Goodbye, Felix - remembering David Hedison (1927-2019)

The week has started on a sad note for many James Bond fans, and for those who spent entire afternoons watching many TV series. We learnt that, at the age of 92, David Hedison passed away. He was the fifth actor to play Felix Leiter in the James Bond films.

Described by Ian Fleming as “the Texan with whom he had shared so many adventures”, Hedison portrayed this idea perfectly in Live And Let Die and Licence To Kill. With his appearance in Bond 25, Jeffrey Wright will break the record playing the role for the third time after Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, but Hedison concluded his life being the only actor who could express that friendly link with James Bond that went beyond work with two different actors that played the same role: Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton.

He was also the one who had to represent one of the tensest moments written by Fleming on his second Bond novel, Live And Let Die, when Leiter is thrown to a pool full of hungry sharks that mutilate two of his extremities, something dramatically adapted in Licence To Kill and the catalyst of 007’s desire of revenge that would take him to resign to the Secret Service to avenge his friend and his wife Della, killed by the assailants that were after him.

A descendant of Armenians, Ara David Hedistian was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 20 May 1927. He initiated his artistic career under the name Al Hedison on a number of TV series before reaching fame after playing the mutant star of The Fly in 1958. He later had a role in the original 1960 version of The Lost World and in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965, as he played important roles on TV series of that decade like Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea, playing Captain Crane, and the episode ‘Luella’ of The Saint, forming his first friendship bond with Roger Moore.

After an occasional encounter with director Guy Hamilton, the role of Felix Leiter was proposed to him for Live And Let Die, where his friend would be Bond for the first time. There was instantaneous chemistry: Hedison was the Felix who assisted Bond after a “little problem” (the mysterious and surprising assassination of his chauffeur) and had to tolerate the name-calling of the furious Mr Bleeker when Bond destroyed his aeroplane to evade Kananga’s hitmen. He was also the Felix Leiter who shared a tragic destiny who was similar to those of 007: due to the disgraceful consequences of his profession as a CIA and DEA agent, his wife is killed hours after the wedding.

“He was married once, but it was a long time ago”, he had told Della when she was surprised when Bond disregards references to a possible second marriage in a future.

Stripped of one of his legs, bruised and solace-less, Leiter manages to raise a smile when listening to his friend on the phone to inform him that he’ll recover his job at MI6, even after his rebellious attitude of hunting down drug kingpin Sánchez and his criminal empire without the proper authorization, when the US justice didn’t dare to confront him.

Besides his participation in series like Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels and Perry Mason, Hedison teamed up with his friend Moore in the films North Sea Hijack and The Naked Face. In 2018 he wrote the foreword for the new edition of The 007 Diaries, which the new Bond had written in 1973 and remained out of print for years: “Roger welcomed me into the wonderful fold of his life. He hosted my life for Christmas in Switzerland and summer in the South of France, always eager to share the spoils of his stardom yet never one to act with exception or snobbery,” he said remembering the actor who passed away on 23 May 2017, the day Hedison turned 90.

We just have to hope both of them are enjoying two Sazeracs watching a choir of angels playing a version of that Paul McCartney song that marked a generation and attracted an even bigger audience to that 1973 film, where Bond was turning into the field of comedy but wasn’t becoming less popular just for that. “Where’s your sense of adventure, James? This is Heaven, relax!” he would say.

Those who have met him, like actor Robert Davi, talked about his sympathy and sense of humour. There are others who didn’t share that luck, but it just takes watching a few seconds of any of his performances to perceive that warmth and kindness that went through the screen. He made us feel that, besides being a friend of James Bond, he was almost a friend of ours. Maybe this is why, despite his advanced age, we are still surprised and saddened for his departure.

So long, great man!

Goodbye, Felix.

