Burt Reynolds as James Bond

Gassy ManGassy Man USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
Put aside all that you think you know about him now, including whether or not he could pull off an English accent. He was at the height of his abilities in the early 70s, had a lot of Connery's masculinity and self-confidence, and could do both action and humor. Connery was a diamond in the rough before being pegged for Bond -- with coaching, could Burt Reynolds have been James Bond?

Comments

  • broadshoulderbroadshoulder Acton, London, UKPosts: 1,363MI6 Agent
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Put aside all that you think you know about him now, including whether or not he could pull off an English accent. He was at the height of his abilities in the early 70s, had a lot of Connery's masculinity and self-confidence, and could do both action and humor. Connery was a diamond in the rough before being pegged for Bond -- with coaching, could Burt Reynolds have been James Bond?

    Horrible idea..

    One way to kill off the franchise
    1. For Your Eyes Only 2. The Living Daylights 3 From Russia with Love 4. Casino Royale 5. OHMSS 6. Skyfall
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    No, not something I'd liked to have seen. :#
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Put aside all that you think you know about him now, including whether or not he could pull off an English accent.

    And why exactly would Reynolds have been required to pull off such an accent? James Bond isn't English.
  • HigginsHiggins GermanyPosts: 16,618MI6 Agent
    That idea should put every Moore-critic into shame and make him quiet forever.

    We can be quite happy that EON went with Moore! -{
    President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.

    Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
  • Moore ThanMoore Than EnglandPosts: 3,173MI6 Agent
    Higgins wrote:
    We can be quite happy that EON went with Moore! -{

    Personally, I am very happy that EON went with Moore! -{

    It would have been quite some risk to cast another non-Brit after George Lazenby. Failure was not an option. Burt Reynolds was a good enough actor that given the right coaching he may well have been a presentable James Bond to the general public. If''s, but's, maybe's. They went with Roger, they made the right choice.
    Moore Not Less 4371 posts (2002 - 2007) Moore Than (2012 - 2016)
  • AlphaOmegaSinAlphaOmegaSin EnglandPosts: 10,924MI6 Agent
    Higgins wrote:
    That idea should put every Moore-critic into shame and make him quiet forever.

    We can be quite happy that EON went with Moore! -{

    Yes -{
    1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
  • Gassy ManGassy Man USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
    We criticize it now, in part based on Reynolds' persona after that late 60s/early 70s period, but he showed he could carry a movie pretty well in his early film years, in such films as The Longest Yard, Gator, 100 Rifles, Fuzz, and Deliverance. It was later that he became somewhat like William Shatner in hamming things up in his own way. I know he said an American can't play the part, but the producers were ready to go with John Gavin, an actor of even less range. I'm not sure that with the proper instruction, Reynolds couldn't have pulled it off. He wasn't a parody of himself yet in his younger years.
  • ProjectormanProjectorman Burnley Lancashire Posts: 37MI6 Agent
    Would we then have Sally field as money penny ?
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Put aside all that you think you know about him now, including whether or not he could pull off an English accent. He was at the height of his abilities in the early 70s, had a lot of Connery's masculinity and self-confidence, and could do both action and humor. Connery was a diamond in the rough before being pegged for Bond -- with coaching, could Burt Reynolds have been James Bond?

    What about Roger Moore or Sean Connery for "Smokey and the Bandit"? with coaching and pulling off an american accent maybe?

    No, I don't think it could have worked.
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    Higgins wrote:
    We can be quite happy that EON went with Moore! 

    True. They made the right choice.
  • HigginsHiggins GermanyPosts: 16,618MI6 Agent
    ouch, it really worries me that we agree somewhere :p
    President of the 'Misty Eyes Club'.

    Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    Higgins wrote:
    ouch, it really worries me that we agree somewhere :p

    Me too, me too... wait, on second thought, maybe Roger....nah, he was the right choice :p
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,699MI6 Agent
    Bond would be somewhat like it turned out with Moore, but more masculine and more American (less British). By that I mean very comedy based and self-referential. I think Reynolds would have been better at pulling off stunts. But I'm glad it didn't happen. Bond needs to be seen as British, and Reynolds an American movie star by then with a very American persona.
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    I could have seen old Burt as Bond from his role in Deliverance -{ has
    A young Connery alpha male thing going on ! :D but No as with Clint
    Could never see it working.
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • Gassy ManGassy Man USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
    Virgil37 wrote:
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Put aside all that you think you know about him now, including whether or not he could pull off an English accent. He was at the height of his abilities in the early 70s, had a lot of Connery's masculinity and self-confidence, and could do both action and humor. Connery was a diamond in the rough before being pegged for Bond -- with coaching, could Burt Reynolds have been James Bond?

    What about Roger Moore or Sean Connery for "Smokey and the Bandit"? with coaching and pulling off an american accent maybe?

    No, I don't think it could have worked.
    Moore actually does appear in a Reynolds film -- The Cannonball Run -- essentially playing Bond. Had Connery been 10 years younger, he could have played the Reynolds role in Smokey and the Bandit easily.
  • Gassy ManGassy Man USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
    I could have seen old Burt as Bond from his role in Deliverance -{ has
    A young Connery alpha male thing going on ! :D
    That's what I'm thinking -- his stint as a mostly comedic actor comes later. Clint Eastwood doesn't physically approximate Bond as much as Reynolds did at the time.
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff
    Apparently Connery replaced Reynolds in "Zardoz", which may show a degree of similarity.
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Virgil37 wrote:
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Put aside all that you think you know about him now, including whether or not he could pull off an English accent. He was at the height of his abilities in the early 70s, had a lot of Connery's masculinity and self-confidence, and could do both action and humor. Connery was a diamond in the rough before being pegged for Bond -- with coaching, could Burt Reynolds have been James Bond?

    What about Roger Moore or Sean Connery for "Smokey and the Bandit"? with coaching and pulling off an american accent maybe?

    No, I don't think it could have worked.
    Moore actually does appear in a Reynolds film -- The Cannonball Run -- essentially playing Bond. Had Connery been 10 years younger, he could have played the Reynolds role in Smokey and the Bandit easily.

    Yes, I know Rog appears in Cannonball Run as Bond. That's my point. He doesn't appear as a Reynolds type of guy; Reynolds does.

    Connery was 10 years younger when he played a cowboy in Shalako and it flopped, because Connery is Connery with his accent, not with a fake american accent and a cowboy hat. Same as Reynolds faking a british accent and playing a british spy.
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    I could have seen old Burt as Bond from his role in Deliverance -{ has
    A young Connery alpha male thing going on ! :D but No as with Clint
    Could never see it working.

    I see Reynolds alpha male thing closer to a young Brando than anything like Connery. All american. Same as Clint, also mentioned for Bond but totally inappropiate.
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy Behind you !Posts: 63,792MI6 Agent
    It was mainly his lack of Hair which pointed me in the Connery direction. ;)
    "I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
  • Gassy ManGassy Man USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
    Virgil37 wrote:
    Gassy Man wrote:
    Virgil37 wrote:

    What about Roger Moore or Sean Connery for "Smokey and the Bandit"? with coaching and pulling off an american accent maybe?

    No, I don't think it could have worked.
    Moore actually does appear in a Reynolds film -- The Cannonball Run -- essentially playing Bond. Had Connery been 10 years younger, he could have played the Reynolds role in Smokey and the Bandit easily.

    Yes, I know Rog appears in Cannonball Run as Bond. That's my point. He doesn't appear as a Reynolds type of guy; Reynolds does.

    Connery was 10 years younger when he played a cowboy in Shalako and it flopped, because Connery is Connery with his accent, not with a fake american accent and a cowboy hat. Same as Reynolds faking a british accent and playing a british spy.
    By that logic, Kevin Costner's Robin Hood should have been a flop, as should have Robert Downey's Sherlock Holmes films.

    Shalako suffers from any number of problems, including having a middling plot and tedious pace. Connery sounds the same to me in that film as he does as Bond, so I'm not sure he's affecting an "American" accent at all in a movie about Europeans struggling to survive the U. S. frontier.

