Daniel Craig becomes longest-serving James Bond*
 

(*conditions apply)

Daniel Wroughton Craig is stamping his name on the Bond records for good.

On Saturday 19 October 2019, he becomes the longest-serving actor to play James Bond in terms of days in the role.

Back in January 2017, I saw people tweeting about the longest-serving Bond actors so did some calculations.

A word here about my method, as this caused a few chippy Bond fans to moan last time. 

The start date is when they were publicly announced in the role. The end date is when a replacement actor is named in the role.

I know that actors have sometimes told the world they won’t play Bond again and some were sacked before the next actor is announced, but tough. Just like the role of UK prime minister, you are Bond until someone else is.

I know this doesn’t suit everyone but...

So, as of Saturday 19 October 2019, Daniel Craig has occupied the role for 5,119 days, ever since his announcement on Friday 14 October 2005.

Sir Roger Moore was, as you can imagine, in the lead for a very long time with a whopping 5,118 days. Next up is Pierce Brosnan on 4,146 days. 

Sir Sean Connery, with his two stints added together, comes in fourth with 3,049 days, T-Daltz fifth on 2,863, and George Lazenby on 875 days.

Notes:

• Sir Sean Connery's two stints lasted 2,530 and 519 days respectively.
• I’m only dealing with the official EON Bond films.
• Sources for dates:
• Some Kind of Hero - Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Alan Barnes and Marcus Ahern
•  The announcement dates of the actors are as follows:
• Sir Sean Connery, 3 November 1961
• George Lazenby, 7 October 1968
• Sir Sean Connery (again), 1 March 1971
• Sir Roger Moore, 1 August 1972
• Timothy Dalton, 6 August 1986
• Pierce Brosnan, 8 June 1994
• Daniel Craig, 14 October 2005

Mr Bond, your days are numbered...

A very Happy New Year to fellow Bond fans!

I will be trying to write more Bond-related blog posts this year after a fallow 2016, which was, as I'm sure you will remember, a very silly year indeed.

I saw a few people the other day tweeting about the longest-serving Bond actors so thought I'd use this as a tenuous hook on which to hang my first post of 2017: how many days have individual actors spent as James Bond?

The results are above, with Roger Moore unsurprisingly out in the lead on a whopping 5,118 days.

Next up is Pierce Brosnan on 4,146 days. 

Hot on his heels is Mr Daniel Craig with 4,098 days as Bond as of today, Sunday 1 January 2017. 

DC will become the second longest serving Bond on Monday 20 February 2017. Mark it in your diaries, kids.

Sean Connery, with his two stints added together, comes in fourth with 3,049 days, T-Dalt fifth on 2,863, and 'the other fella', George Lazenby on 875 days.

Notes:

• The dates I have taken are from the public announcement of an actor as Bond. Contracts will have obviously been signed before that date (Pierce Brosnan knew he was Bond a whole week before we did) and actors may have been sacked before the next one was announced, but I have used the date from which it was public knowledge that they were announced to be playing 007.
• Sean Connery's two stints were 2,530 and 519 days respectively.
• Sources: Some Kind of Hero - Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Alan Barnes and Marcus Ahern
• The announcements of the actors are as follows:
• Sean Connery, 3 November 1961
• George Lazenby, 7 October 1968
• Sean Connery (again), 1 March 1971
• Roger Moore, 1 August 1972
• Timothy Dalton, 6 August 1986
• Pierce Brosnan, 8 June 1994
• Daniel Craig, 14 October 2005

Twenty minutes well spent?

Okay here goes… 

The Writing's On The Wall starts with a promising mix of orchestral flourishes, all swooping, brooding and haunting.

Smith's powerful voice also starts out very promising indeed. There are a few corny rhyming couplets in the first verses, which is not unexpected. And I quite like: “Unprepared for this/I never shoot to miss”.

The chorus soars unexpectedly and you think it’s going to be okay... and then that unnecessary falsetto just stops the song in its tracks. The high voice seems also to render some words completely unintelligible. My advice: pick an octave and stick to it. The chorus then limps towards to its end.

Reset: another adequate verse follows and the terrific first-half of the chorus… and then that falsetto voice. This is the point in the song where the whole thing needs to build, explode, burst - something - but it just doesn’t.

Then, without realising it, you're four minutes in and it’s almost over and you wondered what happened during that last minute of your life and what you’re going to have for your tea.

And the end is perhaps the most disappointing aspect. Smith produces this big note but: a) it’s not big enough, and; b) it’s totally unsupported by the arrangement. The whole song just dissipates like a fart in a big room. 

