The first to vote? It's currently a landslide for Connery :D
Craig, Connery or ... Dalton? Vote now for the ultimate James Bond
Last week, Reg reader movie buffs voted Ernst Stavro Blofeld as the vilest Bond villain - and the sinister cat-stroking nutter certainly deserves the title. Donald Pleasence as Blofeld, with his white cat Kill Bond and bring me some Whiskas, now! Blofeld first popped up in From Russia with Love and Thunderball, although …
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Friday 19th October 2012 14:06 GMT James Micallef
For me the best to capture the darker spirit of the Bond books are Dalton and Craig, but it has to be said that part of the popularity of teh Bond films is the underlying lightness and jocularity brought by Connery.
For me it's still Dalton, though, by a whisker. Of course, Craig still has a chance to overtake
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Friday 19th October 2012 14:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
totally agree
Too much focus on the one liners for some of the more mainstream Bonds (Moore was by far the least good), but both Dalton and Craig can still deliver the one liners and at the same time come convince the audience that they are serious/cold enough to do the job - that's the essence of Bond for me,
Bond ranking:
1) Dalton
2) Craig (potential overtake)
3) Connery
4) Brosnan
5) Moore
Lazenby only had 1 chance, so it's hard to know how good he could have been....
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Friday 19th October 2012 10:14 GMT The BigYin
Surely the winner is...
...who ever pays the most to win?
Bond drinking Heineken?
Next movie? Bond is actually a Khazakstani ex-KGB double agent; because they paid the most money.
And he always makes sure his Nike shoes are clean. They paid the most money.
etc.
I know there's been product placements in Bond before, but it is getting beyond ridiculous.
"Skyfall"? More like "Skymall"
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Friday 19th October 2012 13:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Surely the winner is...
Nothing wrong with a bit of product placement, remember the Nokia in Tomorrow never dies... and a few others such as the bmw instead of a bently or aston?
I would like to see Bond driving british cars (well as british as is possible now) more often!
We need to use bond as an advertisement for all thats british! get the world wanting what we make!
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Friday 19th October 2012 10:16 GMT Matthew Smith
Lets hear it for Lazenby
On Her Majesty's Secret Service problem is that it has Telly Savalas as Blofeld. Unfortunately instead of a creepy baldy super fiend, he plays the role as .... Telly Savalas. That pretty much makes it a Telly Savalas film, not a James Bond film. Lazenby does a good job with what he has left. This is the film where Bond marries his girl. Marries! That sounds a terrible idea, but Lazenby makes it work well. He carries the lines, 'That man had guts' after he throws a purser into a snow plough, every bit as good as Connery.
If he had stayed, we wouldn't have descended into the techno camp fest of the Moore years. And we would have been better for it.
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Friday 19th October 2012 15:37 GMT Amazon Wageslave
Re: Right so...
Daniel Craig isn't actually a "muscle-bound hulk". He's naturally very lean-see the hotel scene in Layer Cake for instance. He then worked very hard and got into incredible shape to play Bond, putting on some muscle. The combination makes him look bigger.
Sean Connery was into body-building in the 50's. If you put both of them as Bond together, Connery would be much bigger looking.
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Friday 19th October 2012 12:12 GMT Armando 123
Re: Brosnan totally looked the part...
I've always liked Brosnan as an actor, and thought that he'd have made a great Bond: he could be serious and humorous and could definitely convey the detatched cool needed for Bond. When they tried to sign him in the mid-80s but contracts forbade it. However, he became Bond after the Cold War, so the movies lost their way a bit. He was good, but the movies themselves weren't up to snuff.
I still liked them and watched them, of course, but ...
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Monday 22nd October 2012 07:50 GMT Peter Murphy
Re: Brosnan totally looked the part...
I reckon the best Pierce Brosnan "Bond" movie was actually "The Tailor of Panana". Not a Bond movie, but a spy movie - and Brosnan played it wonderfully sleazy and nasty. (As real spies often are.)
"Don't be a cunt, Harry, we're made for each other. You've got the debts, I've got the money. Where's your patriotism?"
"I had it out in prison, without an anesthetic."
Le Carre - as an ex-intelligence officer - had very unromantic ideas of the secret agent business.
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Monday 22nd October 2012 08:57 GMT Franklin Newton-Steyn
Re: Moore
It worked for Ian Flemming; you know, the guy who wrote the James Bond stories? His first choice from the beginning was none other than (drumroll) Roger Moore.
Sean Connery was too dumb to really get how larky the whole thing is. Moore never missed a cue.
Pierce Brosnan had Ian Flemming spinning (not stirring) in his grave.