    The point about Moore is that he does appear in a Burt Reynolds type of film, even if he does not play the Burt Reynolds part. As a mostly light comedic actor, Moore could have played Bandit if they had tweaked the character -- certainly Reynolds' attempt at light comedy owes itself on some level to light comedies of yesteryear. The difference was by the 1970s, instead of a Cary Grant or Rock Hudson type, which Moore more easily fits, the lead became some hairy alpha male with a porn stache, in part, I suspect, because Connery had redefined what the male lead was supposed to be like physically.

    The film doesn't rely on Bandit being an alpha male so much as being charming and rogue-ish. But to play a Bond that has Connery's characteristics, as we're talking about succeeding Connery in the early 1970s, someone approximately Connery's masculinity would have made more sense. Lazenby had it. Reynolds has it. Moore does not, hence the Bond films becoming more campy comedies than testosterone-filled romps. I'm not begrudging Moore's Bond films -- I enjoy them for what they are. But he definitely did not have Connery's machismo, which few actors do, of which Reynolds was one.
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    Gassy Man wrote:
    But to play a Bond that has Connery's characteristics, as we're talking about succeeding Connery in the early 1970s, someone approximately Connery's masculinity would have made more sense.

    You focus only on masculinity as the main ingredient for Bond, but britishness is the key to the character. Bond is quintaessentially british. Reynolds is quintaessentially american. That's why Moore's Bond worked even if he didn't project the same masculinity as Connery did.

    I can't imagine Reynolds in TSWLM PTS parachuting under the Union Jack (released in 1977, the same year as "Smokey and the Bandit"). Totally unbelievable.
  • BlackleiterBlackleiter Washington, DCPosts: 5,615MI6 Agent
    Virgil37 wrote:
    Gassy Man wrote:
    But to play a Bond that has Connery's characteristics, as we're talking about succeeding Connery in the early 1970s, someone approximately Connery's masculinity would have made more sense.

    You focus only on masculinity as the main ingredient for Bond, but britishness is the key to the character. Bond is quintaessentially british. Reynolds is quintaessentially american. That's why Moore's Bond worked even if he didn't project the same masculinity as Connery did.

    I can't imagine Reynolds in TSWLM PTS parachuting under the Union Jack (released in 1977, the same year as "Smokey and the Bandit"). Totally unbelievable.

    I have to agree. Although I understand what Gassy is saying about that certain machismo Reynolds possessed that could remind some of Connery's swagger, Reynolds was too closely identified with an "American type" to really work well as Bond. I just don't think audiences, especially those who were true Bond fans, would have bought it.
    "Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
  • Virgil37Virgil37 Posts: 1,212MI6 Agent
    Virgil37 wrote:
    Gassy Man wrote:
    But to play a Bond that has Connery's characteristics, as we're talking about succeeding Connery in the early 1970s, someone approximately Connery's masculinity would have made more sense.

    You focus only on masculinity as the main ingredient for Bond, but britishness is the key to the character. Bond is quintaessentially british. Reynolds is quintaessentially american. That's why Moore's Bond worked even if he didn't project the same masculinity as Connery did.

    I can't imagine Reynolds in TSWLM PTS parachuting under the Union Jack (released in 1977, the same year as "Smokey and the Bandit"). Totally unbelievable.

    I have to agree. Although I understand what Gassy is saying about that certain machismo Reynolds possessed that could remind some of Connery's swagger, Reynolds was too closely identified with an "American type" to really work well as Bond. I just don't think audiences, especially those who were true Bond fans, would have bought it.

    I agree with Gassy too. Reynolds projected that swagger and virility. In "Deliverance" for instance is quite obvious. But that's not the key. I believe Roger Moore and Sean Connery saying "the things I do for England". Nobody would buy Burt Reynolds saying that.
  • GrindelwaldGrindelwald Posts: 1,294MI6 Agent
    BR is dead broke now........
  • Gassy ManGassy Man USAPosts: 2,972MI6 Agent
    I'll bet they could get him cheap.
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