Last year, the James Bond series celebrated 50 years with the release of its 23rd film, Skyfall. This is, perhaps, the best in the series – and I should know: I used to love the old films as a teenager, but I hadn't seen them in quite a while (and I never did see any of the Pierce Brosnan films), so I decided to watch all 23, a process which took a few months. It was a hell of a lot of fun. My ulterior motive was to try to figure out the question: who is James Bond? Six actors, all supposedly portraying the same character, a man who somehow doesn't age over the course of fifty years, unlike all his supporting characters (except for Felix Leiter, who just changes form, and occasionally, race). Are they really all the same person? Or are the name “James Bond” merely a code name, assigned to whoever holds the designation 007? It gets tricky – I wrote an entire essay about the subject which can be found here.
But that is getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We are here to talk about the very beginning of the series, back when Sean Connery was being all smarmy and misogynistic, never hesitating to use a potential sexual partner as a shield for bullets or fists should she be better suited for that purpose (yes, this happens a few times).
The second film in the series is From Russia With Love, released in 1963. The Soviets are in possession of a crytopgraphic devices called the Lektor which is much desired by both the British government and evil worldwide conspiracy organization SPECTRE. While SPECTRE uses an undercover agent to try to retrieve the device, Soviet agent Tatiana Romanova decides to defect, promising the Lektor to the British. Bond is assigned to facilitate her transfer.
Baxter Avenue Theater presents a midnight screening of From Russia With Love tomorrow, Saturday. Baxter Avenue Theater is located at 1250 Bardstown Road. Further theater information and advance ticket sales can be found at the Baxter Avenue Theater website.
Image: Internet Movie Database
