A note on the origin of the loquacious villain

The trope or meme of the loquacious villain who loves the sound of his own voice and can’t help revealing the secrets of his nefarious scheme is a familiar one from the Bond films and similar action or adventure films. It’s attested, too, in literature. We see it in the Bond novels, of course, but also in older fiction. A novel by William Le Queux offers one example.

In The Mysterious Three (1915), Dago Paulton (the book is of its time!), with his accomplice, Baronne de Cauldron, has trapped the hero, Richard Ashton and his adventurer friend, Frank Faulkner, in a room of a chateau in France. Paulton begins to make things very clear to Ashton.

“You possess information you have no right to possess,” he tells Ashton. “You know the Thorolds’ secret, and until your lips are closed I shall not feel safe.”

“You can’t suppose I shall reveal it,” Ashton answers.

“Not reveal it, man, when you know what is at stake! You must think me very confiding if you suppose I shall trust your bare assurance. As I have said, I intend to – to – well, to close both your mouths.”

“Why Faulkner’s,” Ashton asked.

“Because he is to marry Gladys Deroxe, who is so friendly with Vera Thorold, who is to be my wife. Vera knows too much, and may have told her little friend what she knows. I mistrust Vera’s friends – even her friends’ friends. You understand?”

“Oh, why talk so much!” the Baronne interrupts. “Tell him everything in a few words, and have done with it!”

The Baronne’s interjection reminded me of Scott in Austin Powers (“Why don't you just shoot him now? I'll go get a gun”), and suggests that the talkative villain was a somewhat over-familiar trope even when Le Queux was writing. I’m sure there are other examples, for instance from the likes of John Buchan, and it’s a topic to I will certainly return. Watch this space!

Steampunk Bond: Another Bond villain from the pages of Jules Verne

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I'm an avid reader of Jules Verne's novels. The connections between Jules Verne and James Bond may seem remote, but there are things in common. In an earlier post, I suggested that Robur the Conqueror, the villain in Jules Verne's 1904 novel, Master of the World, is a prototype Bond villain, and there's another strangely familiar villain in another of Verne's 'Voyages Extraordinaires', Facing the Flag (1896).
 

Image by Kikiarg (Self-photographed) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5), GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In that novel, a French scientist, Thomas Roch, has developed a devastating weapon. Naturally, France and other powers are keen to learn its secrets, but none is prepared to meet Roch's price. The burden of his genius sends Roch mad, and we find him in an asylum on the coast of North Carolina, watched over by Simon Hart, a French engineer posing as a warden (and tasked by the French government with recording any secrets Roch divulges).

Enter the mysterious Count d'Artigas, who's also keen to get hold of Roch's powerful weapon. With the help of his gang, he kidnaps Roch and Hart, takes them to his boat moored close by, and sails to his secret hideout near Bermuda.

That's when we're reminded of Bond villains. Like Blofeld, particularly of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Count d'Artigas has somewhat obscure origins and is not a real count, but assumes the title for respectability. And, anticipating Blofeld in the film of You Only Live Twice, his base is inside a volcano. Actually, the volcano is an artificially created one, formed from a conical mountain that the count engineered to erupt by means of gunpowder and burning seaweed to scare the inhabitants off the small island on which the mountain is situated, but the effect is the same. (If terrifying a population in order to force them off their island sounds familiar, it's because Dr No had the same idea.)

The count resides in a grotto at the base of the mountain, which comprises a series of passages that surround an underground lagoon. Every self-respecting villain needs a shark, and the count is no exception, as an underwater tunnel that joins the sea allows sharks to swim around the lagoon. It must be admitted that the count misses the opportunity to feed anyone to the sharks, but the opportunity's there at least. Sharks, of course, feature frequently in the Bond films, and I'm reminded in particular of Largo's shark pool in Thunderball and Kananga's cave, complete with a pool and shark, that serves as his lair in Live and Let Die.