Nicolás Suszczyk

The Beauty and Ugliness of James Bond

Promotional artwork for Dr. No, the first James Bond film, showcasing the attributes of 007's female interests

The Oxford Living Dictionary defines beauty as "a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight" and ugliness as "the quality of being unpleasant or repulsive in appearance." Without a doubt, in over 55 years of history the cinematic James Bond franchise has played with beauty and ugliness in 24 official movies. Even the two unofficial films, Casino Royale from 1967 and Never Say Never Again in 1983 have echoed these topics, the first one prominently teasing audiences with a tattooed woman holding two guns. 

The good looks of Sean Connery in 1962:
Dana Broccoli's female instincts told
her she was the right man for the job.

In Ian Fleming's novels, Bond was described as a handsome man resembling musician Hoagy Carmichael. The beauty of his women were thoroughly described by the author (their hair, skin, eyes and body shape) as -by opposition- the ugliness of the villains with their bad plastic surgeries or swollen heads. The first cinematic Bond adventure Dr. No, rather faithful to the source material, has respected the Fleming standards for beauty with a handsome and virile protagonist like Sean Connery and three handsome girls coming from different parts of the world: British gambler and playgirl Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson), the exotic and deadly oriental secretary Miss Taro (Zena Marshall) and the Jamaican native Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress). The film's nemesis were represented by the "three blind mice" assassins, corrupt Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson) and the evil mastermind Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman), who of course couldn't match the elegance and physical traits of Sean Connery's 007. Something different, tough, could be said of his future opponents Red Grant (Robert Shaw) and Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) in From Russia With Love and Thunderball, who could perfectly match Bond's poise and looks. 

An interesting insight on how beauty was of the essence for producers Albert R "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman for their shaping of the long-lasting 007 series was the way Sean Connery and Ursula Andress landed in their roles. Cubby and his wife Dana were watching Darby O' Gill and The Little People and when Connery had appeared in the film Dana thought he was an incredible handsome man. The producer followed the female instincts of his wife and on November 3rd, 1961, the then little-known Sean Connery was announced as the star of the adaptation of Ian Fleming's Dr. No. In the case of Andress, it was producer Harry Saltzman who felt absolutely stunned by a photo of the girl in a wet shirt (taken by her husband John Derek) and that eased her way into the role of the native woman Bond meets in Crab Key who doesn't become his love interest until the very last seconds of the film. 

Claudine Auger in a photoshoot for
Thunderball, showing the deadly
side of her character Domino.

Flash forward 55 years later and it looks as if beauty was an uncomfortable word when promoting the Bond films. Since the late 1980s and particularly in the 2010s, probably because of the resurgence of feminist movements, the intelligence of the Bond girls (sorry, Bond women) is emphasized to the point every one of the female leads in the series has become "Bond's equal": a cliché that now feels as a publicity tactic more than an actual definition of the new generation of Bond's ladies. Maybe only Camille Montes of Quantum of Solace can fit the description and only Anya Amasova from The Spy Who Loved Me or Wai Lin from Tomorrow Never Dies can more faithfully fulfill that definition. The other Bond women could be an intellectual or emotional match or even have some knowledge of handguns. But that doesn't make them "Bond's equal" for sure. 

Probably some people would think Bond girls are mere sexual objects when they're not. They never really were and the James Bond saga has empowered much more than other action films. Take into account Honey Ryder wielding her knife and trying to defend herself of No's guards, or Domino Derval (Claudine Auger) saving Bond's life at the end of Thunderball. In You Only Live Twice, all three girls were far more than a pretty body or face: two skilled Japanese secret agents (Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama) and a deadly redhead vixen (Karin Dor) who pretends to commit to Bond's charm only to attempt against his life shortly later. Don't forget how Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) and Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) dared to betray their dangerous lovers in The Man With The Golden Gun and Licence To Kill, risking their lives to help Bond (Andrea is ultimately terminated by a golden bullet). A good example is also given in The Living Daylights, where Kamran Shah (Art Malik) and his Afghan men look astonished as Kara Milovy (Maryam d'Abo) rides her horse in the desert with an AK-47 rifle in hand to help Bond, surrounded by the Russian army. Needless to say the Afghan troops weren't used to a woman in their troops and -much less- a woman disobeying a man and going on her own. 

