Bond, James Bond

My client Jeff Gelb is a longtime fan of all sorts of pop culture things, and was kind enough to put some thoughts to paper on the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film Dr. No:

Dr. No was released 50 years ago! Hard to believe!

So I was thinking about the tremendous effect Ian Fleming's creation has had on so many areas of popular culture (and my life) these past 50 years. I devoured all the Bond paperbacks in high school, and then read at least 100 Bond wanna-be spy novels (many of which I still own!). Spy novels are still immensely popular, from the works of Robert Ludlum to Daniel Silva (I'm a big Silva fan). Even Jack Reacher arguably could be called a distant cousin to James Bond.

Comic books ran rampant with spies for awhile, including Nick Fury and SHIELD, now popular in the Avengers movie and coming soon to your TV set.

Meanwhile, TV shows in the '60s gave us The Man from UNCLE, I Spy, Wild West, The Avengers, and so many others, continuing to recent shows like 24.

The movie studios flooded the '60s market with Bond imitators, mostly terrible, but some decent ones as well. That trend continues to this day, with the Bourne movies, Taken, Mission Impossible, and others.

And the music! The Bond films gave us the groundbreaking soundtrack work of genius John Barry, and some themes that have become standards, including "Goldfinger" and "Live and Let Die".

And the fun continues! The trailer for Skyfall looks amazing, and Adele's theme honors the grand John Barry tradition. I can't wait to see the movie!

So here's to Ian Fleming, a genius whose unique character has made billions of fans, and billions of dollars, and created so many jobs for so many people worldwide for so long. Here's to the next 50 years and beyond!

Joshua may do some Bond thoughts of his own, in the meantime you can sample the Hot Blood anthologies edited by Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett which are available as JABberwocky ebooks.