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Sean Connery's Lined Face

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The sad death of Sean Connery over the weekend took me back. Those of us who were around in the early 1960s remember the secret-agent craze that began with the wild popularity of his James Bond movies. At the start in '62, Bond predated the Beatles in America by two years and was responsible for launching our appetite for all things British. Initially, Bond was aimed at young adults whose lives had suddenly become dull with work, routines and responsibility. Dashing excitement, bachelorhood and youthful sex-appeal were new concepts, a mass-market extension of the Playboy culture.

In the beginning, the Bond series was different than anything else in the theater or on TV. It was unleashed at the height of the youthful Kennedy Administration, the dawn of the Moon race and the end of car fins and start of automotive muscle. Bond's aura took hold almost immediately.

Before long, a flood of spy movies and TV series reached the marketplace. These included The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the Saint, the Avengers, Secret Agent, Matt Helm, I Spy, Mission Impossible and on and on. But no one topped Connery's suave personality and relaxed good looks. You wished your dad looked like him.

Bond meant sex, speed and a brand-new decade when men didn't look and dress like your grandfather. Though kids had to be accompanied by an adult to see James Bond movies in theaters, toy stores were awash with Bond and secret-agent merchandise, from trading cards and Walther LP53 waterguns to lunch boxes, board games and toy Austin-Healeys.

The heroic Bond prototype was palpable. As a kid, you wanted his accent and lifestyle, or the way it seemed from the still photos in glass cases outside theaters. My first Bond film was Thunderball in '65, when I was 8. But it was an accident. I was hurriedly ushered out of the theater by my dad once Claudine Auger as Dominique “Domino" Derval turned up on the screen in a black-and-white bikini. I've never forgotten the splashy color and John Barrys powerful score for the opening credits with Tom Jones's vocal.

In tribute to Connery's Bond (the only true Bond), the Cold War's American-British alliance, shaken martinis, white tuxedos, honesty and honor, karate chops to the neck, Monte Carlo casinos, eye patches on villains, tiny dogs in the arms of bad guys, valet parking, hats that killed when thrown like a Frisbee, and Connery's perfectly lined face and after-shave looks, here are the opening title sequences of his seven Bond films with scores that were jazzy and majestic: 

Here's Dr. No (1962)...



Here's From Russia With Love (1963)...



Here's Goldfinger (1964)...



Here's Thunderball (1965)...



Here's You Only Live Twice (1967)...



Here's Diamonds Are Forever...



And here's Never Say Never Again, with music by Michel Legrand and words by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, with Lani Hall on the vocal...

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This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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