For True Bond Fans, DVDs Are Forever

How long are you willing to wait for that perfect special edition of your favorite film on DVD? The prospect of a collector’s release loaded with audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage and never-before-seen outtakes is something most film buffs dream about.

James Bond fans have been doing just that: dreaming . . . and waiting. Waiting, in fact, for so long that DVD didn’t even exist when some of the first 007 special editions were promised and never delivered.

Back in the heyday of laserdiscs, only two special editions of Bond films were widely available to consumers: “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball.” A lavish collector’s set of “Live and Let Die” was announced in the mid-’90s, complete with a street date, but never materialized. And when the Voyager Co. released superb editions of “Dr. No,” “From Russia With Love” and “Goldfinger” in 1991, the discs were immediately pulled off the shelves because of producers’ objections to what they said were inaccurate and insensitive remarks made by key crew members on the audio commentaries.

These days, those three rare discs routinely command between $100 and $200 on the Internet auction house E-bay.

Now, MGM is finally giving 007-philes all the Bond they can get. The studio has just released special editions of seven Bond films from various eras, all of which include a stunning amount of supplemental material.

Better yet: Two more batches are expected in May and next fall. By the end of next year, all 18 official Bond films will be out on DVD.

“There’s always a sense of anticipation associated with the Bond films,” says David Naylor, one of the producers in charge of the current special editions and director of the 1995 retrospective film “The World of James Bond.” “There’s always a new gadget, a new Bond girl, a new villain to talk about.”

The first seven titles are available at $35 each or together as a box set. This is what you get if you have $200 to spare and decide to buy the complete collection:

* “Goldfinger” (1964), if not the best of the whole series, is definitely the one that defined the look and feel of all that followed. Hugely entertaining, it stars Sean Connery and boasts the presence of Oddjob, the sinister henchman who decapitates statues with his murderous hat.

* “Thunderball” (1965) is maybe the most atmospheric Bond film. A dark tone poem of an action movie, it offers everything in excess: heinous villains, gorgeous Bond girls and a dark, majestic mood that stays with you long after the end credits have rolled.

* “Live and Let Die” (1973), Roger Moore’s first stab at the role, is a wicked display of high-voltage entertainment involving voodoo, speedboat chases and a priestess named Solitaire.

* “For Your Eyes Only” (1981) is an attempt to bring Bond back to reality after the rambunctious space shenanigans of “Moonraker.” Dry and suspenseful, it succeeds only partially in creating memorable situations.

* “Licence to Kill” (1989) is either loved or hated among connoisseurs. Utilizing the harder-edged qualities of Timothy Dalton as 007, it flirts with film noir.

* “Goldeneye” (1995), 007’s much-touted return to action with the current Bond, Pierce Brosnan, is a faceless rehash of the old titles in the series.

* “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997) is a significant improvement over “Goldeneye,” with Asian action star Michelle Yeoh bringing much-needed verve to the proceedings.

Bond aficionados, however, will probably skip the movies at the outset and jump right to the “special features” menu. They won’t be disappointed.

Some of the material has been available before. The “Goldfinger” and “Thunderball” DVDs, for instance, are slightly enriched versions of special editions released on laserdisc in 1995. The “Tomorrow Never Dies” DVD is the same as the laserdisc that came out in 1997, and some of the “Goldeneye” extras were previously seen.

But the “Live and Let Die,” “Licence to Kill” and “For Your Eyes Only” sets are entirely new, and hint at the contents of the other titles to come. All three contain two full-length audio commentaries with the directors and members of the crew and cast (although not the actors who’ve played Bond). Also included are a variety of radio and TV spots, production-video footage, music videos and photo galleries.

By far the most thrilling inclusion, though, is a series of newly produced half-hour documentaries chronicling the making of the films. Narrated with flair by “The Avengers’ ” Patrick Macnee, these have been put together by filmmakers with a deep understanding of the Bond phenomenon.

“Inside Live and Let Die,” for instance, includes an interview with Moore in which he speaks candidly about the differences between him and Connery as 007. There is also some delightful footage from the original production, culled from a featurette about the making of the movie that was never released.

“I managed to find a film nobody had seen before,” says producer Naylor. “At the time, it was felt that the original making-of documentary gave away too many details about how the stunts were made.”

The negative of that documentary was destroyed, but one print landed in the hands of a Los Angeles-based stuntman. “I called every stuntman’s association I could find and eventually found him,” Naylor says. The man let him rummage through his garage, and, 25 years after the fact, Naylor found two canisters containing the precious footage.

Naylor and his partners are conducting similar searches all over the world, hoping to include more outtakes and newsreel footage in the documentaries for the remaining films.

“I just dug up two television commercials from London in the ‘60s for Bond slacks and a raincoat,” he reports. “I think people love these kind of things because they’re just so evocative of the time when they were made. When you look back at those old behind-the-scenes clips, you are looking at a piece of cinematic history.”