BEAUTY & BRAINS: THE BOND GIRLS

So James Bond is 50 years old, apparently. While Bond himself has gone through many incarnations, from the incomparable Connery to the mystifying choice of Roger Moore to today's Daniel Craig, only the character himself has remained constant. And so have his women, specifically his arch-nemesis women. Bond's cold war hotties were usually Soviet spies like Anya Amasova and Tatiana Romanova, cunning and beautiful women who started out as mortal foes but ended up flinging themselves at Bond with girlish glee. In comparison to the staid and efficient Miss Moneypenny, these ladies were dynamic and exotic and dangerous. And yet they were, at heart, beautiful and ultra feminine young women. In many ways, these female spies were a glimpse at what mid-century men secretly longed for in a woman. They had beauty and brains, charisma and determination, competence and know-how, but femininity and sexuality above all else. The fact that they all ultimately threw over their evil spymasters in order to sail off with Bond shows that they were pro-value deep down, too, and capable of love. That's why we still love them 50 years on, and likely always will.

Body In Mind