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Guest reviewer Adam Bollard inspects Mark O'Connell's "Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan", a real-life tale of a love affair with James Bond...
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Catching Bullets Review
30th September 2012
Many James Bond fans like to make claims about genuine connections they have with their cinematic idol - for instance, I got enormously excited around the age of 10 when rumour had it Roger Moore was moving into a house in the posh country lane down the road from me. As it goes, this claim of mine is rather rubbish, as Sir Rog never moved in. Mark O'Connell's, however, is much better; in fact, it's a king of such claims, as his grandfather Jimmy was for several decades chauffer to the man behind the cinematic Bond himself, Albert R 'Cubby' Broccoli.
It's this happy coincidence for O'Connell the enormous Bond fan that's the spur to his writing "Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan" (in addition to him being an enormous Bond fan, of course).
Principally a memoir of his first encounters
with each of the official 22 Bond films - each of them
being a 'bullet' he originally 'caught' at different ages
either at the cinema, on video or on TV - this book ends
up being much more.
It's almost a pseudo-autobiography filtered
through different aspects of his life, as an '80s Surrey
schoolboy through to becoming a successful TV comedy writer,
that coincided with and are related to those important
Bond experiences (every Bond fan knows their interest/
obsession tends to affect almost every other aspect of
their life at some point, whether they like it or not).
Extremely witty, nicely dry but also very warm when it comes to the world of Bond (especially that of Roger Moore and, in particular, 1985's "A View To A Kill" and 1983's "Octopussy"), this is a nostalgia-fest of a fess-up to 007 fandom. It's chock-full of anecdotes of Bond-esque-themed children's parties, visits to the local petrol station to get a Bond fix on VHS when that Bank Holiday's just too far away to wait for telly's next Moore or Connery offering, and the despair of not being able to purchase the latest TV Times magazine while on Cubs camp just to marvel at its coverage of ITV's next Bond film. |
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Datastream
Publisher: Splendid Books
Format: Paperback / e-book
Pages: 300
RRP: £7.99 / $110
Order Amazon UK
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It's a tale then of a life as a Bond fan lived, with all its glorious highs and (semi-)disastrous lows, with which any and every 007 enthusiast will surely identify - from making a childhood pilgrimage to an abandoned Sussex mine just because it was a Bond location for five minutes to delicate negotiations with a partner to mount a framed Bond film poster in pride of place in the lounge; from naughtily getting in to see the '15'-rated "Licence To Kill" as a mere 13-year-old to ripping an adored, ruined-forever "A View To A Kill" t-shirt passed along by a kindly grandfather employed by Eon Productions themselves.
Above: Cubby Broccoli, Harry Saltzman and Roger Moore.
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Indeed, the presence of grandfather Jimmy throughout makes for an intriguing link between O'Connell's fanboy existence and the fantasy factory that was the Pinewood Studios-ensconced Cubby and his fellow filmmakers. Something that at times has afforded the lucky but very humble O'Connell more than just passed-on Bond memorabilia. But what exactly? Well, why not let Mark O'Connell tell you himself by catching "Catching Bullets" - the tale of being a Bond fan by a Bond fan that surely no Bond fan should be without.
Many thanks to Adam Bollard.
The opinions expressed in this review are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MI6-HQ.com or its owners.
