To my great surprise, there are scant YouTube links to Lois Maxwell’s fourteen Bond film appearances as Miss Moneypenny. I’m sure this will be rectified in the days to come. But really, the true Bond film fan should accept no substitute. Caroline Bliss (who copped to a decidedly non-Moneypenny Barry Manilow collection!), Samantha Bond, Barbara Bouchet, and (if you count Never Say Never Again) Pamela Salem couldn’t hold a candle to the intelligence and warmth of Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny. The other Moneypennies were all bimbos by comparison. The character of Miss Moneypenny was undeniably a sexist archetype, whose flirtations were often stifled by the stern warnings of M. But somehow Maxwell brought a quiet dignity to the role, even when Bond treated her like dirt and Maxwell’s dialogue often involved pining for marriage and other now dated and desperate pronouncements. Had it been any other actress besides Maxwell, I don’t believe I would have developed a teenage crush on Miss Moneypenny, particularly the Moneypenny of the Sean Connery films. I watched all the Bond films multiple times and could never entirely understand why Bond rejected her for the floozies. But you have to understand something. I was a naive kid under the influence of Victorian literature and felt that Bond had abdicated on Moneypenny’s polite overtures to Bond. Oh, youthful naivete!
RIP Lois Maxwell
– October 1, 2007Posted in: James Bond, Obits
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (