James Bond, in his literary and cinematic manifestations, is a transitional figure that straddles the fault line dividing the 1950s and the 1960s. On the one hand, in Raymond Durgnat’s colorful formulation, “Bond, J. is the last man in of the British Empire Superman’s XI.” At best, he is a loyal and patriotic defender of Britain and its empire; at worst, he is jingoistic and xenophobic bigot who deplores the welfare state and the teddy boys. On the other hand, with regard to such things as sex and gambling, Bond is a liberated . In this paper I will analyse the shifting qualities of the 007 figure. I will examine what happened to the figure of Bond in the shift from novel to screen, from Fleming to Connery.