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Dick Van Dyke: First American James Bond?

I have an old friend who insists his favorite Bond was Lazenby.

Personally, my own favorite Bond wasn't Bond at all: James Coburn as Derek ("Repeat after me: I am not a pleasure unit") Flint.
 
I still maintain that he could have pulled off a halfway convincing British accent then Reynolds could have been amazing. You look at his macho serious tough guy work in something like Deliverance, then you look at his light, comic touch in Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run and crikey, the guy could have been Brosnan decades before Brosnan!
I have to admit that (assuming he could have pulled off an English accent) I could have kind of sort of seen West pull off a Moore-esque Bond, based on that scene in the '66 movie where Bruce Wayne is wearing a tux and fighting off the United Underworld crew while threatening to kill them all.
 
I have to admit that (assuming he could have pulled off an English accent) I could have kind of sort of seen West pull off a Moore-esque Bond, based on that scene in the '66 movie where Bruce Wayne is wearing a tux and fighting off the United Underworld crew while threatening to kill them all.

I'd agree, I can totally see why people might have considered him.

lazenby was better than most people will admit and OHMSS was arguably the best film in the series. If Connery had filmed OHMSS as his swan song (*and everything else about the movie remained the same) I have little doubt it would be considered the best by most people.

I don't know. Connery had many strengths but I couldn't ever see him as vulnerable enough to pull off that final scene the way George did, plus I don't think everything else would have stayed the same. In particular Rigg was specifically cast to compensate got Lazenby's lack of acting experience so if Connery stayed I doubt we'd have got Rigg.

I just can't see Connery's Bond ever being that cut up over a woman's death
 
I don't know. Connery had many strengths but I couldn't ever see him as vulnerable enough to pull off that final scene the way George did, plus I don't think everything else would have stayed the same.
Sure, Connery might have not played it exactly the same but that doesn't mean he couldn't have pulled it off. This is the Oscar winning star of such films as "Robin and Marion," "the Man who Would be King" and "the Untouchables."
 
While I'm not really a fan of the whole idea of James Bond, I did watch all the movies on TV growing up for whatever reason (though I've only seen the first of the Craig movies), and the ones I liked best were Lazenby and Dalton.

I liked Moore (with Brosnan a close second):

James: "She always did enjoy a good squeeze."

-- Goldeneye --


I just can't see Connery's Bond ever being that cut up over a woman's death

Connery (and Craig) were the closest things to Fleming's original concept of Bond as a ruthless killing machine.

M (to James): "This may be hard for a blunt instrument to understand but arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand-in-hand."

-- Casino Royale --
 
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I dunno about Bond itself, but maybe there could have been a spinoff featuring an American spy? Maybe that would have made more sense.

A Felix Leiter spinoff seems the obvious option there.

Although I think there were failed attempts to develop film spinoffs for a couple of Bond-film female leads, including Halle Berry and Michelle Yeoh. The latter strikes me as a hell of a missed opportunity. I mean, who needs James Bond when you've got Michelle Yeoh?
 
I suppose The Man From UNCLE, in which Fleming had some creative input, was the closest they ever got.

Fun Fact: The producers of 24 originally conceived of Jack Bauer as an "American James Bond."

A funny thing happened: While the producers of 24 were trying to create an American James Bond, the producers of the (Craig-era) Bond films were HUGE 24 fans who wanted THEIR guy to be more like ... Jack Bauer.
 
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