For His Eyes Only Part 3

The success of Moneypenny's disciplining is reinforced by the scene when she pa.s.ses on M's legacy to Bond. Prior to this moment, audiences see Bond standing on the roof of MI6 headquarters, surveying the streets of London below. In the background, directly above his head, a British flag flies in the wind, demonstrating the longevity and strength of the nation and Bond's role as its representative. Moneypenny greets Bond on the roof of MI6 headquarters after M's death, holding out a box. When Bond opens the box, he finds the vintage British bulldog figurine that M kept on her desk, the item that M left to him in her will. Moneypenny jokes, "Maybe it was her way of telling you to take a desk job." Bond responds, "Just the opposite." Here, Moneypenny literally pa.s.ses on "good" British virtues in the form of the figurine, which represents-as does Bond himself-the survival and maintenance of traditional British values. These values are embodied in the figurine and Bond: both are "old dog[s] with new tricks" capable of surviving even when M herself cannot. The good lines of Britishness survive and live on, as embodied in Bond's fit, white, hypermasculine body, and the tarnished facade of the porcelain bulldog that, inexplicably, survived the earlier terrorist attack on MI6. Bond has demonstrated that he is capable of "bouncing back," and the white male hero has proven himself resilient (Dodds 128). Once again, the narrative positioning of Moneypenny reveals that her value lies in her role as an intermediary between lead (white) characters whose centrality to the narrative and to the action does not challenge the normative system. The bulldog, if we can call it a gift, sharply contrasts Moneypenny's first, initial "gift" to Bond: the transgressive shot itself. What Moneypenny gives to Bond here is precisely the confirmation of her submission to the dominant order. She has receded from view as an action hero in the field; by stepping aside or behind the scenes, Bond's narrative of reconst.i.tution can come to completion. She has learned her place and is now recognizable as the Moneypenny that audiences have come to know and love.

This is not to say that earlier depictions of Moneypenny are all equally problematic, nor are all earlier depictions of Moneypenny equally submissive. As Tara Brabazon writes, "Miss Moneypenny performs a mode of femininity outside of marriage, fidelity and the private sphere [...] she is neither a safely s.e.xual nor predictably patriarchal performer. She remains a b.i.t.c.h, a demanding woman who cannot be trusted" (490). Lois Maxwell's performance as Moneypenny in the earlier Bond films-from Dr. No (Terence Young 1962) to You Only Live Twice-articulates her role as a "semiotic suffragette: probing and questioning the limits of women's s.e.xual and societal roles" (Brabazon 492). Although she remains "helplessly romantic" and desperate "for a golden wedding ring," she "actively pursues her quarry" (ibid. 491). This ambiguous albeit more equitable flirtation between Bond and Moneypenny begins to change with Moonraker (Lewis Gilbert 1979) and Octop.u.s.s.y (John Glen 1983). In these films, Moneypenny is represented as a vain and des.e.xualized spinster figure (Brabazon 493). This depiction of Moneypenny as either a des.e.xualized mothering figure or desperate and doting admirer of Bond continues until the refres.h.i.+ng revamping of the character by Samantha Bond in the Brosnan-era Bond films from GoldenEye (Martin Campbell 1995) to Die Another Day. Samantha Bond's performance of Moneypenny as a strong and attractive yet s.e.xually unattainable woman capable of calling out Bond on his misogynistic antics is, in some ways, a more progressive depiction of Moneypenny than what Skyfall provides. Taking Skyfall as the chronological precursor to Dr. No, Skyfall's disciplining and domestication of Moneypenny is logical insofar as it establishes a smooth transition between the films by demonstrating how "Eve" transforms into the "proper" Moneypenny: the Moneypenny behind the desk.

The representation of Eve Moneypenny in Skyfall leaves much to be desired, even if Naomie Harris' performance reveals a Moneypenny who is, at least initially, more active and independent than many of the earlier depictions. Instead of reimagining the character of Moneypenny to the extent that Bond has been reimagined since Casino Royale, Skyfall reinscribes Moneypenny as a character who must remain behind the scenes. Despite Skyfall's casting of Moneypenny as a black British woman who initially possesses increased agency and professional autonomy, this progressive representation is mitigated by Moneypenny's disciplining and domestication, which acts as a warning to viewers regarding the limited potential of people of color and women to achieve professional and social mobility. Notably, Brabazon writes that it is "when the feminist movement was radical and active in the public domain [that] the representations of Moneypenny were at their most repressive ad disapproving [...] transform[ing] the supersecretary into a warning beacon for ageing women" (493). In the same manner, Skyfall's representation of the disciplining and domestication of Moneypenny can be conceptualized as a didactic tool intended to reinforce racial and gendered hierarchies within an increasingly pluralized society in general and in postcolonial Britain more specifically. Moneypenny's disciplining in Skyfall, therefore, instructs audiences on how to maintain "proper" racial, s.e.xual, and gendered hierarchies within a contemporary cultural context. Skyfall's narrative of discipline and domestication acts as a warning to those who, like Moneypenny herself, may be tempted to transgress. After all, "fieldwork's not for everyone" as some must learn to be content with remaining behind the scenes.

CHAPTER 8.

OBJECTS OF WHITE MALE DESIRE.

(D)Evolving Representations of Asian Women in Bond Films Lisa Funnell The Bond film franchise has been criticized for being s.e.xist and racist (Licence, Chapman 12). However, critics and scholars rarely discuss these forms of oppression in tandem; how the s.e.xism is informed by racism and how the racism is influenced by s.e.xism. Gender and race are two dominant forms of social cla.s.sification that intersect in powerful ways. This interrelation strongly informs the conceptualization and depiction of Asian women on screen. In Hollywood narratives, Asian femininity has historically been defined in relation to white masculinity; the Asian female subject is rarely an autonomous figure and her ident.i.ty is derived from her relations.h.i.+p to the white male hero. Asian femininity is not only romanticized in physical and s.e.xual terms, but the bodies of Asian women, according to Marina Heung, serve as canvases upon which cultural meanings are projected (90).

This chapter explores the depiction of Asian women across three key phases of the Bond franchise. In the Connery era (1962-71), Asian women are defined solely in relation to the white male hero and the films foreground the distinction between unacceptable and acceptable Asian femininity. In Dr. No (Terence Young 1962), Miss Taro is conceptualized as a "Dragon Lady" and vilified for challenging the mission and libido of James Bond. In comparison, Aki and Kissy Suzuki in You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert 1967) qualify as Bond Girls for being submissive and eager to please. In the Brosnan era (1995-2002), Asian femininity is re-defined through the star persona of Hong Kong action star Mich.e.l.le Yeoh. Although her character, Wai Lin, is the most physically empowered Bond Girl of the franchise, Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode 1997) strips away some of her agency by having Bond seduce her at the end of the film. In the Craig era (2006-12), although Severine is initially characterized as a powerful Dragon Lady in Skyfall (Sam Mendes 2012), she quickly devolves into a tragic Lotus Blossom; she is presented as a disposable object of pleasure and struggle between two white men. I will argue that as Severine is one of the most disempowered women in the franchise, Skyfall is regressive in its representation of Asian femininity.

