Was Sir Roger Moore the best Bond? One child of the 1970s makes the case.

In the multi-course meal that is every James Bond film, there comes a palate cleanser of sexual innuendo at the end. During the Sir Roger Moore years, however, the meal seemed to end with a cheese course. Typical is the final scene in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. As The Royal Navy recovers an escape pod in which Commander Bond is engaging in his own brand of between-the-sheets détente with a doe-eyed Soviet agent, the dialogue unfolds:

Minister of Defence, over radio: “Bond! What do you think you’re doing?”

Bond: “Keeping the British end up, Sir.”

Having been forced to utter lines like that, it is understandable why, in the league table of actors who have played 007, many place Sir Roger in third place behind Sir Sean Connery and Mr Daniel Craig. But isn’t it time we give this master of devil-may-care his due? Think Sir Roger and, chances are, you think 1970s Bond: safari jacket, flared trousers, chestnut bouffant, call-girl tan, proto-dad bod and that plummy voice, rich and nutty as fruitcake, all the better to deliver those chalk-on-a-blackboard one-liners, those groaning puns and those dismal double-entendres.

But just as the 1970s (and the safari jacket, which Sir Roger seemed to wear in every movie) are looking better and better, so is his take on the Bond character. In the age of Mr Craig’s wracked and saturnine 007, we have grown accustomed to having our screen heroes tortured and gloomy. The James Bond of Skyfall and Spectre is scarred by unresolved childhood trauma and the violent death of the love of his life (Vesper Lynd). Meanwhile, Jason Bourne can’t remember his own phone number and even cartoon superheroes are neurotic: Batman, as played by Mr Christian Bale, was so miserable you wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off hanging up his cape and seeking the advice of a decent psychoanalyst. Each of those actors takes his action-hero role very, very seriously indeed. Studios and directors demand it, and so do contemporary audiences.