DC Film Society: Adam's Rib November 2020

Sean Connery

Many years ago I was in a group of federal staff killing time before a Congressional meeting. The senior official in our group, the one who was going to be briefing the Congressional staff, told us stories from her time backpacking through Europe in the 70s. She was waiting for a bus in Scotland when a car pulled up and the driver, Sean Connery, asked her if she wanted a ride to the next town. As you might expect, she eagerly accepted the offer. When Connery dropped her off he told her that he would be coming by that street at 4pm tomorrow in case she wanted a ride back. She was back at that spot by 3pm the next day just to be sure. None of us hearing the story asked why she would go in a car with a man she had never met, or whether she even planned to go back to her prior stop. It was Sean Connery. Of course she would take a ride with him.

Connery, who passed away on October 31 at the age of 90, always seemed to be in a special class all by himself. The rules didn’t apply to him. Some of his classic scenes, particularly in the early James Bond films, would never fly in 2020. With him though, they all still work. Connery could make even the most outlandish situations credible. In the Goldfinger opening scenes, Bond strips off a wetsuit to reveal a tuxedo. I’ve never done this, but I would imagine that if I put on a tux, then put on a wetsuit over it, went for a swim and took the wetsuit off, the tuxedo underneath would be a wrinkled mess. For Connery though, the tux is fully pressed, looks great and we don’t doubt it for a second. Calling Connery cool is accurate but sells him short, like saying LeBron James is good at basketball. Connery had a singular presence on screen, even if he wasn’t doing anything. Often the others in a scene appeared to be playing off him like planets orbiting the sun.

I was 10 years old when I learned who Sean Connery was. Until that point the names James Bond and Roger Moore were synonymous. Gradually I began hearing that there was a different Bond movie coming out, Never Say Never Again, with someone else as Bond, someone who had played him before, someone whom the adults on TV remembered fondly. My friends and I saw this new/old Bond, and how Connery fit the role so perfectly. A woman bumps into him and apologizes for getting him wet. Bond reassures her that "My martini is still dry." Even at that young age I know that only Connery could pull that off.

After that I gradually discovered the 60s Bond films on VHS and understood what Connery did. He set the Bond archetype and the standards other Bond actors are striving for to this day. The charisma, charm and confidence are there even for his first few moments in Dr. No, one of the landmark entrances in film history (that that I describe more fully here). When Connery first utters “Bond, James Bond” with the cigarette hanging from his mouth we immediately get a sense of the character.

Connery embodied 007 so fully that it’s strange to realize that he was far from the first choice. Bond creator Ian Fleming envisioned Noel Coward in the role. Producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman preferred Cary Grant or David Niven, but both of them declined, believing they were too old for the part. Fleming was shocked when the producers suggested Connery, a former boxer with little screen experience. In Fleming’s eyes, Connery was far too rough to play such a refined and cultured hero. Broccoli and Saltzman assured Fleming that Connery would fit. They and Dr. No director Terrence Young worked with Connery on Bond’s skill and class. Connery quickly mastered that suave and debonair manner of Grant or Niven but infused it with a physicality and a sense of danger. Bond could make a funny quip one moment, and be a ruthless killer a minute later. Connery made all of it work.

While I was delving into Connery’s past, the current Connery revitalized his career. He won a Supporting Actor Oscar for playing the indefatigable cop Jim Malone in The Untouchables. Connery brought all of the Bond qualities to Malone but added an air of authority and a layer of weariness. Malone had seen too much and learned bitter lessons. So had Marko Ramius, the Russian submarine commander Connery played in The Hunt for Red October. Both Malone and Ramius mentored younger characters in their films. Who wouldn’t want Sean Connery as a guide? Connery brings the clarity, purpose and believability to moments such as The Untouchables “When he pulls a knife, you pull a gun!” scene. Like Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner), we in the audience accept that yes, this is what you would need to get Al Capone.

Still, my favorite later-Connery role will always be Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In preparing the film, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg quickly realized that only one man could play Indiana Jones’s father. Remember, this is the great Indiana Jones, but he had to feel unsettled and somewhat diminished next to his old man. Since it was Sean Connery we would believe it. Casting Connery was in one sense, a meta-level acknowledgement of the Bond films’ influence on the Indiana Jones series. The move worked even better on the screen, where Connery and Harrison Ford had a chemistry as if they had worked together for years. Their comic timing and facial expressions in their scenes together are even more entertaining than the film’s big set pieces. Even though his role on the page was a strict, absent-minded professor, Connery added the virility and machismo needed to accept that this was the man who spawned Indiana. A key reveal is that another character, a young and attractive archeologist, had slept with both men. Supposedly someone asked in a story conference if a woman like that would have sex with a bookish professor twice her age. The response was “No, but she would with Sean Connery.”

Connery remained on top as the 80s turned to the 90s, working with much younger stars such as Michelle Pfeiffer, Wesley Snipes, Nicolas Cage and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The films varied in quality, but Connery could always elevate a mediocre story. In the meantime, I went back to some of his earlier non-Bond films. As much as Connery cultivated his screen persona and style, he was also willing to challenge himself. His work with Sidney Lumet pushed him in new directions. Connery played a hardened military prisoner in The Hill and a brutal police detective in The Offence. As an actor we were used to seeing in complete control, Connery could be just as convincing as men losing themselves either to an untenable environment or their own demons. In John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King, Connery brilliantly subverted his own persona, playing a charlatan whose reach exceeded his grasp. He was always a much better-rounded actor than he got credit for.

One of Connery’s talents was knowing when to leave. After the 2003’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Connery retired. He only performed occasional voice work and rarely appeared in public. Still, it was impossible to see a Bond film and not think of him. He was in so many movies that still last, movies audiences see many times, movies that are part of the culture. He was always out there in some form, even if it was Darrell Hammond’s playing him as Alex Trebek’s foul mouthed tormentor on “Saturday Night Live.”

Perhaps what I will remember most about Connery was a gasp. It was in 1991, when I was watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. During the final scene as he is marrying Robin Hood and Maid Marian, Friar Tuck gives the usual “Let him speak now or forever hold his peace” when we hear an unmistakable Scottish brogue exclaim "Hold, I speak!" It’s Connery as King Richard, entering the scene. As this was pre-Internet and social media, Connery’s cameo was a well-kept secret. The audience gasped as he appeared. There was such joy seeing him, even if only for a couple of minutes. There have been many movie stars, but only legends get a gasp. That was Sean Connery.

Adam Spector
November 1, 2020