MISS TARO THE DRAGON LADY The first Bond film, Dr. No, introduces many key elements that have come to define the franchise. It stars Sean Connery as James Bond, a character adapted from the figure originating in Ian Fleming's novels. The filmic Bond conveys a more "mid-Atlantic" image with a tougher and less overtly British persona in order to better appeal to American filmgoers (Funnell, "I Know" 458). The film features Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, the preeminent Bond Girl. She was defined by her beauty, compelling backstory, and romantic relations.h.i.+p with Bond. In addition, the film introduces M, Moneypenny, and Q, staple characters who offer inst.i.tutional support for Bond. Although the Bond franchise continues to develop its generic ident.i.ty over the next few films, the inaugural Dr. No establishes the politics of representation that define the Connery era.

According to Eugene Franklin Wong, Asian actors have historically been limited in Hollywood through the practice of role segregation. While white actors have been cast in a range of ethnic and racial roles, Asian actors are rarely, if ever, cast in white roles (11). Role segregation is apparent in Dr. No as all primary characters are played by white actors. Although the villain, Dr. No, is Asian, he is played by Joseph Wiseman, a white actor who performs in "yellowface"-a racist form of theatrical make-up that presents a stereotyped caricature of an Asian person. With the exception of Miss Taro, all other Asian roles in the film are played by Asian actors; these secondary characters are mostly unnamed and have little-to-no dialogue.

Miss Taro is a henchperson and informant of Dr. No. She works undercover as the administrative a.s.sistant to Pleydell Smith, the Chief Secretary of the colonial government of Jamaica. Much like Dr. No, Taro is played by a white actor, Zena Marshall, who performs in yellowface. Moreover, she is presented in the film as a Dragon Lady, a racial stereotype of Asian femininity. The Dragon Lady is a figure of the underworld who is cunning, aggressive, and s.e.xually alluring, particularly to white men (Funnell, Warrior 10). As noted by Yasmin Jiwani, the Dragon Lady is dangerous because she is capable of seducing the white male hero away from his "civilizing mission and reducing him into naivety" (184). Through costuming, the film emphasizes the s.e.xual appeal of Taro. On the one hand, she appears in various stages of undress-a silk robe, a towel-while wearing a pair of silver heels, a powerful signifier of femininity. On the other hand, she wears form-fitting dresses that highlight her feminine frame. Although she shows minimal skin, the cut and style of the dresses call attention to her body in order to maximize her attractiveness. In addition, she can be seen applying or touching up red lipstick and nail polish in various scenes. As noted by Andrew J. Elliot and Daniela Niesta, "red, relative to other achromatic and chromatic colors, leads men to view women as more attractive and more s.e.xually desirable" (1150). In Dr. No, Taro is idealized in physical and s.e.xual terms.

Taro fulfills the role of Dragon Lady through her seduction of Bond. She sets a trap by inviting him to her apartment; she plans to have him run off the road and killed on his drive over. Presented in a single shot, Taro can be seen reclining on her bed while talking on the phone to Bond who does not appear visually in the scene. Instead, the camera focuses on Taro who is positioned as the erotic object of the gaze. According to Laura Mulvey, the gaze in film is male and the female occupies the traditional exhibitionist role. The woman on screen possesses a "to-be-looked-at-ness" and functions as a two-fold object of white male desire: she is an erotic object for the male character(s) in the diegesis as well for the male viewers who share his gaze ("Visual" 837-8). This scene, which is almost 40 seconds in length, emphasizes the s.e.xual desirability of Taro who seduces Bond verbally (by phone) and the audience visually (through her image).

When Bond finally arrives at the apartment, Taro uses her s.e.xuality to distract him while her counterparts organize another attack. Bond, however, antic.i.p.ates her plan and has her arrested after they have s.e.x. As she is led into the awaiting car, she is dressed in a cheongsam, a traditional Chinese dress, with her hair tied in a bun, and the film uses costuming to (over)emphasize and reiterate the Asian ident.i.ty of Taro and her connection to Dr. No. When she defiantly spits in Bond's face, it becomes clear that she is still aligned with the villain and her Asian heritage, and has not been swayed by Bond to support white Western society. Given her threat to the mission and libido of Bond, she is quickly escorted out of the scene, presumably to be punished for her transgressions.

AKI AND KISSY SUZUKI THE LOTUS BLOSSOMS In You Only Live Twice, Bond secretly travels to j.a.pan to investigate the disappearance of a missing s.p.a.cecraft. He works with j.a.panese secret service agent Tiger Tanaka (Tetsur Tanba) and is aided on his mission by two Asian Bond Girls, Aki (Akiko Wakabayas.h.i.+) and Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama). As I have argued elsewhere, each Bond film features only one Bond Girl. She is a non-recurring character, the primary female protagonist, and the central love interest of Bond ("From English" 63). However, in You Only Live Twice, as well as Tomorrow Never Dies, two Bond Girls are introduced but only one survives the film. Bond's relations.h.i.+p with the first Bond Girl (Aki and Paris Carver, respectively) runs its course and he mourns her death before engaging in a relations.h.i.+p with the second Bond Girl (Suzuki and Wai Lin, respectively) who he ends up dating by the end of the film (ibid.). Interestingly, this anomaly only occurs in films featuring Asian Bond Girls, and creates the impression that Asian Bond Girls are not as compelling as their white counterparts. As a result, the films need to provide Bond with two love interests or options.

You Only Live Twice takes liberties with the storyline presented in the original source novel published in 1964. As noted by Jeremy Black, the Chinese play a sinister role in the film and not in the novel, and this adaptation reflects the contemporaneous perception of China as a military threat after their testing of nuclear weapons in the 1960s (95). The film also takes liberties in its representation of Bond Girls. Originally, the script called for one Bond Girl, Kissy Suzuki. The two j.a.panese actors who were vying for the role were sent to London for six months to learn English. While Akiko Wakabayas.h.i.+ picked up the language quickly, Mie Hama could not learn enough English for the role and was told she would not be in the film. Upset by the decision, Hama told the casting agent that she had lost face and was going to kill herself (Kyriazi 2-3). As director Lewis Gilbert recalls: I didn't want a young woman's death on my conscience nor did the producers want that kind of publicity. So I told Tamba to tell her to stay and that she would be in the movie. Then I came up with the idea to have the two j.a.panese actresses switch parts because the other part didn't have much English speaking in it, and it worked out okay. (Qtd. in Kyriazi 4) Gilbert draws attention to the fact that Aki and Suzuki were initially conceptualized as a single character, and should thus be discussed in tandem. Moreover, this anecdote relies on a romanticized notion of j.a.panese culture that is arguably transferred onto the j.a.panese characters, and specifically the Bond Girls, in the film.

