Bond fans pick top 50 favourite movie memories

London: James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 from ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘Thunderball’ came top in the list of all time 50 favourite memories from the hit movies. A survey of 1000 moviegoers, conducted by insurance firm esure to mark 50 years of the film franchise, asked fans to name what to them encapsulates their favourite secret service agent.

The famous Aston Martin was followed by Goldfinger’s manservant Oddjob’s metal-rimmed bowler hat that decapitated his enemies, and then the indelible fact that Bond prefers his martinis ‘shaken, not stirred’. Ursula Andress - dressed in a skimpy white bikini as Honey Ryder in the first Bond movie, ‘Dr No’ - comes in at a rather lowly 22, but she is still 23 places above hunky Daniel Craig emerging from the sea in his tight swimming trunks in the remake of ‘Casino Royale’. “Bond is famous for the actors who play him, the villains and, of course, the girls,” a leading daily has quoted esure’s Nikki Sellers as saying. “We wanted to also celebrate the non-human stars of the films, such as the amazing cars, the wonderful inventions and the style icons,” Sellers said. Several of the movie moments chosen by fans are staples of the 007 films and include the opening title sequence featuring the hero aiming along the barrel of a gun. But other essential memories have made no more than a single appearance during the past half century. ‘Goldfinger’, which starred Sean Connery in 1964, and ‘Live And Let Die’ with Roger Moore in 1973 both have five unique entries in the list of Bond magic. Connery’s jetpack from ‘Thunderball’ in 1965 and the incredible flying speedboat in ‘Live And Let Die’ were also in the top five. Michael G Wilson, co- producer of the Bond film franchise, said he “couldn’t choose an absolute favourite because there are so many.” “But the opening sequence from ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, when Bond leaps from Mount Asgard in Canada with a Union Jack parachute, is probably my favourite stunt,” he said. ANI