Flirting with Moneypenny With the exception of the first two Daniel Craig films,
Casino Royale and
Quantum of Solace, every Bond film has a sequence in which Bond interacts with
Miss Moneypenny, the personal assistant to
M, Bond's superior.
Lois Maxwell was the first to portray Moneypenny and did so for fourteen Eon-produced Bond films from
Dr. No in 1962 to
A View to a Kill in 1985 opposite Connery, Lazenby, and Moore. She was followed by
Caroline Bliss,
Samantha Bond and
Naomie Harris, who played opposite Dalton, Brosnan and Craig respectively. The four have arguably divergent interpretations of Moneypenny's personality, as do the six actors who have played Bond. A
running joke throughout the film series is Moneypenny's
unrequited love for Bond and his playful flirting with her. She flirts back, jokes and sometimes pouts, hoping to wrangle a proposal and a wedding ring out of him. A fantasy sequence in
Die Another Day marks the only occasion in the Eon film series in which Moneypenny was actually shown in a romantic embrace with Bond, although this is only in Q-branch's virtual reality machine.
Receiving assignment from M Early in most plots Bond is called in to see
M, the head of the UK's
Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) in his or her office to receive his assignment. In several films, Bond receives the assignment outside the MI6 offices, or at a local secret office. Bond often finds M in a subdued state of agitation over a new threat to world peace. M typically shows confidence in the service's best agent but feels a need to rein in Bond for his risky methods and often chides him for his indiscretions. The first actor to portray M was
Bernard Lee, who appeared in all eleven Bond films from
Dr. No in 1962 to
Moonraker in 1979. With Lee's illness from stomach cancer in 1980–1981, he was unable to appear in his scenes for
For Your Eyes Only; he died on 16 January 1981 and, out of respect, no new actor was hired to assume the role for the film. Instead, the script was re-written so that the character is said to be on leave, letting Chief of Staff
Bill Tanner take over the role as acting head of MI6 and briefing Bond alongside the Minister of Defence. Lee was replaced for four films between 1983 and 1989, by
Robert Brown who had previously appeared in the series as Admiral Hargreaves.
Judi Dench took over the role of M from 1995's
GoldenEye until 2012's
Skyfall. In
Skyfall, Gareth Mallory, played by
Ralph Fiennes, takes over as M at the end of the film after the death of Dench's character. In the books, "
Universal Export" (later "Transworld Corporation") serves as a cover for the British Secret Service. In the films, "
Universal Exports" or variations thereof are used, such as the abbreviation "UnivEx" in
From Russia with Love, a brass name plate in ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'', and Bond's helicopter in
For Your Eyes Only. Academic Paul Stock argues that M's office—and Universal Exports by extension—is a
metonym for England, whilst he sees M as being an iconic representative of England and Englishness.
Technical briefing with Q After getting his assignment, Bond is often sent to Q Branch for the technical briefing in which he receives special equipment to be used in his mission. The pre-mission briefings quickly became one of the motifs that ran through the Bond series.
Dr. No provided no spy-related gadgets, although a
Geiger counter was used. Industrial designer Andy Davey observed that the first ever onscreen spy-gadget was the attaché case shown in
From Russia with Love, which he described as "a classic 007 product". The gadgets assumed a higher profile in the 1964 film
Goldfinger and the film's success encouraged further espionage equipment from Q Branch to be supplied to Bond, although the increased use of technology led to an accusation that Bond was over-reliant on equipment, particularly in the later films. Starting with
From Russia with Love, the briefings with Q branch involve various gadgets and technology, although Boothroyd is not referred to in the credits as Q until the third film,
Goldfinger. Each Bond film thereafter up until
Die Another Day contains a technical briefing of some kind, usually given by Q, with the exception of
Live and Let Die, in which Q does not appear and ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'' in which Q does not brief 007 but is demonstrating to M. Q is sometimes shown joining Bond in the field, taking with him a portable workshop and his staff. These workshops are established in unusual locations, such as an Egyptian tomb in
The Spy Who Loved Me and a South American
monastery in
Moonraker. On three occasions, in
Octopussy,
Licence to Kill and
Spectre, Q takes active roles in Bond's missions. For the 2006
Casino Royale reboot and the subsequent instalment,
Quantum of Solace, the character of Q was, like Moneypenny, dropped, and although Bond still receives a supply of mission equipment, no technical briefing is shown on screen. Llewelyn's first film was the second in the Eon series,
From Russia with Love, after the actor who played the part in
Dr. No,
Peter Burton, was unavailable for the filming schedule. (Burton's character was not yet called Q, but "the Armourer", Major Boothroyd, who instructed Bond on a new firearm, the
Walther PPK.) After appearing as Q's assistant 'R' in
The World Is Not Enough,
John Cleese appeared as Q in Pierce Brosnan and Desmond Llewelyn's last film,
Die Another Day. For
Daniel Craig's third film,
Skyfall, the character was re-introduced, with
Ben Whishaw playing the part.
