The subject of who is the best James Bond is a difficult one on which to be interesting. As you’re about to find out. I really meant not to write about it but I couldn’t resist, simply because I find it so interesting. I reckon that’s probably why it’s tricky to be interesting about. Increasingly I think, when it comes to the risk of being boring, that’s the red flag: are you finding yourself interesting? If so, no one else is.
Bores are seldom themselves bored – they’re usually finding themselves fascinating, banging on about wiring, or gardening, or what people don’t understand about Charlemagne or who’s the best Bond. So, listening to a bore is like an offensive metaphor for global wealth inequality. The bores (representing the super-rich) droning on, becoming more and more interested, as everyone else gets more and more bored, until all of the world’s interestedness is in the possession of a tiny number of droning people, while the vast majority must scratch an existence in unremitting stultification.
But being boring is really enjoyable if you can find a nice supportive environment to indulge it in. The scourge of mansplaining is well-documented, and I’m absolutely first in line to take everyone through the various issues with that, but explaining things can be deeply relaxing. Anecdotally at least, it feels like something men do more than women, but that doesn’t mean men do it exclusively to women (as the bishop mansplained to the actress). Some of my most peaceful evenings in the pub with other men have involved hours and hours of taking it in turns to explain things – just saying some facts that probably everyone listening already knows, so that they can nod and then it’s someone else’s go. It has the same comforting quality as muttering the Lord’s Prayer or assembling an Airfix model.
Discussing which actor’s portrayal of fictional spy James Bond is most accomplished is right in the “thy kingdom come”/gluing-on-a-Spitfire’s-landing-gear sweet spot. So, in a world racked by disease and mega-explosions, last week’s news that Sean Connery had won a Radio Times poll to decide the best Bond was lovely to read. It was relaxing and uplifting in the same way as turning on ITV on a random afternoon in the 90s to discover that Moonraker is on and you haven’t missed the bit where the gondola turns into a hovercraft.
The poll is of course totally unnecessary. Everyone knows Connery is the best Bond. Statements to the contrary are only ever made as a means of asserting personality. People sometimes find the refutation of obvious fact useful as a means of defining themselves in a group. Like citing a link between the coronavirus and 5G, these aren’t really opinions, but aesthetic choices by which people can stand out from the crowd without the necessity of doing anything difficult or good.
It must be a source of some bewilderment and sadness for the producers of the Bond films (as well as for the several talented actors who followed Connery in the role) that the relatively unknown former milkman and bodybuilder who first landed the part in the face of scepticism from, among others, Ian Fleming turned out to be the only person who can quite make it work. Balancing Bond’s suavity and brutality while remaining sympathetic, and also responding plausibly to circumstances of extreme jeopardy, while remaining cool but not becoming smug, is virtually impossible.
Everyone else erred in one direction or other: Roger Moore is too suave, Timothy Dalton too stressed, Pierce Brosnan too groomed, Daniel Craig too depressed and George Lazenby, with the best will in the world, made it look like they’d accidentally rolled camera on the stand-in. But Connery got it right first time and made it look easy. It’s taken half a century of other actors failing in order to properly contextualise his achievement.
I don’t blame those other actors. James Bond is a ridiculous character – a pathetic mixture of dandy, narcissist, twat and thug – but in the stories’ universe everyone thinks he’s ace and we’re not supposed to think that’s because they’ve all gone potty. The job of playing James Bond is to make all the punching, screwing and fastidious drink-ordering seem cool, likable and real and only Connery managed it.
So the real issue (and I know it’s my round and I’ll go to the bar as soon as I’ve just made this one point) is who is the second-best Bond and here, I must say, I take issue with the structure of the Radio Times survey. This was not done as a straight vote but as a series of rounds, with Connery taking on Craig in round one, then Brosnan versus Lazenby in round two, Moore against Dalton in round three and then a final fourth round between the victors of the first three to decide the overall winner.
Well, you don’t need to have been in charge of seeding for a Wimbledon championship to see the problem. Craig against Connery in the first round! That effectively eliminates Craig’s chances of coming second overall, which, as anyone but his agent would say, is his absolute best hope. Connery should be seeded one and face Lazenby in the first round, Moore and Craig should be seeded two and three, or three and two – maybe do it based on box office adjusted for inflation – and should take on Dalton and Brosnan in rounds two and three.
Then if everything went according to seeding, Connery, Moore and Craig would all make the final and we might get an answer to the only significant remaining question: do people prefer Roger Moore’s dapper charm or Daniel Craig’s craggy-faced verisimilitude?
Of course there can still be an upset, as there was in this case. Dalton beat Moore in round three by 49% to 41% to proceed to the final in which, again surprisingly, he beat Brosnan into third place. Which makes Timothy Dalton second-best Bond and leaves fans of Moore, Craig and Brosnan fizzing like a bottle of Craig-era Bond’s trademark Heineken.
Perhaps it’s time to give The Living Daylights a serious re-evaluation, finger hovering over the pause button and notebook and pen at the ready. This is intriguing. I’m so sorry.
Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy by David Mitchell (Guardian Faber Publishing, £9.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
