The Man With The Golden Run

By Jeff Chu

It's a dull Saturday afternoon in Cleveland, Ohio, and young Halle Berry is flipping through the TV stations. She's bored in the deep, almost desolate way that 8-and 9-year-olds get bored--but something on the screen grabs her attention. A blond in a white bikini is rising from the sea. There's a knife in her white-leather belt. Suddenly the afternoon isn't dull anymore. A local channel is showing the first James Bond film, Dr. No, from 1962. "I remember that bikini coming out of the water and thinking how beautiful Ursula Andress was," Berry says. "I thought, 'Wow! Wouldn't it be great to be like her?'"

Berry's memory of her first Bond moment might seem suspicious, even a p.r. flack's invention, if the same image weren't frozen in the minds of millions of other 007 fans. But when you're an Oscar winner and one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, fantasies have a way of coming true. Berry gets to live hers out on an April afternoon in Cadiz, Spain. Wearing a fluorescent orange bikini, she slips off her flip-flops, adjusts the white-leather knife belt slung low around her hips, wades about 10 yards out into the shallows of the Atlantic and turns back toward the beach. "And action!" director Lee Tamahori calls through a megaphone. Berry dips under the surface, pops back up, runs her hands through her hair, then sashays toward shore, her wet skin glistening in the sunlight. Tamahori asks her to do it again. And again. Then he has her swim toward the camera. "And action!" Cut, action, cut, action, one final "Cut!"--and the set bursts into applause.

When Berry comes out of the water, her teeth are chattering. The locals say April was never this frigid, this windy--"Nunca," they insist, never--until the week she had to pretend the icy Atlantic was the bath-warm Gulf of Mexico and shoot Scene 102, her big entrance as Jinx, the mysterious assassin in the new Bond film Die Another Day.

That the Bond Girl rising from the sea is the reigning Oscar queen says plenty about the staying power of the understated British spy whom Ian Fleming created 50 years ago. Though Fleming's 14th and last Bond book was published 36 years ago--two years after his death--his character launched the most successful franchise in film history. Now celebrating its 40th anniversary with the release this month of the 20th official Bond film, the series has come roaring back from its midlife crisis of the 1980s. The past three outings, all starring Pierce Brosnan, have together grossed more than $1 billion at the box office. If the story lines were not always coherent, at least the action was reliably high octane, the stunts spectacular, the women lovely (and increasingly lethal) and the hero an island of imperturbable British cool amid the mayhem. In the Irish Brosnan, with his nimble brow and arch half-smiles, the franchise has found its most persuasive Bond since Scotsman Sean Connery. Decades of critics have asked when the superspy will mothball the tux and retire. Yet Berry speaks for a lot of post--cold war babies when she says, "Bond is still so sexy and so cool."

Much of the credit for the aging spy's resuscitation goes to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson. The daughter and stepson of franchise co-founder Albert (Cubby) Broccoli, the two run EON--an acronym for "Everything or Nothing"--the company based in London that has produced all the official Bond films. (Never Say Never Again, in which Connery played 007 for the first time in a dozen years, is considered a rogue agent.) When Cubby's health began to fail in the 1990s, the pair stepped up to take his place. Wilson had been co-producing since 1985's A View to a Kill, and Barbara had been an assistant director and associate producer in the 1980s (see box). Their first effort: GoldenEye, a high-tech, high-speed 1995 hit that proved 007 could compete with the big-bang action pictures while keeping some of his cheeky, retro spirit. Since then, the competition has only got brasher and more explosive, with plenty of pretenders to the throne--most recently, Vin Diesel's XXX, a postmodern grunge Bond who traded in his tux for tattoos. Says XXX director Rob Cohen: Bond "never learns anything ... He doesn't do much of anything except be titanium and eternally stuck in a time capsule."