Prelude of an all-girl fight: Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike)
threatens Jinx (Halle Berry) in Die Another Day.

Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) from The World Is Not Enough is a proof that female leads in the Bond films have been empowered by the James Bond series: she used both men for fools: her former kidnapper terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle) and Bond himself, who believed her to be Renard's target for a second time and a woman who lost her in a terrorist attack, when she was actually the mastermind who employed and seduced Renard to kill her father in revenge for not paying her ransom. The following film, Die Another Day, is the first 007 film to feature a well-choreographed fight between the good and the evil Bond girl, and Pierce Brosnan's 007 debut in GoldenEye had an action scene only with the leading lady Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) escaping from all kind of explosions and finding her way out of the doomed workplace attacked by General Ourumov (Gottfried John) and Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen). 

Daniel Craig in a publicity still for 2015's
SPECTRE. His muscular body was displayed
prominently in his James Bond films.

"I wonder why I'm not seeing people comparing six different actors who played James Bond," said an Alicia Vikander fan Twitter account lately complaining on the fuzz provoked by those who preferred Angelina Jolie over the Swedish actress as Lara Croft in the recent Tomb Raider reboot. However, the six men who played James Bond were compared through their looks and acting skills ever since Sean Connery was replaced by George Lazenby in his one shot 007 flick On Her Majesty's Secret Service, released in 1969, almost half a century ago. Some said Lazenby was handsome but not in the scale of Connery, others that he was a complete failure and talked in retrospect of a "forgotten Bond". Roger Moore was labelled as attractive, but it was always pointed out his lack of virility and strength in comparison to Connery, particularly in his last three films where -despite looking very good at 57- he was "too old to play Bond". Then came Timothy Dalton, who received the tag of being too tight for the role and some humour was needed for Bond. Lately, Dalton was very much vindicated by the fans, but there were those who considered his second and last appearance Licence To Kill killed the franchise. The opposite happened with Pierce Brosnan: applauded and admired during his four films where he reinvigorated Bond as an action hero for the 1990s and the new millennium, but now slammed as being too cheesy, soft-spoken and slim built for a man of action as his replacement, the muscular Daniel Craig, who even tolerated the dishonour of a web site boycotting his choice as the rebooted 007 of Casino Royale. 

Ian Fleming's James Bond always had thoughts for appearances and looks: Donovan Grant's Windsor knot on his tie gives him bad feelings in From Russia, With Love and he suggests Honeychile Ryder not to fix her broken nose with plastic surgery in Dr. No. Moreover, in the John Gardner novel For Special Services, he comforts Nena Bismaquer after learning she had one breast removed. For Bond, reason is not always the answer and a lot is given to intuition, that's why someone's look, attitude, beauty or ugliness can tell him something. 

In the case of the EON Production's franchise, despite their political correct production notes, they always knew a reason why men go to watch James Bond films are the attractive women like Ursula Andress, Jill St. John or Britt Ekland. And a reason why women watched them is because they also felt attracted for the physique of Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Daniel Craig, not forgetting the bon mots of Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore and the virility of Timothy Dalton. 

Never judge a book for its cover, they say. But it's always better when a good book has a great looking cover indeed. 

Nicolás Suszczyk 

'The Man With The Golden Gun', an Ignored Masterpiece

Bond duels the villain Scaramanga on his "fun house", a maze full of video screens, images and sound effects  meant to confuse every possible challenger.

The Man With The Golden Gun is an ignored masterpiece. That may sound a rather strong assessment for a film that is troughly hated by the worldwide community, accused of its blandness and being the epitome of the funny, self-parodic James Bond films written by Tom Mankiewicz since 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. But depending on what side you look at it, the movie can be pure unadultered enjoyment.

