It Seems Like Only Yesterday

Part of the excitement (yeah, sure) of aging is when you realize just how long ago it was when you first encountered something.  Last year (2012) was the fiftieth anniversary of the momentous day I discovered James Bond, not as a book, or a movie, but as a comic book.  DC, which was not known for adapting movies into comic books, released a comic adaptation of the upcoming thriller Dr. No.  I was in the eighth grade, finishing junior high, getting ready to leap into high school.  The comic intrigued me and I anxiously awaited the movie.  Distribution must have been spotty in Knoxville, or for some other reason, I missed it at first.  But I convinced my mother to take me to see Dr. No in Harriman, a small town west of Knoxville where my father operated his dental lab.  He preferred the 35-mile commute instead of having to deal with dentists at all hours of the night.  But, I am going astray here.
My mother drove me to Harriman to see the movie at the Princess Theater, which I believe she regretted for many years.  After all, this was a pretty adult movie compared to most I had seen.  Plus I wound up reading the books, getting the soundtrack albums, and so on.  Needless to say, I loved it.  It was all new to me and introduced a new type of hero (or anti-hero).  I mean, would John Wayne or Gary Cooper have plugged Professor Dent after he had emptied his gun?  But even better, to my way of thinking, was the introduction of the Bond Villain.  Here we had the civilized but ruthless bad guy played by an excellent actor.  Joseph Wiseman was the perfect choice for the not-so-good doctor, scheming to derail the American missile program.
Dr. No set the pattern for the future films in the series, except for the lack of really dangerous henchmen.  The Bad Doctor was dangerous enough, thank you very much.  Also missing were the gadgets that became so central to the later films.  This was Bond in the real world.  From Russia With Love (which I still regard as the BEST Bond movie) introduced a few, but they were firmly rooted in the real world.  Goldfinger introduced a few more, including the sexiest car in movie history.  Things started getting out of control with Thunderball and lost all sense of reality in the bloated You Only Live Twice.  On Her Majesty's Secret Service was an improvement (and about my favorite of the series) but went downhill with Diamonds Are Forever, which would have been a bit better with Roger Moore.  Most of the Moore entries were entertaining to some degree, but this James Bond was only a shadow of the Bond That Had Been.
But, getting back to the opening of this entry, I still have a hard time getting my brain wrapped around the concept of fifty years.  Other than the reliable movie monsters and Tarzan, this must be some sort of record for a film series.  It does seem like it was only yesterday when I went into the Princess Theater to encounter James Bond on the screen for the first time.  Bond has gone through a number of changes over the years, but at heart, he is still the best of the secret agents, overcoming bad scripts, goofy gadgets, and a few uninspired villains.  I believe it is safe to say that 007 has quite a few good years ahead of him.