Brosnan, who brought the series back to life--and is paid a reported $15 million a picture to keep the franchise alive--was once the Bond that got away. In 1986 he had to turn down an offer to play the role because he couldn't get out of his Remington Steele TV contract. But he was ready to take the part when asked again in 1994. After Roger Moore's ironic, almost geriatric Bond, and then Timothy Dalton's leaden, I'm-really-a-serious-actor Bond, the debonair Irishman has reinvigorated the old spy and started to make the character his own. Although he delivers Bond-mots with requisite panache, Brosnan plays the part straighter and steelier than Moore did, and he's plainly more comfortable in 007's skin than Dalton was. On the beachside set in Cadiz, he slips into and out of the role, puffing a Cuban cigar all the while. Playing Bond "is bloody hard work," he says during a break from filming. "Trying to hit that note correctly--with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek, yet also trying to play him with a certain reality--can be tricky."

Brosnan's eight-year delay helped him build a better Bond. Age weathered some of his pretty-boy sheen; a few more lines on his face, a touch more flesh at his jawline, and he began to look like a man who had survived a few too many fights and a few too many cocktails. By now, his fourth time in the role, "the part has become second nature in some respects," he says. "I've grown into it--or at least I'd like to think I have."

Die Another Day gives Brosnan a chance to stretch a bit. Betrayed during an investigation into diamond smuggling, Bond is jailed and tortured by the North Koreans in what might be the first Bond scene to qualify as harrowing: he is battered, bruised, bearded and, yes, even long-haired. We've never seen Bond like this. Naturally, he eventually wins freedom and makes his way back to London, only to learn that he's been stripped of his 00 status. His quest for redemption and his effort to unmask the traitor take him into the arms of three women and the crosshairs of Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), an audacious diamond tycoon bent on (what else?) world domination. (The writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade had the good sense to ditch the small-potatoes bad guys of recent films, like the one bent on conquering the media sector.) Bond's trials, at the hands of both his captors and the agency that loses faith in him, reveal traits that fans of Fleming's novels will recognize. They "bring out his vulnerable side," says writer Wade. "But you'll see a lot of resilience."

If the thought of Bond on a mission of self-discovery makes you queasy, relax. As guardians of the 007 legacy, Broccoli and Wilson won't mess with the formula. They constantly field suggestions to tweak the franchise, but most times "Barbara and I have to say no--to casting someone inappropriate, to making it into a buddy picture," says Wilson. "The principle is what Cubby said, 'Don't screw it up.'"

"A Bond movie has conventions: girls, gadgets, action," says Tamahori, a New Zealander best known for the obscure 1994 Maori drama Once Were Warriors. "It's not that you must stick with them, but if you don't, you may be doing the film--and the genre--a disservice." So he gives us the staples: action, exotic settings, a good-vs.-evil showdown and Bond Girls (Berry plus pale, slinky British newcomer Rosamund Pike). Enlivening these elements are blasts from the past in honor of the franchise's 40th anniversary--nods to Bond history, from Berry's sexy play on Andress to a Union Jack parachute to cameos by memorable gadgets (Thunderball's jet pack, Octopussy's Crocodile minisubmarine). Audiences won't doubt for a moment that they're watching a Bond movie.

On Nov. 18, Queen Elizabeth will go to the movies for the only time this year, to Die Another Day's world premiere at London's Royal Albert Hall. We will never really know whether the Queen was amused, but it's only proper that she should come out to support Bond: after all, he has been in Her Majesty's public service for 40 years (50 if you count the books) as a stalwart of the British film industry and global ambassador of British cool--even before Cool Britannia existed.

When Bond first introduced himself onscreen in 1962, Britain's geographic empire was breaking up, but its cultural one was burgeoning. In the prole-chic era of the Beatles and Carnaby Street, of kitchen-sink realism and blue-collar movie stars, Bond was at best a blithe anachronism--a specter from the early postwar era, when spies dressed for dinner, and class was a matter of the right accent and breeding. Politically and culturally, the impossibly suave Bond was curiously old school, even if that school was Cambridge.

