The post-WWII, ramping-up of the Cold War, when everyone was afraid. There were Communists in the pantry, nukes in the Carribbean, and a host of other things we were scared of, without even knowing what they were. We needed Mr. Bond to take care of the scary things, so we could go back to our martinis.
Not only that, but he had to do it while asserting the things we held most dear: the superiority of the white male, the super-superiority of the British, and the inferiority of all things foreign. He was a product of his time, and his time is past.
Now we’re still afraid, but we know that our fears will take more to quell than a well-cut suit and a Walther PPK. It will take more than a knowledge of what goes with Duck L’Orange to handle the problems threatening the world today. As such, the savior from Saville Row begins to look a little silly.
But in his own world, he reigns. Of course he drank. Of course he smoked. He knew with near-certainty he would never live long enough for his vices to catch up with him. Why not light up?
Because of his separation from average society, it was easy for Bond to become what few will acknowledge: Bond is something of a sociopath. A functional one, to be sure, but recall that he could do a villain to a gruesome death, and his pulse would never go above 85. He had a steadiness of nerve that borders on insanity.
This reminds me of another thing: the guns. Recall in Dr. No Bond is relieved of his favorite gun - the .25 calibre Beretta - and forced to accept a Walther PPK, which he thinks of as grossly huge (it is all of .38). This is a subtle clue of how scary the man was - he was a professional assassin, and his weapon threw a round a quarter-of-an-inch across! He must have been inhumanly accurate!
My own firearms training featured the repetitive theme: Blow Big Holes in Important Things. For a man to be assured of a kill with a round the size of a pencil eraser, well, he’d be a better shot than I am.
These days, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen a Desert Eagle (.50 calibre) in films. And here is the essence of what made Bond different - it wasn’t his gear, it was him.
Those of you who have read the books, (the Flemings) will recall that the Double-0 Branch was created as a small group of assassins. Bond was a very skilled member of this branch, but he really only had one other skill - as a hobby, he had made a scientific study of gambling.
But the original Bond was a barely-leashed killer, and his handlers recognized that fact. Sadly, the film producers did not. The original Bond was someone to inspire fear, even in a peaceful setting, and Connery could project this quality. Moore, by contrast, could project that he knew some really good tailors.
Some of the suble menace came back with Dalton, but it would never occur to me to fear Mr. Brosnan. Mr. Brosnan is a fine actor (The Fourth Protocol), but he was never right for the part.
I would like to suggest that if we absolutely must have more Bond films, put him back in his jungle - the world of the fifties and sixties. Period spy films can work (Reilly, Ace of Spies).
And for the new Bond, I would like to suggest Mr. Adrian Paul. He can bring a dry wit to his parts, he looks well in fine clothes, and he can be a scary son-of-a-bitch.
By the way, there was one Soviet bad guy. A rogue Soviet to be sure, hidden in a convoluted plot, but Soviet.