Tag: Bond

Why Bond uses a Walther PPK

This Letter of Note is fascinating and awesome if you are a fan of James Bond, accuracy in fiction, or the idea that a passionate fan can speak out and influence process. Otherwise it’s a piece of history that might come in handy at your next trivia night.

Some background is important. Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond stories which became the James Bond movies. He received a letter from a bloke named Geoffery Boothroyd who didn’t like the gun Fleming had given Bond. It turned out Boothroyd knew a thing or two about firearms.

“I have, by now, got rather fond of Mr. James Bond. I like most of the things about him, with the exception of his rather deplorable taste in firearms. In particular, I dislike a man who comes into contact with all sorts of formidable people using a .25 Beretta. This sort of gun is really a lady’s gun, and not a really nice lady at that. If Mr. Bond has to use a light gun he would be better off with a .22 rim fire; the lead bullet would cause more shocking effect than the jacketed type of the .25.

May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?”

Fleming liked this commitment to accuracy so much he named a character after Boothroyd. The character who later became famously known as Q.

The letter Fleming sent Boothroyd is below, and a transcript is available at Letters of Note.

Colour(ed) Bond

The reaction to Obama’s victory is getting silly. Particularly from those Hollywood types – who were so quick to jump on the bandwagon.
The current 007 – Daniel Craig, has suggested that the election of an African American to the position of President paves the way for a black man to breach that last bastion of white culture – playing James Bond.

“After Barack Obama’s victory I think we might have reached the moment for a coloured 007, I think the role could easily be played by a black actor, because the character created by Ian Fleming in the 50s has undergone a great deal of evolution and continues to be updated.”

This is political correctness gone mad.

The character in the novels (and in the movies) is clearly a white Englishman – who is occasionally (in the novels) a racist. Revisionism is stupid. It’s like the scene in Thankyou For Smoking where the Senator from Vermont goes back into the archives and removes cigarettes from old movies.

Besides – if you want a black bond there’s always Malcolm Turner of Big Momma fame.