Sean Connery brought together, in his single person, the cathedral presence on screen, phagocytic and hypnotizing, and the light physical decline, overwhelming and cancerous. Few actors enhanced the pluperfect humanity between the frame of the frame, in the order of Paul Newman, and sublimated from youth to maturity, syncopating or cutting out the twenty or twenty-five years of adulthood from their biography, in the manner of Marlon Brando. Sean Connery went from thirty-five to fifty-five or sixty years old like someone who crosses a temporal fold in which the subject of the singularity ages and not the space he comes to occupy. But, unlike Brando, Connery did not reappear puffed up with stormy carnality and maddened with eccentric decrepitude, but instead he was resplendent with vigor and prodigious in projection, with his gray hair thinned to the point of exhaustion supplied by wigs designed by the production, and his mustache or his beard trimmed for divinity.
Sean Connery had to deal with the most varied professions during those hard years before and after the Second World War. He managed to rise in the picturesque worlds of bodybuilding, earning some income in a category of the Mister Universe contest, and playing ball on a minor soccer team, tasks that he undertook in his twenties, too late to dream of professional profitability. Playing his luck in acting, a succession of roles in the second half of the fifties, his consolidated thirty-something bearing and the credentials signed by Terence Young earned him the trust of Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli to embody, on celluloid, the fictional character created by Ian Fleming: James Bond, Secret Agent 007, always at the service of His Majesty… And, because of this, here I am, a film buff reader.
“Agent 007 against Dr. No” (1962) was the litmus test of long-term planning, with the writer’s scrutiny still swarming around. In this film, the ideas of opening credits that were both bizarre and sophisticated, a necessary introductory act, Bond’s shot observed through the barrel of a gun, the never-consummated flirtation with Moneypenny and the main theme, composed now for the opening credits by John Barry. The famous Q and his ingenious gadgets would not appear until the next feature film. In this first case, the imposition, by M, of the Walther PPK was enough.
He had some other titles under his belt when Terence Young was commissioned to direct the film, scripted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood and Berkely Mather, which tells of James Bond’s mission in Jamaica to investigate the deaths of a special agent. stationed there and his secretary. After the usual investigations in which he puts his life at risk, the pleasurable love affairs with the girl who seduces him to betray him, the fierce fight with a clean shoe with a repellent and dangerous tarantula, the elaborate sixties telltale device of glued head hair with saliva on the door seals, the execution of the henchman on duty and meeting Felix Leiter, a CIA agent on the same mission; Bond discovers that all the clues point to a strange nearby island, Crab Key, where the mysterious Chinese billionaire Doctor No lives and visits are not welcome. With Quarrel, a local collaborator, at the oars, they arrive on the island, they meet the young Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), a shell merchant, with whom 007 falls in love, of course, when he contemplates her coming out of the water dressed in a bikini (an iconic sequence repeated and honored in other films and in the saga itself), they cleverly manage to escape from the paramilitary mercenaries who protect the island for the Doctor and confront the fire-breathing car, No’s trick to scare away the curious people in the area and, unfortunately, kills Quarrel. Become obligatory guests of the very evil Doctor No, he makes an appearance to explain to the British agent that he belongs to the marvelous organization SPECTRA (Permanent Executive Society for Counterespionage, Terrorism, Rebellion and Annihilation) and his evil plan, because, in truth, he does not he can resist telling it, that his diabolical genius be feared and applauded. Using an industrious and innovative nuclear machine, he intends to sabotage orbiting Project Mercury spaceships to cause chaos and world domination… That’s nothing. Agent 007 cannot allow such a misdeed, so, fleeing from his guards, he infiltrates the control room, hindering the execution until he ruins the plan, destroys the machine, kills Doctor No, saves Honey and escapes. the island in a boat, avoiding the mess and confusion generated in the staff of the deceased villain. Without fuel, the couple is left adrift until rescued by Leiter and the marines. However, Bond will let go of the rope to enjoy some private time with Honey.
The production design will be a concern of the saga, especially the first titles. No resources and imagination will be spared not only in setting the action in the most suitable, even idyllic, locations, but the interiors will be undertaken with the care that each scene deserves, since it is not easy to design those quasi-futuristic computer rooms that have to emerge from an organization of the stature of SPECTRA or the multitude of employees it needs to carry out its plans. This section should also be praised for the traditional “gadgets” that make up the saga, iconic for posterity.
“Agent 007 against Dr. No” also has an interesting and worthy photographic contribution and a solid cast, which will be filled with stars as the franchise gains popularity. Yes, the very ill-advised decision to put makeup on Joseph Wiseman to give him, unsatisfactorily, the Chinese features of the character, ruling out the option of hiring an actor of Asian race… They were, in short, other times… And no It will be the last time, with the same disastrous result… Although there will be an opportunity to narrate it in a future installment.
Julian Valle Rivas
2024-01-31 22:29:39
#Bond #Saga #Sean #Connery #Julián #Valle #Rivas
