I have seen grown men practically begin slapping each other, arguing over the merits of this guy who played James Bond versus that guy who played James Bond. For a long time, my position was that Sean Connery was by far the best…and after that, it really didn't matter. My reasons? One was that he was my first, so naturally he formed my idea of what 007 should be like. And secondly, I thought that he was simply in the best films, and the reasons they were the best were not all Sean Connery.
When folks ask me which of the many Bond films is my favorite, I usually say Goldfinger. Sometimes, I say that my favorite doesn't exist yet but soon will. One of these days, they'll be able to digitally remove George Lazenby from On Her Majesty's Secret Service and insert Sean Connery in his place.
But those were my opinions then, when all the films were fresher in my mind and not put to any serious test o' time. I can't remember very much about most of them and now, when I do watch one of the old ones, all but the first few seem more like self-parody than they did upon earlier viewings. A few months ago, I tried watching Diamonds Are Forever and I don't think it would have been that much sillier a film if they'd swapped out Connery as Bond for Sellers as Clouseau.
Roger Moore, who died the other day at the age of 89 was, of course, the longest-serving Bond. A lot of articles written upon his passing have, like articles written before his passing, discussed how he changed Bond and his adventures. I always had the impression that Moore didn't change Bond at all. He just did what he was told to do. If the films got more ridiculous, that was because the scripts got more ridiculous…and the direction went the same way.
But I thought he was fine in the films. The films weren't always fine but he was. And if what I read was true, the producers loved him because he was always "gettable." Until he simply got to be too old, they didn't have to worry who they'd get to play Bond in the next film and then worry about whether audiences would accept that person in the role.
I certainly accepted him, at least for a while. His last few turns in the role seem to have been made at a time when moviegoers were expecting their action heroes to do daring, impossible physical feats and Moore's Bond never seemed to be that kind of guy. When they cut from Moore to his stuntman, Bond suddenly moved differently and had unparalleled strength and agility.
We're all aware that when the star of the movie does some dangerous feat, that ain't him but it usually seems credible that his character could do that. If the star seemed like a physical kind of guy, the switch to a stuntman didn't seem jarring and your suspension of disbelief could remain suspended. In Moore's Bond films, especially A View to a Kill, the substitutions were just too obvious. (These days, of course, when the star does some dangerous feat, we no longer assume it's a stunt double. Now, we assume it's CGI. Which it probably is.)
In any case, I liked but did not love Roger Moore as James Bond. I also liked him in a lot of other films. He was a class act all the way. Heck, they could even put him into On Her Majesty's Secret Service and I'd still like it.