With the release of Spectre fast approaching, this week Neil Calloway looks at what the public consider the best in James Bond films…

So we’re all gearing up to the new Bond film – in Halloween week, appropriately enough, given its title. Ricky Church is doing his reviews of previous outings for the franchise for Flickering Myth. Daniel Craig did his best to publicise the film by admitting in a recent interview that he’d rather slash his wrists than make another Bond.

Of course, like a good Miss Moneypenny should, Naomie Harris said that Craig was being sarcastic, and a “Sony insider” revealed that the studio had told him to shut up and stop bashing Bond, with another “Hollywood insider” being quoted as saying “Craig is pretentious and thinks he’s better than Bond, that it doesn’t give him the creative range he needs.”.

Perhaps it is a good job that Craig isn’t too keen on donning the tuxedo and strapping on the Walther again; he’s only contracted to one more film, and if a recent poll is to be believed, he’s got some work to do to be the public’s favourite Bond.

Conducted to mark the release of Spectre, last week The Sunday Times polled 4,500 of its readers, asking them their favourite Bond film, Bond villain, Bond girl and, perhaps most importantly, their favourite actor who has played Bond.

Unsurprisingly, given that it is not only the highest grossing Bond film, but the highest grossing film ever at the UK box office, Skyfall won the popular vote for best Bond film, with 17.3% of the vote, ahead of Casino Royale with 15.1%. Goldfinger, the third film in the series, came third in the poll with 14.7%.

When it comes to Bond villains, Skyfall again comes out on top, with Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva being voted number one by 18.7%, almost two percent ahead of Jaws with 16.8%, despite the latter character appearing in both The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Blofeld, the villain in six films across the Connery and Moore eras, and played by five different actors, comes in third place with 16.3%. Casino Royale‘s Le Chiffre is fourth with 8%.

One of the most important elements of a Bond film, for male viewers at least, is the Bond girl. Oddly, here voters eschewed the recent offerings for the top spot (though Casino Royale‘s Vesper Lynd came second with 14.6% percent of the vote), and went for Dr. No‘s Honey Ryder, played by Ursula Andress. It’s been much parodied and referenced, including by Halle Berry in Die Another Day and by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, but it appears that Andress emerging from the sea in a bikini still holds a place in the public imagination, fifty years after it originally appeared on-screen.

This trend continues when readers were asked to name their favourite Bond actor. Daniel Craig came in second with 34.7% of the vote, and Roger Moore was third with 9.3% of the vote, ahead of Pierce Brosnan on 7.1%, Timothy Dalton with 2.8% and George Lazenby, with his lone outing in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, at the rear with 0.9%. Obviously that means the public’s favourite Bond is Sean Connery, the original big screen Bond, who received 45.2% of the vote. Not bad for someone who gave up playing Bond in official films (we’ll disregard 1983’s Never Say Never Again, as it’s not an Eon Production) when Daniel Craig was only 3.

Given the responses above, Skyfall looms large in the public imagination when it comes to Bond, with only the stars or characters from the first film beating it in the poll. Spectre, already the Bond with the biggest budget, will have a lot to live up to if it wants to be as good as its predecessor, and will need to more than match what many – and certainly the bean counters at the British box office – already consider the best Bond film.

Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.