James Bond Fest

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More About

• Sean Connery
• Roger Moore
• James Bond
• Action and Adventure Movies
• Movie Stars

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Sean, meet George. Roger, we presume you three have met. The first, briefest, and funniest incarnations of James Bond will be featured in five 007 movies from the franchise’s early-to-middle period. Now that Daniel Craig has brought the sexy back to Bond, here’s your chance to revaluate the past charms of Sean Connery (in Goldfinger and Thunderball, which opens the series), George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and Roger Moore (Moonraker, A View to a Kill). Limited as an actor, Connery has the masculine presence and physical threat of a licensed killer, and Thunderball often strips him down to swim trunks or packs him into a wetsuit while battling SPECTRE and reclaiming lost nukes in the Caribbean. More polished and restrained, Lazenby shows surprising emotional range in the underappreciated Secret Service; it’s a shame he couldn’t keep Bond from veering into ’70s self-parody. That was the domain of Moore, a suave, ever-unmussed comic more comfortable with quips than a Walther PPK. If Connery is the most plausible spy of the trio, and Lazenby the most vulnerable, Moore exudes a blithe assurance that the champagne will never run out, the girls will always be young and willing, and the bad guy will never prevail. (NR) BRIAN MILLER
Mon., March 8, 6:30 p.m.; March 9-18, 2010