James Bond 1992

THE BONDS THAT NEVER WERE
A 30th Anniversary Look at Some of the Film 007s that
Didn't Make It (Including One that Did But Disappeared)

By TOM SOTER
from Video Times, 1992

The images are evocative: an Aston Martin, a martini shaken not stirred, a grim smile, a tuxedoed man saying, "Bond. James Bond." It's all part of a ritual that seems as old as movies themselves. Hard to believe that Dr. No, the first film, appeared in 1962. Bond has survived the death of his creator, Ian Fleming, the departure of Sean Connery, and the igonimy of Roger Moore. He has turned from tongue-in-cheek suspense to tongue-in-cheek cartoon without losing a dollar at the box office. The 007 movies have netted more than $2 billion in ticket sales.

James Bond is forever. Connery, Moore, George Lazenby, David Niven, Timothy Dalton – all have taken the part. But what might have happened if other actors had become Bond? What kind of agents might they have been?

Well, there is a bonda fide, "forgotten Bond": Barry Nelson, who played 007 before the agent was even a gleam in Connery's eye. Never heard of him? You're not alone. Nelson, a popular American TV sitcom star of the 1950s (he appeared in 103 episodes of My Favorite Husband), was cast as the first Bond in a television version of Ian Fleming's initial 007 novel. Casino Royale, shot live in 1954 for CBS's Climax anthology series, was long thought lost, but has recently resurfaced on video.

If you pick up the tape, don't expect any wry double entendres or martinis shaken not stirred. Unlike the suave Connery, TV's Bond ("Jimmy" to his friends) is a stocky American in an oversize tuxedo with a lot to say and not much to do. "We were live and confined to a few sets," recalls Nelson, now 70. "And when you take something like that, which depends primarily on action, you're in terribletrouble." Indeed: the only true Bondian elements are larger-than-life villain Peter Lorre and sultry "Bond Girl" Linda Christian. Yet even she was transformed for Eisenhower-era television. Says Nelson: "Linda and I did kiss – but very politely."

Then there are near-misses, actors considered but rejected for the role:

McGoohan Patrick McGoohan, an obvious choice for the part, claims to have turned it down three times, the first because of a subpar script (others say it was because he thought the character immoral). The New York-born Irishman was well-known on the British stage and TV screen, especially in the long-running spy show Danger Man (1961; 1964-1966). As John Drake, McGoohan questioned his superior's values and was openly skeptical about the stated "necessity" for what he was doing. "You never saw me fire a gun," he says now. And he never dallied with the damsels. "I said to the producers, 'If I start going with a different girl in each episode, what are those kids going to think out there?" McGoohan's Bond would have been a principled spy, who believed that physical prowess wasn't always the answer to tight spots.

Richard Burton. Talked about for the part in the 1950s when Fleming was trying to mount a Bond film on his own, Burton was powerful, athletic and attractive with a sour wit – seen in such films as The Robe, Look Back in Anger – which would have made him an ironic, almost bitter, Bond. He used this quality to good effect in the anti-espionage flick The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, where the actor played a burned out, disillusioned spy who lacks glamour, gadgets, and legions of willing women. What he does have are brains and compassion – and the latter is shown to be fatal in the spy game.

Sam Neill. Up for the part in 1986, Neill has the intensity of a young Connery, as well as his darkly handsome looks. In My Brilliant Career, Dead Calm , and the TV series Reilly Ace of Spies, Neil displayed an undercurrent of savagery beneath a polite veneer. Tom Mankiewicz, a former 007 screenwriter, could have been talking about Neill when he observed: "Connery carries violence with him.‘ He's got a glint in his eye. So I think an audience's impression when Sean walks in is, 'Uh-oh, look out. Something's going to happen here!"

Brosnan in Remington Steele.Pierce Brosnan, who almost had the part in 1986 but lost out because of contractual difficulties, would probably have carried on in the Roger Moore tradition ("I'm more of a light comedian than Sean," said Moore). Brosnan made his mark in TV's Remington Steele, where the hero was a lightweight man of action, not unlike Moore's Simon Templar in The Saint series of the 1960s.

Adam West. TV's Batman and a 007 candidate in 1968, would have offered Bond as Camp Figure, mock serious and even more comic-booky than Moore.

Burt Reynolds. A contender in 1970, Reynolds would probably have brought a down home light-heartedness to the role – as he did in the Smokey and the Bandit movies – but he can also be tough (see Sharky's Machine, and City Heat, among others).

Mel Gibson. He might have radically shaken up the series. His violence is tempered by very little humor and his 007 would have been more Mad Max than Ian Fleming, harder-edged and more brutal.

Jimmy Stewart. The most unusual Bond would have been Stewart, who was considered for the role in 1958. The actor's many movies include Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much, in which an innocent man is involved in a nefarious spy scheme. A few years later, Stewart was turned down for the led in North by Northwest, another Hitchcock that is a precursor to the Bonds: the hero is a womanizing, faintly ammoral advertising executive with a dry wit. Stewart was never cast as 007, and it's hard to imagine what audiences would have made of a drawling, silver-haired Bond.