Edited by Will Lawrence
Published by Hero Collector
We start out with a chapter on creator Ian Fleming, followed by an overview of the franchise and brief bios of the various actors who have shaken, if not stirred, the role of Bond, James Bond.
Each movie gets a chapter and each chapter starts with a lovely full-color example of one of that film’s posters. There’s one page placing the making of the film in some historical context, followed by one page offering a thumbnail version of the movie’s plot, but the rest of each chapter offers a paragraph or two about every character in the picture and any and all vehicles used by those characters.
Outside of noting in tiny print the names of the actors playing the various parts, these sections all deal exclusively with the onscreen scenes of the individual characters.
So essentially, each scene of each movie is described piecemeal, as it relates to that particular character.
The James Bond Film Guide is a very pretty book, as most official books tend to be, and it offers a wealth of excellent black and white and color photos and stills, many of which I had never seen before, but in the end it’s all style over substance.
Depending on how big a Bond fan you happen to be, you either know all of the information in this book already or you don’t care about the trivial details of the characters, the weapons, and the cars.
The only reader I can see truly appreciating The James Bond Film Guide for what it offers is someone who has only recently become a fan of the franchise, and cares more about what’s onscreen than what goes on behind the screen.
