James Bond 007: The Sean Connery Years Review

I remember as a kid, my Dad anxiously waiting for his next James Bond installment from the bookclub.  And I remember his avid anticipation of the early Bond movie releases, but being a youngster, not yet in grade school...it was a safe bet, I wasn't going to directly discover what all the fuss was about...until this collection.  All that followed, all that lampooned, and everything spy related, cold war related harkens back to the original portrayal of Bond.  I almost resented seeing the other incarnations of the great Bond.  I thought Roger Moore too much a pretty boy and lacking in brilliance.  I had no use for Timothy Dalton...Piers Brosnan made a decent run at it, but didn't quite hit the mark.  Connery is, was, and always will be James Bond.  Some things shouldn't be messed with (Kind of like Yul Brenner as the King in the King and I)  It is a bit campy, but for the time was pretty darn high tech and pretty risque too.  The Bond girl standard was set in these films, and at least more recent incarnations do pay homage to the Bond girl standard.  Unfortunately, when they run the Bond movies on cable or satellite-they seem to gravitate to the newer ones-more high tech, more special effects, bigger budgets-but nothing compares to the swashbuckling sense that Connery brings to the role...probably the best swashbuckler since Errol Flynn, because they both make it look so easy.    Connery's Bond is a hero, but not a perfect pretty boy.  It is well worth the time to revisit classic cinema, and most satisfying to host your own film fest complete with martini's "shaken, not stirred"