Still, he has managed to age gracefully, that is, barely at all. His country is fixed in amber too, which is also part of the appeal. In a Bond film, Britain is still a superpower. In The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), the villain Stromberg captures three nuclear submarines--one American, one Soviet and one British--and only Britain, thanks to 007, can respond. In 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies, China and Britain teeter on the brink of a bilateral war. Tony Blair may be accused of being George W. Bush's lapdog, but in Bond's world, "the Anglo-American special relationship is turned upside down," says James Chapman, author of Licence to Thrill, a cultural history of Bond. Americans--from CIA agent Felix Leiter to the nsa's Falco (Michael Madsen) in Die Another Day--just play backup to the real global policeman who saves all in the name of Queen and Country. Bond--part trad gentleman, part liberated hedonist, all Brit--is, in Chapman's words, "an exception to the rule of American cultural imperialism [and] the Coca-Colonization of global culture."

People seem to like this form of British cultural imperialism. EON says that more than 2 billion people have seen a Bond film. Bond, in fact, was an avatar of cultural globalization. We all know the catchphrases, and we've seen the spoofs: from Casino Royale to Austin Powers to The Simpsons (Homer goes to work for a Bond-like baddie). But far from hurting Bond, the parodies and takeoffs only keep him on our cultural radar. "I walk down the street, and people say, 'I just saw your movie!'" says Jane Seymour, who played the tarot-reading virgin Solitaire in 1973's Live and Let Die. Jonathan Pryce, who played the villain Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, says, "My postbag quadrupled with requests for autographs and memorabilia. There must be a great trade in it."

He's right. From cars to clothes, a numbing array of products rides on Bond's stylish coattails, a parade of brands in keeping with the character's roots. Fleming writes, for instance, that his spy lights hand-rolled cigarettes (from Morlands, the London tobacconist) with a gold Dunhill lighter. His (free) plugs for these brands helped establish Bond as a connoisseur. They also foreshadowed the phenomenon called product placement (see box). Agent 007's partners will spend an estimated $120 million on Die Another Day--related advertising, while Bond Marketing, a division of EON's sister firm Danjaq, is overseeing the rollout of Bond Swatches ($50 to $110), Bond Girl Barbie and Ken as Bond ($80 for the pair) and of course the 007 snowmobile ($6,000-plus).

What's surprising is that the global fan base is self-renewing, and it's not just nostalgic boomers recalling a film they saw on a high school date but also younger fans who, like Berry, met 007 on the small screen. Or online. Contributors to the many Bond sites and boards "range from teens on up," says Matt Sherman, co-editor of 007forever.com Many of the young fans are encountering 007 through video games. Since 1999, "we've sold almost 20 million," says MGM consultant Larry Gleason. "There's a whole generation of kids out there whose primary reference point isn't Dr. No or The World Is Not Enough. It's the GoldenEye game."

With so much in the films codified and inviolable, part of the charm lies in the fresh ideas and small tweaks that Wilson and Broccoli allow. The danger du jour, for instance, comes straight out of the headlines. "The films have adapted to make them relevant to the contemporary world," says Michael Harvey, curator of "Bond, James Bond," an exhibition of 007 cars, gadgets and memorabilia at London's Science Museum. From Russia with Love (1963) arrived at the height of the cold war; Moonraker (1979) took off at the zenith of the Star Wars craze; and in Die Another Day--in a move that will dismay reputed 007 fan Kim Jong Il--evil springs from North Korea, a decision the writers say was made long before Bush came to the same conclusion.

