Sean Connery inaugurated the Bond franchise with Dr. No, in which everyone’s favorite British spy travels to Jamaica and gets tangled up with the CIA, the title villain and Ursula Andress. As an espionage thriller, this is less than impressive. The silly plot, the cartoonishly megalomaniacal Dr. No and the unapologetic eye candy (Andress literally washes ashore in a bikini) were all here, just waiting for Mike Myers to skewer them in his Austin Powers films. Yet in Bond, Connery took the spy from Ian Fleming’s novels and turned him into a movie fantasy figure that still holds more allure than any parody. This was the secret agent as rock star, complete with free booze, unlimited power (that license to kill) and even groupies. Every once in awhile he had to perform – Dr. No, for instance, had turned a Caribbean island into some sort of nuclear reactor – but generally life as James Bond was one long party.
