A Brief History
On October 5, 1962, movie goers were introduced to the suave and debonair, handsome, worldly yet deadly spy character, James Bond. This first Bond movie was Dr. No, and featured Sean Connery in the role of Bond. Boasting 25 films, there really is no serious competition as the greatest movie spy, but who is number two?
Digging Deeper
We list a few possible choices for you to choose from in the order we would rank them:
Jack Ryan, CIA, star of five major films and a Prime television series.
Ethan Hunt, Impossible Mission Force, star of seven movies and based on the 1966 to 1973 TV show in which Jim Phelps was the main man.
Jason Bourne, US Foreign Service/CIA, “only” five films, but good ones!
Nikita, French DGSE, four films and two TV series, a woman worthy of any of the male spies listed here.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Who is your favorite film spy?
If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons!
Your readership is much appreciated!
Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Biederman, Danny. The Incredible World of Spy-Fi: Wild and Crazy Spy Gadgets, Props, and Artifacts from TV and the Movies. Chronicle Books, 2004.
Brake, Mark. The Science of James Bond: The Super-Villains, Tech, and Spy-Craft Behind the Film and Fiction. Skyhorse, 2020.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Daryle Dickens of old James Bond posters on a street corner in Somalia, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
