This is a very uneven decade for Bond fans. EON decided that Bond films should be family entertainment, and toned down the sex and violence. (Actually it could be argued that movies as a whole got dirtier and more violent, and that Bond films refused to change.)

In the process of lightening the films, Bond lost his adult audience in the seventies.

In the sixties, fathers took their sons to 007 films on Friday night in order to bond (pun slightly intended). In the seventies, Bond films became the kind of movies that dad dropped the kids off for during Saturday matinees.

All of Fleming's worries about writing down to the worst expectations of the public came true in this decade... and more.

This also seems to be the decade in which Bond began to lose his American audience. During the sixties, the Bond films made most of their money in the U.S., but by the end of the seventies the foreign sales outgrossed the domestic U.S. reciepts by a ratio of two to one. Although Bond is a foreigner to the U.S. himself, this was a trend that worried Eon and MGM/UA.

Both of these trends would continue well into the nineties.

These changes all coincided with a changing of the 007s: Sean Connery came back for one more lust-filled escapade in Vegas, and then gave way to Roger Moore, who was known mainly as a light actor on television in shows like The Saint and The Persuaders. After the disappointing returns for On Her Majesty's Secret Service with the unknown George Lazenby, Eon decided to play it safe by casting an actor better known in the U.S. market.

Moore was better known, but was that a good thing? Roger needed to craft a very different approach to Bond than Connery. He didn't look dangerous, and so he used that fact to comic effect. Over the course of the decade the films lightened to better incorporate his gift for comedy. It took three films and six years for audiences to warm to this new Bond, but they did. After a couple of disappointing outtings with Moore (so disappointing that Harry Saltzman bailed out and sold his share in the franchise to UA), the filmakers finally found an approach that could use Moore... and that audiences liked. Sadly, the critics never came back.

But who needed critics? EON made more money than ever (not selling more tickets, however -- admission prices for films skyrocketed in the decade, so while Moore's films made more cash, fewer people went). But one critic opined that while Connery's Bond would once meet a villain in a casino and engage in a vicious hand-to-hand combat to dispose of the evil-doer, Moore's Bond just preferred to blow up the whole building. (It wasn't very sporting, but it was sure pretty to watch.)

Heading into the eighties, Bond was making hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars -- he was just making them in Japan. And Roger Moore was proving that James Bond really could live twice...

Diamonds Are Forever

Live and Let Die

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me

James Bond of the Secret Service (Warhead)

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