Blofeld, Stromberg and Drax have their private armies, and so too does Count d'Artigas. In the novel of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, we read that Blofeld's 'staff' at his institute is multi-national and poached from rival criminal organisations. Count d'Artigas has also assembled a multi-national band of villains and criminals who do his bidding. The count is not without a henchman either – a gigantic Malay with herculean strength, who would comfortably fit in the pantheon of Bond henchman, Jaws, May Day, Mr Kil, and Hinx among them.

And like all Bond villains, Count d'Artigas has access to the most advanced technology. He operates a mini submarine that runs on electricity (and can also ram ships that he wishes to attack) and has installed electricity throughout the grotto; no mean feat in the Victorian world. Incidentally, the count stole the submarine at a public demonstration of the vessel in much the same way that Xenia Onatopp stole the Tiger helicopter in GoldenEye. 

Jules Verne's novel reminds us that the traits or memes that help define a Bond villain, especially the villains of the films, have older origins. Over the years, the earlier sources, including Facing the Flag and other Verne novels, have largely been forgotten, while the Bond films have become hugely significant in popular culture, to the extent that long-established 'villain memes' are identified more exclusively as 'Bond villain memes'.

What Bond villains are reading

I'm reading – or rather re-reading – PG Wodehouse's 1913 novel, The Little Nugget, at the moment. If the title is familiar to you, it may because it's mentioned in the novel of From Russia, with Love. The book is in a pile of other 'membership badges of the rich man's club' next to SMERSH killer Donovan 'Red' Grant, who's lying prone in the garden of a Crimean villa, waiting for his regular masseuse.

Wodehouse's comic tale set within a private school, featuring romance, detectives, gangsters, and plots to kidnap a repulsive schoolboy, might seem an odd choice for a psychopath (although the kidnapping element might be of professional interest to Grant). But then again, the book is the sort of volume that SMERSH would make Grant read as part of his training to develop the persona of a wealthy, sophisticated man, allowing him to enter English society and intelligence circles. (Such methods were standard for Soviet spy agencies. The Penkovsky Papers, for example, include a manual that instructs Soviet agents operating in the USA how to behave without raising suspicion – see The Cold War Spy Pocket Manual, by Philip Barker.)

Moving inside the villa, we get a glimpse of Grant's preferred reading: stacks of 'garish paperbacks and hardcover thrillers'. A selection of pulp fiction about seductive heroines, sultry femme fatales, and hard-boiled detectives, I shouldn't wonder.

There is a similar whiff of pretence in Goldfinger's reading. In the hall of the Grange, Goldfinger's pile in Kent, James Bond peruses a copy of The Field, a magazine for country squires and the hunting, fishing and shooting set. The magazine, placed where it can be seen, displays Goldfinger's credentials as a respectable member of the community. 

Photo: New Yorker Books

We get a different picture of Goldfinger in his bedroom, as Bond discovers in the drawer of Goldfinger's bedside table a copy of The Hidden Sight of Love, a salacious novel that is Goldfinger's 'solitary indiscretion'. (I imagine Bond uttering 'dirty bugger' to himself at this point.) The book does indeed exist, and if you're interested, a New York bookseller currently has a copy listed on eBay. According to the description, the book is a piece of classic Victorian erotic fiction reprinted by Palladium Publications in January 1958, which means that it was hot off the press when Ian Fleming sat down to write Goldfinger that month in Jamaica (the novel was published in 1959). Well, Fleming did have an interest in promoting 'lost books', as we see from his championing of Hugh Edward's All Night at Mr Stanyhurst's.

We know the sort of books James Bond reads – manuals, golf books, thrillers, inspiring books about politics and the intelligence community – but in two of the Bond novels, we also get a sense of the books that the villains read. In contrast to Bond's library, there's something not quite honest about the villains' choice. Just what we'd expect, of course, but I also wonder whether it reflects Fleming's own tastes, just as Bond's library does.

Roger Moore as a Bond villain

If you've ever wondered what Roger Moore might be like as a Bond villain, then you need look no further than an episode of Alias, the television series created by J J Abrams and starring Jennifer Garner, in which Roger Moore played a member of a nefarious organisation. His performance also demonstrates that he can play more serious roles if demanded.

