| Catching up on my spy education, I’ve been working my way through the half dozen or so James Bond films starring Roger Moore. I’m frankly at a loss to understand why Moore is so maligned by hard-core Bond fans. | |  |
 | | At the time of his Bond debut there was naturally resentment against anyone stepping into the shoes of Sean Connery, who was so completely identified with the character. It must have been intentional on the producers’ part to choose a successor who was a very different type, both in looks and in demeanor. | |
| But by now the Bond franchise has seen so many different portrayers of 007 that Connery backlash is largely meaningless. | |
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| Moore’s Bond has been criticized as overly simplistic and one-dimensional; I’m more inclined to fault the scripts than the actor for that. (Some of them are quite dreadful.) Of course, to enjoy Bond films at all requires suspension of disbelief; no one pretends that James Bond is connected to real life. | |
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Moore is obviously a talented actor (despite his deprecating self-assessment: “My acting range? Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised”); he brought polish and cleverness and a fine degree of insouciance to the role. And his deadpan delivery of the one-liners that pepper Bond films is nothing short of masterful. | |
| Case in point: In Live and Let Die, Moore’s first outing as Bond, there’s a scene where the hook-handed villain Tee Hee fumbles while trying to remove Bond’s famously versatile wristwatch. Moore looks up and snaps contemptuously “Butterhook!” (IMDB credits Moore with having ad-libbed the line. If that’s true, it’s worthy of I Spy.)
Julius Harris, the black actor playing Tee Hee, never made it to I Spy, but his credits include voice work on The Fat Albert Christmas Special, a You Know Who production, and a role in A Cry for Help, which starred What’s His Name. | |  |
 | | These days Sir Roger looks downright avuncular, sporting glasses, age spots, and a slight paunch—a far cry from the 1970s sex symbol he once was.
Although the sense of humor appears to be intact. |
Meanwhile, stay tuned for the Annual Bulwer-Lytton
I Spy Quiz, coming up in February.
Regards—
