From Russia With Love opens with the characteristically dapper James Bond in the yard of an opulent mansion at night. A sound catches his attention, closely followed by another, and he determines that he’s being followed. This determining is noticed by the follower, who we see skulking along the adjacent shrubbery, and he abandons all pretense of secrecy by loudly cocking his gun. He’s after Bond, and he doesn’t need the veil of cover anymore—he’s got him in his sights. Bond seems alert but unperturbed. This is his second film, but even if we haven’t seen the first one (Dr. No) and are just being introduced to him, we have a feeling that this guy can handle himself. Dressed to the nines in a tailored tux, immaculately groomed … and look at the face that bears that knowing little smirk. It’s the smirk that seems to know how it ends, the current situation that you all are so worried about. The danger, the excitement, the uncertainty … you might be worried, but that smirk says Bond knows that in the end he gets the better of the stalker, that he escapes the trap, saves the day, gets the girl. He got up early this morning and ate a good breakfast while you were still sleeping. His clothing looks like it was hand-crafted by the world’s finest tailor, his hair carefully cut by the greatest of barbers; and Bond looks like he just shaved. He looks like he just shaved five minutes ago. That alert, calculating, amused and almost slightly bored face has a perfect shave. We assumed this guy can handle himself from the beginning, even if we’ve lived under a rock all our lives and don’t know who James Bond is, because a guy who can get a shave like that can handle himself, period. This may not even be a conscious realization on our part, but it’s a realization none the less. And it’s the simply agedness of the movie. Things look different, and with the ability to peer into such a sharp and clear window into the past we look for everything to be different. The cars look different, so the laws of physics that govern their behavior as they move about must be different. There’s a tendency to assume, sometimes falsely, that older means higher quality. But man, look at that guy’s shave—they must have had some kind of secret, special kind of shaving equipment they used back then. And if the old kind of gear is superior, well then obviously the new stuff is inferior. I mean, watch a movie made recently. You just don’t see guys with shaves that good. Most of the time they’re not even shaved, they’re sporting two or three days’ growth. That’s the trend now, and it’s no longer considered a vagrant look. Guys in expensive business suits go to work with a 500-dollar briefcase and they haven’t shaved in a week. If the subject comes up, they talk about how much they just hate to shave, and they do it as little as they can get away with. But there are those of us who live now, all these years past the Sean Connery 007 years, and we like his shave, and we want it for ourselves. We like the process of getting it, too. So how do we do it? Well, there are a lot of ways, but we know it can’t be gotten from that bad, bad man hiding over there behind the shrubs. He’s the new guy, the one who snuck up on us. He comes in aerosol cans and cartridges, and we hear him chamber his wicked guns in the dark, and we need to get out of there, go with Bond. But then the unthinkable happens: he sneaks up on Bond, he pulls a cord from his wrist watch, he starts choking Bond out, he gets Bond down to the ground. He’s the bad guy, and he’s beating James Bond! How can this be, we’re not yet ten minutes into the movie? The bad, bad man stoops down and touches Bond’s face. He grips the side of it, pulls, and removes it. It was a mask. Lights come on, all over the outside of the house. It’s a training facility, and this dark and sinister villain has brought down a false Bond. He will not bring down the real Bond, only the false one. In this new, bright light, we get a better look at the villain, and we see that it looks like he’s got a pretty darn good shave, too. Maybe it was the lighting. Or something to do with perspective.
A mask! I should have seen it coming - it was an imported or exported fine latex mask, wasn't it, Mr. Vandelay?
When I was in the 7th grade everyone was buzzing about Goldfinger was going to open next week and if you didn't see it opening night you might aswell just never return to school again...Your uncool factor would be so high, you might need medical attention. So next week, opening night my Dad, realizing the importance to a 7th grader in 1964 took my to see it...Now I didn't know who James Bond was...I had never seen Sean Connery before...I thought Daniel Boone was cool...until that night !! That opening scene, where Bond comes out of the water with a wet-suit on and a breathing tube through a fake duck so he didn't make air bubbles...He sets plastic explosives with a timer...Climbs over a wall, unzips the wet-suit and is wearing a tailored white tux under-neath, and puts a red carnation in the lapel...Walks into a tropical bar when the huge explosion rocks everthing, but he's lighting a cigerette looking bored, and checking his watch...as everyone is running out...A man at the bar tells him he has to fly to Miami tonight...But he says first I have some unfinished business to take care of. He goes into an apartment in the back of the bar, where a beautiful chick is in the bath tub. She hops out and starts kissing him but he sees in her eyes the reflection of a guy getting ready to hit him over the head so he spins her around so the guy hits her over the head....(Man, I had never seen anyone do anything like that before)...He knocks the guy in the tub, slaps an electric fan in the tub and electrocutes the guy, as he puts his shoulder holster back on and looks at the chick on the floor and the guy in the tub and says, "Shocking, positively Shocking" and the orchectra hits with the Theme Song and the screen goes black... About this time I'm in a pleasant adrenline shock...and I still don't know who this guy is...All I know is whoever he is, my moneys on this guy...I'm thinking he can't really be the good guy cause he used a chick for a weapon... I'd never seen a Good Guy do anything like that before...But some how, this guy was definatly the man...And your right...The clothes are perfectly tailored. Every hair in place and the shave was the definition of BBS. This was a different era, but then, the tailored suit and tie look was not that different than how my Dad looked...Right down to the BBS... Later we see him using a Gillette Slim...And as he's leaving the plane where the shaving scene took place; Pussy Galore says, "You do like a close shave, don't you Mr. Bond"...The next morning when my Dad was using his Schick, I gave him a hard time about it...We kind of had a running joke about Gillette vs Schick because the Friday Night fights were sponsored by Gillette and of course after John Wayne did that SuperSpeed commercial, it just gave me ammunition to kid Dad...And Pop was way outspoken about Schick superiority...Dad's like, "Thats how you know its just a movie, cause the real James Bond would undoubtedly use an Injector, a modern razor, for the modern man."..:happy102 What do you think...? I don't know...I've got a Slim and an Injector...And I think either one will give me that BBS if I do my part. And the process will be like a trip back in time when we enjoyed our guality time, and shaving was a way to pamper ourselves in the mornings...I've seen some people say shaving was a drag then too...But not in my house...My Pop loved his morning ritual...And a good Rose-Lavender Soap and brush, and His Schick...He made it a point too, to impress upon me the need to enjoy the relaxing morning me time... Now if I could get that Aston Martin, so I could pamper myself on the way to work... BTW...I'm a big fan of "From Russia With Love" also...Its like an Istanbul travel-log...All that stuff is still here, and those sea-buses and water-taxis still look the same...That underground reservoir that Constantine built that Bond and Kerim use a gondola to get around in... has been renovated and turned into a tourist attraction, there are well lighted marble walkways that you don't notice in the movie cause its so dirty and dark, and even has an Expresso, Turkish coffee shop now... The water is crystal clear and the bottom is all white marble, and there are Roman Columns everywhere...
Great point, and says a lot concerning the reasons many gents seek out the old style of shaving. Very nice writing style too! Off to see if I can find that movie.