Guns, cars and aircraft ;Guns The first Bond film,
Dr. No, saw M ordering Bond to leave his Beretta behind and take up the Walther PPK, which the film Bond used in eighteen films. From
Tomorrow Never Dies until
Casino Royale, Bond's main weapon was the
Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol, and starting in
Quantum of Solace, Bond returned to using the PPK. |alt=A silver vintage car ;Cars Bond has driven a number of cars, including the
Aston Martin V8 Vantage during the 1980s, the
V12 Vanquish and
DBS during the 2000s, as well as the
Lotus Esprit; the
BMW Z3,
BMW 750iL and the
BMW Z8. He has, however, also needed to drive a number of other vehicles, ranging from a
Citroën 2CV to an
AEC Regent III RT bus, amongst others. Bond's most famous car is the silver grey
Aston Martin DB5, first seen in
Goldfinger; it later featured in
Thunderball,
GoldenEye,
Tomorrow Never Dies,
Casino Royale,
Skyfall,
Spectre, and
No Time to Die. The films have used a number of different Aston Martins for filming and publicity, one of which was sold in January 2006 at an auction in the US for $2,090,000 to an unnamed European collector. The features of the original DB5, as featured in
Goldfinger, included an ejection passenger seat, operated by a pushbutton concealed in the shift lever; a metal pop-up shield in the rear; rotating licence plates; an on-demand oil slick; rotating blades concealed in each wheel hub that could be extended to shred an enemy's tyres; and a tracking device, with a dash-mounted display, that predated the modern
GPS tracker. Some features are referenced in later films, such as
Skyfall, in which M (Judi Dench) says to Bond, "Oh, go on, then, eject me. See if I care." ;Aircraft Bond also shows his taste for aircraft: a
gyrocopter—
Little Nellie—features in
You Only Live Twice, a
Cessna 185 Seaplane in
Licence to Kill, an
Acrostar Jet in
Octopussy, the titular
Space Shuttle in
Moonraker and an
Aero L-39 Albatros in
Tomorrow Never Dies.
Meeting allies Once in the field, Bond frequently meets up with a local ally upon arrival. These can be his foreign counterparts like
Tiger Tanaka in Japan or
CIA operatives like
Felix Leiter, or his own staff in a secret location. Such characters can also be female, some of whom succumb to Bond's charms. Often these allies will provide Bond either with information to complete his mission, or with additional gadgets from Q. Some allies recur through a number of instalments, such as the Western-friendly KGB chief,
General Gogol,
Sir Frederick Gray, the
Minister of Defence and
René Mathis.
Felix Leiter One of Bond's closest allies in both the novels and films is CIA operative Felix Leiter. Fleming wrote twelve novels, of which Leiter appears in six; in the second book,
Live and Let Die, Leiter was attacked by a shark and lost his right arm and half his left leg and his subsequent appearances were with prosthetics. For the film series the shark attack occurred in
Licence to Kill, the fifteenth instalment in the series. Following
Licence to Kill, Leiter did not appear until the reboot of the franchise with
Casino Royale. In total Leiter appears in nine Eon Bond films: four out of the six Connery films, one film with Moore, both Dalton instalments and none with Brosnan (where Bond's CIA contact is
Jack Wade), but returned for Craig's; he is also not in
George Lazenby's sole Bond film. In the Eon series, there were no Leiter film appearances between 1973 and 1987 and no Leiter appearances between 1989 and 2006. Although other recurring characters in the Eon series, such as M, Q and Moneypenny, had continuity within the actors, the character of Leiter has not. In the nine Eon films in which Leiter makes an appearance, there have been seven actors playing the role. Only two actors have played the part twice:
David Hedison and
Jeffrey Wright. Wright's first appearances also made him the first African-American actor to play the part in the Eon series, although Leiter was also played by Afro-American actor
Bernie Casey in one of the non-Eon films,
Never Say Never Again.
Chase scenes Keeping with the greater Hollywood tradition, every Bond film features chase scenes, usually more than one per film. Bond and his allies evade their pursuers in a wide variety of vehicles, including custom air- and watercraft, to trucks and even tanks and moon-buggies. Although most chase sequences feature Bond getting chased by the villains, such as the Aston-Martin DB5 in
Goldfinger and the ski sequence in ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service
, some feature Bond chasing the villains, such as the tank pursuit in GoldenEye
and all sequences in Casino Royale''. As the Eon series has progressed, the chases have repeated themselves with some variations and have all increased in extravagance. Among the more unusual chase sequences include the gondola sequence from
Moonraker, which leaves the canals of Venice to continue on land, and the cello case chase in
The Living Daylights, as well as a
double-decker bus in
Live and Let Die. ==International locations==