What Was It About The Sixties and Spies?
Issue #16 - April 2025
“Every government has its secret service branch; America, CIA; France, Deuxième Bureau; England, MI5. NATO also has its own. A messy job? Well, that’s when they usually call on me, or someone like me. Oh yes, my name is Drake, John Drake.” - Patrick McGohan voice over introduction to Danger Man Season One - 1960
Western movies and war movies dominated cinema in the 1950s. Both in their way harked back to the tales of courage, heroism, and fighting the good fight as a reflection of all too recent events. Such tales of bravado were a way to both heal and celebrate.
But by the early 1960s, the new political climate had come to prevail, and a new sort of war was being fought - a Cold War. One in which front-line troops had been replaced by intelligence operatives. It was a war being fought on the front pages of the newspapers, full of tales of spy rings and the activities of counter-intelligence agencies. The spy was suddenly cool and inevitably becoming romanticized in the media.
By their very nature, such operatives were mystery men. They were ripe for creators of fiction to add their own interpretation to what the life of a spy was like. The idealized spy emerged as a cross between American cool and technology crossed with British style. Throw in a mix of street smarts and a playboy lifestyle, and the appeal is not hard to see.
As the opening quote above reveals, the audience for the smart, cool, cunning spy was there as early as the start of the decade with shows such as Danger Man. The Bond novels had also launched a plethora of other writers, turning out an avalanche of spy thrillers of varying quality, all lapped up by an eager audience.
Of course, it all really kicked off with the movie release of Dr. No in 1962 and the rise of Bond-Mania, which arguably reached its height when the cinematic Bond started to take himself less seriously.
It could be argued that the first Bond spoof was in fact the movie that set the blueprint for the EON franchise - Goldfinger - after a detective story in Dr. No and a solid Cold War thriller in From Russia With Love, Goldfinger took the developing Bond tropes and pushed them further with the gadget-laden car and more - Goldfinger was in many ways a spoof of what Bond was becoming.
From that point on, the floodgates opened: books, TV, movies, and merchandise. Everyone wanted a piece of the Bond bandwagon.
And that bandwagon is how I first encountered 007 - but maybe that’s a tale for another time.
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And a quick note of thanks to Peter Vollebregt for the excellent Bond as Amazon Delivery Guy that we used in the last newsletter - excellent work.
Alan
Ian Fleming Foundation
[Disclaimer: The James Bond Lexicon monthly newsletter is a personal project by Alan & Gillan Porter, and represents our personal views. It does not reflect the views or opinions of The Ian Fleming Foundation of which Alan serves as a board member.]
The Ian Fleming Foundation is dedicated to the study and preservation of Ian Fleming’s creative works, including the James Bond novels, films, and associated merchandise and media. We embrace original research into the Bond phenomenon and its impact on popular culture. In addition to providing scholarships and endowments, we procure, restore, preserve, and archive materials related to Ian Fleming’s life and works, from personal papers and correspondence to props and vehicles from the James Bond films.
The Ian Fleming Foundation (IFF) is a public benefit nonprofit U.S. 501(c)3 corporation, and donations are tax-deductible for U.S. citizens and entities.
You can find out more about the IFF right HERE
Bond Briefing
A massive thank you to all our subscribers to date and to the folks who have recently signed up. If you are reading this and haven’t joined our community yet, you can do so via the button below. It is FREE and you will then receive the newsletter in your email inbox the moment it's published.
Casino Royale Book Project
Things are also still moving along on the Casino Royale book, and as this edition of the newsletter drops, Alan will be in the middle of a week-long research trip. But that’s about all we can share about that at the moment.
Bond Chronology
An extract from our current in-progress background project. - A detailed chronology of the James Bond phenomenon from creation until today, one month at a time.
January 1954
1
In a letter to Ian Fleming, movie mogul Sir Alexander Korda writes enthusiastically about Live and Let Die, but passes on the idea of a movie adaptation. Instead, he suggests that Fleming write a story specifically for film.
Mid-January
Ian Fleming starts writing Moonraker at Goldeneye.
Bond Blatherings
The latest episode of the Bond vs Spy Movie show is now live on the On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast network. This time out, Alan and Jarrod return to 1971 to compare Sean Connery’s return in Diamonds Are Forever with Kirk Douglas in the low-budget British spy thriller Catch Me A Spy.
You can listen to the discussion HERE.
Bond Books
“The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book” by Deborah Lipp
This is a very personal and subjective collection of overviews of each of the Bond movies up to and including SPECTRE, interspersed with some insightful essays on various aspects of the 007 movie franchise. I will say that I disagreed with almost every assessment in the book, as I clearly have almost diametrically opposed opinions. But that was half of the fun of reading it, as it made me examine why I held the opinions I do. I didn't change any of them, but I thought about them.
Kudos to Deborah for the many lists she compiled for each movie. If you want to know how many explosion there were in Licence To Kill for instance, then this is the book for you (the answer is 7). I’ll definitely be dipping back into these pages to consult the lists again when preparing future OHMS Podcast episodes.
Bond for Sale
Looking for a few James Bond book ideas? - How about checking out our dedicated 007 on-line bookstore? - https://bookshop.org/shop/jamesbondlexicon
Of course, there is always our own James Bond Lexicon which you can order from Bookshop.org just by clicking HERE. https://bookshop.org/a/10182/9798593696571
And thanks to those folks who have picked up a copy recently. We have definitely seen an uptick in sales over the last few months.
Want to know what else we are working on?
For more information on what else we have going on with writing, podcasting, and general slice-of-life stuff, check out our regular FREE weekly CAN’T SEE THE FOREST newsletter -
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter & Gillian J. Porter
The James Bond Lexicon (TM) newsletter is a production of Megrin Entertainment, a division of 4Js Group LLC