Bond Girls Are Forever

Interesting documentary about all the different Bond girls over the years, and why they will forever be immortalized. I don't know if this was aired in the States, but I saw it over in the UK and it was interesting as far as these things tend to go.

This 46-minute look at the history of an essential part of the Bond phenomenon is certainly entertaining and at times even wonderful to watch: along with clips from several Bond movies (accompanied by their own music score), we get interviews from several former Bond girls who are now gracefully aging, intelligent women (Honor Blackman, who was around 75 when this was filmed, looks amazing for her age and still has that characteristic toughness in her voice). Most of them fully embrace their long-standing popularity, but there is one (Maud Adams) who seems to want to cut off most connections to the past. The documentary is also a good reminder of how many strong female characters have been introduced in this series; of course there also have been films like "The Man With The Golden Gun", with one bimbo and one victim, but in total the Bond series is not sexist, even if the Bond character himself is. However, there are too many omissions (among the most important ones: Carole Bouquet is not seen at all, and both "Goldeneye" girls are seen only in clips) for "Bond Girls Are Forever" to qualify as the definitive documentary on the subject. (**1/2)

Intrigued by her own experience playing a Bond girl alongside Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights, Maryam d'Abo looks at the Bond girls from the original appearance of Ursula Andress through to one of the most recent entries (*raise eyebrow*) in the form of Halle Berry. I saw this piece of fluff as it was rolled out again with the release of 2006's Casino Royale but actually found it quite enjoyable for what it was.

The film doesn't get every Bond girl of course but it gets a good selection of them involved and mostly draws some nice conversations out of them. d'Abo meets her interviewees in mostly relaxed situations and it seemed to work pretty well as she gets more than just obvious interviews and it is more like a load of chats. It is nice to hear personal recollections from some of the Bond girls even if none of them really provide any strong or memorable anecdotes or insights; however where they are just reminiscing they are all pretty cool. Some of them try to inject some social significance into the role and they fall flat. Yes, the nature of the Bond girl has changed with society but beyond this there isn't anything beyond very simplistic attempts at commentary.

The natural contributions do tend to make it worth a look though with only Halle Berry meeting d'Abo like it was just yet another interview in a long day of interviews to promote her film. D'Abo is a reasonably good host in how she draws out the chat but not in her delivering narration, where she is a bit stiff and dull. Overall though it is an entertaining enough piece of fluff that benefits from a good collection of quite natural and chatty contributions. Nothing that interesting though but good enough for the short running time.

With a title like this one, you'd expect the usual, fluffy, ET-type of superficial clip flick. To my surprise, however, this retrospective/interview documentary, hosted (quite well) by former Bond girl Maryam D'Abo, turns out to be highly watchable, and not just for all the requisite clips of attractive women in bikinis. D'Abo, who co-wrote the script as well as hosted the interviews, does an excellent job of 'bonding' (ouch!) with her fellow eye-candy compatriots, and it really is fun (and interesting) to see the evolution of the role over time.

Since the film was made some 40 years after Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore rolled in the hay with Sean Connery, and that image is firmly fixed in our cultural consciousness, it is somewhat disconcerting to see her now, white-haired and pushing 80 (but still regal). On the other hand, most of the more recent vintage actresses seem to have aged surprisingly well, and (at least to my mind) come across even sexier today than they did in their films. This is not the least because they are allowed to speak their minds without a script. Surprise, surprise, instead of just being decorative, many of them come across as being thoughtful, gracious and eloquent.

The interviews with D'Abo were filmed casually, usually in public settings such as restaurants, bars or parks, but with extremely high production values. And since the film was made with the support of the franchise owners, there are more than enough clips from the original films to satisfy even hard core fans.

While this was shot in 2002, AMC is running it in rotation now with the Bond films themselves, so I'd suggest that you set your Tivo to record it for you so that you can watch it at your leisure.

This isn't much of a documentary. Maryam d'Abo interviews 11 "Bond Girls" plus a few other female actresses from the movies that don't fit the definition like Judi Dench who played M. That's out of about 52 actual Bond Girls thru when this was made.

Nearly all the interviews are very brief. Strangely Maryam d'Abo states at one point she "filmed her interview with Ursula Andress for an entire day." Yet only about 2½ minutes made this movie.

She states in her narration that Luciana Paluzzi was the first female villain in Thunderball. But Goldfinger came earlier with Honor Blackman whom she previously interviewed that was a villain. A few things said in this movie may not be correct.

Even though this documentary is only 46 minutes, it could have been half that. It just didn't document much for a documentary.