In his trailer in Cadiz, Lee Tamahori is furiously shoveling salad into his mouth in between gulps of cranberry juice. He eats--and talks while he eats--like a teenager. He even dresses like one: tracksuit bottoms and a worn T shirt. But perhaps most important for the franchise, Tamahori is trying to think like a teen and make a film that appeals to that prized demographic. The best way to do that, the director says, is not to dumb down Bond movies but to make them smarter. "A lot of action movies are very lame because they ask you to just accept them for what they are," he says. "Teenagers are far sharper than that--and they don't like to be insulted."

He remembers. Tamahori was 13 when he saw From Russia with Love at a Wellington, New Zealand, cinema. He loved the "great, filthy stuff" in that film--not just the sexiness but also the classic fight scenes and the feel of a true thriller--and says he's trying to deliver a 21st century update of that. "Filthy and snappy!" he says to Brosnan and Berry as they film the scene in which Bond and Jinx meet after her swim. He wants more lust and leer in this encounter--and the whole film. Rosamund Pike, who plays MI6 agent Miranda Frost, jokes that "Lee wants to make this an X-rated Bond film." In truth, he just wants a "traditional" Bond. After Dr. No's release in 1962, the Vatican condemned the film's amorality, and in 1965, TIME disdained the popularity of "the sex, violence and snobbery with which Fleming endowed his British secret agent." But lately Bond's ardor has been mostly martial. "I was worried that he was turning into an SAS man, machine-gunning everyone," says Tamahori. "I've been trying to make him more of an Ian Fleming Bond."

Writers Purvis and Wade, both big Fleming fans, were happy to go back to the books. They returned with a script that put 007 in tense, compromised positions. They also added what Wade calls "nerdy stuff that only five fans will note"--a few lines echoing Fleming's texts and dozens of references to movies past. These are meant to be cues, Purvis says, to "remind us of where Bond is coming from."

Berry's character is likewise shaped by history. The name Jinx may not have the come-hither connotations of Bond Girls past, but the character is in many ways a composite of her predecessors. She has the sass of Goldfinger's Pussy Galore and the kick-ass skills of Wai Lin from Tomorrow Never Dies. Put a gun in her handbag, add a murky agenda and you have a Bond Girl who's "one step further from the previous one," says Berry. "She's not just eye candy. She's feisty, a fighter."

One reason she took the part, Berry says, is because "it was one of the few times in my career that I just got called up and asked to be in a movie." The $4 million--plus paycheck, a Bond Girl record, was an incentive. It was also a chance to switch gears from her last role, as the emotionally battered death-row-inmate's widow in Monster's Ball, for which she won this year's Best Actress Oscar. "After making something as emotionally wrought as Monster's Ball, I thought, 'What fun would it be to go play in the World of Bond?'"

One afternoon in Cadiz, Pierce Brosnan stands on the rooftop of the Santa Cruz Cathedral's annex. Taking a breather from a scene in which 007 meets a Cuban MI6 operative named Raoul (Emilio Echevarria), he gazes out over the city and reflects on a franchise that has made him into a global symbol. Bond, he says, "is a leviathan--and it's even more amazing after doing all these films."

When Fleming banged out the first book in 1952 and dubbed its hero Bond--the "dull and anonymous name," as he put it, of the author of Birds of the West Indies (look out for the book's cameo)--he had no idea what his character would become. The market today is more crowded than ever, but Bond's makers even look at the competition with pride. "XXX, Austin Powers, even The Bourne Identity are all homages to Bond," says MGM vice chairman Chris McGurk. "All these movies do is reinforce the significance of Bond as the most original, the biggest and the best."

Stop him before he belts out Nobody Does It Better--but it's hard to argue with his point. The question with Die Another Day is not whether it will be a hit but how big? Predict Bond's demise at your own risk. How many of his critics has he outlived already? In Dr. No, the fisherman Quarrel warns, "It don't do for a man to tempt Providence too often." Always a gambler, 007 seems to have taken those words as a dare. And 40 years later, it's safe to say we have a response: It don't do for a man to bet against Bond. --With reporting by Theunis Bates/London and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

With reporting by Theunis Bates/London and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles