Question: "Name the Top 5 Bond girls!"
Scott's Answer: In no particular order...
1. Domino - Thunderball
2. Pussy Galore - Goldfinger
3. Teresa - On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. Vesper Lynd - Casino Royale
5. Melina Havelock - For Your Eyes Only
Honorable mentions...
6. Tatiana Romanova - From Russia with Love
7. Anya Amasova - The Spy Who Loved Me
Andrew's Answer: In particular order...
1. Tatiana Romanova - From Russia with Love
2. Solitaire (Jane Seymour) - Live and Let Die
3. Domino - Thunderball
4. Camille Montes - Quantum of Solace
5. Teresa - On Her Majesty's Secret Service
1. Teresa di Vicenzo - ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
ReplyDelete2. Tatiana Romanova - FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
3. Domino Vitali - THUNDERBALL
4. Vesper Lynd - CASINO ROYALE
5. Melina Havelock - FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Honorable mentions...
6. Honey Ryder - DR. NO
7. Pussy Galore - GOLDFINGER
8. Pam Bouvier - LICENCE TO KILL
9. Natalya Simonova - GOLDENEYE
10. Kissy Suzuki - YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
1) Gala Brand 2) Eva Green as Vesper; Honor Blackman; Claudine Auger; and Lois Maxwell. These are based on the characters, and what I believe to be how each actress was able to capture the spirit of that character on scree. Gala Brand was probably the best Bond girl of all. In order to understand her, of course, one will need to read Moonraker
ReplyDelete1. Solitaire - Live and Let Die
ReplyDelete2. Tatiana Romanov - From Russia with Love
3. Naomi (Caroline Munro)- The Spy Who Loved Me
4. Kissy Suzuki- You Only Live Twice
5. (Tie) Bambi and Thumper- Diamonds are Forever
There are few poor Bond girls, so let's face it, a lot of this is going to come from personal preference. I should point out that aside from being "the first" Ursela Andress was, to me, a big bore. Donna Douglass doing a little Ellie May Clampett would have been an upgrade. Tatiana is just not my type. And she was trying to play him, and not doing a very good job of it. I do love Honor, and she would possibly be at the top, except becoming a non-lesbian after one over the shoulder flip, I mean really .....
ReplyDeleteKissy Suzuki is a nice choice, but in smaller Bad Bond villain girls, I am partial to Rosamund Pike, Famke Janssen, and Sophie Marceau
I hasten to point out I meant in smaller Bad Bond villain ROLES RATHER THAN GIRLS. Clearly there is nothing small about those just mentioned :)
ReplyDeleteof course my guess is few will have seen "Penney" coming, but particularly in her younger years at the beginning of the franchise, there was some great flirting. And don't think Bond wouldn't have like to .... he was simply to smart to go over the bosses' secretary.
ReplyDeleteOT: If you receive an e-mail from me with a link, please don't open it. My account got hacked this morning.
ReplyDeleteBackthrow, All good choices. :)
ReplyDeleteJed, I do not know Gala Brand as I haven't read the book.
ReplyDeleteI thought the inestimable Rosa Klebb was pretty cute, in a sort of apparatchik kind of way. Bond and her "got their kicks" together although her love making style - as exhibited with Grant - was on the violently short and painful side.
ReplyDeleteI finally saw "Skyfall". Not bad, but somebody certainly had seen Nolan's "The Dark Knight" prior to making it.
Shawn, Off the top of my head, I think the Seymour was one of the few to go on and have a really strong career afterwards in acting.
ReplyDeleteJed, Penney never struck me as a Bond girl. She always struck me as meant to be a non-Bond girl, kind of the too-average woman he would never really go for. So I think that handicaps her.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, ultimately, this is all just a matter of personal taste.
K, Rose Klebb! LOL! Yeah, I suppose that if you're into Soviet Apparatchik types, then she would be at the top of the list.
ReplyDeleteThe nice thing about Gala Brand is she is the one Bond Girl who resisted Bond. One hell of a tough lady, she and James survived two near death experiences. I would like to see her portrayed by Rosamund Pike in a re-make with Daniel Craig. I realize the franchise has been re-booted to modern times, but the original story and time-frame would be amazing, shot with a nice old stock to give it a retro feel. Imagine, Craig participating in a monumental takedown of Drax cheating at bridge.
ReplyDeleteThe best part about a potential fling with Rosa Klebb (if there somehow is a 'best part') is, her husband Bill would be totally fine with it! ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, and Moneypenney is definitely not a Bond girl in the sense the term has come to mean in the films. Still, a little game of lucky Pierre and unfortunate Antoinette with 007 would be an extremely interesting development.
ReplyDeleteBackthrow - the best part of a fling with Rosa would be "in the dark" she would let she was actually Mary Goodnight, and was just having some fun
ReplyDeleteJed, I think it would be great to do a retro-Bond. I'll bet that would end up being one of the most popular Bond films ever.
ReplyDeleteBackthrow, I suspect that Kleb is a mutli-times widow.
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteWidow? Really? I thought our 42nd former POTUS was still very much alive!
Jed,
ReplyDeleteHeh. :)
I think it would be, too. Moonraker is likely one of the two best Bond stories ever written. For one thing it was absolutely true to it's time. Fleming wrote the novel from a screenplay that was not picked up. There is nothing implausible about it. Nazi's, Russians, and the hated V-2 rocket that had terrified Britain during WW2. Moonraker is the only story to take place 100% within England. It gives us the best Bond girl, the best high stakes card game, gives a great accounting of the 4.5 litre 1930 Bentley convertible, an entire chaptr devoted to dining at M's club, Blades. Quite simply Bond at his very best. Unfortunately, it was never made, let alone made when Bond Connery was in his prime.
