And Let's Replace the Martini With a Shirley Temple

Jacob Sullum | October 4, 2006

The new Bond, Daniel Craig (who played the Aryan spy on the Israeli assassination team in Munich), complains to Parade that the producers of his first 007 flick decreed that his character could not smoke, lest he set a bad example for the kids. "Here's the reality," Craig says. "I can blow off someone's head at close range and splatter blood, but I can't light a good Cuban."

Chuck Freund anticipated this development several years ago.

[via The Stogie Guys]

Comments

|10.4.06 @ 5:59PM|#

But still, you gotta admit, Jacob: Shirley Temples are tasty.

Allen|10.4.06 @ 5:59PM|#

Soon Bond will be driving a Honda Prius.

Captain Holly|10.4.06 @ 6:01PM|#

"Here's the reality," Craig says. "I can blow off someone's head at close range and splatter blood, but I can't light a good Cuban."

Because we wouldn't want to give kids the wrong impressions now, would we?

|10.4.06 @ 6:07PM|#

Guns are a very controlled way to kill a specific target... Where as cigarettes are clearly indiscriminant killing machines.

Paul|10.4.06 @ 6:55PM|#

Soon Bond will be driving a Honda Prius.

Incorrect. He'll be riding a bicycle and taking public transportation.

|10.4.06 @ 7:02PM|#

This will be the last Bond. The genre is old and the newest Bond is a faggot. A real G'd wimp who is scared of guns.

|10.4.06 @ 7:09PM|#

This will be the last Bond. The genre is old and the newest Bond is a faggot. A real G'd wimp who is scared of guns.

Except for the replacement of baccarat with hold 'em poker, I thought the new movie looked pretty good. I guess I missed the part in the trailer where Bond has sex with another man.

Smart Torontonian|10.4.06 @ 7:13PM|#

"The genre is old and the newest Bond is a faggot. A real G'd wimp who is scared of guns"

Didn't harm Roger Moore though didn't it?

|10.4.06 @ 7:19PM|#

We don't want to give kids the impression that a high-risk behavior could be considered cool. Instead they should become secret agents, infiltrate enemy headquarters, take on 20 armed bad guys with an untested gadget then drink, gamble and have unprotected sex at the end of every mission.

|10.4.06 @ 7:48PM|#

These movie makers take themselves much too seriously.

|10.4.06 @ 8:34PM|#

No baccarat???????????

Screw that. Banco.

|10.4.06 @ 8:43PM|#

Brosnan's Bond calls smoking "a filthy habit" in Tomorrow Never Dies.

His Bond doesn't smoke until Die Another Day when he goes to Cuba and does the cigar thing.

I'm an ex-smoker but I occassionally like a good cigar...and more occassionally a vodka martini.

|10.4.06 @ 8:45PM|#

No baccarat???????????

Hold 'em poker will be an acceptable substitute if, and only if, Bond wins because he is the better player, not because he has the better cards. Any jackass can win with a high pair; hopefully, Bond will win because he plays his mediocre hand excellently.

|10.4.06 @ 8:57PM|#

AC,

Non.

|10.4.06 @ 9:10PM|#

Soon Bond will be driving a Honda Prius.

Incorrect. He'll be riding a bicycle and taking public transportation.

"Excuse me, my good fellow, but can this bus turn into a submarine?"

|10.4.06 @ 9:51PM|#

PL,

I'm just hoping for the best in a bad situation. Of course baccarat would've been better, but they didn't ask us.

|10.4.06 @ 9:59PM|#

Apparently, "shaken, not stirred" produces a weaker drink, so Bond's been having "girly" drinks since the beginning. Sadly, I don't think I can produce a source for this.

|10.4.06 @ 10:15PM|#

Girly stirring ?
Surely not .When Fleming's wife was away , having no one to beat, or be thrashed by, his only solace lay in bruising the gin.

|10.4.06 @ 10:40PM|#

Soon Bond will be driving a Honda Prius.

Incorrect. He'll be riding a bicycle and taking public transportation.

Correct, but incorrect: Riding a bicycle will be public transportation.

|10.4.06 @ 10:53PM|#

Soon Bond will be driving a Honda Prius

Or maybe a Ford Chevy.

(Honda don't make no Prius. Priapus, maybe.)

|10.4.06 @ 10:56PM|#

If I were, say, the King of France, I'd make all the original Bond novels into movies set in the periods when they were originally set. SMERSH, SPECTRE, a bad attitude towards women, Felix with a hook, too much drinking, too much smoking, American stereotypes, and yes, baccarat would all be included. In other words, I'd skip the glitz that took over the Bond franchise and return to its roots. I just need a Bond. The ideal, Sean Connery, is far too old. I'd like Sean Bean, but he's getting up in years himself, not to mention that he played a baddie in a Bond movie already. Hmmmm.

|10.4.06 @ 11:11PM|#

Apparently, "shaken, not stirred" produces a weaker drink, so Bond's been having "girly" drinks since the beginning.

