James Bond and Continuity

From Dr. No up until On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the James Bond films existed in the same universe and there was somewhat of an attempt to keep a loose continuity (no so much as actors like Blofeld and Felix Lieter, who generally changed from film to film). But after Sean Connery returned for one more Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever, you sense that film and the ones that would come after existed in a completely different universe. Also gone, due to various legal issues that haunted the franchise for decades (which also includes studio bankruptcy and what not), the Bond films became almost stand-alone, with very little connection to previous adventures or ones that would come after. Only one time after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (perhaps the best Bond film of the 1960s era), was there a direct reference to Bond’s wife Tracy –that being the sort of comic pre-credit opening to For Your Eyes Only.

Then, I believe, on one occasion, in Licensed to Kill, the second Timothy Dalton Bond film was there another throwaway line about Bond being married before. But basically from Diamonds Are Forever through Die Another Day, these films were separate from the 1960s films.

When the franchise was rebooted in 2006, there was a planned attempt to bring back some of the continuity of the Connery era, but the long gestating legal issues with characters, plots, and organizational names, was still going on. So Producers Barbara Broccolli and Michael G. Wilson had to do a few work a rounds that hinted they wanted to bring back Blofeld, SMERSH and SPECTRE, but licensing issues prevented them, so the idea of Quantum was created.

Then in 2013, the legal battle between all parties (most who were now dead) was settled and with the acquisition rights to SPECTRE and its associated characters were folded into future films and there was a minor retcon to the films continuity, especially with the three previous films, were the Quantum organization that was alluded to in Casino Royale and fully introduced in Quantum of Solace, being now reimagined as division within the Spectre organization rather than any type independent outliers. It’s also implied in the film Spectre, they are no longer active. Furthermore, the writers and producers also tied the events of Skyfall to Craig's first two Bond films by revealing Raoul Silva was also associated with Spectre, making Skyfall less of a solo story now.

Whatever happens when Bond returns to the screen, I hope there is some attempt to keep continuity. Not saying they don’t have to continuations, that I’m fine with standalone films, but we do need to prevent things like Bond being tagged with a tracker three times (Licensed to Kill, Casino Royale, and Spectre) so MI6 can keep an eye on him.

It would also be nice to see Blofled return along with Spectre in some ways. While the idea that Russian run SMERSH is great as well, I don’t see that organization being run by the Soviets in the 21^st Century.

Books: Let's All Kill Constance by Ray Bradbury (2003)

“Opening in 1960 and our storyteller, who has returned to his old Venice, California apartment while his wife is away, gets an unexpected visit from aging Hollywood actor Constance Rattigan. She hands him two things: The Los Angeles Telephone Directory, 1900 – what both call a sort of Book of the Dead that contains early Hollywood movers and shakers (most who are now dead) and her own personal address book. Only one book has Constance’s name in them. The Los Angeles Telephone Directory, 1900, was left at her doorstep by some unknown person at her home and Constance see this as a message –that someone wants her dead. A skeptic at first, our chronicler decides to visit the listed people in order, all of whom die under mysterious circumstances shortly thereafter. Suspiciously, each of them claims to have met Constance, whom seemly is one-step ahead of the narrator. Is Constance the true murderer, or is someone seeking to sever all ties to her associates before finally killing her? The only way to solve this mystery is with the help of long-time friend and private investigator Elmo Crumley.”

 

Let's All Kill Constance is the third and final mystery novel by Ray Bradbury, following up on 1985’s Death is a Lonely Business and 1990’s A Graveyard for Lunatics. As with the previous books, an unnamed Los Angeles based writer, who bears a striking resemblance to the author, narrates it. As with two previous novels, the author offers some subtle references to his better known work, such as Fahrenheit 451, where in chapter 16, the protagonist muses on the possibility of people using books to start fires in the future. And someone calls him “the Martian.”

All three books are weird, but Let’s All Kill Constance takes the cake. It’s anything but ordinary, though, which reminds me how much fiction and –in almost any genre- has become a bit dull, predictable, almost vanilla. The tales coda is about what fame and fortune can do to a person, but that’s old hat in Hollywood. But it’s a nice reminder still that looks -and not necessarily talent- shakes Hollywood today and Yesteryear more than anything else.

So I enjoyed the series, with its ghosts, murder, and the glamour of old Hollywood.

Books: A Graveyard for Lunatics By Ray Bradbury (1990)

“Halloween Night, 1954. A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios. An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall. There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery—and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.”

As with Death is a Lonely Business, A Graveyard for Lunatics is the second of three noir mystery tales Ray Bradbury wrote that sort of features a fictionalized version of the author himself as the unnamed narrator. The novel is set in 1954, when the narrator is a writer working at a Hollywood motion picture studio. The setting and themes of the novel are inspired by Bradbury's experiences working on several films during this period, including It Came from Outer Space, King of Kings, and even Something Wicked This Way Comes. The fictional Maximus Pictures shares a back wall with an adjoining cemetery, as Paramount Studios really does with Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and most of the story takes place in those two locations. Two of the novel's characters, stop motion animator Roy Holdstrom and autocratic director Fritz Wong, were based on Bradbury's friends Ray Harryhausen and Fritz Lang/James Wong Howe. Another character, the shy, blond-haired autograph collector Clarence, may be an alternate autobiographical portrait of Bradbury, who as a teenager waited outside Hollywood studios for glimpses of movie stars.

It’s a weird book, more so than previous one. Its plot slowly unwinds and only really gets interesting (and noir-like) during the last third of the book. But Bradbury writes with more enthusiasm and love for Old Hollywood than most writers of his time or those writing today. His prose, his innate ability to craft metaphors and similes, remains his true gift to us readers. He remains forever one of the more odder writers of Dark Fantasy – with a mind that forever remembers his youth, and who ventured from his home in Waukegan, Illinois, on the windy shores of Lake Michigan, and came to Hollywood to show them his talent.

Books: Death is a Lonely Business By Ray Bradbury (1985)

I’m back after nearly a month of being sick and not wanting to do anything but watch TV and cough like an old engine trying to pretend they’ve not thrown a piston.

“Toiling away amid the looming palm trees and decaying bungalows, a struggling young writer (who bears a resemblance to the author) spins fantastic stories from his fertile imagination upon his clacking typewriter. Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort--until strange things begin happening around him. Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.”

Like authors who would come after him, authors who were influenced by him, Ray Bradbury’s Death is a Lonely Business –his contribution to the noir genre- is a tale of remembrance of an earlier life, when things were horrible yet hopeful. Set in and around 1949 Venice California, our unnamed hero is an overweight, clumsy, near sighted writer who bears a great resemblance to the writer himself (there are frequent allusions to stories he has published).  

The book is filled colorful characters –some, at times, bordering on the preposterous- but the enjoyment of Bradbury comes from the surreal, like the city of Venice sitting between two worlds, one of reality where the city of Los Angeles Parks and Recreation obvious distaste for Venice's honky-tonk atmosphere and wanted the area dismantled, and one where the old Pier and surrounding canals held dark, fantastical secrets. You also get a sense that Bradbury found the weirdness of the people more interesting -they are loved by him because they are themselves. So the old, the discarded, the friendless seem more enduring to him (again something like writers Peter Straub and Stephen King picked up on).

It is a little too slow getting started, but it remains classic Bradbury, even if it was written much later in his life. It’s still a great tale from a master wordsmith.