Aki and Suzuki, like the other Asian women in the film, are presented through the racial stereotype of the Lotus Blossom. The Lotus Blossom is a submissive and industrious figure who is eager to please the white male hero, and her ident.i.ty centers on the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p she develops with him (Funnell, Warrior 10). Although Aki is tasked with aiding Bond, she expresses a desire to serve Bond's carnal needs as well. As Tanaka explains to Bond during the infamous bathhouse scene in which they are bathed by a bevy of semi-nude Asian women, "Rule number one: never do anything yourself when someone else can do it for you...Rule number two: in j.a.pan, men come first, women come second." Aki confirms this sentiment when she tells Bond, "I think I will enjoy very much serving under you," a reference to both her s.e.xual and social position.

In order for Aki to win the love of Bond, she must commit herself fully to him, his mission, and his country. As noted by Yen Le Espiritu, Hollywood narratives often feature interracial romances between Anglo American men and Asian women that follow the Pocahontas mythos: the Asian woman commits herself to dominant white culture out of devotion to her lover. She usually dies or ends up leaving her country to go live with her husband (12). Aki is a tragic figure whose love for Bond inevitably leads to her death. She is poisoned by a substance that was meant for Bond while they are sleeping in bed. Through her death, Aki (unknowingly) sacrifices herself so that Bond can carry on his mission. This narrative, inscribed with the Pocahontas mythos, works to legitimate and naturalize the access of the white West (coded masculine via Bond) to the Asian East (coded feminine via Aki).

Although saddened by the death of Aki, Bond moves forward with his mission by preparing to work undercover as a fisherman in j.a.pan. He undergoes a process in which he "turns j.a.panese:" he wears yellowface, learns martial arts, and marries a j.a.panese bride. This sequence of events is grossly problematic as it relays a simplistic and racist interpretation of j.a.panese culture. Moreover, Bond's greatest fear throughout this process is that his bride will be ugly. Although Suzuki marries Bond, she initially rejects his advances, telling him, "This is business." Her professional approach is reflected in her clothing, as she wears loose-fitting kimonos that cover her body and obscure her frame, and she rejects being positioned as an object of the gaze. Soon after, she begins to develop feelings for Bond and this internal change is signaled externally through a change in costuming. During a reconnaissance mission with Bond, Suzuki wears a white bikini while Bond is fully clothed. As the two lay down to rest on a hill, she leans back placing her body on display for Bond who leans in to kiss her. In a short period of time, Suzuki quickly transitions from ally agent to servile Lotus Blossom and she appears to pick up with Bond where he and Aki had left off.

Racial stereotypes often come in two opposing models defined in terms of their position to white hegemony. According to Frank Chin and Jeffery Paul Chan, the "unacceptable model" is considered undesirable because the person cannot be controlled by whites and threatens the status quo (65). In comparison, the "acceptable model" is permitted because the person is "tractable;" in other words, she/he is easy to control or influence. In the Connery era, Asian femininity is defined in relation to James Bond. On the one hand, Miss Taro is presented as a Dragon Lady who is punished for challenging the mission and libido of Bond. On the other hand, Aki and Kissy Suzuki are presented as Lotus Blossoms who qualify as Bond Girls for desiring domestication.

WAI LIN THE ACTION HERO BOND GIRL After nearly 30 years, the Bond franchise cast another Asian Bond Girl. Tomorrow Never Dies features Hong Kong action star Mich.e.l.le Yeoh as Wai Lin, a Chinese secret agent who works with Bond to bring down a media mogul. Lin is one of the strongest Bond Girls in the franchise. Producers relied heavily on the established star persona of Yeoh when crafting her character, much like they did with Grace Jones for May Day in A View to a Kill (John Glen 1985; Funnell, "Negotiating" 206). By the 1990s, Yeoh had developed a reputation for being a "real" action star: she performed her own stunts and fought alongside some of Hong Kong's most reputable action men like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen (Funnell, Warrior 39-42). Given the transnational popularity of Yeoh and her dynamism on screen, Bond producers cast her as an action-oriented Bond Girl in their film.

Skilled in martial arts, Lin outfights and outs.h.i.+nes Bond in all of the action sequences in which she appears, regardless of whether she is fighting alone or alongside Bond. Lin is also a skilled investigator as she uncovers similar clues and arrives at the same conclusions as Bond. What differentiates Lin from Bond, however, is her strong sense of purpose. While Bond is easily distracted by beautiful women and even tries to seduce Lin, she remains focused on the job at hand and continually turns him down; she effectively rejects her positioning as a Lotus Blossom in the film. Tomorrow Never Dies also presents the impression that Lin might be a superior secret agent. After defending her apartment from attackers, she reveals to Bond that her place doubles as a home base: it has been equipped with technology and gadgets similar to those developed by the Q Branch. As Bond walks through the s.p.a.ce, he is presented as the target of a series of gags; he accidentally sets off a number of traps and is almost killed in the process. When Bond insists on sending a message to M16, Lin steps aside and takes pleasure in watching Bond discover that the keyboard has Chinese characters rather than the English alphabet. Although Bond, throughout the franchise, has taken his female allies to task in order to prove that he is a superior agent, the opposite occurs in Tomorrow Never Dies and it is Lin who comes out on top.

Lin is not a typical Bond Girl and she is not set up as the love interest of Bond. As previously noted, Tomorrow Never Dies is the second film in the franchise to feature two consecutive Bond Girls: Bond has a relations.h.i.+p with Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher) and only begins to work with Lin after Carver has been killed and he has mourned her death. This anomaly arguably aids in strengthening the character of Lin by alleviating her of the burden of appealing to the white male gaze. Since Carver has already fulfilled this expectation, appearing in a cleavage enhancing dress and lingerie, Lin is free to exude a more heroic image. As I have argued elsewhere, She is never s.e.xualized or fetis.h.i.+zed on-screen, and her body is never placed on erotic display, which would undermine the heroic accomplishments of her character; instead, she is costumed in loose-fitting clothes that offer her practical mobility and provide her with a more masculine image. (Warrior, 43) By rejecting the advances of Bond, Lin is able to distance herself from the narrative and iconographic expectations of the Bond Girl. She is valued as a hero above all else and offers a new image of Asian femininity that centers on her achievements rather than oriental s.e.xuality (ibid.). The film, according to Sheldon Lu, reframes for Western audiences the traditionally libidinous relations.h.i.+p between British masculinity and Chinese femininity by presenting a cooperative rather than parasitic relations.h.i.+p between Bond and Lin (134).

Although Lin is initially depicted as an empowered action woman, the film seems to strip away some of her agency in the final scenes. Captured by Richard Stamper (Gotz Otto), Lin is chained to an anchor and tossed overboard. Bond not only rescues a drowning Lin-giving her "mouth-to-mouth" in the process-but he also succeeds in wooing her as this lifesaving act doubles as their first kiss. The sudden romance between Bond and Lin seems forced and contrived. Had the film ended in a non-traditional manner with Bond and Lin simply parting ways, it might convey the impression that Lin, and not Bond, is the superior agent and hero-that Bond needs Lin more than she needs him. Instead, the film neutralizes Lin's threat to the heroic competency of Bond through heteros.e.xual romantic conquest. In an attempt to place Lin within the confines of the Bond Girl archetype, the film concludes with an unconvincing shot of Bond and Lin kissing on a piece of debris in the middle of the ocean.