When Fleming's wife was away , having no one to beat, or be thrashed by, his only solace lay in bruising the gin.

Bond drank vodka martinis. If I know my booze (it's debatable), You don't want to shake the gin martinis because you damage or "bruise" the gin's flavor. Vodka martinis are fine to shake because ice crystals are distributed through the drink, making it, well, really icy, which is cool, and vodka shouldn't really have too much flavor anyway.

|10.4.06 @ 11:34PM|#

Pro Libertate,

If you weren't too busy benevolently ruling the Gauls, or malevolently terrorizing them, perhaps you could be this new, old school, kick-ass Bond, oui?

|10.4.06 @ 11:56PM|#

highnumber, you're boozology jibes with this former bartender's knowledge of gin & other spirits.

I've heard people try to apply the gin/bruising to vodka and have never really bought into it (I have tasted the difference in gin, however...so I do buy that, although as I understand it the alchohol content is not affected).

Anyway, I always figured the line was simply a convenient device for which Bond could project character traits under duress.

|10.5.06 @ 12:53AM|#

Pro Libertate,

I've been saying the same for years. The only way to save the Bond franchise from its own crappiness is to return it to its natural time period.

I've always thought Clive Owen would probably do the role pretty well, though he's mostly been in movies I dislike.

|10.5.06 @ 1:06AM|#

Bond drank vodka martinis. If I know my booze (it's debatable), You don't want to shake the gin martinis because you damage or "bruise" the gin's flavor. Vodka martinis are fine to shake because ice crystals are distributed through the drink, making it, well, really icy, which is cool, and vodka shouldn't really have too much flavor anyway.

Actually, here is the bond Martini from the book Casino Royal:

"Three measures of Gordon's (gin), one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet (vermouth). Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel."

So, it is actually a Vodka-Gin martini.

If you have ever read an Ian Flemming novel, Ian Flemming goes into great detail of the drinks and the food everyone eats. All I can say is that Bond is a disgusting gluttonous eater, chain smoker, and druckard (which I understand Flemming was in real life).

Personally, I like the new bond. He is more of the unlikable self-destructive sociopathic killer of the novels (well, except that he doesn't smoke)... Although, I agree with Pro Libertate I would like to see them done in the origional time period of the Flemming novels. The only trouble is that some of the novels are pretty damn racist (for example, the chapter "nigger heaven" in Live and Let Die is so racist it is actually painful to read).

|10.5.06 @ 1:41AM|#

"Didn't harm Roger Moore though didn't it?"

Roger Moore gets a pass on the gun thing, as he evidently experienced a catastrophic failure with a rifle while in the military.

|10.5.06 @ 1:51AM|#

"Three measures of Gordon's (gin), one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet (vermouth). Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel."

That ain't dry. It sounds terrible.
In the movies, he drank vodka.

|10.5.06 @ 2:28AM|#

You know who I would like to see play James Bond? Denis Leary.

"The name's Bond. James fucking Bond."

"I'll have a vodka martini, shaken, not -- fuck it, I'll have a Jack Daniels on the rocks. Just pour it over the ice, nancy."

"So, Mr. Bond, we meet aga--" "Fuck you, asshole."

JT Barrie|10.5.06 @ 9:58AM|#

Actually if we were looking for a "gateway" drug it would be smoked nicotine hands down. The DEA uses statistical correlations exclusively - since it has no drug specific standards. And using it's own guidelines it would have to conclude that cigarettes are the gateway drug.

Consider that 98% of illegal drug users smoke their drugs and that every new "dangerous drug" menace is smokeable. Consider that the percentage of users addicted to "dangerous drugs" is very small [usually less than that of alcohol] and that the percentage of addicts to illegal drugs who are also cigarette smokers is well over 90% [I personally know of no illegal drug addict who is a nonsmoker and no alcoholics either]. If you use statistical correlations instead of scientific studies, like the DEA, how do you reach any other conclusion???

What I am wondering is why nobody else has reached the same conclusion that I have? Is it just inconvenient that cigarette taxes fund so many government boondoggles like the drug war? Is it just inconvenient that tobacco money goes into so many political coffers? Hmmm....

|10.5.06 @ 10:16AM|#

highnumber,

We need a true Scotsman to play Bond. I'm only half Scottish by descent, and I definitely don't have the cool accent. Though I can impersonate Sean Connery sometimes (he isn't always available on demand--danged vocal cords).

I think the back-to-the-beginning Bond movie could work. I'm not suggesting that the books have to be made exactly as written, though I'd like to keep the plot lines intact. Heck, Moonraker is actually a halfway decent Bond book, but it was a crappy movie.

|10.5.06 @ 11:54AM|#

Stevo wins the award for this thread