SEAN CONNERY

                                                            Part 1

Many actors have done a fine job of portraying James Bond; Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore to name a few. But there’s only one Bond- Sean Connery.

No one else could lift that eyebrow or say “shaken, not stirred”, like the wily Scot. Well, nothing lasts forever and Connery bid this vale of tears farewell at the great age of 90.

And while Bond was his signature role he had lots of others. Since the Bond movies tend to have the same basic plot, I’m going to skip them. They are fun, though!

That leaves me with only 15 or so good movies to write about. So this is going to be the first of probably three articles about the late great Sean. I am, of course, up for that. I’m going to go chronologically starting with the earliest.

Marnie (1964) features Tippi Hedren in the title role and Sean Connery as wealthy Mark Rutland. Marnie seems a really bad girl who steals money here and there. Mark falls in love with her, tries to pay off her victims, and straighten her out. Her past is revealed in a layered fashion in an attempt to explain her sticky fingers. Not director Alfred Hitchcock at the top of his game, but pretty good. 

In The Hill (1965) Sean Connery is Joe Roberts, a British soldier sent to a British detention camp in desert Libya. The camp is run by sadistic officers bent on breaking the prisoners. The hill of the title is a manmade thing which only exists to torture the prisoners. The sadistic officers make them run up it over and over. Roberts becomes something of a hero to the other men because he refuses to knuckle under.

Connery plays completely against type in A Fine Madness (1966) and he aces it. He is Samson Shillitoe, a failed poet with severe writer’s block. This does not, however, affect his attraction to various women. He spends time in a sanitarium where he is subjected to a risky operation, which has no effect on his temper or writer’s block. But he does meet and bed more ladies.

The Anderson Tapes (1971) is one of the first films to include various kinds of  clandestine and open surveillance. Sean Connery  plays Duke Anderson, a safe-cracker just released from prison. He plans to rob an entire apartment building and rounds up a group of miscreants to help him. Unknown to the gang, the whole operation is being watched and recorded from the beginning by the IRS, the FBI, a private detective and others. By the time the gang is ready to leave with their loot, the place is completely surrounded by the police and a shootout leaves most of them dead. 

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is a delightful romp that keeps you guessing unless you already know the answer. You won’t get it from me. The 1964 version is quite good with Sean Connery as Col. Arbuthnot.  A whole bunch of train passengers are stalled over night by a track blockage and daylight reveals that one of them was murdered. The 2017 version is, I think, equally good. If you’ve never seen either, or read the book, you will enjoy the story.

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups. More Sean Connery films next time.