2020, Art, books, Movies, News, Uncategorized

RIP Sir Sean

57 Comments

I knew it was coming but seeing the headline that Sean Connery had passed away still hit me hard.  I was only three when he played his first leading movie role in Darby O’Gill and the Little People but I remember seeing it in theatres when I was about eight and I was stricken.  I’m pretty sure I’ve seen everything he has starred in, good and bad.  I even watched Zardoz on purpose because he starred in it. 

As you can imagine, he was THE James Bond as far as I’m concerned.  I do like most of the others but Sean will always embody Bond for me.  I know the movies are seriously outdated at this point (well, what isn’t these days?) but I will still watch one if I come across it while channel surfing.

In fact, I’ve just gotten a notification that Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure in DVD has arrived for me at my library.  I’m not sure if I’ve seen it before, but I’ll be especially watching for Sean Connery playing one of the bad guys.  Then hopefully I can find a few more of his supportive roles in the next few weeks.

Any Sean Connery movies you’ve seen?  Anybody else who you’ve seen (or read) all their work?

57 thoughts on “RIP Sir Sean”

  1. today is kurt vonnegut’s birthday
    i’ve read his catalog of work

    i went to see goldfinger in the theater with my mom in 1964 at age 9 and she informed me there were inappropriate parts but it was still a good movie
    like what i asked and she said like where they are in bed and he has in the pajama bottoms and the girl has on the top. wel that had skipped right past my 9 year old not yet sec driven brain but her comments got me started .
    sean was the only james bond worth his salt and he was wonderful
    just like johnny weissmuller was the only tarzan i liked
    happy armasist day
    world war one guys got screwed out of their recognition by holiday condensing politicians not wanting days for every dang war

    rip 007

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  2. I remember going to the Uptown Theater when it only showed second-run movies, usually in pairs and with themes. So there could be a Bond weekend, a Beatles day, a week of Squint Like Clint – you get the idea. I would go with my high school friends and we always sat in the balcony. We had a couple favorite spots. Main floor was only for Rocky Horror or when they had the balcony closed for some reason. While we didn’t always agree on which Bond or villain was best, we generally agreed as a group that the tech he had at his disposal was fun.

    There was a point where I had read every Tom Robbins book out – and then there came a couple that I didn’t read right away, and now I can’t say I have read everything. I have started “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas” a couple of times and keep getting distracted. “Still Life with Woodpecker,” however, will remain memorable as it has one of my most favorite book openings – an ode to a typewriter.

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  4. I’ve read everything by William Kent Krueger. Just finished reading all of Nelson DeMille’s novels last month. Plans are to read all novels solely authored by Elmore Leonard, Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, David Baldacci (I pretty much keep up to date with him–only one not read), Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Vince Flynn, Brian Freeman, Robert Ludlum, James Lee Burke, Agatha Christie (woefully behind on her work), Ken Follett, Dennis Lehane (pretty much up to date with him), John Sandford, and probably some other unknown (to me) author who I’ll stumble across or be turned on to by a fellow book lover.

    I’m not into famous authors co-writing novels with lesser-knowns solely to keep the franchise cranking out money. It taints the intimate experience I feel with a single author when I read his/her books.

    I’m not much into watching every movie a favorite actor has made, but if I had to pick one, I might go with Kevin Cline. Maybe Bogey too, but I’ve probably seen most of his films anyway.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    2. You have a bigger appetite for mystery novels than I. I was delighted to read all Tony Hillerman novels, and I pretty much read everything by Elmore Leonard. James Burke has a flair for incorporating weather in his writing. I’m a bit less of a fan of mysteries than I am of cop procedurals. I’m a huge fan of Henning Mankell and of his mentors, the Wahloos. I miss Stieg Larsson. Did you ever read Smilla’s Sense of Snow? Or Gorky Park? Both great.

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      1. I’m pretty sure I read Gorky Park decades ago. I wasn’t much a fan of Larsson’s. I doubt I’ve read Smilla’s Sense of Snow but who can remember at our advanced age? 🙂

        (I’m pretty sure I had eggs for breakfast.)

        Chris

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  5. Many times when I say I’ve read every book by an author or seen every movie by an actor or actress, it’s because I went down a rabbit hole to make sure I had seen them all or read them all. Sean Connery is one of the few where I just watched everything when it came out so I have seen them all. Of course, now that I’m looking for things in which he was not the lead actor, I guess technically now I’m down a rabbit hole.

