Greatest James Bond Films Official (and Unofficial) Part 1 (1962 - 1971) |
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(chronological) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
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Introduction: According to Guinness World Records, the most profitable film series of all time is "James Bond." It is also the longest continuing series of English language films. The modern day action-hero - the James Bond '007' character that was employed for Her Majesty's Secret Service - was loosely based on the character in Britisher Ian Fleming's twelve James Bond novels. A number of Fleming's short stories were developed by other writers. Before the movies, Bond made his first appearance on TV, debuting on CBS in 1954, with Barry Nelson as the American 007 agent named Jimmy Bond in an adaptation of Fleming's first Bond novel Casino Royale. Fleming made his sole cameo appearance in the Bond film From Russia With Love (1963). The only two Bond films with a tragic ending for Bond's romantic partners were On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and Casino Royale (2006). Beginning in the Cold War 60s (after restrictions on violence and sex were lifted somewhat), the slick, escapist Bond action/adventure spy films appealed to large audiences with their exotic, travelogue locales, tongue-in-cheek humor and dialogue, nifty gadgets and ingenious toys (provided by Q Branch) to combat evildoers, fast-action suspense and audacious stunts, and gorgeous scantily-clad sexy women. The action-oriented, sophisticated and skillful agent, with a taste for fancy clothes (often tuxedos), dry vodka martinis ('shaken, not stirred') and cars (notably the Aston Martin DB5, the Lotus Esprit, and various BMWs), battled various types of eccentric, deadly and infamous criminals who planned to assault the world. The intriguing superhero lead role has been played by six actors - Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. Also included below are the villains and Bond girls in the films. Sean Connery made a reluctant comeback as Bond for Never Say Never Again (1983) - a virtual remake of Thunderball (1965). The film was reportedly titled that way since Connery was quoted as saying "Never again!" after making Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Currently, Roger Moore is the longest continually-serving James Bond actor (with 12 years and 7 films). The rankings are taken from Entertainment Weekly's November 24, 2006 issue and the article: "The Best of Bond". |
(chronological) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
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Director Studio |
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Villains |
Girls (# of Love-making Encounters) |
Locales |
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Deaths (Bond Kills) |
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Dr. No (1962) United Artists
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The Three Blind Mice (assassins), Photographer (Margaret LeWars), Mr. Jones (Reginald Carter), Professor R. J. Dent (Anthony Dawson), Miss Taro (Zena Marshall), Dr. Julius No (Joseph Wiseman) |
Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) 3 |
Kingston, Jamaica, London, England, Crab Key (fictional island off Jamaica) | self-destructive bag/briefcase, 7.65 mm Walther PPK with Brausch silencer, cyanide-laced cigarette, Geiger counter | 1957 Chevy convertible, blue Sunbeam Tiger (convertible), Dr. No's "Dragon" Tank (fire-breathing, diesel-propelled, with headlights) |
(8) |
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From Russia With Love (1963) United Artists |
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Donald 'Red' Grant (Robert Shaw), Morzeny (Walter Gotell), Kronsteen or SPECTRE No. 5 (Vladek Sheybal), SPECTRE No. 1 Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Anthony Dawson), Col. Rosa Klebb or SPECTRE No. 3 (Lotte Lenya), Krilencu (Fred Haggerty) |
Corporal Tatiana ("Tania") Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson), Zora (Martine Beswick), Vida (Aliza Gur) 4 |
SPECTRE Island (location unknown but somewhere near Adriatic), Venice, Italy, Istanbul, Turkey, London, England, Yugoslavian locations on the Orient Express (heading for Trieste) that included Belgrade and Zagreb | retractable garrotting piano-razor-wire wrist-watch, MI6 pager/beeper, Univex radio-car telephone phone, black leather briefcase (with 20 rounds of ammunition, a flat throwing knife, an AR7 folding 2.5 caliber sniper rifle with infra-red telescopic sight, plus 50 gold sovereigns, and a magnetized tin of talcum powder concealing a tear gas canister), telephone bug detector, box-camera with miniature tape recorder inside, the LEKTOR decoding machine, SPECTRE's poison-tipped, spring-loaded spiked shoe | green vintage Bentley Mark IV (convertible), black Citroen, the Orient Express train, SPECTRE's 2-seater Hiller helicopter, a powerboat, a squadron of SPECTRE motor launches, a Venetian water-taxi gondola |