In spite of its ending, Tomorrow Never Dies features one of the strongest and most popular Bond Girls. Not only did the role open up opportunities for Mich.e.l.le Yeoh in Hollywood, but Bond producers sought her out to reprise her role in Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori 2002); Wai Lin would provide Bond with an ally after his escape from the M16 debriefing with M ("Wai" 1). This was the first time that a Bond Girl had been asked to return to the series in the same role. Yeoh, however, turned down the part in order to shoot a film in Hong Kong with her own production company, and aspects of her character were divided across a number of roles (ibid. 9). Nonetheless, this request draws attention to the popular appeal of an Asian Bond Girl who has a standalone ident.i.ty that is defined by her achievements rather than her s.e.xual appeal to the white male hero.

SEVERINE DISEMPOWERED LOTUS BLOSSOM The Craig era films const.i.tute a rebooting of the Bond film franchise. They are revisionist in nature: they deconstruct the Bondian genre and refas.h.i.+on key elements in order to appeal to a new generation of filmgoers. This is most notable in the adaptation of the filmic James Bond. As I have argued elsewhere, Casino Royale (Martin Campbell 2006) s.h.i.+fts away from the British lover literary tradition and "firmly grounds Craig's Bond in contemporary American ideals of heroic masculinity. Emphasis is placed on Daniel Craig's exposed muscular torso rather than his s.e.xuality, libido and conquest" (Funnell, "I Know" 462). As the reboot trilogy has progressed, additional Bondian elements have been reconceptualized and reintroduced into the series.

Skyfall is notably regressive in its representation of women on screen. For example, the film emphasizes the age and maternal qualities of M (Judi Dench) whose competency as the leader of M16 is constantly called into question. In addition, Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) is presented as a defunct field agent who almost kills Bond and is subsequently demoted to a desk job. In a similar way, the character Severine (Berenice Marlohe) is presented as one of the most tragic and disempowered women not only in the Craig era, but the franchise at large. Instead of building on the popular appeal of Wai Lin or even continuing the tradition of revisioning characters/ character types, the Bond franchise reverts back to an older, antiquated, and problematic representational mode for the Asian female subject.

Although Marlohe is a multiracial actress-her father is Asian and her mother is white-her character is clearly presented as an Asian "Other" in the film. Initially, Severine is depicted as a mysterious, alluring, and powerful Dragon Lady via iconography. Bond first meets Severine in a casino in Macau. The room is dimly lit and many characters, including Severine, are partially cast in shadow. Severine is wearing a floor-length form-fitting dress. While most of her body is covered, much of the dress is made from a black sheer material, which works to highlight rather than conceal her feminine frame; based on its design, the dress looks more like burlesque lingerie than a formal gown. Severine is also wearing dark make-up and her long nails are painted black, adding to her dangerous yet alluring appeal. Flanked by bodyguards, Severine initially appears to be a powerful and commanding figure.

In a short period of time, a series of events unfold that greatly alter our perception of Severine. She reveals to Bond that Silva (Javier Bardem) saved her from the s.e.x trade in Macau and she is now bound to him. Bond agrees to help her escape in exchange for her a.s.sistance in meeting Silva. Following this, Severine and Bond have s.e.x in a steamy shower scene on their way to Dead Island, which houses Silva's base. While Bond is taken prisoner and interrogated by Silva, Severine is beaten and tied to a statue. She then serves as a target when Silva places a shot gla.s.s on her head and forces Bond to shoot at her. When Bond misses too far to her left, Silva raises his pistol and shoots her squarely in the forehead. Bond reacts to this event by stating, "What a waste of a good scotch." In the end, neither man shows any remorse for the death of Severine.

Although originally presented as a Dragon Lady, Severine is quickly disempowered and devolves into a tragic Lotus Blossom as the narrative progresses. She is presented as a disposable object of pleasure and struggle between two white men and the ident.i.ty of Severine is defined solely in terms of her relations.h.i.+ps with Bond and Silva. She has limited dialogue, little-to-no personal agency, and, much like Le Chiffre's (Mads Mikkelsen) girlfriend Valenka (Ivana Milievi) in Casino Royale, she is paraded around half-naked for the majority of her time on-screen (Funnell, "Negotiating" 209). Her death has little impact on Bond, Silva, or the narrative trajectory. In fact, her role could be entirely eliminated from the film without significantly altering the storyline. As a result, Severine can be considered one of the most disempowered, pitiful, and tragic women in the Bond film franchise.

(D)EVOLVING REPRESENTATIONS.

An examination of the intersection of gender and race draws attention to the politics of representation at work in the Bond franchise. While some might argue that the series has evolved in terms of its gender and racial politics, producers continue to rely on racial stereotypes to envisage Asian femininity, defining it in relation to white masculinity. Although Skyfall marks the fiftieth anniversary of the series and the conclusion of the reboot trilogy, the film is decidedly regressive in its treatment of Severine and employs antiquated modes of representation that are reductive, s.e.xist, and racist. Given the popular appeal of Wai Lin, an independent and empowered Bond Girl who was valued for her accomplishments rather than oriental s.e.xuality, Bond producers should consider revising their representation of the Asian female subject. Although the Lotus Blossom is considered to be the "acceptable model" of Asian femininity, it is still a racist stereotype and a limited and fixated form of representation. While seemingly positive traits are romanticized and exoticized, this generalization continues to define Asian femininity in relation to the white male status quo, that being James Bond.

Section 3.

FEMINIST CRITIQUES AND MOVEMENTS.

CHAPTER 9.

"NEVER TRUST A RICH SPY"

Ursula Andress, Vesper Lynd, and Mythic Power in Casino Royale 1967.

Robert von Da.s.sanowsky.

The concept of the female spy permanently ruptured the polarized good/bad images of women in Anglo-American dominant cinema and television. Film noir had much to do with this, as did Hitchc.o.c.k, and the short-lived sub-genre of the caper comedy provides a unique conflation of postwar cinematic influences and 1960s s.e.xuality, further destabilizing traditional female imagery on screen. Ursula Andress' Vesper Lynd in the multidirectional Bond spoof, Casino Royale (Val Guest et al. 1967), is no ordinary femme fatale, but arguably the most remarkable female character of the entire decade's espionage genre, for her vast independent power and wealth. The 1967 Vesper Lynd also echoes Andress' role in the first Bond film Dr. No (Terence Young 1962) as it intertexts with the "real" Bond series and conflates the other s.e.xually domineering characters she previously portrayed.

