JAMES BOND
FACT FILES

Sean Connery as James Bond was featured prominently in two hardcover annuals in 1963 and 1964. Film Show was published by Purnell. Ken & Sylvia Ferguson supplied the editorial, with all images coming from their extensive Photoplay picture archive.

Although the traditional hardcover annuals available in the 1960s in the UK were firmly aimed at children, the popularity of the more adult oriented Sean Connery film series couldn’t be overlooked. In late 1965, just in time for the the Christmas market, the first James Bond 007 annual was released. EON Productions were keen to capitalize on the success of certain elements of the films that particularly appealed to a younger audience, such as the gadget-laden CORGI Aston Martin DB5, and these popular compendium annuals were as ubiquitous as a chocolate selection box underneath the Christmas tree, becoming highly collectible items in their own right. Annuals were usually issued to tie-in with popular children's comic or TV characters, but as the first three James Bond annuals were published at the height of ‘Bondmania’ in the mid-Sixties they were filled with pictures and information about the Sean Connery films, alongside other spy related picture stories and fiction. All three 1960s annuals contained many full page colour stills from the films (including deleted scenes and many not seen in any other publication), and publicity portraits of the stars. Unusually, the 1966 annual included two colour portraits of Sean Connery from The Hill (1965) directed by Sidney Lumet - a film that the target audience of this publication would not be permitted to see at the time as it was originally classified with an ‘X’ certificate by the British Board of Film Censors, which limited the audience to those over 16 years of age. The 1968 annual also reprinted the 1958 Daily Express comic strip version of LIVE AND LET DIE drawn by John McLusky. This marked the first time that the James Bond comic strip had been presented in full as a continuous story, although the panels were slightly reformatted to remove the title caption from each strip.

As The Man With The Golden Gun was released in December 1974, it was too late to have a feature in the 1975 PHOTOPLAY FILM ANNUAL, but was included in a four-page article ‘Secrets behind those big movie moments’ in the 1976 edition, which explained the background to the spectacular Astro Spriral Jump performed by Lauren “Bumps” Willert. The 1976 PHOTOPLAY FILM ANNUAL also included a movie quiz asking readers to name the players who featured as six Bond villains. Thankfully the answers were also provided, as an unfortunate typo named the character played by Yaphet Kotto in Live And Let Die (1973) as Dr. Jakarta!!

Three further specials were issued in 1979, 1981 and 1983 to tie in with Roger Moore's fourth, fifth and sixth films as James Bond. Although these three annuals also featured archival James Bond/spy related content, they were aimed specifically as cross-promotion for Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983). These hardcover books were issued mid-year and labelled a ‘Special’ rather than an ‘Annual’. The For Your Eyes Only special was written by entertainment journalist Tony Crawley (1938- ), with the text of ‘For Your Eyes Only - the movie’ by John Brosnan (1947-2005), author of the groundbreaking book James Bond In The Cinema (1972). The Octopussy special feature text was written by British journalist Richard Holliss, with a comic strip version of the film written by Steve Moore (1949-2014) and illustrated by comic book artist, writer and editor Paul Neary (1949-2024). The For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy specials have identical front and back covers.

*The reproduction of James Bond's fictional Secret Service file had originally appeared in the 1968 annual.

UK publishing company Hamlyn released the first official authorised James Bond book in 1987 to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the 007 series. Though not in the same format as the earlier children’s annuals, The Official James Bond 007 Movie Book was still targeted at a younger audience, at a time when the films themselves were trying to move away from their more humorous elements that had become popular during the Roger Moore era.

The Official James Bond 007 Movie Book was updated and expanded to coincide with the release of Licence To Kill in 1989. Sally Hibbin also wrote The Making of Licence To Kill, published by Hamlyn as a paperback edition, which was the first in-depth book covering all aspects of the production of a James Bond film. In 1989 Hamlyn also published a slim hardcover overview of the James Bond films from Dr. No to Licence To Kill, featuring over 100 photographs from the films, with diagrams, quizzes and more; James Bond The Official 007 Fact File written by Richard Holliss, former editor of Starlog (UK) magazine, was still aimed at a younger audience and contained a brief overview of the films, cars, gadgets, and villains etc., and was effectively a modern replacement for the more generic original 1960s compendium annuals.

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