124 THE RANKING: SEAN CONNERY

No Zardoz? Shocking. Positively shocking.

Chris: We’re here to talk about the work of Sean Connery. And there’s only one place to start: James Bond. Because when you talk about Connery, you have to talk about Bond. The two are inextricably linked. He was the first, he was the alpha.

Helen: His ex-bond work is his best. But he’s a great James Bond. He set the template. Connery’s Bond was the one by which all others are judged.

Dan: I agree with Sidney Lumet, who said that Connery’s Bond was a great performance because Connery is not like Bond at all. Everyone thought he was basically playing himself. He wasn’t. He wasn’t close to Fleming’s conception of the character at all.

Chris: The received wisdom is that it all comes to a head in Goldfinger.

Ian: It’s the film that leans most heavily on him. There’s not a lot of action in Goldfinger. It’s all about his passion, and how he had his balls nearly lasered.

Helen: It’s that sweet spot. It’s between being comfortable in the role, and not being bored yet.

Ian: Dan mentioned Sidney Lumet and he made The Hill after Goldfinger. Is that the point where he’s thinking, “Let’s do something different now?” Chris: The Hill is interesting because it’s during the main Bond era, but sets up the post-bond era for him. Lumet was the director he worked with the most. It’s fantastic. It’s a brutal film.

Ian: It’s a performance of intense defiance.

Chris: He knew Bond wasn’t going to go on forever. He certainly wasn’t going to be playing Bond in 1983. He also did Marnie around the same time. It’s seen as a lesser Hitchcock. Does that mean it’s a lesser Connery?

Helen: It’s a good performance, but he was maybe slightly miscast in that role.

Ian: I think it’s a commentary on Bond. That controlling aspect of his character, I think he was better at that. He was better at that than warmth and being loveable. He’s better when he’s being a bastard.

Chris: I think he had a unique ability to blend the two. In some of his key roles — The Untouchables, Highlander

— he’s a loveable bastard. That’s not easy to pull off.

Helen: Curmudgeonly is my favourite Connery, to be

honest. That’s what I grew up with, the grumpy old man with a heart of gold underneath.

Dan: You see him gradually settling down into the role which defined him in my mind, even more than Bond. And that’s the father figure, the mentor, curmudgeonly or otherwise. By the time you’re at Time Bandits, he was definitely the surrogate father figure that I wanted.

Ian: Towards the end of the ’70s, you get to the stinkers. But the standout of that decade is The Man Who Would Be King.

Dan: The joy of it, more than anything, is the union of Connery and Caine. These two ’60s icons coming together. And it’s a real Boy’s Own, classic, pulpy adventure. It’s a more fundamental Connery movie than Goldfinger.

Helen: Is it time to talk about Highlander? Because somebody obviously looked at the title and thought, “We’ve got to get Sean Connery.” He wasn’t going to play the Highlander, that was gonna be a French dude. But he’s an Egyptian who became an adoptive Spaniard. It doesn’t make a lick of sense to hire Sean Connery, but I’m glad they did.

Chris: Highlander is a pile of old pish.

Ian: I’m with Chris.

Dan: No way.

Helen: Look, it doesn’t have to be good, it’s a classic.

Chris: That’s quite the oxymoronic statement. Look, it’s fun at times. Never more fun than when Connery’s on screen. But if it didn’t have him stealing the show, it wouldn’t be as well remembered.

Ian: Now we’re coming up to Untouchables, is it worth talking about his skill with accents? He was an actor in the old-school tradition where he didn’t even try.

Chris: See, I think that’s a movie-star move. People go to see Sean Connery, you don’t need to get lost with him faffing around with an accent.

Helen: I feel The Hunt For Red October gets away with the Scottish thing because he’s Ukrainian. Maybe it’s meant to represent that? I’m choosing to believe it was a choice.

Chris: No-one told the other actors. They’re all doing their best, and Sean’s just walked in off the golf course. But I don’t care. He won an Oscar for The Untouchables for playing an Irishman with a fairly strong Scottish accent.

Ian: He has one of cinema’s great speeches in that movie. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun.

Chris: He can knock the hell out of those speeches. He’s so gruff and irascible and likeable. He drags the movie, and Costner, because Elliot Ness is a wet blanket of a man when they meet, by the lapels.

Helen: And he looks great in the tweed.

Dan: He also gets one of the greatest death scenes in cinema. Chris: Highlander and The Untouchables gave his career a bit of a renaissance, and led to Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Spielberg and Lucas were trying to think of the perfect person to play Indiana Jones’ dad and went, “James Bond”. But Henry Jones is so un-bond-like. He’s a bookworm.

Helen: It’s latent in him. You see where Indy got it all from.

Ian: It was Spielberg’s idea, like all good ideas.

Dan: There was something about him. He could be the father figure to anyone. It doesn’t matter how old you are. He’s your dad.

Chris: It’s my favourite of the Indy movies, precisely because of that relationship between Indy and Henry.

Helen: It’s got so many shades to it. Even when there’s some kind of rapprochement, they still go off into the sunset bickering. That moment when he’s holding Indy in the abyss and pulling him up is gorgeous.

Chris: When he calls him “Indiana” for the first time. Oh, that’s so good. It’s my number-one Connery.

Helen: The Hunt For Red October for me.

Dan: It’s solid, but it never blew me away.

Helen: I love the problemsolving mystery aspect as Jack Ryan’s trying to figure out what Connery is doing, and when they meet it’s a great not-quite father-son relationship. It’s practically perfect.

Dan: It’s no Crimson Tide.

Ian: The biggest film of the ’90s is one I don’t care for at all. It’s The Rock.

Chris: Why don’t you like it?

Ian: I’ve never been the biggest Michael Bay fan, although this is probably his best film.

Chris: It’s the one that flirts most with coherence.

Helen: I love The Rock. The dialogue is really fun and clever, Nicolas Cage had reined in his weirdness just enough, and Connery keeps setting himself up for zingers.

Dan: It’s Connery coming back to Bond in a proper way. The Rock is the closest we’ve come as an audience to getting that, and enjoying him in that way.

Chris: Right, enough squabbling. Let’s vote!