When you read books like Casino Royale or On Her Majesty's Secret Service you will know that James Bond as portrayed by the late Roger Moore was not an accurate cinematic version of Fleming's Bond. Nor was the 1974 film, which instead of having 007 sent to kill Paco "Pistolas" Scaramanga, a sort of far-west outlaw who brutally kills British agents or any oposition with his golden Colt .45, has Bond being the target of Francisco Scaramanga, a debonair contract killer who mounts a golden gun from his personal golden jewlery.

Movie poster artwork for The Man With The
Golden Gun, designed by Robert McGinnis

Nevertheless, it is necessary to admit that due to many factors the cinematic Bond was different from the literary Bond from the beginning, and producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R Broccoli knew they had to lighten up a bit Fleming's dramatic hero into a man of this world. "This world" refers, precisely, to each year of the five decades where 007 was relevant including the present day, from the Space Race sensation of the late 1960s (see Dr. No and You Only Live Twice) to the globalization in the 1990s (see GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies) and heroes with a past and emotional conflicts from the 2010s (see Skyfall and SPECTRE).

Directed by Guy Hamilton, The Man With The Golden Gun was released in December 1974 and the film itself serves as a testimony to the era: from the music to the sets, the costumes and the subplot that touches the early 1970s energy crisis and the emergence of martial artists like Bruce Lee. That is, perhaps, what makes it beautiful in its own way.

As he showed in previous Bond adventures like Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever, Hamilton makes good use of the thechnical aspects of the story and has a straightforward way of presenting the facts, with a simple storyline that leaves more space to the technical aspects such as the action sequences and the film visuals (mainly the cinematography, the music and the set design).

The films opens, much like in the previous 007 adventure Live And Let Die, ignoring Bond and showing what the villains do. In this case, we see a day in the life of Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), sunbathing with his lover Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) on the beach of his private island near Phuket, Thailand. A contract killer arrives to put an end to Scaramanga's life. He laughs, thinking it will be an easy job. But soon enough, he finds himself inside Scaramanga's fun house: a labyrinth filled with diversion stategies (loud music, false paths, mannequins of shooting cowboys) made to make the challengers lose most of his ammunition. Finding his precious Golden Gun exhibited among the maze, Scaramanga shoots his rival right between the eyes. The funniest part here is that the killer was hired by none other than Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize), Scaramanga's servant, in a way to train his boss with surprising challenges: the same training method Kato had with Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies. 

Fantastic shot of the film by cinematographers Ted Moore and Oswald Morris.
Equally fantastic set design by Peter Murton.

After the colorful main titles by Maurice Binder, playing over the catching title song by Scottish singer Lulu, Roger Moore makes his second appaerance as James Bond onscreen and reports for duty to his boss M (Bernard Lee). This time, tough, he isn't briefed about a mission. He is offered a sabbatical year or the resignation. The reason: he has been marked for death by Scaramanga - whom nobody knows where he is or how he looks like (except we, the audience, who were offered a glimpse of his million dollar hits). "The Man With The Golden Gun" has been previously responsible for the death of agent 002 in Beirut, and now he seems to have put his eye on 007.

In recent Bond films, namely Licence To Kill (1989), Die Another Day (2002), Quantum of Solace (2008) and SPECTRE (2015), we see 007 picking his own mission outside MI6. The Man With The Golden Gun could be the first film in the series where Bond isn't formally assigned to a mission and M wants him out of the picture to protect him of Scaramanga. Thus, Bond goes solo following a series of clues from Lebanon to Macau, from Hong Kong to Thailand, to find Scaramanga first. It happens in a very subtle way and Bond isn't exactly going rogue, but he isn't formally assigned to kill his nemesis.

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga,
aka "The Man With the Golden Gun".

Another clever resort from the script is that for the first time in the series 007 is described as an assassin. Right before the duel à la mort between Bond and Scaramanga, the latter gloats about his profession and matches himself to the secret agent. "Come, come, Mr. Bond... you enjoy killing as much as I do," he happily says. "When I kill it's under specific orders of my government, and those I kill are themselves killers", Bond replies.