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Friday 19th October 2012 20:46 GMT Charlie Clark
Re: Moore
I always found the Moore films to be the most enjoyable because they really didn't take themselves seriously and there was room in the films for the other characters (Sheriff Pepper). Was complementary to Connery's action hero in emphasising a suave approach to saving the world and I enjoyed watching them both: it added to the Bond myth.
By the end of 70s the films, like the music were going downhill so while we gained Jaws we also got Moonraker and Bond went into scriptless sequel mode. Pierce Brosnan was destined to be a great Bond in the style of the earlier ones but fashions had changed.
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Friday 19th October 2012 11:09 GMT Matt 21
Re: Difficult choice
Well Moore was my favourite as I saw him playing Bond first. However, once I was in my twenties I grew to prefer Connery.
Lazenby wasn't in long enough to be sure.
Moore was... well Roger Moore although the bad guy's line in Moonraker almost saved it "I'm going to put you out of my misery Mr. Bond".
Dalton was given crap films so I can't vote for him.
Brosnan was good in his first two but gradually went down hill.
Craig... hmmmm... difficult to say. I liked him in Layer Cake and if you accept that he is trying something new I think he's quite good.
So, Connery first followed by Craig/Brosnan as joint second.
BTW I think the film Ronin has the highest number of Bond bad guys in it without being a Bond film.
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Friday 19th October 2012 11:49 GMT Jedit
"Dalton was given crap films so I can't vote for him"
And yet you're willing to put Craig second, even though Quorum of Bollocks is the worst Bond movie and he's only made one other (see: Lazenby)?
I'll be voting for Dalton as soon as I get to a computer where the poll works because he was closest to the character as written. It's close with Connery, though, as Fleming approved of his portrayal.
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Friday 19th October 2012 12:53 GMT Matt 21
Re: "Dalton was given crap films so I can't vote for him"
I'm not sure Quantum is the worst, did you see "View to a kill"? It wasn't that great though. I suppose I'm willing to give him time as he has done another one and I think he's signed up to do more, plus I liked "Layer Cake" :-)
I like the idea that he (Craig) is trying something different. It worked fairly well in Casino Royale, it was so so in Quantum so I'm looking to Skyfall to see if the character matures and finaly builds on what they've started.
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Friday 19th October 2012 14:16 GMT Jedit
"I'm not sure Quantum is the worst, did you see "View to a kill"? "
In the cinema when it first came out, as I have with every Bond movie since Octopussy. Say what you like about Moore being too old - he certainly was in VTAK - but however silly his movies got they still had a leavening of good nature that kept them watchable. QoS was po-faced and humourless, with Bond driven by revenge for a woman he had used and callously thrown away in the book of Casino Royale and who we'd been given no reason to like in the movie based on it.
In fact, it boggles me why people like Craig as Bond at all. Brosnan's later movies were just as silly as Moore's were, and Craig's are no darker than Dalton's. But Dalton was slated for being too dark and "not what we want from Bond", while Craig is treated like the Second Coming of Sean Connery.
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Friday 19th October 2012 10:30 GMT JimmyPage
If you read the books
you get the idea that Bond is basically a thug. Urbane, witty, charming, but someone who would just as likely kill you as look at you - definitely to be avoided in a dark alley.
Of all the actors who have played Bond, only Connery and Craig (IMHO) have had that edge of danger about their presence which conveyed an air of menace. Which is why Roger Moore was so, so, so, so wrong.
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Friday 19th October 2012 10:40 GMT auburnman
Obvious to see
That overall we much prefer the pared-back 'violence and shagging' Bonds of Craig and Connery. Although I must admit I'm one of those that grew up in the Moore era - his appeal was that he made it look easy and effortless. You could picture him deactivating a bomb with one hand while unzipping a girl's dress with the spare fingers on the hand holding his Martini. Classic "author-insertion-fantasy-persona" stuff. I can see how he'd annoy those who were used to a 'proper' realistic Bond though.
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Friday 19th October 2012 10:42 GMT Alan 6
Dalton is clearly the best actor to ever play Bond, and he did it well, probably closest to the bond of the books.
Daniel Craig is in my opinion the best Bond though, has he adds humanity to the role, he's not invincible, he feels pain.
Bronson had charm, but was let down by ropey films
Moore again had charm, but just couldn't pull off the moves, he also was let down by making the films in an era of terrible fashion
Connery was hard, but in these days a lot of his supposed conquests are borderline rape, it makes me squirm to watch
As another person has said, Lazenby was actually OK, but let down by a bad film
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