ReplyDeleteJed,
ReplyDeleteAgreed totally on the excellence of the MOONRAKER novel. Since retro-set Bond movie adventures are off the table, I wonder if there is any way it could be successfully adapted to a contemporary setting for Daniel Craig?
They could do the rocket project as a SpaceShipOne type of thing, I suppose, but there would be no Cold War-type threat hovering over everything, nor the resulting ultra-ultra high security. Maybe SPECTRE or QUANTUM could be a fictional substitute, but that would be like substituting the mafia for a fundamentally oppositional political world view like Soviet communism. Plus, just having a rocket or reality-based orbital spaceship alone wouldn't be all that special, to the degree that it was in the novel, in today's world.
Is it sad that I'll sit all the way through The World Is Not Enough just to hear the bad pun on Christmas Jones' name at the end?
ReplyDeleteIt's not even funny, but I laugh every time.
Backthrow, Kleb was better looking than the person of whom you speak... nicer too. ;)
ReplyDeleteJed, That sounds like a very interesting story. I'll have to read it.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, That is truly sad. :(
ReplyDeleteBackthrow - yeah, I just don't think you could do the novel justice in a modern setting without fundamentally changing it. You are undoubtedly correct ... they would never do a retro movie, but that is the true shame of it. Real tension with weapons and actions that were totally plausible. Not unlike the original Indiana Jones movie without the ark of the covenant. And with the money available for these things, you could get the costumes just right. Hell, you could do a bitchin' car chase with the Bentley when they kidnap Gala. And, you could use high end computer graphics to make the collapsing cliffs of Dover on Bond and Gala.
ReplyDeleteAndrew - may I suggest you check Amazon. A few years ago, I purchased the entire Fleming/Bond stories in a paperback box set for under $30. I love re-reading all those stories I hadn't read since the 60's as a teen.
ReplyDeleteJed, I'm going to. Sadly, I have an ever-growing reading list as the moment (and a movie backlog) because I've been too busy to do much.
ReplyDeleteBond "girls"? huh?
ReplyDelete:)
rlaWTX - it's a figure of speech doncha know ;)
ReplyDeleterlaWTX, That's what they're called. If you don't like it, take it up with society! ;P
ReplyDelete1. Melina Havelock- "For Your Eyes Only"
ReplyDelete2. Anya Amasova- "The Spy Who Loved Me" (more proof that Ringo Starr is the luckiest man in the history of show business)
3. Elektra King- "The World is Not Enough"
4. Domino- "Thunderball"
5. Tatiana Romanova- "From Russia With Love"
-Rustbelt
It's just been one of those days...
ReplyDelete...I got nothin' this time.
Moonraker in its original novel form sounds pretty cool. :-)
Yeah, I'm having one of those days too.
ReplyDeleteRustbelt, Domino is fantastic. :)
ReplyDeleteSometime back in the 90s Playboy did a a "Bond Girls" pictorial, all the way back to Honor Blackmon.
ReplyDeleteI was quite impressed with the fact that they included a nice shot of Lois Maxwell, fully clothed of course, but in a sexy pose, revealing some damn nice legs for a woman well over 50 at that point in time.
Class move!
Okay, seriously, how about Plenty O'Tool - played by Natalie Wood's rather better endowed sister.
ReplyDeleteK -
ReplyDeleteI hadn't noticed. ;-)
Scott - Moonraker is probably the book that fleshed out fully the Bond character. About 90 pages, the first third of the book, is given over to getting the reader familiar with Bond, having him do a favor for his boss. It's a very easy read, probably a good solid evening or two at most.
ReplyDeleteJed, I just looked up James Bond at Amazon and they Kindles ain't cheap -- $8. Moreover, the Kindles are actually more expensive than the paperbacks, which is annoying. I'm going to wait until they go on sale.
ReplyDeleteK, You mean she runs a college and has a large endowment? ;P
ReplyDeletePikeBishop, I seem to recall that making the news, but I never saw it.
ReplyDeletewow, Andrew - I see what you mean. The set I purchased was from penguin books with an edition date of 2002. I bought them back in 2007. All 14 paperbacks, although not with the original cover art. The books were packaged in a heavier cardboard slip case, and the only problem was it was a tight fit when you had all 14 volumes. Anyway, it was about $26.95 plus S&H. I can understand your frustration as a Kindle user. Hopefully they will go on sale again. I do maintain for Bond fans, you owe it to yourself to read them. It gives one a whole different slant on the film franchise. It is amazing how so many of the films after Connery borrowed only the name of the title and villain with any resemblance of plot strictly coincidental.
ReplyDeleteJed, I will read them. If all else fails, I'll find a library that has them and borrow them. :)
ReplyDeleteYou mean she runs a college and has a large endowment?
ReplyDeleteLet's just say she's a Ph.Double D.
K, LOL! Nice!
ReplyDelete[1] I wasn't going feminist on y'all - I just never paid that much attention to the girls...
ReplyDelete(Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan - girls?)
[2] I asked my brother this question. The really short version of his answer was Moneypenny: she gets the goods without having to sleep with Bond.
rlaWTX, I see. LOL! :)
ReplyDeleteTatiana Romanova (Daniella Bianchi, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE)
ReplyDeleteNatalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco, GOLDENEYE)
Moneypenny. Sean Connery and Lois Maxwell had excellent chemistry together.
That is it so far.