The Bond Girl and the Cold War Hero

Bond was a "secret agent" of the British secret service who was licensed to kill, took his job seriously, and had little respect for anything that got between him and his resolve to complete his mission. He had a "comma of dark hair" falling onto his brow as a young Hoagy Carmichael, according to the description of the first "Bond girl," Vesper Lynd, who described him as good-looking with something about him that was cold and ruthless, as well as a cruel mouth and a scar down the right cheek.[1]

His name was lifted from the real ornithologist, James Bond who wrote a book on birds of the Caribbean. As he is introduced in Casino Royale he coolly dismisses fellow agent Vesper Lynd's adulation of the Double O agents as the home office's "heroes" with a frown by saying "It's not difficult to get a Double O number if you're prepared to kill people . . . it's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double O. Probably quite decent people."

Cold War Hero

British author Anthony Burgess viewed Bond as a resurgence of the British hero who had built the unprecedented British Empire, much like the legendary T.E. Lawrence whose World War I heroics were the basis of lectures and books from the 1920s to the present. Burgess believed the British readers welcomed Bond as a new, Cold War British hero. "Patriotic, tough, brave and yet no cold-bath ascetic . . ." eight years after the end of World War II, "the Cold War, and Great Britain had to take a backseat in world politics, watching the bickering and intrigues of the superpowers." Fleming spun a fantasy of a British secret service worthy of respect from the heroes of the past "far more ingenious and daring than reality allowed . . . and his Scots blood ensures a patriotic integrity." Fleming unites the great World War II allies of American and English concerns in their new fight against the common threat of communism by having Bond aided by C.I.A. agent Felix Leiter.[2]

John Le Carre, who wrote novels that were more accurate in their interpretation of the British Secret Services during the Cold War, met Bond's sensuous world of seduction, danger, and intrigue with skepticism. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) became a best seller and gained critical praise. Le Carre, a pseudonym for Dorset-born David Cornwell, experienced cold war espionage first-hand in Germany as a member of the British Foreign Service. Le Carre coldly appraised Bond as the " . . . ideal defector . . . if the money was better, the booze freer and women easier over there in Moscow, he'd be off like a shot." [3] The persona of Bond as British Empire super hero was challenged and labeled a symbol of white imperialism by social critic Eldridge Cleaver when he identified Bond as a "paper tiger . . . saying what many whites want desperately to hear reaffirmed: 'I am still the White Man, lord of the land, license to kill, and the world is still an empire at my feet.' " [4]

He Couldn't Have Done It Without His Woman

Bond quickly shows his readers how he feels about women when they come between him and his mission. "And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them." [5]

Author and critic Umberto Eco finds a unique pattern for the Bond women: they are all beautiful and good; been rendered frigid by several adolescent trials; conditioned to serve the villain, and eventually rescued from their misery by Bond who helps them appreciate human nature, liberates them, and possesses them. He does not establish a lasting relationship, with any of the women in the novels, with the exception of Tracy (On Her Majesty's Secret Service), whom he marries. [6] Fleming's attitude towards women reflects a similar Bond flair, preferring them "well-scrubbed . . . clinical, clean and firm." [7]

The original Bond girl may have been based on Fleming's girlfriend, Muriel Wright, a woman he intended to marry. She was an active sportswoman and model who was killed in a London air raid in 1944.[8]

The most significant women in Bond's novels are different from the sparkling beauty of the cinema girls. The first Bond woman that comes to mind is Miss Moneypenny, assistant to Bond's boss M, who frequently shows her frustration with Bond's lack of interest in her never ending come-ons. Fleming wrote that Bond found her "desirable" with the exception of her cool and quizzical eyes. Moneypenny started her service in the cipher department and eventually worked her way into the position of M's secretary for nine years. It is believed that Moneypenny was based on Fleming's administrative assistant at MI6 Victoire Ridsdale, and one of Stewart Menzie's (MI6 director) assistants Kathleen Pettigrew, who trained men and women in paratroop drops behind enemy lines.[9]

Two other significant women in Bond's life were Vesper Lynd, the double agent of Fleming's first novel Casino Royale, who caused Bond so much trouble in love and loss, and Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, daughter of rival villain Marc-Ange Draco of the French mafia. Bond, with the assistance of Tracy, attempts to kill the leader of an international terrorist organization (Blofeld of SPECTRE). Bond would marry Tracy only to see her killed by a SPECTRE gunman in a car on the Autobahn at the end of Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Bond Girls of the Silver Screen

With Bond taking to the cinema in the early 1960s, the various women of the novels were usually portrayed as stunning, sexy partners with the occasional villainess. Some of the more memorable Bond girls of the cinema:

Jill St. John as Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever [memorable moment: walking around an ocean oil derrick in a colorful bikini]

Rosa Klebb as Lotya Lenya in From Russia With Love [memorable moment: the far from comely villainess removing a knife from a shoe as a weapon against Bond]

Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye [memorable moment: using sex as a weapon]

Dianna Rigg as Tracy di Vicenzo in Her Majesty's Secret Service [memorable moment: Bond's newlywed wife gunned down on the Autobahn]

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger [memorable moment: the villainess pilot physically challenges Bond in a fight in the hay]

Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in Dr. No [memorable moment: walking from ocean to beach holding shells while knife is holstered beside bikini] [10]

Sources:

Buono, Oreste and Eco, Umberto (ed.) The Bond Affair, "The Narrative Structure of Fleming." MacDonald, London, 1965.

Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice, Delta, New York, 1968.

Comentale, Edward; Watt, Stephen; Wilman, Skip, ed., Ian Fleming and James Bond - The Cultural Politics of 007, Indiana Press, Bloomington, IN., 2005.

Lindner, Chris. The James Bond Phenomenon - A Critical Reader, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2003.

Top Ten Bond Girls of the Cinema, http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1557446_11,00.html

End Notes:

[1] Fleming, Ian. From Russia With Love, MJF Books, New York, p. 58.

[2] Burgess, Anthony. "Oh, James Don't Stop," Life, April 1987, v. 10, p. 114.

[3] McCormick, Donald. Who's Who in Spy Fiction, Elm Tree, Great Britain, 1977, p. 109.

[4] Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice, "The White Race and Its Heroes," Delta, New York, 1968, p. 80.

[5] Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale, MJF Books, New York, p. 41.

[6] Buono, Oreste and Eco, Umberto (ed.) The Bond Affair. "The Narrative Structure of Fleming." MacDonald, London, 1965, pp. 35-75. For additional studies of Bond's women and relationships with his adversaries see Rosenburg, Bruce and Stewart, Ann. Ian Fleming, Twayne Publishing, 1989. Snelling, O.F. Double O Seven James Bond: A report. London: Nevilee Spearman, Holland Press, 1964.

[7] McCormick, Donald. Who's Who in Spy Fiction, Elm Tree Books, London, 1977, p. 75.

[8] Lycett, Andrew. "Ian Fleming: The Spy Who Loved Muriel," The Australian, September 1, 2000, p. 13.

[9] Grose, Thomas K. "The Real Miss Moneypenny," U.S. News and World Report, July 10, 2000, v. 129, i.2, p. 15.

[10]http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1557446_11,00.html