Altman Mark A - Nobody does it better: the complete, uncensored, unauthorized oral history of the James Bond

Why is it that people who cant take advice always insist on giving it?

BY Mark A. Altman

If youre someone like me who plays Arrival in Miami on their iPhone blasting through earbuds as they come in for a landing at Miami International Airport or insists on staying at the Hotel Fontainebleau because thats where Bond first tangled with Auric Goldfinger and drank Dom Prignon 53 at 38 degrees Fahrenheit with golden girl Jill Masterson, then this book is definitely for you.

And its decidedly not just man talk.

There have been a myriad of truly spectacular books written about the only gentleman secret agent with a license to killand thrillover the years (and my bookshelf is filled with them), but for Ed Gross and me, we wanted to do something different and unique in examining the 007 oeuvre, to not only explore the making of these seminal films but also examine why they have had such an incredible impact and enduring appeal for fans as well as an entire generation of contemporary filmmakers who grew up on these movies.

Full disclosure: the first 007 movie I ever saw in a theater, which inspired my lifelong obsession with James Bond, was quite improbably The Man with the Golden Gun (although you could argue it was North by Northwest, really, which I saw at the wonderful Thalia revival house in Manhattan with my mom, that inspired my obsessive devotion to cinema ever since), which my parents took me to see when I was seven years old. To say it was a life-changing experience would not be an overstatement. Ironically, the film that inspired my passion for 007 is probably now one of my least beloved installments, but I will forever be grateful for its lighting the spark of my imagination as well as immediately sending me to the library, where I began haunting the stacks to check out all the Ian Fleming novels as well.

My story is similar to many of the others you will read about in this book. From then on, it was years of watching the movies, often truncated and out-of-sequence, on the still justly beloved ABC Sunday Night Movie. There was something truly magical about Ernie Andersons stentorian voice announcing, Tonight, Sean Connery is James Bond, 007, in the one that started it all, Dr. No. To me, the famous star tunnel and opening strains of The ABC Sunday Night Movie theme are as indelibly a part of Bond lore as anything in the films themselves. Strangely enough, I can still remember how they banished On Her Majestys Secret Service (or as Bond aficionados and typesetters know it best, OHMSS) to Friday nights and was amazed to see the pre-title teaser of Goldfinger for the first time on VHS (incongruously following a Pink Panther cartoon) since it had been routinely excised on ABC to make the film fit a two-hour time slot with commercials.

Growing up in Brooklyn in the Seventies, there were a few arguments that one routinely had in the schoolyard: Mets or Yankees (Mets!), Star Trek or Star Wars (Trek!), Giants or Jets (I dont care!), and, most importantly, Sean Connery or Roger Moore. I have to admit, I loved them both. As much as Connery was and always will be the most iconic 007, Roger Moore crafted an equally memorable, albeit far different, take on Bond as a debonair gentleman spy. (Other than me, I dont think anyone else in middle school actually knew who George Lazenby was, BTW.)

Of course, I was the proud owner of a Corgi DB5 silver Aston Martin and most of the soundtrack albums, some of which I covertly purloined from my parents stereo rack, and would religiously buy the Best of Bond LPs, which inevitably would be updated every time a new 007 movie came out with the latest title song. I often wondered what would happen when there would be too many songs to fit on one record, failing to anticipate the arrival of the compact disc or MP3s, which allowed you to have both Sheryl Crows Tomorrow Never Dies and k.d. langs Surrender in your Bond songs compilation without ever risking running out of space.

In the following years, Ive probably spent the equivalent of a small mortgage payment on buying and re-buying all the films on VHS, then laser disc, then laser disc box set, then DVD, then Special Edition DVD, then Ultimate Special Edition DVD, to be followed by Blu-ray, 50th anniversary Blu-ray box set, SVOD, and inevitably 4K UHD.

Watching the opening of any Bond movie is special, its always holding the promise that it will be the best one yet; the strains of the James Bond Theme, the gun barrel logo, the hint of nudity in the always spectacular opening credits. But if