For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond

In Licence to Kill (John Glen 1989), James Bond visits Key West for the wedding of Felix Leiter. After capturing a drug kingpin in mid-air, Bond and Leiter parachute down to the church where Della, the future Mrs. Leiter, is waiting. A reception follows at Leiter’s home and as the party winds down, Della removes her garter and playfully tosses it to Bond. Responding with a sorrowful smile, Bond declines it and replies, “no thanks, Della, it’s time I left.” Thinking she has offended him, Della asks Leiter if something is wrong. Leiter, having known Bond for 27 years, responds “he was married once, but it was a long time ago.”

Since Bond’s first appearance in Dr. No (Terence Young 1962), few could have imagined that the British spy, known for his serial seduction of women, would fall in love and get married. In the franchise, marriage is presented as part of Bond’s cover story, masking his working relationship with a female spy. This is certainly the case in You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert 1967), in which Bond pretends to marry Kissy Suzuki in order to keep his cover as a Japanese man intact. Besides Licence to Kill, For Your Eyes Only (John Glen 1981) is one of the few films to reference Bond’s previous legitimate marriage by depicting him placing flowers on his wife’s grave before he defeats Blofeld, the arch-villain and head of SPECTRE, who is responsible for her death.

Between the Sean Connery (1962-71) and Roger Moore (1973-85) eras, George Lazenby assumed the title role for only one film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (OHMSS, Peter Hunt 1969). An unknown actor, Lazenby offered an alternate version of the brash, hyper-masculine spy. Panned by critics for lacking the élan of its predecessors and described by James Chapman as “deviating furthest from convention,” OHMSS is an atypical Bond narrative by virtue of its characters’ gender roles (Licence 95). The film’s trailer promoted Lazenby as a “different Bond” and the female lead, played Diana Rigg, as a “different Bond woman.” This chapter explores what exactly is different about Bond and this woman, focusing on the messages being relayed about femininity and masculinity through their secret agent nuptials. Moreover, I will examine how shifting gender roles in OHMSS influence the representation of future Bond women and 007’s relationships with them.

CULTIVATING A “DIFFERENT BOND”

Ian Fleming’s novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was published in 1963. In his review for the New York Times, Anthony Boucher remarked “incidentally, Bond gets married. Since the girls with whom he beds even casually died in previous novels, you may imagine the fate of his bride” (BR4). In addition, the Manchester Guardian noted Bond was “callous and brutal in his ways, with strong undertones of sadism, and an unspeakable cad in his relations with women, towards whom sexual appetite represents the only approach” (qtd. in Lycett 447-8). Long before the filmic release of OHMSS, Bond’s sexist playboy paradigm was firmly established. The staples of the first five films (sleek cars, ingenious gadgetry, cunning villains, and beautiful women) revolved around 007’s missions and his inflexible allegiance to Queen and Country. Framed by a pre-détente Cold War, many Connery era films contained a nuclear-related threat; whether preventing Auric Goldfinger’s irradiation of the bullion at Fort Knox or thwarting SPECTRE’s ransoming of the West with stolen warheads, 007 was never far removed from contemporary geopolitics.

When OHMSS opened in theaters, détente had commenced while Britain’s “world role” was on the wane (Westad 194). Sheared of many long-standing colonies and burdened by a sagging domestic economy, the incumbent Labour Party under Harold Wilson and “disarmers” in Parliament scaled back military expenditures and minimized their nation’s role in conflicts such as Vietnam, Nigeria, and Rhodesia (Sked and Cook 233-8). Given Britain’s domestic and foreign entanglements and the resiliency of decolonization movements, OHMSS was the first Bond film removed from the vertices of the Cold War. Producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and screenwriter Richard Maibaum narrowed 007’s mission solely for the purposes of bringing a “non-aligned” Blofeld to justice.

There were other reasons for cultivating a “different Bond.” Critics pointed to the fact that from Dr. No through You Only Live Twice, Bond had devolved into caricature while the films were “dominated by hardware, empty spectacle, and comedic gadgets” (McKay 115). Even Broccoli and Saltzman noted these Bond films were “pure entertainment. We emphasize all the way that it is completely unreal” (qtd. in Watts X13). As such, OHMSS omitted Bond’s reliance on Q Branch gadgetry, allowing for greater narrative development; however, the requisite action sequences remained. From a financial standpoint, Connery, by 1967, was comfortably embedded in the role and demanded £1 million GBP (or $1.7 million USD) for a sixth appearance. In comparison, Lazenby, a car salesman turned TV commercial actor, was retained for far less money. Lazenby was chosen after impressing producers with a Jermyn Street suit and his hand-to-hand combat skills. While he looked the part, critics were divided about his performance. A.H. Weiler termed him “a spurious Bond, a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement” (¶ 2) while Pauline Kael lamented that the film “was the best of them except for the substitution of George Lazenby for Connery” (359).

CULTIVATING A “DIFFERENT WOMAN”

Critical response to Rigg’s performance of Contessa Teresa (“Tracy”) di Vicenzo was overwhelmingly positive. Vincent Canby remarked “the thing that ruins the film however is Diana Rigg, who is such a beautiful, intelligent, responsive, mysterious actress that her presence makes everything around her look even more dull and foolish than is absolutely necessary” (81). Unlike Lazenby, Rigg had considerable acting experience. Director Peter Hunt recalls telling her “if you don’t like this boy, then we won’t go with him” (qtd. in Giammarco 108). A stage veteran with Shakespearean training, Rigg had risen to fame as Emma Peel in Britain’s popular series The Avengers (1961-69). In 1965, she replaced Honor Blackman who left the show to play one of the most infamous Bond Girls, Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton 1964).