Much has been written about the unfinished qualities of the 1967 Casino Royale. While it is true that Peter Sellers dropped out of the project leaving his role incomplete, and that segments from three credited screenwriters and five credited directors provided such varied narrative arcs that director Val Guest was asked by producer Charles K. Feldman to ensure continuity in the editing room, the film should be considered a cla.s.sic because it embraced the feel of the era's "Happening." Although a spy spoof, the film's actual sub-genre might be called "psychedelic mainstream cinema," which was first attempted with The Loved One (Tony Richardson 1965) and What's New p.u.s.s.ycat? (Clive Donner and Richard Talmadge 1965). As the response to the demise of studio-based cinema, these destabilizing and self-subversive social satires dared to take on aspects of life, death, ident.i.ty, capitalism, the American middle cla.s.s, and the British upper cla.s.s in a way that was anathema to Hollywood censors.h.i.+p. Nevertheless, the screwball comedy-as-hallucination did not just appear but had been birthed by pus.h.i.+ng the envelope even further on social and political farces of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The more brazen independent films of Billy Wilder such as One, Two, Three (1961) are seminal to the mix, but so are John Boulting's comedies with Peter Sellers, such as Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959), and Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), which literally took the proverbial gloves off as to what could be shown and how. With the birth of the James Bond films in 1962, which re-visioned Hitchc.o.c.k-particularly North By Northwest (1959)-and the sub-genre of the caper films in which traditional morality was questioned, iconoclastic satire needed only a dose of "mod" cool and the visual emulation of hallucinogens to reach the zenith of Casino Royale in 1967.

In the glut of the spy films and spoofs of the 1960s, mainstream international cinema offered only three true attempts at creating a female James Bond with all the power and s.e.xuality that the concept entailed. Joseph Losey's Felliniesque Modesty Blaise (1966), based on the popular French comic strip, offered a talented female spy, but unlike her morally superior male counterparts, she was a master thief and a.s.sociated with the underworld. Her independence, rejection of the intelligence establishment, and nontraditional s.e.xual mores might have developed into a strong proto-feminist series, but traditional critics and audiences rejected a liberated female as hero because of the moral ambiguity. Frank Tashlin's slapdash Caprice (1967), with Doris Day in a t.i.tle role she despised, pretends to be a female version of the male spy spoof, but is actually about corporate espionage. Day's Caprice is a thin reworking of her career-women characters of the late 1950s, and even her flirtation with casual s.e.x is so convoluted as to slip by without any ramifications to character or plot development (Da.s.sanowsky, "Caper" 108).

It is Andress' Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale that attains a memorable quality of power, wealth, and an independent lifestyle that have little to do with patriarchy. Andress' Lynd, along with David Niven's Sir James Bond, Joanna Pettet's Mata Bond, and Woody Allen's Jimmy Bond/Dr. Noah, are the only fully developed characters in the 1967 Casino Royale that provide a through-line for the episodic, fragmented narrative. Andress and Niven also returned to the film to shoot additional scenes to provide linkages for new (sub-)plot directions, and despite the intentional cameo feel to the cast, the film is anch.o.r.ed by their personalities and roles. It was a particular coup of the filmmakers to employ Andress as the lead female role, given her Bond film pedigree, and to some extent her character is linked with Honey Ryder in such a way as to suggest they might actually be the same person.

THE B(L)OND GIRL: TRADITION AND EXCEPTION.

Andress was a difficult fit for Hollywood's imported glamour girl phase of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her German-Swiss accent was too heavy and she was re-voiced in her first films, including Dr. No. Her cla.s.sic, statuesque look would often connect her with Greco-Roman imagery, but her intelligent, often purposive expressiveness made her an unsuccessful match for Elvis Presley, who normally dominated his blander female co-stars on screen, in Fun in Acapulco (Richard Thorpe 1963). In 4 For Texas (Robert Aldrich 1963), an all-star western that vacillated between cliche and spoof, Andress and her female co-star, Anita Ekberg, who became an international icon with La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini 1960), were obviously cast to exploit their fas.h.i.+onable exotic starlet status. But Andress' more enigmatic and larger than life roles in She (Robert Day 1965), What's New p.u.s.s.ycat?, and The Blue Max (John Guillermin 1966) revealed her to be a talented and self-aware performer especially adept in playing the icy femme fatale. This made her somewhat of an acquired taste and certainly limited her roles. Even in period costume, or in more dramatic parts as the adulterous wife of General Count von Klugermann, who chafes at the limitations of her freedom in the World War I German flying ace saga, The Blue Max, Andress was encouraged to exploit an inscrutable domineering quality that had quickly become her trademark. The year before, she had mocked her G.o.ddess image by descending from the sky with a parachute and demanding that a befuddled Peter O'Toole join her in bed in What's New p.u.s.s.ycat?. In the same film, Peter Sellers' character defends himself from his wife's accusations of infidelity with Andress in an obviously improvised response when he points out that she "is a close personal friend of James Bond!"

In the original Fleming novel Casino Royale (1953),1 Vesper Lynd was Bond's pa.s.sive love interest who betrays him, and in the 2006 film directed by Martin Campbell she was presented as a sensitive and conflicted double agent. In the 1967 Casino Royale, however, the character was tailored to the Amazonian-like quality that Andress had first suggested in Dr. No and since developed in such roles as She. In this historical fantasy, Andress delivers a commanding interpretation of Ayesha, the immortal high-priestess queen known as "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed." The blend of seduction and cruel manipulation seems like an audition for Casino Royale, where she adapts the type to slightly more human parameters in her mythic Lynd. More than a decade and a half later, her role as Aphrodite opposite Laurence Olivier's Zeus in Clash of the t.i.tans (Desmond Davis 1981) revisited the super-woman qualities she projected in She and it became one of her notable international film appearances.

Lisa Funnell argues that the early "Bond Girls" were vulnerable s.e.xual objects, and those with any agency were the "enemy", unless converted by Bond like p.u.s.s.y Galore in Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton 1964). Females with true authority were masculinized and middle-aged, having no s.e.xual attraction for Bond: Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love (Terence Young 1963) and Irma Bunt in Peter Hunt's 1969 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service ("From English" 64-6; "Negotiating" 203-4). This makes Andress' Lynd a major rupture in the conception of the Bond myth as it applies to women and s.e.xuality, even though the 1967 Casino Royale is not part of the official Eon series. The central subplot in the film involving Lynd, Bond, and the casino game with Le Chiffre is nevertheless rooted in Fleming's novel. Lynd's betrayal of Bond in that novel would have given the cinematic Bond no "good" girl to play with or convert, but Lynd, as Fleming wrote her, would also fit with the "bad" girls of the early series since their limited power is manipulated by a male authority and leads to their demise. While Andress' Lynd does betray the Sellers' Bond-for-a-day by killing him, she admits her motivation as she points a gun at her "boss" Sir James Bond (David Niven): Sir James (on the phone): I want London, Whitehall double O O7 Lynd: (pus.h.i.+ng down the receiver hook and pointing gun at him): Too bad you won't get it Sir James. I went through a lot of trouble to bring you here.

Sir James: Dear Vesper, the things you do for money.

Lynd: This time it's for love, Sir James (indicating with the gun)...back to the office!

The film's new Connery-style Bond, Cooper (Terence Cooper), interrupts her by announcing that American aid has arrived. Lynd runs for cover, but makes it to heaven with the other "good" characters after the casino explodes, because of her confession that she was motivated by love.

