Timeshift (TV Series) Looking for Mr Bond: 007 at the BBC (2015) User Reviews

Compilation of James Bond-related Clips from the BBC Archives

[l_rawjalaurence · 7/10 · 30 November 2015]

007 AT THE BBC tells the story of James Bond on screen with the help of material from the archives. Beginning in the early Sixties with a DESERT ISLAND DISCS program featuring Ian Fleming, and interviews with Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, this TIMESHIFT documentary traces the evolution of the Bond character from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, featuring interviews with all the Bonds in between.

Some of the material is fascinatingly quaint - for example, a clip featuring columnist and wit Patrick Campbell fulminating against the banality of the Bond films' content, or Roger Moore in pre-Bond days appearing as a guest star in a skit on the character. The interviews are mostly predictable showbiz stuff, with Sheridan Morley, Bob Langley and Barry Norman asking the questions.

Perhaps the most fascinating material comes from an eight-part series broadcast for the Open University in the Seventies, which looks at all aspects of producing a Bond film from financing to set- design, and contains interviews with other creative workers apart from the stars such as Lewis Gilbert and set designer Ken Adam. Through such material we are made aware of how increasingly elaborate the Bond films became, as the producers tried to offer more and more visual excitement.

We also learn how the Bond films changed with the introduction of tongue-in-cheek humor during the Roger Moore years, contrasted with the more down-to-earth reading of the character when Daniel Craig took over the role.

Illustrated with plenty of clips from the Bond cycle of films, this documentary offered an ideal introduction into the changing nature of Bond representations over the last fifty-five years.

Keeping the British end up

[pyrocitor · 8/10 · 10 June 2018]

Bond. James Bond. As of this writing, he's spawned 24 feature films, five decades of ravenous fandom, merchandising, video games, spinoff novels, innumerable parodies, museum exhibits - and a documentary made roughly ever year of his life trying to make sense of it all. BBC's entry, Looking for Mr. Bond: 007 at the BBC proves one of the most definitively enjoyable and comprehensive overviews of the 50 year 007 phenomenon - uniquely contextualized by rarely before seen BBC on-set retrospectives - even if their attempts to precisely pinpoint the why of Bond's enduring longevity prove as pleasantly elusive as any.

Bond is as much a shape-shifting escape artist as he is monolithic, and the franchise has always proven a fascinating microcosm of pseudo-individualized pop culture capitalism: the most stubbornly airtight core formula in fictional history tweaked and metamorphosed with each cultural trend du jour. Framed by Tamsin Grieg's crisp narration, Looking for Mr. Bond charts each reactionary twist and turn of the Bond franchise with or against the zeitgeist or its own successes and failures. For viewers who don't know their Moores from their Daltons, it's a succinct distillation of 007's growing pains, while still teasing out rarely articulated tidbits to appease the afficionat00s in the crowd: the camp levity of the execrable Diamonds Are Forever paving the way for the tongue-in-cheek silliness of the Roger Moore epoch; Dalton's well-intentioned, less promiscuous Bond being unfortunately lambasted as the '007 for the AIDS era' (just be glad you didn't have to survive the "PC Sux" vitriol of Reddit, Tim...); Judi Dench's casting as M being responsive to the real-life appointment of Dame Stella Rimington, first ever female director of MI5 in the early '90s, and so on. What really makes the documentary worthwhile is the access to archival footage unleashed from the BBC vault. Each anchored by different BBC presenters and comedians, Looking for Mr. Bond includes unprecedented behind-the-scenes footage from the early Connery, Lazenby, and Moore outings, including Connery, awkwardly half in character, escorting 1963 British viewership on a tour of Fort Knox for Goldfinger. Naturally, we come for the trivia factoids, but stay for the hilariously candid interviews from producers and stars refreshingly untainted by contemporary PR spins (when asked why he returned to Bond after a four year hiatus, Connery glibly deadpans "They offered me a bigger piece of the cake"). Interestingly, beyond the treasure trove of previously inaccessible footage comes an in-house unpacking of Bond's patriotic relevance in the early '60s 'British Invasion,' and interviewers following the franchise through the decades provides a clever intertext of the evolution and international exposure of British cinema through the years.