When The Avengers debuted in 1961, Blackman initially read for a man’s part. Brian Clemens, a writer for the show later called her “the first emancipated woman on television” (Soter 81). Armed with a PhD in anthropology, a black belt in judo, and clad in tight black leather, Dr. Cathy Gale played by Blackman gave post-war feminism a televised role model. Prior to the 1960s, women on British television comprised just 22 percent of all characters (Ryan and Macey 192). Moreover, gender roles in postwar Britain reflected their American counterparts as women, whose work outside the home was valued in wartime, relinquished their jobs to men and returned to domesticity and child-rearing. Beyond occupational spheres, women in post-war Britain were expected to be “modest, reserved, passive, and chaste” (Montgomery 229). Gale inverted such traditional stereotypes. As Blackman notes “women had always taken a back seat […] everything was male […Women] smelt liberty, I think, and freedom, and confidence from it” (qtd. in Soter 88).

The producers decided that Blackman’s replacement in The Avengers needed softer edges in order to exude “man appeal” for male viewers. In writers’ memos, “man appeal” was shortened to “M. Appeal,” which is how Rigg’s nomenclature (i.e. Emma Peel) developed. Peel offered more balanced qualities, appearing softer and more playful in terms of sexuality, and “could be motherly or sexy, domestic or night-clubby” as opposed to Blackman’s Gale, whom many male viewers found overpowering (Soter 96). As Blackman’s husband Maurice Kaufmann recalled, “men seem to resent the way Cathy can take care of herself. It takes away their male ego” (Wright 200). Yet Peel was not without confidence. Commenting on her character, Rigg notes that Peel “was a woman who had the capacity for doing everything that a man can do, and that’s what makes the character so extraordinary” (Soter 80). Rigg continued in the role until she too was cast as a Bond Girl in OHMSS. Ultimately, Rigg’s “heroic competency” displayed in the Avengers allowed for di Vicenzo’s parity with Bond in terms of intellectual and physical prowess (Funnell, “From English” 66).

With the exception of Blackman, few Bond Girls have exhibited a high degree of confidence and competence. Typically they provide Bond with a woman to rescue, to affirm his sexual prowess, and/or to recruit for access to the villain. Bond keeps his “girls” fixed in a particular sexual order regardless of whether or not they would be killed as a consequence of him doing so. Rigg’s character, however, does not fit any of these molds, as di Vicenzo remains cloaked in mystery. She first appears driving a Cougar Eliminator, a popular muscle car of the era, passing Bond at high speed on a coastal road. This echoes Bond’s rally with Tilly Masterson in Goldfinger, in which Bond’s Aston Martin shreds Masterson’s tires, forcing her off the road. The chase between Bond and di Vicenzo is less aggravated until she attempts suicide; Bond then intervenes, trying to understand her motives. Her stunt driving skills emerge later in the film, when she barrels through a stock car race held on a frozen lake with an impressed Bond in the passenger seat. Her first words to Bond, after he assumes her gambling debt of 20,000 francs, are “why do you persist in rescuing me?” Insisting that she repay her debt, she drops her room key in front of him, saying “come later, partner.” When Bond awakens, he finds her gone though not without leaving two 10,000 franc chits in a drawer, provoking his comment “paid in full.” The sexual behavior of di Vicenzo licensed for future women the possibility of sex without commitment.

THE ROLE OF MARRIAGE

The assertiveness of di Vicenzo and Bond’s corresponding deference reflect the seismic changes in post-war gender roles. In the 1960s, female activists revolted against a host of constrictions including “marriage, the vaginal orgasm, and housework, along with the fight for the legalization of abortion and for sexual harassment laws” (Hesford 2). Influential texts by Simone de Beauvoir (1949), Helen Gurley Brown (1962), and Betty Friedan (1963) challenged women’s acceptance of their Otherness by stressing that their cultural passivity and limited career options shackled them to a male-dictated Cold War social order that existed on both sides of the Atlantic. Throughout Western Europe, a desire for women to uphold “political quiescence, family stability, and domesticity” not only reaffirmed patriarchy but also allowed a soft, pro-Western femininity to discredit “tough Communist female factory workers” (Mazower 295). American post-war feminism sought greater parity with men and a dismantling of the nation’s patriarchal rigidity, while in England post-war feminism championed women’s survival skills (Hartmann 288). Yet not all women subscribed to these changes. The more conservative among them in the United States viewed liberation activists as aggressive progenitors of the country’s moral decline. In Europe, women working outside the home were exceptional, pitied for living “empty lives,” and undermining the consensus that paid employment was a “man’s natural right” (Shapira 93). From Dr. No through You Only Live Twice, Bond not only protected a threatened masculine ideal but through sexual conquest allowed “regular dads” to fantasize about being “unapologetic bad boys” (Lynch 18). OHMSS, however, condemns Bond’s irresponsible playboy nature and di Vicenzo’s casual sexual escapades through the stability of marriage.