Alias ran from 2001 to 2006 for five series. Jennifer Garner plays Sydney Bristow, who, when not studying at college, is a double-agent working for the CIA within a criminal organisation known as SD-6. This organisation is part of a wider network called the Alliance of Twelve, which, rather like SPECTRE, trades in weapons and intelligence.

The show inevitably contains nods to the James Bond films. It features, for example, a pre-titles sequence in each episode, a Q-like character in SD-6, and some natty gadgets, such as a lock-picking tool hidden in the heel of Sydney's shoe, and a 360-degree camera disguised as a lipstick. It seems only fitting that Roger Moore should take a guest role, though ironically as a minor villain.

Roger Moore appears in 'The Prophesy', episode 16 of the first series. His character, Edward Poole, is a rich and cultured man who is a member of the Alliance and in communication with Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), the head of SD-6. When Sloane suspects another member of being a traitor, he asks for Edward Poole's help in exposing the man. Instead, Edward Poole frames a fourth member, who Sloane is compelled to assassinate, even though the two are close friends.

Roger Moore plays it straight, and is not a little chilling in his measured, urbane manner, which masks duplicitous intent. At a crucial point of the episode, he and fellow Alliance members sit round a boardroom table onboard a yacht on the Thames outside the Houses of Parliament and make a fateful decision. The scene could have been taken from Spectre or Thunderball. Indeed, the set design itself looks like it was inspired by the work of Ken Adam. All that's missing is the white cat. 

A scene from Alias. Roger Moore is on the right.

Roger Moore is best known for light comedy, and his Bond films are the most comedic of the series. Yet, he has played roles with a hard edge worthy of Sean Connery and Daniel Craig (as an example, just look at Gold), and his performance in Alias shows he can play serious villains too. If Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson are wondering who to cast as the next Bond villain, it might just be worth giving Roger Moore a call.

Vladimir Putin channels Blofeld - according to the Press

The image was a gift to headline writers: Russian president Vladimir Putin sitting in a mini-submarine preparing to descend into the Black Sea to explore the wreck of a 10th-century Byzantine ship currently under archaeological investigation.

The Metro went with the headline, "From Russia With Love... Putin in '007' submarine stunt", and went on to claim that Putin looked every bit a Bond villain. On its online edition, the paper ran with "Live and let dive: Is Vladimir Putin auditioning for next Bond villain?"

Presumably the paper drew on the association of futuristic submersibles (the underwater vehicles of The Spy Who Loved Me, or Diamonds Are Forever's bath-o-sub, for example) with the James Bond films, as well as the penetrating, somewhat sinister, expression on Putin's face. Perhaps, too, the khaki/beige shirt that Putin was wearing brought to mind the light-coloured Mao-type jackets favoured by Blofeld in You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever.

The Times made the same connection. “Dive another day: action man Putin (or is he Bond villain?),” ran its headline. “All that’s missing is the sinister white cat sitting on his lap,” it continued, a clear reference to Blofeld. The Daily Mail asked, “Is he trying out for a role as the next Bond villain?”, while Sky News posted a video of Putin with the headline, “Vladimir Putin takes Black Sea adventure in James Bond-esque submarine.” Meanwhile Jonathan Jones in The Independent looked more critically at the event to examine Putin's seemingly underlying nationalist motives, writing: “Think Vladimir Putin looks like a Bond villain? It’s more serious than that.”

These headlines serve to demonstrate the extent to which the 'Bond villain' as an idea or meme is firmly embedded in popular culture. When presented with the 'action man' and controversial (to say the least) Russian president in an adventurous hi-tech activity, it was to the James Bond films, rather than, say, superhero films, that journalists turned. It shows, as well, how closely underwater exploration is associated with James Bond, the sea joining snow-covered mountains and the casino as an essential Bondian environment.

And, with the reference to the white cat, Blofeld remains the archetypal Bond villain. No doubt the upcoming Spectre has brought renewed prominence to the character, but the cultural impact of Blofeld's appearance in the early Bond films, particularly You Only Live Twice, cannot be underestimated.