Sellers had taken the role in an attempt to refas.h.i.+on his strongly character-oriented comic image into a more romantic-comedy hero. He envisaged the transformation of the easily intimidated baccarat expert, Evelyn Tremble, into a surface imitation of a serious James Bond, albeit with an underlying comedic wit that would be more screwball Cary Grant than the grotesques he played for Kubrick (Lolita, Dr. Strangelove). But it was his success in playing the eccentric s.e.x-mad Austrian psychoa.n.a.lyst in What's New p.u.s.s.ycat? opposite Andress, Capucine, and O'Toole that gave the 1967 Casino Royale producer Charles K. Feldman the ultimate concept for presenting a Bond film without Sean Connery-another mod "event" film reuniting many of the stars from p.u.s.s.ycat. Sellers' dissatisfaction with his segment director Joseph McGrath, whom he had campaigned to get onto the film, and the intimidation Sellers felt from the grandstanding of Orson Welles, resulted in his departure. But in leaving, Lynd's relations.h.i.+p with his character had to change as well. Sellers' Bond had to be killed off and Feldman would bring in the other directors to build a new multidirectional film around the Sellers and Andress footage.

The experience had nevertheless changed Sellers' idea of his own star persona and following his pairing with Andress, most of his subsequent films placed him in the role of a lover with an attractive "leading lady." What survives of the original expanded relations.h.i.+p scenes between Andress' Lynd and Seller's Bond surfaces in a brief druggy-dream sequence and still photos. It is clear that the characters had a deeper relations.h.i.+p than the one-night-stand that makes up the center of the finished film, which Lynd uses to seduce him into being Bond and according to Sir James' orders, to destroy Le Chiffre at a baccarat game at the Casino Royale. As in the novel, Lynd is kidnapped following the victory over Le Chiffre, and Sellers' Bond goes after her and ends up being tortured by Le Chiffre. It is not the s.c.r.o.t.u.m beating of the novel or the 2006 film, although as a nod to the novel Seller's Bond discovers a chair with a hole in the seat and questions it. Instead, Le Chiffre subjects him to an LSD-influenced and electronic "torture of the mind." Bond hallucinates his imprisonment in a Scottish castle, and a perilous collision with a battalion of threatening Scottish pipers and Lynd's appearance to save him, which breaks through the hallucination but also takes on its qualities as well. Dressed as a Scottish piper, Lynd uses her bagpipe machine gun to eradicate the threat. Had Sellers remained with the film, Andress' Lynd might have been the first Bond Girl to have true agency and be on the side of "good" decades before what Funnell describes as the Action Hero Bond Girl stage of the series, where particularly "Jinx" Johnson (Halle Berry) in Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori 2002) displays professional prowess, s.e.xuality, and an independence equal to Bond ("From English" 77). Lynd, however, gives a final statement on the amoral nature of espionage and her own immense success in it before she also guns him down and out of the film: "Mr. Tremble...never trust a rich spy."

PUTTING ON AND PLAYING (WITH) THE (GENDER) ROLE.

Dual representations of mythic superiority essentially subvert traditional gender roles in the 1967 film. Sir James is the elite aesthete in lordly retirement, whereas Lynd is the consummate international business tyc.o.o.n. Bargaining over the quant.i.ty of nuclear warheads to offer France for purchase of the Eiffel Tower, she changes her mind about buying Rockefeller Center, and moves the statue of Lord Nelson from its Trafalgar Square column to outside her living room terrace. "Isn't he beautiful?" she comments, appreciating the idealized male figure in the way men gaze at women. Although she "saves all her energies for business," Sir James manages to persuade her to take on the mission of creating a baccarat playing Bond by appealing to that sensibility and suggests the possibility of leniency in her case of "just over five million pounds tax arrears." The process of Lynd's seduction of Evelyn Tremble in order to fas.h.i.+on an imitation Bond is now the most appreciated aspect of a film that has never been favored by critics. "The Look of Love," sung by Dusty Springfield, underscores Lynd's s.e.xual-psychological refas.h.i.+oning of Tremble's shyness into confidence by showing him, beyond his belief, that he can have her. But it is also here that symbolism and cinematic intertext allows insight into what Lynd represents in her time and in film in general-as a woman who "creates" Bond. The year 1967 is known for other transgressive flips on traditional morality and the dominant male/pa.s.sive female binary in international cinema: the tragic frustrations and s.e.xual diversion of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (Mike Nichols 1967); the cannibalization of an abusive man by his bourgeois wife in Jean-Luc G.o.dard's Weekend (1967); and the relative gender equality of desire and violence in Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn 1967).

Michael Stringer's immense and lavish set designs for Casino Royale not only outdo previous Eon Bond series films and influence those to come, but they specifically a.s.sociate Lynd with empowering symbolic imagery throughout the film. Most notably, her entry door bears the large golden bas relief of a G.o.ddess face wearing a sunburst crown. Two monumental Grecian G.o.ddess caryatids, suggesting those from the Erechtheion temple dedicated to Athena (G.o.ddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, and skill) at the Acropolis in Greece, are visible in her immense office earlier in the film, and there is a long Grecian frieze resembling a portion of the Elgin Marbles (from the Parthenon, also dedicated to Athena) that hangs over the elevator conversation pit in her apartment. She is able to dispatch the bodies of her victims via an interior shaft exposed by a sliding fake oven panel, a wry twist on the woman's traditional role a.s.sociation with the kitchen and the concept of housekeeping. It is a male servant she calls on her intercom phone to remind him to empty "the deep freeze first thing in the morning." There are also clues that she may be a version of Ryder from Dr. No, the highly independent beachcomber, perhaps converted through her adventure with Connery's Bond to become a spy. Ryder's capitalist impulses in selling her sh.e.l.ls along with her physical self-awareness and instinctive mistrust of men (i.e. brandis.h.i.+ng a dagger on Bond and relating how she killed a man that raped her) are amplified and transformed in Lynd. When Sir James claims "the whole world believes that you were eaten by a shark, Miss Lynd" she replies with ennui, "That was no shark, that was my personal submarine."

Lynd is a.s.sociated with water-the female element-which is also the "home" of Ryder who emerges from the sea foam like a modern-day Botticelli "Venus" in the iconic scene in Dr. No. In a striking tracking shot in Casino Royale, the camera shoots in slow motion through and across a wall-length aquarium in Lynd's apartment, as she leads Tremble across the room, seemingly floating to her lair. There are elements of skin diving equipment, particularly a spear gun, displayed on a wall in her kitchen. She shoves Tremble into a shower and douses him with cold water when he is drugged by Miss Goodthighs and loses confidence in himself prior to the casino game. Lynd is "just about getting into the bath" as Sir James attempts to warn her about Tremble on Q's "two-way television and radio wrist.w.a.tch." Above her tub hangs a large pop-art painting of a female eye peering out of blades of gra.s.s and flower petals. Whether meant to be the eye of the G.o.ddess, an emblem of the female in nature, or a symbol of spying, it is a telling visual element that signals a s.h.i.+ft in power dynamics. With Lynd, women can also occupy the gaze that Bond has.