(12) |
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Goldfinger (1964) United Artists |
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Bonita (Nadia Regin), Capungo (Alf Joint), Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe), Oddjob (Harold Sakata), Kisch (Michael Mellinger), twelve Mafioso hoods (various), Mr. Ling (Burt Kwouk) |
Dink (Margaret Nolan), Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet), Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), Mei-Lei (Mai Ling) 4 |
Unnamed Latin American country (pre-credits sequence), Fountainbleau Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida, USA, London, England, Stoke Poges Golf Club, Buckinghamshire, England, Geneva, Switzerland and the Swiss countryside, 35,000 feet above Newfoundland, Friendship Airport at Baltimore, Maryland, Auric's Stud Farm at Bluegrass Field and Fort Knox, Kentucky, Washington DC | seagull snorkel dry-suit, grappling hook gun, battery-operated detonator-timer, gadgets in Q's lab and in the modified Aston-Martin DB5 vehicle, Oddjob's lethal steel-rimmed bowler hat, Goldfinger's giant laser, Goldfinger's golden pistol | modified, gray Aston Martin DB5 car with small and large (magnetic) homing devices displayed audio-visually on dashboard (range of 150 miles), also with bullet-proof windshield and windows, revolving license (number) plates, homing device display on dashboard, smoke screen, oil slick deployer, rear bullet-proof glass armor-shield, left-right front-wing machine guns, passenger ejector seat (activated with red button under top of gear shift), and hubcap tire shredder, yellow/black 1937 Phantom-III Rolls Royce (Sedance De Ville), British United Airfarers Carvair jet, light yellow Ford Mustang (convertible), Goldfinger's Auric Enterprises' Lockheed Martin VC-140B Jetstar plane, single-engine Piper planes, Lincoln Continental |
(8) |
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Thunderball (1965) United Artists |
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Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), Count Lippe (Guy Doleman), Angelo Palazzi (Paul Stassino), Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi), Ladislav Kutze (George Pravda), Quist (Bill Cummings), Vargas (Philip Locke) |
Patricia Fearing (Molly Peters), Dominique ("Domino") Derval (Claudine Auger), Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick) 4 |
Paris, France, Shrublands Health Farm/Clinic and nearby NATO airbase in south of England, London, England, Nassau, the Bahamas and other surrounding islands, Miami, Florida |
a Bell Textron jet pack rocket belt, devices in Bond's Aston Martin, Angelo's/"Derval's" separate oxygen supply and gamma gas canister, Largo's Disco Volante (with an underwater hatch, hidden video cameras) and his yellow submersible submarine, a modified waterproof (underwater) Rolex watch with geiger counter, an underwater infra-red camera for nighttime photos, a miniature pistol that fired distress signal flares (bright red), a miniature (pocket-sized) underwater re-breather device good for four minutes, a harmless radio-active homing device in the shape of a pill, an underwater jet pack propulsion unit with exploding high-velocity spearheads, a sky-hook |
silver Aston Martin DB5 (with rear armor shield, and rear-firing, high-pressure water cannon-sprayer), Vulcan jet, hydrofoil Disco Volante, gold BSA Lightning Motorcycle (with missiles), Domino's Boehler Turbocraft dive boat, Volpe's light blue Mustang, Bell helicopter, a US Coast Guard helicopter, a US Navy Boeing B-17 plane |
(11) |
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You Only Live Twice (1967) United Artists |
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada), Helga Brandt (Karin Dor), Hans (Ronald Rich) |
Ling (Tsai Chin), Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) 5 |
