1965: "Thunderball" and the heavenly choirs of 007

By Deborah Lipp, author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book

 But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, who only has to make love to a woman and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and immediately returns to the side of right and virtue. But not this one.

The first, and arguably greatest femme fatale of the James Bond movies was introduced in 1965’s Thunderball, the fourth James Bond movie. Fiona Volpe, played by Luciana Paluzzi was both thunderously femme and stunningly fatale. We meet her as the very sensual, very beautiful lover of Francois Derval. Soon, though, she is supervising his murder and replacement by a surgical double. Next, she is the mysterious motorcyclist who murders a SPECTRE agent who was indiscreet. 

So, before Bond ever encounters her, she’s shown us the full range of thrills and chills; sex, death, and speed...

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Beauty Break: "Cinema Without People"

My favorite tumblr of the moment is called Cinema Without People which collects images from movies without the characters in them. Sometimes it's a perfect reminder of the skill of production designers, art directors, and set decorators such as the Goldfinger set.

(One of my favorite awards stats is the different ways that BAFTA and Oscar treat James Bond films and BAFTA rightly nominated this one for Art Direction.)

Other times it reminds you of great storytelling, auteur quirks, or the characters themselves through their very absence. It's nearly always haunting and beautiful. The very shy "about" portion of the tumblr simply declares that it was made with love for introvert film fans. I am not an introvert but I can still feel the love.

After the jump 10 more images that caught my eye that I just loved...

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James Bond's Women, Frozen in Time?

TFE welcomes back its friend and resident 007 expert Deborah with a statistical investigation brought on that recent "Spectre" press conference. If you love Bond Girls or Bellucci, and who doesn't?, read on - Editor

With the announcement earlier this month that Monica Bellucci had been cast in the forthcoming Bond film, Spectre, the media has recently been replete with headlines like “James Bond finally falls for a woman his own age” It was the oft-repeated “finally” that put me in an analytic mood. Is this really the first time (“finally”) that Bond has been with a woman his own age? How often has there been a really large age disparity?

I decided to analyze each movie so I could derive some statistics. James Bond is almost always with two or more women per film, but we can generally identify the “main” and “secondary” woman. I decided, for the sake of my own sanity, to disregard however many other women there might be, with the following exceptions: You Only Live Twice has three women of almost equal importance. Meanwhile, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, and The Living Daylights give us only one important woman each. Sure, Bond made love to other women in each film, but they had little screen time and were strictly fly-by-night. Let’s not trouble ourselves.

First question first...

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Beauty Vs Beast: Double Oh Golden Boys

JA from MNPP here, using this week's round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series to commemorate the occasion of the 84th anniversary of the birth of that paragon of brute debonair charm, Sean Connery. Who even knew "brute" and "debonair" could be a simultaneous thing til he showed us? Rock 'em sock 'em and shake them martinis, it's a Bond off. I waffled between a couple of villains to face him off against - I do love Dr. No and his awesome plastic head bubble - but when it comes to a bigger-than-bad personality I think the odds are in Gold's favor.

poll by twiigs.com

I just flicked the laser's ON switch - you have one week to make your choice before your bits-and-pieces get all crispy-like, so maybe make it timely this week? I mean, I'm only thinking of your privates.

PREVIOUSLY We dove down under da sea to duke it out between Disney's ginger mermaid princess and the big bad brassy sea-hag whos after her pipes... well poor sweet Ariel kinda never stood a chance against so much divine deliciousness; Ursula swam off with a pirate booty's full two-thirds of the vote. Said Alan P:

"Ariel may be the leading lady we all love, but a diva is a diva, and a diva is forever!"

We Need To Talk About James Bond's **** in "Goldfinger"

[This article contains 50 year-old spoilers.]

Goldfinger (1964) Directed by Guy Hamilton.

If you're alive and semi-conscious about pop culture you know the James Bond template even if you've never seen one: Action Prologue, superfluous; Bond Girls, multiple not all of whom survive; Locations, multiple across the Globe; Talkative Villains; Impressive Gadgetry; Salty Quips; Fancy-Ass Title Sequence (with its own mandatory template items). Much of that was established or fine-tuned right here in the third Bond film Goldfinger (1964).

But we need to talk about James Bond's cock. By my count, imagination, and visual cross-checking [ahem] he is exceptionally virile, has an impressive rock-hard member, and beds three women in Goldfinger.

And yet...

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