Bond in the 70s: Roger Moore says NO to Cubby

Thx (tho you shot down all my fave choices...:(:p).

To be fair, I could totally have seen Lewis Collins as Bond, though he'd be Daniel Craig twenty-odd years early, and he wasn't as good an actor as Craig is either. Lewis Collins gives you "I'm a total bastard", Daniel Craig gives you "I'm a total bastard, but only because of the pain inside." :)
 
I nominate Michael Jayston, who was 38 in 1975. He played Bond in a BBC Radio production of You Only Live Twice made in 1990, which is overdue for a repeat on Four Extra.

Burt Kwok who was in the film was also in the radio play, but in a different part.
 
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Are you British? In the US, McShane is best known as Al Swearengen in Deadwood. The character was very memorable. Lovejoy was broadcast on the A&E cable network in the early nineties, but was quickly forgotten.
I'm not. I saw "Lovejoy" on A&E, & it stuck more, I guess. (I did really like the c*cks*cker:p in "Deadwood', too.:cool:)
To be fair, I could totally have seen Lewis Collins as Bond, though he'd be Daniel Craig twenty-odd years early, and he wasn't as good an actor as Craig is either. Lewis Collins gives you "I'm a total bastard", Daniel Craig gives you "I'm a total bastard, but only because of the pain inside." :)
I get that.:)
If David Niven was Ian Flemings ideal choice, how about Edward Fox as a younger analog?
I'd forgotten about him.:eek: There's an excellent choice.:cool: He'd be in a perfect position, too, having just done (or was he just about to do?) "Day of the Jackal", proving he had the chops for it.:cool:
 

Driftless

Donor
If David Niven was Ian Flemings ideal choice, how about Edward Fox as a younger analog?

I'd forgotten about him.:eek: There's an excellent choice.:cool: He'd be in a perfect position, too, having just done (or was he just about to do?) "Day of the Jackal", proving he had the chops for it.:cool:

Fox could do the Niven-esque urbane English gentleman, the resolute Gen Brian Horrocks, and the cold-blooded Jackal with equal skill
 
But what if Roger Moore gives Cubby Broccoli a definitive "NO" after Diamonds are Forever? What then? Who gets the part (Connery was done) and what direction does the series go? Much of the Moore-era was tailored to Moore's strengths (as seen in The Saint) with humor and gadgets and not so much hand-to-hand fighting.

How about Christopher Lee? Obviously it would alter the casting of Man with the Golden Gun, but I think he would have been a pretty solid choice. He presumably got on with the Broccoli production team and I can imagine them pointing out the Fleming connection in the publicity. Given Lee's history in horror films I surmise they would have written him more as a sneaky spy than an international playboy that everybody knew, which was Roger Moore's biggest beef with the character. As a straightforward uncomplicated punch-the-baddies / get-the-girl hero Lee would have seemed odd but no more than Timothy Dalton, who as pointed out was also under consideration at the time.

I've always thought that Bond's actor should have three attributes. He should be a plausible ladies' man, which rules out Lewis Collins. He should look commanding and worldly in a suit - does anybody remember those adverts for Asahi, with Debbie McGee and Richard Whiteley? "Breeding. Extra Stately." And he should look plausibly tough. And he should be clever but not too clever. Christopher Lee doesn't quite fit but then again neither did Roger Moore.

The problem with casting Bond in the 1970s is that the British film industry on the whole was going through a terrible period. There was a big crop of British stars in the 1960s, but all the work dried up in the 1970s. The Bond actors tend to be drawn from the ranks of post-television pre-stardom supporting actors, but I simply can't think of all that many British actors who were employed in the 1970s. Malcolm McDowell was too young. John Hurt might have fit. I like to imagine that somewhere in the universe there is a planet where Richard Lester directed Moonraker, starring Michael Crawford as a smarter Bond for the sensitive seventies.
 

Tovarich

Banned
Michael Billington (who went on to play Anya Amasova's lover in "The Spy Who Loved Me") might have been a contender.
I think I read on a UFO fansite that he was actually married to Broccoli's daughter, and kept turning down other work in the mistaken belief that he was a shoe-in for the role.

Are you British? In the US, McShane is best known as Al Swearengen in Deadwood. The character was very memorable. Lovejoy was broadcast on the A&E cable network in the early nineties, but was quickly forgotten.

You lucky bastards!
I'm prepared to join the French Foreign Legion if it'll help me forget that pile of old shite.
 
Patrick Allen who was born about 6 months before Roger Moore would have been a good James Bond in the 1970s. However, I would have him start with OHMSS and finish with For Your Eyes Only.
 
Frank Spencer Saves The World - Again!

I like to imagine that somewhere in the universe there is a planet where Richard Lester directed Moonraker, starring Michael Crawford as a smarter Bond for the sensitive seventies.

If it is made at the same time as the real Moonraker film it might stop Crawford doing Condorman. However, I think it was too soon after Some Mothers Do A've Em. Audiences would not belive that Frank Spencer could save the world unless it was done as a spoof, a la Inspector Cluseau or Johnny English.

Though if Crawford becomes bond instead of Roger Moore, that butterflies Frank Spencer away.
 
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