7 replies to this topic

[Miles Miservy]

This topic is always suggestive; there's NO wrong answer. I say that Roger Moore's my favorite for many reasons. Among them, the 1st movie I saw was TSWLM (I was 10). Roger Moore WAS James Bond. Sean Connery was just the guy that went before him (not unlike Jack Parr to Johnny Carson).

The thing that sets Roger Moore apart from all the other actors put together, was his reluctance to kill in cold blood. Make no mistake... that's a part of 007 that makes up his character. I'm not trying to take anything way from Sir Roger. But I think, in an interview, during the making of LALD, Roger Moore said he felt that, "Bond is a man that is very effective at killing but doesn't LIKE killing."

I think the only instance where Moore's Bood kills someone defenseless was when, in FYEO, he pitches Locke over the cliff, Mercedes and all. Come to think of it, I don't seem to remember any time when Moore's Bond ever even used a silencer.

Sean Connery was VERY efficient in this fashion in Dr. No, as was George Lazenby in OHMSS, during the Piz Gloria ski chase. Timothy Dalton's most memorable killing in LTK (if not his only one), had to be when he fed Killifer to the sharks ("What a terrible waste... of money."). The only moment (so far) of Daniel Craig's that comes to mind, lies in the evil smile he cracks as he's being arrested by Miami Police in CR. The bad guy gets blown up by his own explosive. How cool is that? I thought that was the moment Daniel Craig took the role & made it his.

Any thoughts?

Edited by Miles Miservy, 17 November 2011 - 06:12 PM.

[Aries Walker]

Daniel Craig definitely out-and-out assassinates that dude at the beginning of Casino Royale.

But on track, For Your Eyes Only was the first Bond movie I saw, and I clearly remember how powerful that scene was when Bond kicks the car over the cliff. It worked in good contrast to Roger Moore's normally smirky, non-serious demeanor. It wasn't anywhere near the casual, efficient brutality of Professor Dent's last few moments on Earth, but it was so unlike him otherwise that it really did leave an impression.

I may also classify Tee Hee Johnson as "in cold blood", since he was effectively neutralized as a threat before Bond chucked him out the train window, and there's some ambiguity as to how cold-blood-ish his killings of, for example, Dambala, Scaramanga, and the wheelchaired sort-of-Blofeld were.

[thecasinoroyale]

I think the way Moore's Bond dispatched his enemies was quite cold in someways compared to others...let's look at his traack of 7 main villains:

LALD; Dr.Kananga - Fed compressed air to him, held him underwater and let him explode.

TMWTGG; Francisco Scaramanga - Posed as a dummy and shot him in the heart.

TSWLM; Karl Stromberg - Shot not once, twice, three but four times.

MR; Hugo Drax - Shot in the heart with a poison dart and led to an airlock to be sucked into space

FYEO; Not responsible for Aris Kristatos, so Emil Locque - Helped his car off the edge of a cliff face by kicking it

OP; Kamal Kahn - Managing to escape his crashing plane, leaving only Kahn at the controls to die

AVTAK; Max Zorin - Battle to the death on the Golden Gate Bridge, gained the upper hand and let fall to his death


So even with the lighter approach to Moore's 007, I think he killed his enemies in quite a cold-blooded way in some instances, which probably was a great contrast to the 'tongue-in-cheek' Bond we expected, but when it came down to it he was just as lethal as his previous, and future, incarnations.

[DR76]

The thing that sets Roger Moore apart from all the other actors put together, was his reluctance to kill in cold blood. Make no mistake... that's a part of 007 that makes up his character. I'm not trying to take anything way from Sir Roger. But I think, in an interview, during the making of LALD, Roger Moore said he felt that, "Bond is a man that is very effective at killing but doesn't LIKE killing."

Moore's Bond has never struck me as being reluctant to kill in cold blood. And on two occasions, he has expressed a desire to kill an enemy in cold blood, but circumstances have prevented him.

[Dustin]

Has Sandor (TSWLM) been mentioned already?

Regarding that cold blood killing: that's a tricky element that has been criticised from the moment Bond shoots Dent in DN. Cold blooded murder is part of Bond's job, yet cinema Bond always had to handle the topic in a way that audiences agree with Bond's behaviour. Thus film Bond doesn't kill in cold blood any more. It's nearly always either in the cause of a live-or-die-fight, i.e. self-defence or immediately after the victim caused the death of another person, often Bond's ally, so avenging the earlier death.

Bond's licence to kill means he gets a name, a photo and a few details of background in a file. And then he sets out and just kills that person with as little furore as possible. Regardless if man or woman, civilist or professional. He (and we) of course assumes
there's a good reason for the assignment. But in the end it's irrelevant if there is and what exactly that reason would be. Because Bond is paid for the killing, not for asking questions. His target could be a mega-supervillain or a small-scale tax dodger, both have to die if M decides so. That means killing in cold blood.

Of course we hardly ever see that on the screen. Neither do we read such. Because Bond is supposed to be a hero who of course cannot be a soulless civil service killing machine.

[THX-007]

Has Sandor (TSWLM) been mentioned already?

The helpful chap?

[Germanlady]

Move it or delete it, don't know, where to post it, but its hilarious

[FLEMINGFAN]

One must remember that, per Ian Fleming, Bond had "never killed in cold blood".
That's what really makes the character so enduring and the reading of it it, cold killer, is just not something you could handle for so long. That is why the girls loved the Bond books as much as the guys in the 60's.
That said, on screen, it can be 'fun', but a charatcer like that could not last over 50 years.
Bond is a romantic hero, not an anti-hero (neither helpless, nor neurotic).