In many interviews, Christopher Lee saw his character as "the dark side of Bond", and this shows off in the aforementioned exchange: Scaramanga is an assassin and so is Bond, but the latter firmily establishes he's on the side of good. Both Moore and Lee have an unique chemistry and the contrasts between the protagonist and the antagonist are truly believable. Lee, distant cousin of Ian Fleming, didn't portray Scaramanga as the outlaw described by Fleming and the movie is much less dramatic in comparison. 1989's Licence To Kill would be even closer to Ian Fleming's The Man With The Golden Gun in concept as Edward Biddulph brilliantly described on his blog James Bond Memes.

Cinematographers Ted Moore and Oswald Morris used an eye popping palette of purple, red, yellow and green for most of the scenes, namely those taking place in Scaramanga's fun house. The Man With The Golden Gun is probably one of the most visually impacting films of the series, where reds look redder, greens look greener and blue looks bluer. Even the iconic gunbarrel sequence, for unknown reasons, got the opening dots in a light purple hue, something the Lowry team "corrected" in their DVD and BluRay transfer restorations for the film. Production designer Peter Murton, who previously worked as an art director on Goldfinger and Thunderball, was in charge of set designs that maybe weren't as extravagant as Ken Adam's pieces but do deserve some credit: besides the imaginative fun house of the villain, there is also the British Secret Service hideout rebuilt inside the sinking wreckage of the Queen Elizabeth transatlantic (pure Moore-Bond era humour!)

After the relevance of martial arts in 1970s flicks,
Bond (unwantedly) visits a karate school.

John Barry returned to compose a James Bond film after his abscence from Live And Let Die, where George Martin took up the task. The score for The Man With The Golden Gun has been criticized even by Barry himself. Nevertheless, the sound of the film is very appealing with the times and with the tone set for the story. Lulu's title song breaks with the mould and goes for a tacky tune describing qualities of the villain. Instrumental versions of this theme song are repeated very often in the score, either during the action sequences or the romantic moments between Bond and his female counterpart Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland). It even features as source music inside Scaramanga's fun house, both in a piano and trumpet jazzy version.

The music is skilfully used as Bond and his uninvited guest Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) are chasing Scaramanga and Nick Nack through the streets of Bangkok, both "teams" driving AMC cars. As Scaramanga hides his car inside a garage and turns his vehicle into a flying car, a soft version of the theme song is heard, while we get a frenetic version of the James Bond Theme as 007 and the policeman are on hot pursuit (listen to track six of the soundtrack, "Let's Go Get Them"). Given that Pepper has first appeared in the previous film, Barry allows himself to add some little irony and include a few bars of George Martin's Live And Let Die theme song.

Other suites of the album are comprised of guitars and wind instruments, with some percussion rythms too. Much like in Diamonds Are Forever, the soundtrack of The Man With The Golden Gun feels vibrant, sexy and lush.

Part of the score is also the much criticized "whistle" sound effect as Bond and Pepper's AMC Matador makes a 360 degree spin as they jump over a broken bridge. But, seriously, would that sequence be any better without this (in)famous sound effect? It added emphasis and substance to one of the most remembered and meticulosly planned stunts in the motion picture history.


Times change and James Bond is now, with Daniel Craig, closer to what Fleming had in mind: a blunt instrument. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that and Craig is the right Bond for today's world. Nevertheless, as Bond is a character of all time, Roger Moore was Bond for yesterday's world, and the world of the 1970s was much more visually flamboyant than today's.

Forty-three years after its release, the Bond film that put to an end the society between Harry Saltzman and Albert R Broccoli is sadly overlooked when compared to other 007 flicks. But, seriously, think of The Man With The Golden Gun as a testimony of the vibrant early 1970s and you'll love it. Immerse yourself in John Barry's music, fix your eyes on the exciting cinematography, take an invite to Scaramanga's fun house, envy Roger Moore's womanizing with a blonde and a brunette in the same hotel room for the sake of Queen and Country and -seriously- you'll love it.

Bottoms up!


Nicolás Suszczyk