Mid-70s voodoo ... Live and Let Die
In case you've been stuck in an underground bunker somewhere off the Cayman Islands, handcuffed to a chair while an evil genius with a speech impediment threatens to feed you to some crocodiles, you'll know that the new James Bond movie is different.
In Casino Royale, he's only a rookie! When you beat him about the head, it really hurts! And he bleeds! And he isn't armed with gadgets which defy all known laws of science! And he can fall in love!
Wow. But see, you can do all this and only a few freaks on the internet bat an eyelid. Even the Broccoli dynasty knows better than to muck about with Bond movie title sequences. There's more CGI now, but the concept is the same: people in silhouette waving guns in vaguely pornographic animation. And some playing cards, since it's about a casino.
The Bond titles are the anchor of familiarity for Bond. They sum up all you need to know: sex and violence. Just check out the grimly naturalistic opening for Connery's disastrous and unofficial return to the role Never Say Never Again. He's already at combat before the song's over! You can tell a lot about an era of Bond from what they do with the titles: so here are five of the best...
As Eon productions' first Bond movie, this sequence shakily sets out the stall. Not really sure of quite how shamelessly the franchise would evolve, the silhouette women are minimal and their dancing resembles that of a 'Holy Disorder' disco for young Christians. For the most part the title sequence is a minimal sixties-style Op Art animation (basically lots of coloured dots)
As the first movie, it's also notable for having no theme song other than the classic Bond music. Until it quite insanely morphs into a Bossa Nova version of 'Three Blind Mice'.
At the height of Sean Connery's heyday we get an opening shot that utilises the Ronseal metaphor with magnificence: the first thing we see is some fingers painted gold. But it doesn't end with fingers, oh no: we get arms, hips, bumcheeks and breasts. All coloured gold. With Shirley Bassey singing over the top, much like she does in the new M&S ad.
A new Bond in Roger Moore, and a dangerous new voodoo direction for the opening sequence. Women on fire is a bit of a 'motif', but is there really any need to shoot a woman out of silhouette, and then show her, basically, burning? And then show a charred head with saucer-eyes speaking all of the unimaginable pain while Paul McCartney wails over the top, oblivious? Still; sex and danger, like it's supposed to be.
The best Bond theme ever, Carly Simon's 'Nobody Does It Better' arguably deserved more than moody blue-chrome shots of Roger Moore looking pensive. There are images of the Union Jack, but mainly we're on familiar ground. There's a particularly nice bit of a silhouette beauty doing gymnastics from the barrel of a gun belonging to another silhouette beauty. Classy.
By 2002 the franchise was approaching artistic - if not commercial - bankruptcy. John Cleese's Q's gadgets were veering way beyond the most outlandish realm of possibility; meanwhile Madonna turned in one of the worst Bond themes ever. The titles tell the same story; returning to Live and Let Die's burning women, producers decided that they should do some CGI animations of women who were actually made of fire. Looks nice, but like the movie, more silly than sexy.