Outer space, US Mission Control (Houston) and Hawaii tracking station, Hong Kong, Sea of Japan and Tokyo, Japan, Kobe dock/Osaka, Japan, small Japanese fishing village near Ama diving island of Matsu, Russian launch site - Star City, USSR, Pentagon (Washington DC), Himeji Castle, Japan (Tanaka's secret Ninja training school and rocket weapons development center) | a plastic shroud-pouch with an underwater breathing device, purse with radio transmitter, state-of-the-art compact automatic safe-combination cracker/decoding device, closed-circuit video surveillance and monitoring console in Osata's office, Helga Brandt's lipstick bomb, Tanaka's Ninja Training School weapons/gadgets (metallic throwing stars, martial arts' weapons with razor-sharp blades, Gyrojet rocket pistols and rifles that fired jet-propelled bullets that exploded on impact, a cigarette case with cigarettes that fired miniature rocket launchers, wooden pole with dagger-spike), rubber suction cups | Jupiter 16 (US spacecraft) and Bird One (SPECTRE intruder rocket), M1 nuclear submarine, Aki's white Toyota 2000 GT convertible (with radio transmitter and closed-circuit TV monitor behind the bucket seats), Tanaka's Private Underground Train, Tanaka's 2-rotor Helicopter (with gigantic electro-magnet), Cessna aircraft, Little Nellie Autogyro (a portable mini-helicopter contained in 4 large suitcases, with two fixed, front-mounted machine guns, two forward-firing rocket launchers, heat seeking air-to-air missiles, two rear flame gun throwers, two smoke ejectors, and aerial mines launched on tiny parachutes, and a helmet with a cine-camera and radio transmitter) |
(14) |
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Casino Royale (1967) - a spoof comedy Columbia |
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nephew Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen) | Vespa Lynd (Ursula Andress) | Rural England London, England Scotland Highlands Far East (in unidentified location) Berlin, W. Germany France |
- trick carnation with cyanide-spitter - boots with weaponry - poisoned zipper buttons - flame-throwing fountain pen - Q gadgets (bowler hat gun, poison-shooting pen, 2-way radio wristwatch) - button homing device - exploding game birds and milk float - flying saucer - aspirin with atomic bomb -bagpipes with machine gun |
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On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) United Artists |
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld or "The Count" (Telly Savalas), Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat), Grunther (Yuri Borienko) |
Countess Teresa ("Tracy") Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), Ruby Bartlett (Angela Scoular), Nancy (Catherine Von Schell) 4 |
London, England, coastline of Portugal, The South of France, Switzerland: Bern, the Swiss Alps (mountaintop Piz Gloria), Murren (train station and village near Interlaken) and surrounding areas |
radioactive lint tracking device in plastic container, Aston-Martin glove compartment telescopic rifle, dagger thrown by Bond at Draco's calendar page, small safecracker device attached to full-sized photocopier, improvised door escape tool, Angel of Death make-up case: with a perfume atomizer containing the deadly Virus Omega, and a hidden radio receiver with antenna installed in the compact mirror, pocket-sized Minox B spy camera, and Tracy's wedding ring |
1969 dark-green Aston Martin DBS (with telescopic rifle built into glove compartment), Tracy's red Ford-Mercury Cougar (convertible), Draco's Rolls-Royce, Murren train, horse-drawn sleigh, Blofeld's Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter, a cable car gondola, stock cars in the stock car rally, two bobsleds, Blofeld's silver Mercedes-Benz 600 sedan | (4) |
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Diamonds Are Forever (1971) United Artists |
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray) Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover) Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith) Peter Franks (Joe Robinson) Morton Slumber (David Bauer) Shady Tree (Leonard Barr) Bert Saxby (Bruce Cabot) Professor Dr. Metz (Joseph Furst) Bambi (Lola Larson) Thumper (Trina Parks) |
Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) 1 |
Japan Cairo, Egypt Spain London, England South Africa Dover, England Amsterdam, Netherlands Los Angeles, US Las Vegas, Nevada, US Baja, California, Mexico |
- finger or hand booby (or pocket) snap trap or clamp - peel-off imitation (fake) fingerprints - piton gun with grappling braces - voice changer or synthesizer machine - electro-magnetic RPM controller (designed to win in Vegas casinos) aka slot machine ring - diamond laser satellite - floating air balloon - bomb surprise |
- 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 - Moon buggy - Dirt Bikes - Bathosub |
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(chronological) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |