For more than half a century James Bond has been an icon of masculinity.
That's over 50 years of bedding beautiful babes with names like Pussy Galore, Plenty O'Toole and Holly Goodhead.
This, despite the character having been played for campy laughs by Roger Moore, sent up by actors from David Niven to Mike Myers (in his Austin Powers movies), and being dropped into such regrettable nonsense as The World is Not Enough with Denise Richards cast as a (ahem) nuclear scientist.
Indeed, the character may be stronger than ever. In the spring of 2008, Doubleday published Devil May Care, a return to Fleming's original conception of the character but written by British literary novelist Sebastian Faulks.
By fall of that same year, the producers of the Bond movies unveiled the 22nd installment, Quantum of Solace. It's the second starring Daniel Craig who, in our humble opinion, helped revitalize the series in 2006's gritty Bond chapter, Casino Royale.
We're hoping that he and the filmmakers again bring all the dashing savoir-faire that the role demands. After all, we have to get our style tips from somewhere -- and Vin Diesel just hasn't been doing it for us.
And so, in anticipation of another Bond flick, we've uncovered a few tips on dating international femme fatales. Some of these might even work in the real world.
Be prepared
Sure, Bond always has plenty of gadgets, from car ejector seats to laser-beam pens, that help him defeat the bad guys. But where Q, MI6's resident genius, falls short, and where Bond excels, is in preparation d'amour. When he's staying at a hotel -- always the finest, since it's on the government tab -- he always has a bottle, usually of Champagne, ready to be opened should he invite back to the room an international arms dealer's moll or a Russian assassin.
It's not what you say, but how you say it
God knows, if Bond had only his quips to rely on in movies like The Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy, he'd be getting less action than Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But there's a reason the phrase "Bond… James Bond" is one of the most famous in movie history: the rhythm. If Sean Connery, the first Bond, brought anything to the role, it was the way the hero talked. Bond rarely raises his voice, and often follows up his, let's face it, rather lame witticisms with a bemused, knowing expression. Not to mention… just the right, dramatic… pause.
Learn the walk
Novelist Ian Fleming, Bond's creator, thought the untested Sean Connery was "too uncouth" to play his gentleman spy in the first Bond movie, Dr. No. But, according to Total Film Magazine, after an interview and "a quick demonstration walk," producer Harry Saltzman insisted on the Scottish actor. Whether or not that demo was the same coiled swagger Connery used in Dr. No and subsequent movies isn't certain, but Bond's walk conveys confidence and a quiet intensity -- whether approaching a card table, a woman with a gun in her hand or a bottle of '61 Bolinger.