or a ray gun. You could always claim that Q-branch modified your innocent-looking Mickey Mouse watch to fire poison darts.
My big screen initiation to Bond would have to wait until The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977. Conventional wisdom says Star Wars ruled that summer, but you would’ve had a hard time convincing me. From my point of view at age 12, any dope who praised Citizen Kane or Gone With The Wind as the greatest movies ever made had obviously never discovered the wonders of an underwater sportscar, or a giant killer with steel teeth and an Alfalfa haircut.
Today, few things can top the thrill of being in a darkened theater and seeing Bond walk into that gunbarrel, but back in my childhood it was almost exciting to see those flying stars and Vegas-like graphics that kicked off the Sunday Night Movie. “This James Bond movie contains some scenes that may not be suitable for young viewers…” Now you’re talking! Pass the popcorn!