Review 2006

Alan from Environment of Mind asks:
Given that Casino Royale is at the cinema at the moment - just how many girls has Bond been with? How many can you name (characters)?

Review 2006 It depends upon your definition of 'been with'. In reality Mr. Bond has only given his heart and had anything close to a serious relationship with two women - Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) in On Her Majesty's Sectret Service and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) in Casino Royale. Given the fate of both of them, the rest of woman kind should probably be pleased that James isn't the most monogamous man in the secret agent world and if I was (a) female and (b) a Bond Girl, I'd be quite pleased that he was out of the door the following morning (if he waited that long).

If on the other hand the question of how many women 007 has actually been to bed, space capsule or life raft with is far more complicated. Apart from anything else you're working on the assumption that there has in fact only been one character in all of the films when the latest perceived wisdom is that each of the different actors played a different man, James Bond being a code name or persona which is adopted when they enter the service to protect their real identity - rather like M.

Evidence for this includes the moment in On Her Majesty's Sectret Service when George Lazenby breaks the forth wall to exclaim that 'This sort of thing didn't happen to the other fella' and that Lois Maxwell was playing Miss Moneypenny right through to the mid-Eighties, even after young Roger Moore has joined the series - and in the new version that M is still be played by Judi Dench. Just don't get started on the Felix Lyter implications. This theory is endorsed by Lee Tamahori, the director of Die Another Day (who even tried but failed to get Connery to cameo in the film as the earlier Bond), but rejected by most fans because Bond's wife Tracy is referenced in later films and even during the Moore era.

On the assumption that it's all one fella just how many women has Bond slept with and who are they? On a film by film basis, for those who are taking notes, here are the girls Bond bonded with. Given that most of these films were PG rated in the uk, remember most of these trists are implied and so the moment of consummation is by no means certain. The following list is probably riddled with errors since its based upon hazy memories of watching the films when they were broadcast for weeks on end on ITV a few years ago, supposition based on Wikipedia entries and other web searches. So, using the imagination of a school boy and assuming that Never Say Never Again and the original Casino Royale and don't count:

Dr. No . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Honey Rider, Miss Taro
From Russia With Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tatiana Romanova
Goldfinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pussy Galore, Dink
Thunderball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dominique "Domino" Derval, Patricia Fearing
You Only Live Twice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aki, Kissy, Ling
On Her Majesty's Secret Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tracy di Vicenzo, Ruby
Diamonds Are Forever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tiffany Case, Plenty O'Toole
Live and Let Die . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Solitaire
The Man with the Golden Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Goodnight, Andrea Anders
The Spy Who Loved Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anya Amasova (Agent XXX)
Moonraker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Holly Goodhead, Corinne Dufour
For Your Eyes Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Melina Havelock
Octopussy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Octopussy
A View to a Kill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stacey Sutton
The Living Daylights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kara Milovy
License to Kill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pam Bouvier
GoldenEye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Natalya Simonova
Tomorrow Never Dies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paris Carver, Wai Lin
The World Is Not Enough . . . . . . Elektra King, Dr. Christmas Jones, Dr. Molly Warmflash
Die Another Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson, Miranda Frost
Casino Royale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vesper Lynd

Thirty-five -- or on average, 1.75 girls per film.

One of the genius elements of Casino Royale is the three dimension relationship that Bond has with the new generation of Bond. Unlike previous films, neither simply rolls into bed with him -- he has to work for their hearts and they're given some solid motivation as to why they might. But equally they're far more rounded than before -- we find out a startling amount of information about them which means we care about how Bond affects their lives. We see the effect that witnessing Bond's necessary violence has on Vesper who simply runs away and hides. Just as we all would I suspect.