So, in summary, I think I like it but there’s just not enough of it. Not enough oomph. Too many silent moments. A Bond theme has to fill a room and fill your head - this does neither.

Yet.

And this is where I start to feel a bit better. I will say that it definitely improves on every subsequent listen. I've even started to hum bits of it. Also, consider this - the instrumental version on the soundtrack is going to sound great.

A classic? Not yet. But in a week you won't think it's as bad as you do now.

Not A Roger Moore, Not A Roger Less

*Definitely* Sir Roger hanging on to a real airship

Okay, so A View To A Kill isn't the best Bond film.

Sir Roger was 57 years old while making it and, without wishing to offend the great man, he looks his age. And yet we're supposed to believe he surfs over an Arctic lake, rides on top of a fire-truck and hangs on to an airship as it passes over San Francisco.

An idle conversation about AVTAK one day posed this simple question:

How much of the film features Sir Roger Moore as James Bond?

I can tell you. It's 35%.

I watched AVTAK dividing the whole film into three sections:

• Bond on screen that is CLEARLY Sir Roger
• Bond on screen that is CLEARLY not him
• The bits where Bond is not on screen at all

Et voila...

How do I know this?

I watched the whole film very very slowly using an Excel spreadsheet to mark when Bond was on and off screen, and also whether it was Sir Roger playing 007. This viewing took around 15 hours. There followed a multitude of calculations (that took BLOODY ages), totting up the respective totals. I haven't slept properly for a week.

Of the total running time - two hours, seven minutes and 16 seconds - the character of James Bond is on screen for a total of 58 minutes and 32.2 seconds, and of that, it is clearly Sir Roger for 44 minutes and 48 seconds.

In percentage terms, Bond is only on screen for 46% of the film, and of that chunk, 77% was Sir Roger and 23% various stuntmen, stand-ins and hand actors.

Perhaps the most surprising finding is that the character of Bond is not on screen at all for one hour, eight minutes and 44.4 seconds - 54% of the film! And he's in almost every scene!

So now we know.

Next blog post idea... how many times *does* Tanya Roberts say "James!" in the whole film?

Yep, definitely Sir Roger...

Thank Yule For The Music

"We're getting divorced"
"No, *we're* getting divorced"

Christmas and ABBA – what a lovely combination!

I’ve trawled through this year’s Christmas and New Year Radio Times so you don’t have to, picking out all of the films, TV and radio programmes featuring everybody’s favourite Swedish foursome.

ABBA-inspired films Mamma Mia and Muriel's Wedding are being shown alongside a healthy portion of interesting documentaries.

As Christmas is the time for repeats, the Radio 2 documentary about the 40th anniversary of ABBA's Eurovision win is wheeled out for a whopping two hours on Monday 22 December.

If you're looking for a night in watching pure ABBA, then New Year's Eve is your best bet, with the excellent Joy of ABBA starting at 9pm, followed by ABBA at the BBC, finishing at 11pm. You've then got an hour to toast the New Year before settling down for The ABBA Years on Channel 5.


Saturday 20 December

Mamma Mia
17.45-20.00, ITV3
Musical romantic comedy featuring the music of ABBA.
(repeated Wednesday 24 December 14.10-16.25)

Monday 22 December

ABBA
20.00-22.00, BBC Radio 2
Scott Mills celebrates the 40th anniversary of ABBA’s rise following their 6 April 1974 Eurovision win with Waterloo, which just five weeks later was at the top of the UK charts. With input by Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad and others.

ABBA: The Image
23.55-00.55, Channel 5
Examining the group’s costumes, album artwork and videos.

Thursday 25 December

Top of the Pops Christmas: 1978
22.30-23.30, BBC Four
Noel Edmonds presents the music show, featuring Darts, ABBA, Boney M, Gary Numan and the Tubeway Army, Squeeze, Buggles, Ian Dury, Blondie and Racey.

Muriel’s Wedding
23.05-01.15, Channel 5
Comedy drama. Deciding to escape her dysfunctional family and her small-town life, Muriel Heslop takes advantage of a blank cheque and heads off in search of adventure.

Friday 26 December

ABBA: Live in Concert
01.15-02.25, Channel 5
A 1979 performance by the Swedish quartet.

Saturday 27 December

Pick of the Pops
13.00-16.00, BBC Radio 2
An extended show in which Tony Blackburn counts three year-end charts, with the bestselling singles of 1965, 1976 and 1987, featuring The Hollies, Sonny and Cher, The Wurzels, ABBA and the Pet Shop Boys.

