Welcome to another thrilling episode of the Spybrary Spy Book Podcast! Today's episode is helmed by Spybrary contributor, author and music aficionado Andy Onyx, who interviews John Higgs, the author of Love and Let Die – James Bond, The Beatles and The British Psyche.
Watch our conversation about Love and Let Die with author John Higgs and Spybrary Guest Host Andy Onyx
What is Love and Let Die, James Bond, The Beatles and the British pysche by John Higgs all about?
A deep-dive into the unique connections between the two titans of the British cultural psyche—the Beatles and the Bond films—and what they tell us about class, sexuality, and our aspirations over sixty dramatic years.
The Beatles are the biggest band in the history of pop music. James Bond is the single most successful movie character of all time. They are also twins. Dr No, the first Bond film, and Love Me Do, the first Beatles record, were both released on the same day: Friday 5 October 1962. Most countries can only dream of a cultural export becoming a worldwide phenomenon on this scale. For Britain to produce two iconic successes on this level, on the same windy October afternoon, is unprecedented.
Bond and the Beatles present us with opposing values, visions of the British culture, and ideas about sexual identity. Love and Let Die is the story of a clash between working class liberation and establishment control, and how it exploded on the global stage. It explains why James Bond hated the Beatles, why Paul McCartney wanted to be Bond, and why it was Ringo who won the heart of a Bond Girl in the end.
Told over a period of sixty dramatic years, this is an account of how two outsized cultural phenomena continue to define American aspirations, fantasies, and our ideas about ourselves. Looking at these two touchstones in this new context will forever change how you see the Beatles, the James Bond films, and six decades of cross-Atlantic popular culture.
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I am apparently way out of step with contemporary movie audience. In two different author interviews (His Majesty’s Secret Service and Love and Let Die) the authors sung the praises of Daniel Craig as Bond. So I watched him in Casino Royale recently. The movie is in my opinion awful. It is mindlessly violent (like so many contemporary movies, has no sense of story telling or dialog, and has nothing to do with Ian Fleming’s, Casino Royale. Furthermore, Craig as bond is a classless thug and bear’s no resemblance to Fleming’s Bond.
Yes, Casino Royale the novel is dark and has a horrific scene at Le Chiffre’s chateau, but the scene is terrifying, not for over-the-top gore, splatter and dismemberment, so common in movies these days, but for the Flemings skill at storytelling and the mental impact on Bond and the Reader.