UKC

Sean Connery has died aged 90

In reply to Chopper:

Well, they didn't expect him to talk

In reply to Chopper:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54761824

In reply to toad:

Probably the best comment of the year and a tribute to Mr Bond.

In reply to The Lemming:

For me his finest screen role was as the rogueish Daniel Dravot in "The Man Who Would Be King".

Unforgettable.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Very sad news. He starred in many fine films not least the one you mentioned and who can forget his performance as Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez in Highlander.

In reply to Gone for good:

So, does this mean we are a step closer to The Gathering? There can be only one...

In reply to toad:

I have a soft spot for 5 Days one Summer, I think it's a great film. Wasn't Paul Nunn his climbing double?

Great anecdote from the BBC obituary. Hope it's true - you don't mess with Bond.

"...he was alongside Lana Turner - proper Tinsel Town royalty - in the film Another Time, Another Place. Her boyfriend, the mobster Johnny Stompanato, reacted badly to rumours of a romance. 

He stormed on set and pulled out a gun. Connery grabbed it from his hand and overpowered him, before others stepped in and kicked him off set."

In reply to Chopper:

Despite his star status, to my mind a seriously underrated actor. His best role it hink was playing opposite the great Ian Bannen in "The Offence"-think of it as "Get Carter" without the laughs.

In reply to Removed Userena sharples:

I always felt that he was someone who COULD act but often chose not to bother as it was not really required of him. 

As an aside, did he ever actually play a character that was specifically Scottish? He’s played Irishmen, Irish-American, “British”, ENGLISH, and of course more than one Russian (and a Spanish-Egyptian 😃) and plenty of “gruff senior Americans”) but I am not sure if his character in any film was ever defined as Scottish. Sure, Bond in the books is described as having Scots/Swiss heritage but not on film 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Five Days one Summer! He plays a Scottish doctor.

In reply to Chopper:

Top guy and I suspect someone who would be great to share a pink with. 

They put one of ours in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the morgue. 

In reply to Dax H:

Didn't he say it's ok to slap women because they are hard to reason with? Top guy. To be fair the interview did make me laugh. I don't slap women or think it's ok before anyone starts. 

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

To my shame I’ve not seen it although I know the story vaguely (even read Leo Dickinson’s account of filming the death stunt). Didn’t realise the character was Scottish. Thanks 

In reply to snoop6060:

He did, he had a rather primitive view of that sort of thing.

However he was a man of his times which were less enlighten than now.

May he resht in peash.

In reply to snoop6060:

He had some outdated misogynistic views, not excusing them but they would have been typical for a man of that era.

He retracted those comments in 2006.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12430892.i-dont-believe-that-any-level-...

I don't know what he really thought, but given his friends and the company he kept - I like to think he was a decent guy.

In reply to Chopper:

His aura when you met him was quite extraordinary. I saw him several times at Elstree in the early 80s - I can't remember what movie he was on - but never spoke to him (didn't dare!) But he had this incredible 'presence'. The first time I saw him was walking towards me down the corridor outside the upper ('posh') restaurant. But he wasn't on his own; he had about three beautiful blonde ladies in tow. People were literally moving to one side as if he was royalty. 

Looking it up now, I guess it was 'Never Say Never Again' in late 1982/early 1983.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

His best part without a shadow of doubt was in Time Bandits.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Ian Fleming made those changes in response to Connery's portrayal. So as much as Bond made Connery, Connery also made Bond.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

The character in The Rock was Scottish. 

In reply to snoop6060:

Domestic violence isn't funny. It's so much more than an amusing anecdote.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I'm with you on this. Fabulous film

In reply to Chopper:

The role in Outland seemed to suit him.  

Best James Bond.

RIP 

In reply to IM:

Are you sure about that? Check his military history. I may well be wrong but I think there’s something there (maybe a script error) that makes him not Scottish. 

In reply to Chopper:

In his younger days he lived just down the road from where I was born in Gorgie, Edinburgh.  Before he was an actor he worked as a milkman and my Uncle who worked for the same company said he knew him at that time.

Al

In reply to Chopper:

Who will open the Stoneybridge village fete now?

RIP Seen Canary.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Haven't seen it for years, and have cobbled this from IMDB:

It's never stated that he's Scottish, only that he was a captain in the SAS and is a "British operative".

However, one of the rogue marines does refer to him as an "English prick" when trying to batter him.

Then there is this whole fan theory that Connery's character is actually James Bond! Some of the timeline fits, but I'm not actually convinced by it.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Don't they read his birth certificate at some point and give his birthplace as Glasgow?

In reply to DerwentDiluted:

Maigret’s auntie once stood two behind him at the Post Office!

In reply to Chopper:

While he is Bond to me, I think the Bond who had the best leading lady by far was George Lazenby. 

I remember him in A Bridge Too Far as well as being a Scandinavian police chief in some obscure hostage film and of course his jock strap character in Zardoz (!!!)

https://www.considerable.com/entertainment/retronaut/sean-connery-in-zardoz...

I co-starred with him once. I was an extra in "First Knight"

In reply to planetmarshall:

It's on his transfer file. Place of Birth: Glasgow

In reply to Chopper:

I've never really understood the James Bond obsession. Some of the films are great, lots aren't. It's a brand really, one we're supposed to get behind to feel British. Brainwashing shite. 

