Movies - TV
Sean Connery Felt Ian Fleming's Novels Missed A Key Ingredient Of James Bond
By JOE ROBERTS
James Bond's impeccable style, strength, and gadgets makes for an irresistible character in the iconic franchise. However, when Sean Connery came on board as Bond after having read three of the original Ian Fleming novels, he added a key trait that he felt was missing from the books to make Bond much more charismatic and balance out the film’s harsher elements.
James Bond’s wit, even at its driest, was never actually present in the original Ian Fleming novels, as Connery told the BBC, “There's a lack of humor in Fleming's writing.” Luckily, Connery and director Terrance Young bonded over a “similar sense of humor,” which they worked into “Dr. No” and all their subsequent collaborations in the James Bond franchise.
Fleming had acknowledged that he deliberately wrote Bond as a somewhat humorless character, but Connery’s performances made Bond funny, and therefore likable, so the violence was more palatable. Connery added in a 1967 interview that the way he saw it was that audiences “could acknowledge and accept the violence if it had a humorous quality.”