Which Bond First?
Thoughts on initial Bond encounters, plus book and podcast recommendations.
It seemed that I was the odd one out1 during the James Bond panel that I moderated at last weekend’s FenCon.
One of the questions I asked the panelists was to recollect their first encounter with Bond, and for each of them, and as it turned out the audience too, it was via a Bond movie on the screen, be it cinema or TV.
Entry points ranged from various Roger Moore outings such as The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, and For Your Eyes Only to debuts from Pierce Brosnan with GoldenEye and Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale.
Most of the folks who supplied an answer also mentioned their age at the time Bond entered their lives. And in all but one instance they had been teenagers.
This got me thinking, if I want to introduce my 13-year-old grandson to the world of 007, which movie would be the best intro for a teenager today?
Alan
Bond Briefing
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Bond People
Since our last newsletter we heard of the passing of Pamela Salem who played Miss Moneypenny in 1983’s Never Say Never Again alongside Sean Connery.
Pamela was born in India on January 22, 1944, and was educated in Germany before moving to London where she enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama. She had s steady career in British TV during the 70s and 80s most notably appearing in Into The Labyrinth, East Enders, The Professionals, and Doctor Who.
She also appeared in around a dozen films, including an appearance in The First Great Train Robbery, which also starred Sean Connery
Pamela Salem passed away on February 21st, 2024, aged 80 at her home in Florida
Bond Reads
A round-up of thoughts on Bond-related books recently read or announced.
Scripting 007 - Clement Feutry
Released earlier this week as a mammoth new eBook examining the development of the scripts for the 25 EON-produced Bond movies as well as 1983’s Never Say Never Again. And the proposed Jinx spin-off movie.
It’s full of behind-the-scenes information and lots of ‘what if?’ type scenarios as the screenwriters try out different ideas.
And the best thing is that it’s available for FREE as a PDF download from the Commander James Bond - France website in either French or English editions. More information and a download list can be found HERE.
I have my copy downloaded on my laptop and already started to dive into what is proving to be a fascinating read.
The addition of the just released "Scripting 007" from Club James Bond France brings the total of non-fiction Bond & Fleming related books on our James Bond Bibliography list to 250. You can check out the full list (with links to buy online) right HERE.
Bond Chronology
An extract from our current in-progress project. - A detailed chronology of the James Bond phenomenon from creation until today, one month at a time.
October 1952
Ian Fleming writes to his friend Ivar Bryce in the US asking him to “spy out the land” for a potential American publisher.
Bond Blatherings
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been on a bit of a break from talking about Bond for the On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast Network and have been catching up with some of the other fine 007-related podcasts out there.
If you enjoy the literary Bond and want to learn more about the process of writing Bond, or the man who created 007, then I highly recommend the following.
The Really 007 podcast team conducted an entertaining interview with Bond continuation novelist Raymond Benson on what it’s like as a Bond fan to get the call actually to write Bond novels. Check it out HERE. -
Over on the Spybrary network Bond historians Jeremy Duns and Ajay Chowdhury conducted an excellent in-depth interview with Ian Fleming’s latest biographer Nicholas Sahespeare that I highly recommend. You can give it a listen HERE. -
Bond for Sale
Forest Comics & Books, our eBay store, usually has a few Bond items for sale along with all sorts of other pop-culture-related goodies which can be found HERE
Looking for a few James Bond book ideas? - How about checking out our dedicated 007 on-line bookstore?
Of course, there is always our own James Bond Lexicon which you can order from Bookshop.org just by clicking HERE or on the cover below.
If you would like a personalized, signed copy we still have a few copies of both the James Bond Lexicon and James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007 in stock. Just drop us a note at alan@jamesbondlexicon.com and we can get that fixed for you. (Sorry US only at the moment due to shipping costs)
Where to Find Us Online
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter & Gillian J. Porter
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I’ll leave the story of my own first (non-movie) Bond encounter for a future edition of that newsletter.