Carter sent along the Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Bond Girls list and of course I object. It’s cute to include Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya–Kurt Weill’s wife if ya didn’t know) and all, but anyone who hears Bond Girl knows exactly what’s meant. Up until the last few movies, it meant a beautiful together woman, an international wonder. When they started in with the Teri Hatchers and the Halle Berrys, that went to hell fast.
#1 Diana Rigg — This is indisputable. Any argument with this is a valid sign of mental derangement. Diana is in peak form as the woman Bond finally settles down with, if only briefly. Her manipulation of Blofeld during the invasion of Piz Gloria is a high point of the entire series.
#2 Daniela Bianchi–The lure (along with a Lektor machine) that draws Bond to Turkey and trouble. Wow.
#3 Honor Blackman–Pussy Galore will be in the top five of any such list. Blackman took a role that would have made a lot of actors look very foolish and gave her as much of the original book’s lesbian gang leader aura as was humanly possible. She made Pussy Galore a much better character.
#4 Luciana Paluzzi–She scares the hell out of me. Frankly I love that. Rosa Klebb was plenty scary, but Luciana’s Fiore Volpe acted like she would lick your bones clean after firebombing your house and killing your dog. She’s one of those villains you had to kill; she was too cool to survive.
#5 Carole Bouquet–I am sometimes down on the Roger Moore Bonds, and this is unfair, I know. I have discovered the true joys of the Indian epic style of OCTOPUSSY, for instance. Carole wasn’t in that one, I know. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is Carole’s movie, and she does a great job with another one of those characters that other actors might have hammed up a bit much. FYEO was the back-to-basics action Bond, and she’s a perfect fit. Not something you’d expect from someone who’d been in Bunuel films. (No I don’t know how to insert the tilde in his name. Bah!)
#6 Barbara Bach–Okay, I favor the ones who can do stuff. It’s true. Played as a true counterpart to Bond, Maj. Amassova stays right with Bond every step of the way.
#7 Ursula Andress–Well, she’s the icon, yes? But the way she looks isn’t enough to put her at the top of the list (even though she’s at the top of so many).
#8 Famke Janssen–I really really believe she could kill me by squeezing my torso with her thighs. I want to believe.
#9 Sophie Marceau–Sophie was a real throwback to the Connery-era Bond Girl. She even pulled off one of the better plot twists in any Bond film. Sweet and dangerous.
#10 Maryam D’Abo–I think she’s underrated. Some folks see her as another Holly Goodnight, but unlike Goodnight, she’s not supposed to be a spy. Her character’s occasional in competence derives from the fact that she’s not a spy.
The bottom 10? Well…
#1 Teri Hatcher–Good god, whose idea was this? Let’s face it–TOMORROW NEVER DIES wasn’t even a good videogame. It was a hellish flashback to A VIEW TO A KILL, in which Christopher Walken is squandered as a villain and saddled with Grace Jones as a sidekick. Jonathan Pryce is completely wasted in a vain effort to make Rupert Murdoch scary, and he’s given a completely forgettable Swede head goon to suffer along with him. And Teri Hatcher is meant to give the film the sexual oomph, because no way in hell were they going to have Brosnan and Yeoh end up in bed together. So Hatcher does a constant heavy breathing act that sounds cheaper than dubbed softcore. Only she is surprised to find that she’s the guy in the red shirt, born to lose.
#2 Halle Berry–This was a tough contest. But at least Halle Berry did stuff in her movie. Jinx was the worst piece of “OMG I’m in a Bond movie!” ‘acting’ I have ever seen. Random people in crowd shots in Bond movies acquit themselves better. She looks hilarious trying to act tough; putting a gun in her hand only makes it worse. Her “sexy” talk actually works against her beauty. I can’t watch DIE ANOTHER DAY any more. I just can’t.
You know, I can’t really get to 10 Bond Girls I hate. #4 was gonna be Alison Doody, and that’s just monstrously unfair. These two are the big offenders, to the point where I just can’t rewatch their films. (#3 was going to be Tanya Roberts, but it’s Tanya Roberts for God’s sake.)
–John