In reply to aln:

In what way is the James Bond film franchise actually brainwashing anybody?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I didn't say it was. 

In reply to aln:

OK. Brainwashing who for what reason?Perhaps all brand marketing is brainwashing if you put it like that. Except its marketing, not brainwashing.

In reply to aln:

What does "brainwashing shite", at the end of a short post attacking the James Bond films, mean? 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

The marketing, the media onslaught around every Bond film, the way there's some kinda feeling of Britishness attached to it, the way it's pervasive in TV radio and Internet, ooh let's all get excited about it...

On and on about these not really that good films. 

In reply to Chopper:

Blimey.....erm...can I be the contrarian here with the full respect of a recently deceased person in focus.

I didn't care for the man. He was grumpy on set, grumpy with women, grumpy about the UK, bleated about independence yet chose to live anywhere but his beloved Scotland from the time he could afford better weather; other examples of grumpiness exist. He was OK as bond but I found the rest of his acting pretty average, and his Oscar for Untouchables inexplicable.

He just sounded like a misogynist tool who spoke Russian/Irish  Scottish...

In reply to aln:

So is it brainwashing or not? Do you like Dr Who and Killing Eve and Blue Planet? 

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Agreed. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Do you expect me to talk? 

In reply to aln:

My main objection to Bond films is the frequency with which they pop up in pub quizzes and the fact that I still can't memorize their theme songs......

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Others including me have posted upthread about him having reportedly been pretty unpleasant. I actually held back but now that you've opened the floodgates....

YES his Oscar for The Untouchables was inexplicable, it WAS one of his better performances but by real standards, just average. The 1988 Oscars for acting were weird though. 

Essentially he had a decent screen presence, a small amount of charm in his earlier Bond films, and some average acting talent. Once he became a huge global star, it seemed almost as if he didn't need to bother acting any more apart from when he felt like it (The Man Who Would Be King, The First Great Train Robbery etc. )
He always came across as incredibly arrogant and quite hypocritical, and extremely critical of others. He said some pretty nasty stuff about Brian DePalma, the man who directed him to an Oscar win. 
He was always happy to take the big pay cheque whilst simultaneously slating the industry (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, his last major film and the one that made him decide to effectively retire) was indeed a disastrous production but given that he signed up for it before the script was complete, to then later opine that "you turn up in Prague and there's no script" seems a bit rich. 
You sort of admire him for quitting Bond when the superstardom became too much for him (basically he understandably could not cope with being literally mobbed in Japan when out there for You Only Live Twice) but he had no problem with returning to the role when offered an industry-changing $3 million for Diamonds Are Forever - a salary so huge that they had to cut corners on the production which is why that film has a rather cheap look to it, less of the exotic spectacular locations and sets. And IMHO doing Never Say Never Again was just an insult to Broccoli, Fleming, and any right-thinking cinemagoer  

Terence Young (Bond films, so he kind of had to) and Sidney Lumet both worked with him several times, but not many other directors or actors seemed to go for repeating the experience...

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Having now ranted, I will say that when called upon, he was above average. I mentioned The Man Who Would Be King and The First Great Train Robbery, I think The Hill has been mentioned already, I've not seen The Offence but apparently it, and he, are good. He's good in Outland even if the film is a bit of a muddle, and I actually liked him in Just Cause, plus he was genuinely fun in The Rock. 

But against that, and especially post-Oscar, there was a lot of B-movie pap where the whole point of the film just seemed to be "we have Sean Connery, will that do?". The Presidio (watchable). Medicine Man (beyond wretched). First Knight. Rising Sun. Entrapment. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Is Outland the sci-fi thing with the codpiece? 

In reply to aln:

No. It’s High Noon in space. You are thinking of Zardoz (and not, as a confused friend recently referenced, Zelig) 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Ah ha! That's it. Apart from the codpiece I remember Zardoz being enjoyable nonsense.

Zelig beinv the Woody Allen thing where he's inserted into historical movie clips? Any good? 

In reply to aln:

Zardoz is really good and not nonsense. Its flaw is having too many ideas for its own good and being about thirty years ahead of its own time.

I saw Zelig when I was about 15 and made myself think that I liked it and understood it probably because I was told to (maybe it was on Moviedrome). I can’t have faith in that opinion and I should just rewatch it with fresh adult eyes. But yes that’s the one. 

In reply to aln:

Zelig is good. He's running with an idea that you will find you are familiar with but he's making something concrete out of it. The ideas about celebrity, superficiality and exploitation are interesting.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

As was Darby O’Gill and the Little People. He was also much better at putting on an Irish accent than a Scottish one.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I probably wouldn't disagree with most of that, although I think you're maybe a bit uncharitable about his star quality which was considerable.

As for the man himself, we can only go off old interviews and second hand information. I would have liked to hear from people who knew him well, like Michael Caine or Billy Connolly. Certainly his wife of 45 years thought him a decent man, and from that I don't think it unreasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In reply to aln:

I linked to the codpiece picture above

In reply to Blue Straggler:

speaking of Zardoz, really strange to think of seeing that all those years ago in the mid 70s and seeing Charlotte Rampling turn up in Scandi Crimi as a French detective on BBC4