It's a distinctly top-heavy doc, with gloriously extensive coverage of Bond's '60s glory days and playful '70s reinvigoration (as Moore eloquently puts it, rather than outright self-parody, "inviting the audience to join in on the joke and have some fun"). Sadly, the pace grows increasingly scant over the decades, with poor Dalton, Brosnan, and Craig given increasingly short shrift by comparison, before coming to a jarringly abrupt (if not inglorious) halt with Craig's 007 meeting Queen Elizabeth for the 2012 Olympics - arguably, BBC chortlingly posits, the two most iconic figures in British pop culture. However, beyond this imbalance comes somewhat of a fumbling of the documentary's ongoing subplot: how to rationalize the elephant in the room wish-fulfilment enjoyment of a character (quite rightly) denounced by Dame Judi Dench (and prophetically preceded by world-weary interviews with Diana Rigg and Barbara Bach) as "a sexist, sexist, misogynist dinosaur; a relic of the Cold War." It's a question rhetorically posed, but conspicuously abandoned in the Brosnan/Craig years (no mention of Barbara Broccoli providing the franchise its first female governance, the perfunctory agency provided to later days 'Bond Girls,' or Craig's cringeworthy drag act for 2011 International Women's Day), leaving an initially substantive interrogation feeling irksomely superficial.

Those seeking more intensive accounts of the makings of each 007 outing can find more comprehensive behind-the-scenes accounts online elsewhere (or, for antiquated hoarders like me, on the Special Features of each DVD...). Still, for the nominally interested or Fleming fanatics alike, Looking For Mr. Bond is, on the whole, a brisk, informative, and enjoyable hat tip to the world's least secret secret agent, particularly in his fledgling years, and an hour well-spent. Just, please, don't ask poor Pierce if he misses the role any more. Hello darkness, my old James...

-8/10

Auntie's guide to Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 18 August 2018]

This is an enjoyable look back at the BBC archives of all things Bond.

Ian Fleming talks about his literary creation as he was interviewed for Desert Island Discs. John Le Carre criticised the character of Bond as a fantasy.

The interviews of the various actors who played 007 are shown whether they were talking to Barry Norman, Terry Wogan or Jonathan Ross. Connery was very playful with the press in his early days. Roger Moore had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

Pierce Brosnan was loss for words for his first major interview after he was unveiled to the press. Daniel Craig tries to put the furore behind him that he is too blond to be Bond. Timothy Dalton always felt uncomfortable in interviews. Here is a surprise. Out of all the Bond actors, Dalton has made the highest grossing non-Bond film with his turn in Toy Story 3.

It was interesting to see a long haired and bearded George Lazenby talking critically about his one shot as Bond in OHMSS and being unhappy with the director and the direction the films were moving into. Even Diana Rigg was critical on the film set of OHMSS about how women were portrayed in Bond.

Roald Dahl pops up to talk about adapting a Bond film and you see the larger than life Cubby Broccoli as he goes about making the Bond movies.

When I was a lad it was always ITV who showed the royal premieres of the EON Bond films taking place in the west end. When the unofficial Never Say Never Again was premiered, it was the BBC who stepped in.

There were some surprises. An Open University course went in conjunction with the making of The Spy Who Loved Me. Roger Moore once turned up in a skit playing 007 a decade before he bagged the role.

A fun and frothy look and it was nice to see some interviews that I remembered from some decades ago.

Great

[mikeiskorn · 8/10 · 29 October 2021]

This is a fantastic look back at all the Bonds and gives us some context as to watch each actor brought to the role. Great interviews and old footage from news and tabloids. Narrated well, too. Really enjoyable and made me want to rewatch the old movies.