ABBA: When Four Became One
20.00-21.00, Sky Arts 1
Documentary examining the music careers of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad before they joined ABBA.
(repeated Sunday 28 December 05.00-06.00 & Monday 29 December 11.00-12.00)

Sunday 28 December

ABBA: Dancing Queen
20.00-21.00, Sky Arts 1
The recording of the Swedish band’s classic 1976 single.
(repeated Monday 29 December 05.00-06.00 & Tuesday 30 December 11.00-12.00)

Agnetha: ABBA and After
21.00-22.00, Yesterday
Agnetha Faltskog’s music career as both a member of the Swedish group and a solo singer. 

Wednesday 31 January

The Joy of ABBA
21.00-22.00, BBC Four
A nostaligic look at how the the pop legends popularised the sound of Swedish melancholy in the 1970s and early 80s. By adding irresistibly catchy melodies, the glamtastic quartet were able to dominate the world’s charts.

ABBA at the BBC
22.00-23.00, BBC Four
A collection of memorable performances by the melodious chart-toppers, including their first Top of the Pops appearance in 1974, and archive chat with the band.

Thursday 1 January

The ABBA Years
00.00-01.00, Channel 5
The story of the Swedish supergroup, featuring interviews with the four band members.

(The text is the Radio Times’, by the way)

And of course, the best way to sign off a festive ABBA post is this…

Bond 24 - Two Words Are Better Than One (...or Three, Four, Five or Six)

So we're just hours away from learning what the real title of Bond 24 is.

Until then, let's speculate to our heart's content and listen to outlandish suggestions, like this one from one 'caller' on Radio 4's Down The Line:

But what's in a Bond film title?

Can the name hold any clue as to how profitable it will be?

No, but let's press on regardless. Got anything better to do?

My slender point is this:

BOND FILMS WITH TWO-WORD TITLES ARE THE MOST PROFITABLE.

To arrive at this startling (and frankly pointless) conclusion, I compared all 23 films' budgets with their worldwide gross box office takings, thus working out how profitable each film was.

For example, Goldfinger's budget of $3 million and its takings of $125 million give it a profitability percentage of 4063%. Compare that with Casino Royale's budget of $150 million and its takings of almost $595 million give it a profitability percentage of 296%.

(Disclaimer: the budget-to-gross takings percentage has got progressively smaller since the 60s, so that does skew the results somewhat)

Using the table (below), I then added the percentages of films with the same number of words in their title, then divided that number by how many films there were in that group.

e.g. the four-word titles are:

• From Russia With Love (3,845%)
• You Only Live Twice (1,075%)
• Live And Let Die (1,705%)
• For Your Eyes Only (598%)

The sum total of their percentages is 7,223%, divided by four because there are four of them and, la-di-dah, the mean average is 1,806%.

So in first place were the TWO-word titles with an average profitability of 2,807%

In second place were FOUR-word titles with an average profitability of 1,806%

In third place, the ONE-word titles with an average profitability of 1,265%

And so on...

Films with FIVE-word titles had an average profitability of 736%

The one film with a SIX-word title had an average profitability of 651%

And the six films with THREE-word titles had an average profitability of 505%

So there we have it - a two word title will see Babs and Michael off the streets.

Now, is it Muff Wrangler or Muffwrangler...?

TABLE:

FILM	BUDGET ($, source IMDb)	GROSS TAKINGS ($, source IMDb)	PROFITABILITY (%)
Dr. No	1,100,000	59,600,000	5,318
From Russia With Love	2,000,000	78,900,000	3,845
Goldfinger	3,000,000	124,900,000	4,063
Thunderball	9,000,000	141,200,000	1,468
You Only Live Twice	9,500,000	111,600,000	1,075
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service	7,000,000	87,400,000	1,149
Diamonds Are Forever	7,200,000	116,000,000	1,511
Live And Let Die	7,000,000	126,377,836	1,705
The Man With The Golden Gun	13,000,000	97,600,000	651
The Spy Who Loved Me	14,000,000	185,400,000	1,224
Moonraker	34,000,000	210,308,099	519
For Your Eyes Only	28,000,000	195,300,000	598
Octopussy	27,500,000	187,500,000	582
A View To A Kill	30,000,000	152,400,000	408
The Living Daylights	30,000,000	191,200,000	537
Licence To Kill	32,000,000	156,200,000	388
Goldeneye	58,000,000	351,500,000	506
Tomorrow Never Dies	110,000,000	335,332,007	205
The World Is Not Enough	135,000,000	352,030,660	161
Die Another Day	142,000,000	431,971,116	204
Casino Royale	150,000,000	594,239,066	296
Quantum Of Solace	200,000,000	575,952,505	187
Skyfall	200,000,000 (est.)	1,108,561,013	454