"Shaken, not stirred" - 50 years of James Bond

By Michael Donhauser Jan 12, 2012, 2:06 GMT

London - It was always the same recipe that made James Bond one of the biggest success stories in film history.

Fifty years after the gorgeously handsome and seemingly infallible Agent 007 in the service of Her Majesty made his Hollywood debut, he is still drawing millions of fans into cinemas around the world.

The start of the shooting of the first Bond movie Dr. No on Jamaica - on January 16, 1962 - launched one of the most exhilarating chapters in the history of cinema.

The spy, world saviour and womanizer has not lost any of his attractiveness, with the 23rd Bond movie, Skyfall, due to hit cinemas later this year.

Daniel Craig will be starring in his third Bond film as the man with the 'license to kill.' He is the sixth actor to play James Bond, following Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.

Bond takes his vodka martinis 'shaken, not stirred.' His flirts with secretary Miss Moneypenny are legendary, just like his affairs with the attractive Bond girls and the refined technology specialities from the workshop of Q.

In the end, of course, good wins over evil. All that makes up a recipe which has survived for half a century in the fast-moving film industry.

When producers Albert R Broccoli and Harry Saltzman initially secured the film rights to the character created by novelist Ian Fleming, success was anything but expected.

Many in Hollywood thought Bond was 'far too British.' Even the search for actors and other staff proved difficult.

Neither leading actor Sean Connery nor his adversary Joseph Wiseman as Dr. No was the first choice. Broccoli and Saltzman also had four directors turn them down before Terence Young said yes.

The film music which eventually became legendary was reportedly written by composer Monty Norman in just two minutes. John Barry then arranged the composition, which led to years of dispute between the two musicians.

As the director, Young came up with the idea of building some jokes into the storyline, to help the movie's sex and violence scenes pass through censorship.

Actor Richard Johnson who, like Richard Todd, turned down the Bond role which eventually went to Connery, believes that this is the secret of the films' popularity.

'Sean made things funny, and that is what boosts the success,' Johnson said.

To what extent female sex appeal has to do with the success, remains unknown.

The performance of Swiss actress Ursula Andress as Jamaican shell diver Honey Rider - with a bikini and knife belt - made film history in itself. So much so that Halle Berry essentially replayed the scene 40 years later in the Bond movie Die Another Day.

Bond's cars have also become iconic. Britain's National Motor Museum in Beaulieu near Southampton is displaying a selection of 50 cars that have played an important role in the films over the last 50 years.

The budget for Dr. No was rather modest by today's standards, with the film studio United Artists providing only 1 million dollars.

That was not enough for real leather on the soundproof door of Secret Service head M's office. And the paintings were made of cardboard.

'I painted a Goya over the weekend,' Ken Adams, who was responsible for special effects, recently recalled in The Guardian. The painting hung in the apartment of villain Dr. No.

The British subsidiary of United Artists provided an additional 100,000 dollars for the scene in which Dr. No's Jamaican private island base explodes at the end of the film.

Broccoli's children - stepson Robert G Wilson and daughter Barbara - have taken over the production team for the Bond films.

Wilson played in 11 Bond movies as an extra before becoming a producer, while his stepsister worked as a directoral and production assistant.

Agent 007 will undoubtedly be there for many more years to come, introducing himself with the legendary line: 'My name is Bond. James Bond.'