Jules Verne introduces the Bond villain

If you thought the Bond villain was born in 1953 with the appearance of Le Chiffre in Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, then think again. Reading Jules Verne's 1904 novel, Master of the World, I was surprised to encounter an antagonist who had many of the attributes we closely associate with the villains of the Bond novels and films.

'Master of the World', an illustration from the French edition by George Roux

Jules Verne, the French novelist best known for his novels of 'voyages extraordinaires', among them Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, sets his 54th novel in the United States. Police detective John Strock is sent by his chief to investigate mysterious sights and sounds emanating from the Great Eyrie, a seemingly inaccessible peak within a mountain range. Strock's attempt to scale the peak fails, and he learns nothing. Returning to Washington, he hears about a road vehicle that's quicker than the fastest automobile (reaching speeds of up to 130mph), a boat that zooms across the water, and a third machine that travels under water. With instructions to find the owners of the vehicles, Strock gradually discovers that all three machines are in fact one, and that there is a connection between them and the mysterious Great Eyrie.

Naturally on reading about a car that turns into a submarine, my mind went to Bond's Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me. But the vehicle had one more surprise – it could also fly. Like Scaramanga's AMC Matador coupe in The Man With The Golden Gun, and perhaps more befittingly Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the car is converted into an aircraft by means of wings which fold out from the base of the vehicle. Just as the Potts find out that Chitty can fly when the car goes over a cliff, Strock, having been captured and held prisoner in the vehicle, then in boat mode, learns of its ability to fly when it plunges over the Niagara Falls.

The brilliant inventor responsible for this four-in-one machine is Robur the Conquerer, a character Verne had introduced earlier in an 1886 novel of the same name. As with all mad geniuses, Robur is eager to reveal his plans to Strock, claim past injustices, and seek his revenge against the world, traits that we would recognise in Dr No or Hugo Drax. Verne's description of Robur recalls Fleming's descriptions of Blofeld, Goldfinger or Mr Big:

“...the robust neck; the enormous spheroidal head. The eyes at the least emotion burned with fire, while above them were the heavy, permanently contracted brows, which signified such energy. The hair was short and crisp, with a glitter as of metal in its lights. The narrow beard was the same also, with the smooth shaven cheeks which showed the powerful muscle of the jaw."

It's while he's inside the airborne Terror that Strock learns the secret of the Great Eyrie. As the aircraft flies over the top of the peak, it descends into a crater and comes to rest inside it. The Great Eyrie is Robur the Conquerer's hidden base, pre-dating Blofeld's volcano hideout in the film of You Only Live Twice by 63 years. Robur even has henchmen to help him prepare the vehicle and travel with him.

I don't know whether Jules Verne's villain served as a model for any character in the Bond novels or films, but Master of the World nevertheless reminds us that the defining qualities of a Bond villain existed before Bond and represent some universal fears, for example the use and misuse of emerging, and potentially harmful, technology, and the thin line between genius and insanity. It is in the world of James Bond, however, that those qualities have perhaps had their most successful, and sustained, expression, to the extent that they and Bond villains have become synonymous.

Bond girls, villains and catchphrases: some analysis

Among the many articles about James Bond published in recent weeks ahead of the release of Skyfall was an interesting piece for the BBC news website, titled 'James Bond: cars, catchphrases and kisses'. The item, researched and compiled by Helene Sears, Tom Housden, Mark Savage, and Steven Atherton, attempted to present “definitive data on women kissed, villains dispatched and catchphrases [specifically 'Bond, James Bond'] uttered.” While there are arguably more interesting statistics, for example the number of martinis consumed, one-liners delivered, or gadgets used (though see my own data on Bond's drinks and gadgets), the data were presented in the form of counts, and, as I can't resist playing with data, I thought I'd carry out some analysis on the numbers to identify any further insights on the evolution of the film series and the differences in the way Bond has been portrayed.

According to the BBC article, the total number of villains killed is 218. Sixty-four women have been kissed, while 'Bond, James Bond' has been said 25 times. Over the 23-film series, an average of 9.5 villains have been killed per film, while each film has seen an average of 2.8 women kissed. 'Bond, James Bond' has been uttered an average of 1.1 times per film.

