Vesper Lynd
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| James Bond character | |
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| Vesper Lynd | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Double Agent |
| Affiliation | MVD, MI6 (novel) HM Treasury, Quantum (film) |
| Portrayed by | Ursula Andress (1967) Eva Green (2006) |
Vesper Lynd is a fictional character of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. It has been claimed that Fleming based Lynd on Christine Granville/Krystyna Skarbek.[1] In the 1967 film she is played by Ursula Andress. In the 2006 version she is played by Eva Green.
Vesper is Bond's first romantic interest as presented in Fleming's original novels (although later prequel works by Charlie Higson would present other candidates). Other than Bond's future wife Tracy, she is the only woman in the series to whom Bond proposes.
Vesper Lynd is a pun on West Berlin. Like her namesake, the Cold War-era city of Berlin, Vesper's loyalties are split down the middle. Fleming created a cocktail recipe in the novel that Bond names after Vesper. The "Vesper martini" became very popular after the novel's publication, and gave rise to the famous "shaken, not stirred" catchphrase immortalized in the Bond films. The actual name for the drink (as well as its complete recipe) is uttered on screen for the first time in the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale.
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[edit] Novel biography
Vesper works at MI6 headquarters as personal assistant to Head of section S. She is loaned to Bond, much to his irritation, to assist him in his mission to bankrupt Le Chiffre, the paymaster of a SMERSH-controlled trade union. She poses as a radio seller working with Rene Mathis and later as Bond's companion in order to infiltrate Royale-les-Eaux, the casino in which Le Chiffre frequently gambles. After Bond takes all of Le Chiffre's money in a high-stakes game of baccarat, Vesper is kidnapped by Le Chiffre's thugs, who also nab Bond when he tries to rescue her. Both are rescued after Le Chiffre is assassinated by a SMERSH agent, but only after Bond has been tortured.
Vesper visits Bond every day in the hospital, and the two grow very close; much to his own surprise, Bond develops genuine feelings for her, and even dreams of leaving the service and marrying her. After he is released from the hospital, they go on a holiday together, and eventually become lovers.
Vesper holds a terrible secret, however: she is a double agent working for MVD, and worked with Bond because she was under orders to see that he did not escape Le Chiffre. (Her kidnapping was staged in order to lure Bond into Le Chiffre's clutches.) Prior to her meeting Bond, she had been romantically involved with an RAF operative. This man had been captured by SMERSH, and revealed information about Vesper under torture. Hence, SMERSH was using this operative to blackmail Vesper into helping them. After Le Chiffre's death, she is initially hopeful that she and Bond can start a new life, but realizes this is impossible when she notices a SMERSH operative, Gettler, tracking her and Bond's movements. Consumed with guilt and certain that SMERSH will find and kill both of them, she commits suicide, leaving a note admitting her treachery and pledging her love to Bond.
Bond copes with the loss by renouncing her as a traitor and going back to work as though nothing has happened. He phones his superiors and informs them of Vesper's treason and death, coldly saying "The bitch is dead now."
Bond's feelings for Vesper are not totally extinguished; Fleming's tenth novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, reveals that he makes an annual pilgrimage to Royale-les-Eaux to visit her grave. In the novel Goldfinger, moreover, when a drugged Bond believes that he has died and is preparing to enter heaven, he worries about how to introduce Tilly Masterton, who he believes has died along with him, to Vesper.
[edit] Film biography
[edit] 1967
Vesper Lynd, in the 1967 version of Casino Royale, was portrayed by Ursula Andress, who portrayed another Bond girl, Honey Ryder, in the 1962 film version of Dr. No.
In this version, which bore little resemblance to the novel, she had no trace of the inner turmoil so prevalent in the novel. In the film, Vesper is depicted as a former secret agent who has since become a multi-millionaire with a penchant for wearing ridiculously extravagant outfits at her office ("because if I wore it in the street people might stare"). Bond (played by David Niven), now in the position of M at MI6, uses a discount for her past due taxes to bribe her into becoming another 007 agent, and to recruit baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) into stopping Le Chiffre (played by Orson Welles).
Vesper and Tremble have an affair during which she eliminates an enemy agent sent to seduce Tremble ("Miss Goodthighs"). Ultimately, however, she betrays Tremble to Le Chiffre and SMERSH, declaring to Tremble, "Never trust a rich spy" before killing him with a machine gun hidden inside a bagpipe. Though her ultimate fate is not revealed in the film, in the opening credits (which includes scenes from the movie) she is shown as an angel playing a harp, showing her to be one of the "seven James Bonds at Casino Royale" at the end of the film after everyone is killed by an atomic explosion.
[edit] 2006
In the 2006 film version of the novel, Vesper is a foreign liaison agent from the HM Treasury's Financial Action Task Force assigned to make sure that Bond adequately manages the funds provided by MI6. However, she is secretly a double agent working for the anonymous organization that Mr. White, one of the film's villains, represents. She is extorted into this role by a threat to her boyfriend's life. The necklace she wears depicts an "Algerian love knot," and, presumably, was a gift from her boyfriend.
Vesper is initially skeptical about Bond's ego and at first is unwilling to be his trophy at the poker tournament with Le Chiffre. She refuses to bankroll him after he goes bankrupt on an early hand. However, she assists Bond during his struggle with Steven Obanno, knocking away the gun from the latter, though she afterwards retreats to the shower feeling that she has blood on her hands from helping to kill Obanno. Bond kisses the "blood" off her hands to comfort her and they return to the casino. Vesper shortly afterwards saves Bond's life when he is poisoned by Valenka, connecting a key wire to the automatic external defibrillator that he missed which revives him. Her kidnapping by Le Chiffre causes Bond to give chase; they fall into Le Chiffre's trap but both are saved by Mr. White, who shoots and kills Le Chiffre for losing the poker game to Bond.
As in the novel, Bond and Vesper vacation in Venice, hoping to start a new life. However, she is still doing the bidding of Mr. White's employer. Despite complying with her orders to retrieve the money, the thugs lock her in an elevator. She is trapped as Bond arrives to fight her captors. After several explosions, the flooded building sinks, but she resigns herself to a tragic end and locks herself in, even as Bond frantically tries to open the elevator. In her final gesture, not unlike in the casino hotel shower, she does not try to escape but she kisses Bond's hands to clear him of guilt. Bond finally gets her out and tries to revive her using CPR, to no avail.
Bond now holds the same disdain he feels for her betrayal and death in the novel, uttering the same quote "The job's done; the bitch is dead." M reprimands him and reveals that Vesper cut a deal with Mr. White's organization to spare Bond in return for the $150 million. When Bond opens her cell phone afterwards, he finds that she has left him the name of the mastermind of the plot (Mr. White) and his phone number, enabling Bond to track down and confront him.
[edit] Related character
The character of Vesper Lynd does not appear in the 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale. Instead the character was replaced by a new character named Valerie Mathis, played by Linda Christian, who is depicted as an American (the actress who played her, however, was born to European parents, in Mexico). Although she also betrays Bond in the adaptation, the character does not die. (The character's last name is borrowed from a character in the original novel named Rene Mathis).
[edit] References
- ^ McCormick, Donald (1993). The Life of Ian Fleming. Peter Owen Publishers, p.151.
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