Our modest proposals for click bait 007 lists

Bond had become bored by the click bait lists

WHAT CULTURE, an entertainment website consisting primarily of “click bait” lists and photo galleries, may have topped itself this time: 25 Greatest Ever James Bond Villains.

Stop and think about that for a moment. The 007 film series produced by Eon Productions consists of 23 (soon to be 24, with SPECTRE) movies. Toss in the two non-Eon movies (the 1967 Casino Royale spoof and 1983’s Never Say Never Again), you reach 25, soon to be 26.

The 25 greatest James Bond villains of all time? Not exactly a high bar for a “greatest ever” list — even if you assume each film has an average of two, a mastermind and a lead thug.

If that’s now the standard, perhaps we’ll soon see “click bait” lists:

25 hottest James Bond women: The whole point of “click bait” is to get readers to click on the story and, with photo galleries, get them to keep clicking. The more clicks, the better the ad revenue. Well, sex usually sells and such a list/photo gallery would include lots of photos of women in skimpy bathing suits.

It works on a grander scale for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue. With Bond actresses, a number of them have posed either in swimsuits or less.

Note: This blog, back in 2008 when it was associated with the Her Majesty’s Secret Servant website (1997-2014), ran a post called ZOO’s Top 10 Sexiest Bond Girls. It’s still the most clicked upon individual post after all these years. (The No. 1 slot is the main website address for the blog.) And that post only had one thumbnail photo of You Only Live Twice’s Mie Hama. (We don’t get any ad revenue. If you see an ad on a post, WordPress.com is collecting the money.)

Top 20 James Bond cars: After sex, comes automobiles. Photo galleries featuring cars are often good as “click bait.” Twenty-five might be stretching things, but 20 may be a more manageable number while providing the appearance of standards.

Top 15 James Bond aircraft: Aircraft can be visually appealing. With the Bond series, a number would probably be helicopters, including the famous Little Nellie mini-copter from You Only Live Twice. The trick would be to start with No. 15 and work your way up, to keep readers clicking away, wondering when they’d see Little Nellie.

Top 10 Most Overrated James Bond movies: One way to get readers to click is to make them mad. By setting the number at 10, chances are you’d offend a wide range of 007 fans and get them to click all the more.

A few things best to forget about You Only Live Twice

You Only LIve Twice poster

The other night over at the MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. SPIES AND DETECTIVES FACEBOOK PAGE, a conversation broke out about implausibilities of various James Bond movies. You Only Live Twice came up quite a bit.

So, it got us to thinking about things that are best to forget or overlook about the 1967 James Bond film directed by Lewis Gilbert. For the purposes of this post, we won’t even go into things chewed over the years, such as Bond trying to impersonate a Japanese.

“Arrange usual reception, please.” In You Only Live Twice, Bond (Sean Connery) and Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) are being followed and shot at by SPECTRE thugs.

No problem (as future 007 sacrificial lamb Vijay might say). Aki requests Japanese Secret Service chief Tanaka to, “Arrange usual reception, please.” A helicopter swoops down, extends a magnet, snares the thugs’ car, whisks it out over Tokyo Bay and drops it.

A few things (as noted in the Facebook conversation): Should Tanaka have maybe captured the thugs and interrogated them? And since this is the “usual reception,” how many times a year does the Japanese secret service dump cars full of thugs into the bay? It’s probably best not to think about any of this, or else you’ll be distracted by the Kobe docks chase that follows.

SPECTRE not exactly being inconspicuous: The criminal organization kills an American tourist because she happened to take a photo of the ship Ning Po (which, is connected to SPECTRE). As Bond remarks, the photo shows “a ship and a strip of land, it could be anywhere.” In effect, SPECTRE has announced its presence. Later, Bond flies over the volcanoes in Little Nelly. SPECTRE sends out four helicopters to try to shoot Bond down, confirming its presence in the area.

Of course, it’s best to forget all that because we wouldn’t have the helicopter battle that follows.

Bond’s magical ninja shirt: Bond and Kissy investigate a cave. But there’s poisonous gas, so they dive overboard and swim away. Bond is wearing a shirt and a white undershirt (see the 1:25:51 mark).

Much later, when he and Kissy have reached the top of volcano (and the metal roof that’s supposed to look like water), Bond has his gray ninja shirt on underneath (1:29:41 mark). It’s sort of like the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern who creates his costume using his power ring.

But it’s best to forget all that because the climax of the movie will be coming up shortly.

The film’s weird timeline: When Bond and Kissy reach the top of the volcano, it’s still daylight. The sun must have set pretty quickly because it’s night when they get to the metal door.

Meanwhile, the trek of Bond and Kissy up the mountain was depicted as long and arduous. The use of dissolves implies it took a long time. Some the shots show the walking isn’t easy. Also Bond said there were “miles” of cave tunnel leading to the top of the volcano.

Yet, Bond when sends Kissy “to get Tanaka,” she goes back down the mountain, swims across a bay, dodges bullets from a SPECTRE helicopter and brings Tanaka and his ninjas all in darkness. Maybe Bond misjudged the distance. Anyway, something else to ignore or else you’ll miss the big ninja raid on SPECTRE HQs.

Ken Wallis, Little Nellie pilot, dies

Ken Wallis in Little Nellie

Ken Wallis, 97, the real-life pilot of the mini-helicopter Little Nellie has died, ACCORDING TO AN OBITUARY ON THE BBC’S WEB SITE.

Little Nellie, which appeared in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, was an aerial equivalent of the Aston Martin DB5 that was featured in Goldfinger and Thunderball.

In the John Cork-directed documentary Inside You Only Live Twice, YOLT production designer Ken Adam says he heard a BBC interview with Wallis about the mini-helicopter. Adam checked it out and made design changes so the aircraft could included in the fifth James Bond film. The documentary details how Wallis had to make many flights to produce several minutes of screen time for the 1967 movie.

An excerpt from the obituary:

Retired Wing Cdr Ken Wallis, who lived near Dereham, Norfolk, died on Sunday, his daughter confirmed.

Born in Ely, his first solo flight was in 1937. Thirty years later he doubled as Sean Connery’s Bond for an explosive aerial sequence in You Only Live Twice.

His daughter Vicky said her father passed away after “a long and successful life doing what he wanted”.

(snip)

Honoured with an MBE in 1996, he piloted 24 wartime missions over northern Europe in Wellington bombers, before spending 20 years engaged in weapons research in the Royal Air Force.

Here’s a sample of how Little Nellie appeared on screen:

UPDATE (Sept. 13): To view The New York Times’ obituary on Ken Wallis (published Sept. 9): just CLICK HERE.