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As the Bond films made celebrities of his enemies (Oddjob, Rosa Klebb, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Jaws), so they incited schoolboy giggles with the names of his women. Pussy Galore and Octopussy! Kissy Suzuki and Plenty O'Toole! Mary Goodnight and Holly Goodhead! They were as indispensable and interchangeable as 007's other accessories, the Walther PPK and the Aston Martin. Pussy Galore might be a judo expert who could toss Bond like a crepe, but he would merely toss back a wolfish double entendre: "We must have a few fast falls together some time." In its Connery years, Bond comprised equal parts of Jack Kennedy's playboy glamour and Hugh Hefner's Playboy Philosophy.
But always teddibly English and utterly U (though Connery was a working- class Scot). To a nation that had seen its empire shrink in rancor, and its secret service embarrassed by the Burgess-Maclean and Profumo scandals, the notion of a British agent saving the free world was a tonic made in Fantasyland. The Beatles might have made Britain swinging for the young, but Bond was a travel-poster boy for the earmuff brigade. The Bond films even put a few theme songs (including Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die) on the pop charts. But their signal influence was closer to home. In the '60s, Bond spawned a whole genre of superspy imitators: Matt Helm and Harry Palmer in movies, Maxwell Smart and the men from U.N.C.L.E. on TV. Later a young generation of filmmakers found inspiration in the series' success. The past decade of high-tech adventure movies, from Star Wars to Raiders of the Lost Ark to RoboCop, would be unimaginable without the brut effervescence and special-effects expertise bottled in Bond.
No surprise there: John Stears, the effects wizard of Star Wars, supervised the visual tricks on six early Bonds. He was one of many craftsmen who kept returning to the series: Screenwriter Richard Maibaum (twelve of the 15 films), Composer John Barry (twelve), Production Designer Ken Adam (seven), Main Credits Designer Maurice Binder (13). Bond's office colleagues -- M, Q and Moneypenny -- have appeared in every episode. John Glen, who has helmed the past four films, is just the fifth director in the series. The Bond team hit its early peak with Goldfinger in 1964 and followed up with some snazzy films (Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me) and a few lame ones (You Only Live Twice, The Man with the Golden Gun). Eventually, the pictures were faithful only to the titles of Fleming's novels and stories; now each screenplay was an original endeavor. But the basic Bond recipe was merely stirred, not shaken: Do it over, do it bigger, 'cause nobody does it better.