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  6. I have read all of Dorothy Sayers mysteries, including her short stories, as well as some of her theological writings, and I started her translation of The Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy.

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  8. And now to the question – I’m sure I saw all his Bond movies, and several others, but I see there are gaps – will have to get The Untouchables soon.

    Probably the only current author I’ve read all of is Louise Penny, unless they’ve written only one or two books. My favorite mystery writers are just too prolific!
    I did read all six Jane Austen novels at some point, and I was aiming for Charlotte Bronte’s, but see I haven’t achieved that.

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  9. Husband says he has read all of Raymond Chandler’s books. He isn’t sure if that is much of an accomplishment, since Chandler didn’t write very much at all.

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        1. Well, I could say the same thing I say to other authors when I communicate with them which is “write more, write faster.” When I said this to Louise Penny, she said she’d try.

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  11. OT: television shows. Last night I watched a rom-com Christmas miniseries called Dash and Lilly. Great fun, if you like that sort of thing. Of course, it isn’t a searing expose of New York City during the holiday season, but it is a lot wittier and quick than a Hallmark Xmas movie. In four days, season 4 of The Crown starts up. That series is excellent. This year Queen Elizabeth II must contend with two difficult women, Maggie Thatcher and Princess Di.

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    1. Me too. I have to admit that the killing off of Han Solo kind of finished me for the series. I don’t know what they’ve done with Leia’s character now that Carrie Fisher has passed away,but I don’t like it when you kill off my favorite characters.

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  13. I have read all of Louise Penny, William Kent Krueger, Louise Erdrich and Margaret Atwood. I have read a lot of the old British classics like Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and of course Tolkien. I went through a horror phase in the 1990s and read all of Steven King. I wouldn’t touch it now. I have read some of Tony Hillerman. I have read some of the Dan Brown novels. They are exciting page turners with fast action. There are many more but I really can’t remember them. My mom has Alzheimer’s… My favorite authors (now) are Louise Erdrich and Margaret Atwood. I wish they would both write faster!

    I was never a big fan of James Bond. Suspense with a shot of sexism has pretty much always turned me off. As Chris said above, I liked him in Indiana Jones. He had charisma.

    I do like serial stories, whether in novels, tv shows or movies. That said, I only watched the first Star Wars. I don’t go to movie theaters – that’s not a new thing – I just don’t go there. So my movie watching is only at home.

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    2. Lately, Word Press doesn’t like me posting from my iPad at all. I have to type out my comment, select it, copy it (otherwise it will disappear), then sign in and sometimes by the time I get back to where I wanted to comment, I am signed out again. If not, I can paste my comment in before I get signed out but inevitably if I go away and come beck I have to go through that all over again. Liking anything is out of the question.

      Consequently, I have to really want to say something to make it worth the rigamarole.

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      1. I have lots of trouble with commenting, liking others’ posts, and likely the original post. I use both iPhone and iPad. It’s worse with my phone.

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  15. Oh, I read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. I have not read the third book in the trilogy yet, The Mirror and the Light. It is historical fiction following the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII’s time. It is not the most compelling reading I have ever done but worthwhile if you like historical fiction.

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    1. I liked it quite a bit Although at the end of this third book I didn’t think that Mantel did as good a job of making Cromwell sympathetic. Which isn’t surprising. I marveled in the first two books of how she could present that story with him being sympathetic character..

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      1. Yes, I understand that he was really a pretty cold-hearted man. He would have to be cold-hearted to do the work he did for Henry VIII. I thought she made him look like a nice guy too.

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  19. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut at this point, but…. I loved Sean Connery’s portrayal of James Bond. I really haven’t seen any James Bond movies since he was replaced. And, yes, they are plenty sexist, but somehow managed to have enough irreverent humor to make up for it. But, I have to admit that I just never could get over an interview with Sean Connery where he stated that he thought it was alright to slap a woman if she insisted in being a pain in the ass. In my book, not even Sean Connery gets to do that.

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  20. I have to admit I’ve never seen a James Bond movie. I saw the Untouchables, and the Indiana Jones movie in which he play Harrison Ford’s dad, and I liked both of those.

    If I have ever embarked on a quest to read all of an author’s output or watched all of an actor’s product, I’ve fallen behind. I think I have read everything that J. D. Salinger published, but that hardly counts, since so much of what he wrote is still unpublished and the actual available work is scant. I’ve read most of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I’ve probably fallen short on some letters and journals.

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