Looking at the individual Bond actors, Sean Connery's Bond has been responsible, on average, for the deaths of 9.3 villains. This compares with 7 villains for George Lazenby, 7.1 for Roger Moore, nine for Timothy Dalton, 12 for Pierce Brosnan, and 13 villains for Daniel Craig. These values suggest that there has been an increase over the course of the series in the number of villains killed per film. Notably, the standard deviation for Sean Connery (6.3 villains) is larger than that, say, for Pierce Brosnan (5.9), pointing to a more variable record for Connery's Bond. In other words, some of Connery's films have relatively few deaths (as few as four), while others are far more lethal, with as many as 18 deaths. The body count in Brosnan's films, by comparison, is generally higher (ranging from 8 to 18).

Turning to the number of women kissed, Sean Connery's Bond kissed on average three women per film. George Lazenby also kissed three women in his single film, and Pierce Brosnan's average is three as well. Roger Moore's Bond has a slightly lower average of 2.9 women kissed, and Daniel Craig's average is lower still – 2.3 women kissed per film. Timothy Dalton has the lowest average, just two women kissed per film, although Dalton's dataset of just two films is really too small for statistical purposes; after all, Dalton's Bond kissed three women in Licence to Kill, which is above the series average. As with the villains killed category, the standard deviation for Sean Connery is higher than that for Roger Moore (1.3 women kissed, compared with 0.7), suggesting that Connery's Bond is again the most variable (the range of Connery's Bond is between 1 and 4 women kissed).

Of the catchphrase, 'Bond, James Bond', there is very little variation across the film series; the phrase has more or less been uttered once in every film. The phrase, however, has not been used in every Connery film, and only George Lazenby and Roger Moore have used the phrase twice in a single film.
 
Some of the trends outlined above also emerge when we examine the data from a chronological perspective. From the chart, the general increase in the number of villains killed over time is clear, although there has been enormous fluctuation throughout the series. Connery's films quickly ramped up the body count as each film attempted to better the last, and some of the most spectacular films, including You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, and The World is not Enough, have had high values to match – 18 villain-deaths each. The Roger Moore era (1973-85), in contrast, is generally characterised by the fewest villain-deaths, a product, perhaps, of Moore's take on the role of Bond; Roger Moore has often said that his Bond didn't like to kill and was more likely to use brains rather than violence to get him out of trouble.

As for utterances of 'Bond, James Bond', the trend is flatter still, but where there is fluctuation, it occurs in the Sean Connery and Roger Moore eras, and it is only from the Timothy Dalton era onwards that the numbers largely settle down. A possible reason for this may be that the 'Bond formula' became especially fixed after the Moore era, particularly following the introduction of Pierce Brosnan's Bond in 1995.

In the early films, as the series was establishing itself, there was more room for variation and experimentation, and essential series traits or memes had yet to become well established in popular culture. The Moore era saw a certain redefining of some of these traits initially to establish the actor in the part of Bond and separate his portrayal from Connery's (Moore's Bond, for instance, never ordered a drink 'shaken, not stirred'). The Moore style was then repeated until the introduction of Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights. As the 1990s ushered in the Brosnan era, there was a certain expectation of what memes should be included and how they could be expressed. This appears to be the case with the phrase, 'Bond, James Bond'. The phrase is now hugely anticipated, causing a frisson when it occurs (just think of the cheer that greeted Bond's utterance of the phrase at the end of Casino Royale). The weight placed on the phrase naturally leads to its use being restricted; if repeated often in the same film, then the phrase is devalued.

The Daniel Craig era has seen a 'reboot' and a desire to re-introduce or even discard elements of Bond lore. The amount of discussion (and ire) that has met these changes – notably the repositioning of the gun barrel – is a measure of how successfully series traits or memes have become embedded in the cultural environment, and how rigidly the Bond formula has been applied in recent decades.

To see the data on which this analysis is based, please click here.