Girls, Guns, and Gadgets

Plenty O'Toole (Lana Wood) in Diamonds Are Forever

James Bond is all business... until a pretty girl comes along. Then he'd make time for an interlude, afterward resuming his cloak-and-dagger operations.

Bond would strap on his bow tie for an evening at the baccarat table, sip some vodka martinis, keep a date with a young lady, maybe slip out for some surveillance... possibly run into trouble, then employ one or more of his Q Branch gadgets. Like the knockout gas-emitting ballpoint pen, or the poison-dart outfitted wristwatch. Or if all else failed, Bond would put his trusty Walther PPK to use. I wonder if 007 has to renew his license - to kill - every five years, like the rest of us common folk. 

Guns and gadgets... standard issue 00 Section gear

It'll be a bit of a wait until the successor to the latest Bond film, SPECRE. I digested the movie quite easily when I saw it in the theatre in November. Pretty good, if not perfect. I look forward to getting the movie on home video so I can see how it holds up on re-watch, and look for details that escaped me the first time around. Like cool little references to early Bond films, and even the flaws that escaped me in the cinema. But maybe I'll be more forgiving on follow-up viewings and will enjoy it more than ever 

A couple of Cineplex Tribute magazines from back

when Pierce Brosnan played 007

I recently dug up some cool old Bond goodies, like the Cineplex Tribute magazines pictured above, featuring none other than Mr. Brosnan during his tenure as 007. I've no idea if these mags will ever have much resale value if I decide to part with them, but they are nice to have around for "old times sake". Well, not so old, I guess.

But some truly vintage stuff was uncovered as I dug through the backs of drawers and shelves here. Like a very old-timey View-Master, probably from the 40's or 50's (handed down by my parents), plus the discs from the Bond film Live and Let Die. I used to love looking at the 3D images of View-Masters when I was a kid. This was well before home video, tapes or discs, so this was the only way to relive the movies in visual format. Pretty nifty back in the day.

Remember View-Masters? This compact stereoscope

was a fun way to re-live TV shows and movies when I was

a kid, way before home video. Here's my Live and Let Die

(James Bond movie) disc set... plus my vintage viewer

(circa 1940's) - with its original (battered) box