Vesper Lynd circa 1967 is the subject of voyeuristic pleasure for both genders in the audience that oscillates between baiting male desire as an erotic object and empowering the female gaze. Postcoitally, she films Tremble posing on a revolving bed and captures him "in a ridiculous striped outfit of no discernable category-a one-piece affair with shorts and a revealing V-neck (in the back), a sort of Matelot pajama" (Sikov 253). But as he playfully looks at her upside down from a p.r.o.ne position that mocks Golden Age Hollywood female s.e.x symbol poses, the film's wide shot of this tableau is suddenly edited upside down for several frames. Lynd's "home movies" allow her symbolic control of the visual for a brief moment and foreshadow her ultimate control of this character, but the edit suggests it is nevertheless Tremble's male-dominant view (upside-down) that controls the film's simulacrum of reality. Lynd is also a still photographer with a fully stocked dark room in her mirror-lined fuchsia bedroom. The viewer becomes aware of the male performativity of dominance and its absurdity when overlaid on the Bond manque of Tremble through her eyes and again through her lens, as she costumes him as hyper-power icons. .h.i.tler and Napoleon, but also as Toulouse-Lautrec, with Sellers on his knees and Andress towering over him with her light meter. This sequence is a metaphoric framework for her creation of a Bond imitation as it simultaneously subverts the historical myths of male superiority as a "putting on." She destabilizes and reverses the traditional heteros.e.xual dyad by being his educator, guide, and protector but ultimately kills him (she is in male drag at the time as a Scottish piper) when he becomes problematic to her own agenda. Along with her ambiguous amorality, Lynd's photographing of Tremble as. .h.i.tler is evocative of Leni Riefenstahl in her visual creation of the "heroic" image of the physically unimpressive leader in Triumph of the Will (1935).

Throughout the film, Lynd's self-conscious exhibitionism and her own empowering female gaze that objectifies men must undermine John Berger's limiting concept that in cla.s.sic cinema "men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at" (47) for the audience of the era. Mary Ann Doane's solution to Laura Mulvey's insistence that women must identify with the masculine gaze given the patriarchal construction of society and dominant cinema, is that a woman must "masquerade as spectator" (not as a theoretical transvest.i.te as Mulvey would have it) to distance herself from her own male-objectified image (Femmes 26). Indeed, this is the most important aspect of the 1967 Vesper Lynd character-she is a metaphor for a gender/ spectator masquerade that allows the gaze without the loss of being gazed upon. She is a mythic feminine leader in the male world of hyper-finance, a female James Bond, and mirrors her status in the masking of Tremble, a pa.s.sive man (with a feminine name) as an iconic, dominant one. There is, however, a proto-feminist impulse at work in Joseph McGrath's empowerment of Andress' Lynd to balance out the excess of Sellers' self-depreciating improvisational comedy. Unlike all other Bond Girls of the era who are basically Bond's s.e.xual projections, Lynd interrupts the Bond mythos and the masculine gaze with a gaze wholly her own, albeit as a "superior woman" fantasy. She indicates this with her own cameras, through which she also blatantly deconstructs the very thing she is charged with "creating"-and which the audience has come to fantasize about-a powerful alpha male.

The 1967 Lynd hides from the world as her evolved female cannot co-exist in a traditionally male dominated s.p.a.ce, but only in her own esoteric economy. At the same time, however, she mocks traditional female roles and s.p.a.ces. Her character stands alone among the short-lived power-villain roles in the genre of 1960s spy film, which were actually reactionary responses to growing female liberation consciousness and manufactured to validate male guidance and authority. Yet Lynd's sharp intellect is replaced with ill-fitting emotionalism during her last minutes on screen-it is not clear who or what she loved-and the response, which only emulates a formulaic narrative twist of betrayal, is a cinematic slap in the spectator's face for believing that Lynd might be more than a tease.

CONCLUSION: FORGETTING THE G.o.dDESS.

In her article "'I Know Where You Keep Your Gun': Daniel Craig as the BondBond Girl Hybrid in Casino Royale" Funnell argues that: Bond and the Bond Girl have been merged into a single figure. The evolutionary nature of both characters renders them suitable for hybridization. The BondBond Girl composite maintains the British ident.i.ty and male s.e.x of the t.i.tle character. Aligned with Hollywood models of masculinity, the conflation of Craig's contradictory body presents him as physical, heroic and thus masculine while engaged in action, and feminized through youth, spectacle and pa.s.sivity to the gaze when disengaged from physical activity. (466) Ironically, it is Craig's re-presentation of the first significant erotic gaze in Bond film history, by emerging from the sea in the same way that Andress did in Dr. No, which is essential in the ontology of this hybrid of Bond-Bond Girl. In the 1967 Casino Royale, Andress is first seen in her office, wearing her exotic elephant boy outfit, followed by obedient male a.s.sistants and secretaries, who hang on the nuances of every order she gives. While Connery's Bond sees Andress from the beach, in a subjective, voyeuristic gaze the audience shares, Andress' Lynd is spied on by Sir James, in a self-conscious statement on voyeurism and on Andress as an actress whose career is positioned as spectacle. He has gained access to her office and spies at her from behind a potted tree, parting the leaves with his fingers so that his eye gains access and becomes the central aspect of the medium close-up shot. It is a reference, of course, to Connery's Bond seeing Andress for the first time in Dr. No. However, the actual erotic gaze of the "celibate" and highly moral Sir James on Lynd comes later in this film, as he attempts to sneak a peak of her getting into the bath on his television wrist.w.a.tch. Lynd covers the watch face screen with her hand to block his view, and with the painting of the large female eye hanging over her bathtub and seemingly staring at the audience, the scene symbolically flips the gender control of the cinematic gaze from male to female.

Lynd manipulates Tremble and the audience by moving between a hypers.e.xual Bond Girl image and that of the power female. She first lures Tremble to her home by telling him she is reading his baccarat study but that there are "several pa.s.ses in your book that I don't fully understand" while he is dumbstruck by her very presence. She continues by telling him she cannot remember the specific chapter, and so she would need to consult the book, which is in her bed. Her intelligence and underlying calculation adds the frisson of a slight dominatrix quality to the initial meetings with Tremble. She begins their conversation by recalling the playful disbelief James Bond exhibits upon learning a Bond Girl's s.e.xually suggestive name: Lynd: "I thought Evelyn was a girl's name?" / Tremble: "No...its mine...actually." The conversation is ended with Lynd's challenging stare at Tremble while her gloved hand firmly grasps and strongly pulls the phallic slot machine handle (she fondled one with a bright red k.n.o.b earlier) to a clattering release of coins. The message of Lynd's s.e.xual domination is not lost on Tremble or the audience. Even after he has been trained to be "Bond" this dynamic remains. At a moment of insecurity in the casino manager's office prior to the game, the normally icy Lynd gives a performance of sensitive female rea.s.surance complete with whispered voice and tender smile as she tells him, "don't worry, I'll take care of you." And in the parlance of a hitwoman, she eventually does.

It is clear that the Bond-Bond Girl hybridization apparent in Craig's characterization of the millennial Bond was attempted in reverse by the creation of Andress' hybrid Bond Girl-Bond blend in 1967, and it fed on the tropes and cliches that began with Connery and Andress in Dr. No. Interestingly, that first meeting is recontextualized as a tribute with Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry in Die Another Day, and revisited with the gender role flip with Craig in the 2006 Casino Royale. Either as parody or as action/drama, the mix of Bond and Lynd causes some gender role destabilization in its reflection of the original Connery-Andress relations.h.i.+p in 1962.

