James Bond helps young fan spy his future

When I was 9 months old, my parents couldn't get a babysitter, so I went to my first movie. They fed me, burped me and hoped that I would fall asleep, not cry or scream, as they watched "Thunderball." I did not sleep. As soon as the classic gun-barrel logo backed by a blaring James Bond theme came on, I sat bolt upright in my mother's arms - so they tell me - and stared at the screen for the next two hours, transfixed, without uttering a peep.

On Friday, Daniel Craig will tuck his Walther PPK into his shoulder holster, marking a half century and 35 days since Sean Connery first introduced himself as "Bond ... James Bond" on film during the London premiere of "Dr. No" on Oct. 5, 1962. I'll be there, with my family, Bond fans all, in my hometown of Indianapolis. Presumably, I will have fed and burped myself this time.

Introduction to filmmaking

Bond films have always been magical to me - and to many others, as it is the longest-running and most popular series, in terms of tickets sold, in movie history. Part of the reason is that, as I grew up, they were among the first "adult" movies (you know, non-Disney films) that I saw. I re-upped with Bond in the movie theaters at age 11 when "The Spy Who Loved Me" came out in 1977 (hello, Roger Moore, nice to meet you) and have seen every film since on its opening day - or before.

Another reason is that through watching the films over and over, either in the theater (I saw "For Your Eyes Only" 11 times on its first run in 1981; a scratch in the print that showed in our local theater is forever etched in my mind) or on ABC's "Sunday Night Movie" - seemingly a national event in the late '70s and early '80s, before cable was prevalent - I began a personal learning process of appreciating how movies were made. Seeing a film repeatedly, you begin to notice individual shots, how the film is directed, acted and edited.

And you could also listen to Bond: The ABC station in Indianapolis could be heard on the FM radio dial. As we had no VCR, I recorded Bond films on audiocassettes. So I saw, say, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," two or three times, but I heard it maybe a dozen times. In this way, I became aware of the sound design of movies - how music, dialogue and sound effects contribute to the overall cinematic experience. To this day, I am acutely aware of how a movie sounds when I am watching it.

British pulp fiction

By the way, James Bond is turning 60, not 50. It was in 1952 that Ian Fleming, a chain-smoking, hard-drinking ladies man and former intelligence officer, first put a piece of paper into his typewriter at his winter home in Jamaica to create a character who was a chain-smoking, hard-drinking ladies' man and current intelligence officer. In the very first pages of "Casino Royale," a tuxedo-clad Bond is gambling, smoking his 70th cigarette of the day and is admired by a beautiful young woman who observes that he looks like Hoagy Carmichael.

The Bond books are not espionage novels the way John le Carré's stories are. Fleming reads more like British pulp fiction; his inspiration was Raymond Chandler, with whom he was pen pals. They hit you at gut level - or below.

In a bizarre coincidence, I went to college at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., the hometown of Carmichael, where the actual Bond manuscripts, typed by Fleming with penciled notes and corrections in the margins by his own hand, reside in an archive on campus. So I reread all of the Bond novels, wearing cloth gloves, in their original form.

Mind of a writer

This was important, too: Fleming's notes to himself gave me insight into the mind of a writer and his method.

Fleming died of a heart attack in 1964, at age 56, shortly after the release of "Gold- finger," the third film in the series, and the one that started the international Bond phenomenon ("Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love," the first two films, were merely modest hits). With all due respect to his creation, it's one family that is primarily responsible for Bond's success. Producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli was there from the beginning of the film series until his death in 1996 and has been succeeded by his stepson, Michael G. Wilson, and his daughter, Barbara Broccoli. Fifty years of continuity.

The films are, for the most part, nothing like the books. Fleming's Bond was less heroic, more of a narcissistic jerk that happened to be on our side. Not that he can't be that way in the movies, but the cinematic Bond, despite Daniel Craig's excellent rough-hewed interpretation of the role, is a man who enjoys life and invites us to tag along.

Old Hollywood

The movies are a throwback to old Hollywood - when leading men acted like men, and not overgrown boys; dressed sharp and had a sophisticated wit. In a way, Bond is the closest thing we have to a Cary Grant or a Humphrey Bogart. For a boy growing up in the Midwest, it was a signal that there was a whole big world out there. {sbox}

G. Allen Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BRfilmsAllen