Thread: Best Bond Girl?
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Old 05-01-2008   #38 (permalink)
jason_els
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From least to best...
  1. Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) The Spy Who Loved Me
    Beautiful, deadly, and has a sense of humor. What's not to love? She has to be the least ridiculous Bond girl ever, and loads of fun in bed. I wager she knows the Secret Chinese Basket trick that Wallis Simpson supposedly used to snag Edward VIII. Wai Lin is representative of the type of Bond girl we haven't seen since number one on my list and she's very welcome.
  2. Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress) Dr. No
    What an impossible job Andress must have had. The first on-screen Bond girl and all those fantasies to live up to! Dr. No is the one film I keep coming back to again and again because it stands the test of time so well. There are no gadgets, no special cars, nothing to date the film beyond the costumes and Dr. No's computer room and, of these, the costumes are still tasteful even now. Andress had to play a naive woman so unworldly that she hadn't even had a proper elementary education, yet wasn't crass and foolish. Andress made Honey Ryder appear like Eve from the ocean, unblemished and sweet, without being stupid. I love the story she tells about how she got revenge on her rapist with a black widow. "Did I do wrong?!," she asks incredulously, and even Bond has to agree that she did not. It took great skill on the part of Andress to make Ryder believable and to make sure she fulfilled every fantasy of Bond fans. She passed with flying colors.
  3. Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) The Spy Who Loved Me
    Easily in the ranks of the most beautiful of all Bond babes, Bach was able to make her throwaway character memorable for her subtle acting and depth of character. Has anyone ever looked so good in a black Halston evening gown? No wonder Ringo always looks so happy. She and Moore had chemistry and it showed.
  4. Tracy Draco Di Vicenzo Bond (Diana Rigg) On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Witty, beautiful, and easily the most sophisticated of Bond's various conquests. Rigg gave Tracy a touch of sweetness missing in Emma Peel though just as pragmatic. It's easy to see why Bond married Tracy as she was the only woman to ever prove herself smarter than he was.
  5. Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) Goldfinger
    You know she's a lesbian right? It says so right in the book even if the script only hinted at it. Doesn't matter. Blackman gave Bond girls a brain for one brief moment and it sure as Hell worked. The magic of Goldfinger is that it takes the most ludicrously unbelievable plot in the entire series and somehow makes us believe it's all possible. For decades people would warn about, "skin suffocation," and how you could really buy an Aston Martin with all those wonderful gadgets. Blackman's character stood out in a cast of astonishing characters not because she was outlandish, but because you knew she was the most calculating person in the entire film. She let herself be sexy and intelligent to the point she outshone the most outrageous screen name in movie history. It is said few women can wear orchids without orchids wearing the woman and in this case, Blackman could have been draped in them and it wouldn't matter. She's the Bond girl against which all others are compared.