Growing up the James Bond films were my film staples, but since ITV stopped repeating the old classics endlessly I’ll have to admit I haven’t bothered to extract most of my Bond DVDs from their shrinkwrap (apart from my much loved copy of Goldfinger).

So this weekend when my other half suggested we watch them all, in order, I checked I have them all, put them in order, and began watching. After watching Dr No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger over two days I decided that the best way to get through them and notice the nuances between the films is to try and watch them as quickly as possible, thus the ’22 Bonds in 22 days’ challenge (bear in mind I work full time and go to the cinema most nights after work, so can’t just simply sit down and watch them all).

On Saturday we sat down to Dr No (1962), the first film where Sean Connery stars as James Bond, travelling to Jamaica. Since the last Bond film I watched was the most recent, Quantum of Solace, the most surprising thing I experienced was the extreme slowness of the film, I know 60s films do just track people walking, but this is Bond for gods sake! There’s not even that many fights, which added to the lack of Q action and gadgets made it a very slow watch. The most hilarious scene though, is when Bond escapes capture through some air vents, but whilst travelling down them is suddenly disturbed by a torrent of hot water travelling through them. I may not know exactly how air vents work, but surely if hot water was funnelled through one there should have been a slight puddle when Bond emerged at the bottom? There’s also some pretty racist stereotypes in the film, but nothing particularly unusual for the time. Overall Dr No is a great start for the franchise and Connery delivers some classic lines, beds some women and beats the baddie which is all I require from a Bond film.

On Sunday we did a double shift, with From Russia With Love (1963) followed by Goldfinger (1964). (Here I will have to admit the viewing of From Russia… was slightly hindered by the face that we discovered new levels of the Iphone App Angry Brids were available shortly before and took turns attempting 3 stars perfection whilst watching). Sean Connery returns to foil SPECTRE’s plans again and with an already bigger budget than the first film there’s plenty more action and explosions: I’d not picked up on it before but there is also a great homage to North by Northwest’s crop-dusting sequence where Bond is attacked by a helicopter. Q also makes his debut with some early gadgetry but the ending of From Russia is incredibly dull and uneventful for a Bond movie. Goldfinger is by far my favourite Bond, in my opinion a perfect movie and the only noticeable thing I have to record is that my DVD has picked up some horrible scratches from watching it so much that I shall be ordering the Blu-ray come payday.

So 2 days down.. 19 days and 18 films to go… But should I include the Casino Royale Parody or the Never say Never Again (An unofficial remake of Thunderball?)