Eva Green's Vesper Lynd of 2006 recalls a bit of Andress in her initial dominant quality and the Grecian cut of her casino gowns, but the film ultimately reframes the 1967 pseudo-G.o.ddess fantasy as an officious bureaucratic figure. The impossible super-fe/male has become a politically correct authority image. Unlike the arrogant, self-a.s.sured, mythically powerful 1967 incarnation, the new Lynd is aware of her loaned power, is openly but not fetis.h.i.+stically s.e.xual, and yet is obviously sophisticated beyond the neophyte Bond whom she also educates. While Fleming's postwar Bond novel rea.s.serts male dominance and the danger of female agency with the betrayal of Lynd, the 1967 version is a prismatic translation of the original relations.h.i.+p. True to the intended kaleidoscopic and necessitated patchwork quality of the film, the emphasis is on questioning perception, bending reflection, and creating destabilization. Andress' Lynd began as reference to her previous Bond Girl in what would become a sprawling Bond satire, and was inventively swayed into a bold exercise on female authority by the production disruptions of Sellers and the need to re-anchor the narrative(s). The post-Cold War Lynd of 2006 is only nominally aligned to the values of espionage, and although she expects agency and mentors to desires that ultimately destroy her, she does so on a very human scale.

NOTE.

1 Reference to the Thomas & Mercer publication of the novel.

CHAPTER 10.

"THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO THE OTHER FELLOW"

On Her Majesty's Secret Service as Bond Woman's Film Marlisa Santos Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service (OHMSS, 1969) has been considered an outlier in the James Bond canon for many reasons, but particularly for being the "experiment" after Sean Connery took a hiatus from the franchise and George Lazenby was cast in his first and only Bond role. The other feature that draws OHMSS into sharp relief from the other Bond films is the fact that this is the only one in which James Bond gets married. The "Bond Girl" who features as his love interest and eventual wife, Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (a.k.a. Tracy), displays the kind of female wholeness that is not seen in even the most autonomous women in other Bond movies. It is no accident that this relations.h.i.+p lends a certain vulnerability to the Bond character, not seen again until Daniel Craig's reinvention of him in Casino Royale (Martin Campbell 2006). Although some features of bravado notable in Connery's interpretation of Bond are still present in OHMSS, Lazenby's Bond seems less of a caricature and more of a human being, and this is in large part due to the role of women in the film. OHMSS arguably fits the formula of the Hollywood Golden Age "woman's film" that disappeared at the end of the cla.s.sic studio cinema in the 1960s.

Critical views of the "woman's film" have ranged over time from the disparaging treatments of Mary Ann Doane (1987) and Molly Haskell (1987) to the more complex considerations by Jeanine Basinger (1995) and Pam Cook (1998). The films often presented contradictory images of women in plots, showing them performing powerful actions and having independent thoughts, but ultimately succ.u.mbing to the traditional societal mores of domesticity. Where Doane sees this contradiction as performing "a vital function in society's ordering of s.e.xual difference" (The Desire 3), Basinger calls the woman's film "the slyboots of genre," arguing "how strange and ambivalent they really are. Stereotypes are presented, then undermined, and then reinforced" (7). One could argue that the woman's film operated in much the same way as film noir, presenting characters and narratives that undermine social mores, only to present a conventional outcome in the end. But one of the most important characteristics of the woman's film is, as Basinger argues, "to place a woman at the center of the story universe" (13). It is this feature that sets OHMSS apart from other Bond films.

Because of Connery's departure, OHMSS was in an unusual position to break new ground and take risks beyond what had previously worked for the franchise. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman knew that OHMSS could not simply move in the direction that the other films had taken. Because of its differences, the film has been both derided and praised, and much myth has surrounded it, from the rumored garlic breath wars between Rigg and Lazenby to the supposed status of the film as a box office failure (Sterling and Morecambe 187-90). Critics could not decide whether the film was a lukewarm imitation of the Connery invention or a calculated failure. Variety characterized Lazenby as "pleasant, capable and attractive" in the role of Bond, but paling in comparison to Connery's "physique, voice and saturnine, virile looks" (2). In her discussion about the "public owners.h.i.+p" of the Bond character on film, Katharine c.o.x points out the challenges of "the baggage that actors bring to the part of Bond," adding that Lazenby was the only Bond actor not "heralded for the part through the suitability of previous roles" (2). What seemed to bother critics and perhaps Bond-following filmgoers was what they perceived as his shortcomings in "virility." The action of the film does not really bear this criticism out, as Lazenby's Bond beds three women over the course of the film, a respectable number by Bond film standards. But his heart is not really in it-neither in the s.e.x nor in his ident.i.ty as an MI6 agent.

The unfavorable perception of Bond's masculinity in OHMSS is arguably reinforced by his ident.i.ty crisis in the film, one that calls into question basic a.s.sumptions of the Bond character. Martin Sterling and Gary Morecambe argue that Connery's "insouciant invincibility" may have spoiled the "essential humanity" of OHMSS: "This is the one film where James Bond could not-and should not-be a superman" (191). While Connery's Bond is confident and fearless, Lazenby's Bond is adrift; he is frustrated with M for not wanting to pursue Blofeld and his removal from the a.s.signment leads him to attempt to resign. It is the intervention of Moneypenny that arrests this drastic step; instead of drafting a resignation letter to M, she composes a request of leave letter, an act for which Bond later thanks her. The interaction between Bond and Moneypenny is also somewhat unusual in this film. True, there is the customary office flirting: after she responds to his drink invitation by musing, "If only I could trust myself," he counters with, "Same old Moneypenny. Britain's last line of defence." This response hearkens back to Connery's Bond referring to the threat of his lovemaking to Moneypenny in Dr. No (Terence Young 1962) as "illegal use of government property." But Tara Brabazon points out that Lazenby's "new" Bond "claimed both a similarity and difference with the past by maintaining the Moneypenny moment. Significantly, on this occasion it was Moneypenny who rejected Bond's advances." (492). The body of Moneypenny represents a bulwark of protection for the realm, as her actions insure that Bond is not irrevocably separated from the service. There is a separation though-one that creates a rift in Bond's professional ident.i.ty and allows the entrance of emotion and the prospect of monogamous romantic love into his life.

It is significant that OHMSS, with the exception of the opening scene of Roger Moore's Bond at Tracy di Vicenzo's grave in Live and Let Die (Guy Hamilton 1973), is the only pre-Craig era Bond film with a memory. The longevity of the Bond franchise may be attributed to this lack of linear narrative-Bond persists through the decades, not only played by different actors, but without any past or progression from one mission to the next. This convention allowed Broccoli and Saltzman to continually reinvent the character as times and casting changed, but it does lend a peculiarity to the series, especially as certain actors portraying consistent characters (notably Moneypenny, Q, and M) did persist through a long period of Bond