2024 was a Bond year of commemoration. Bond’s producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson received the Thalberg Award from Daniel Craig, Jack Cocker’s beautiful documentary feature From Roger Moore with Love provided an intimate odyssey into the life of a spy, Goldfinger marked its sixtieth gilded anniversary across the globe and at London’s Burlington Arcade where the new The 007 bar, installation and store welcomed fans with some high-end cocktails and Bond interiors, London’s BFI held John Barry – Soundtracking Bond and Beyond and Roger Moore’s sophomore classic The Man with the Golden Gun celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. The Next Bond speculation thunderball kept rolling throughout the whole year with some right and not right names entering the clickbait gossip, the literary Bond world saw A Spy Like Me and the second chapter in author Kim Sherwood’s Double-O project published, an announcement of Vaseem Khan’s new Q novel Quantum of Menace (2025) and the stunningly produced and curated Spy Octane: The Vehicles of James Bond – Volume One which provides a deep dive under the bonnet of the first decade of 007 vehicles.

Yet, as those gunbarrel white dots prove, the circle of life is a curious one and 2024 saw some Bond alumni exit stage left…

More than any suit, car, poster, stunt or gun, 007 is known the world over through his signature tune. Composed by Monty Norman and orchestrated into life, immortality and pop-culture prowess by John Barry, it was guitarist Vic Flick who made ‘The James Bond Theme’ as instantly recognizable as any movie riff, gunbarrel visual or set piece signature.

Having joined The John Barry Seven, Flick was a known guitarist to Bond’s musical maestro and was the lead player on the Dr. No recordings. Flick then continued to play on the Bond soundtracks into the 1980s – including working with Eric Clapton on an unused overture for 1989’s Licence to Kill.

Flick’s work on Bond is a vital beat of 007’s core DNA. He played his part in launching Bond’s 1960s as much as any 007 creative. And was also one of the world’s best session players – with his guitar work lifting world famous tracks by Burt Bacharach, The Bee Gees, Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield, Herman’s Hermits and The Beatles.

From being a second AD on Thunderball and then location manager on its international epic sequel You Only Live Twice, via Clouseau, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 2001 – A Space Odyssey and Alive, Robert Watts was the best example of the pluck, professionalism and temperament of the Home Counties producer and he straddled the studio belt of Britain with the world’s biggest, best and most regarded franchises.

Having popularised Casino Royale‘s ‘The Look of Love’ and performed it at the April 1968 Academy Awards, the Brazilian lounge legend that is Sergio Mendes then went onto produce the title track for Never Say Never Again with long-term collaborators Herb Alpert and singer Lani Hall (who was part of the original Brasil ’66 ensemble who sung it at the Oscars).

His work is part of the DNA and tapestry of that 1960s spychedelic world which includes Bond’s musical history – and which was popularised all over again in the mid 1990s as retro grooves and Austin Powers repointed the vintage fun of Bond and his felllow jet set adventurers.

“Confidence is essential in all things, even if internally you are very nervous. We all feel nervous at times and it is not made any easier by tight schedules and limited budgets. But we can’t show it.”

– Alec Mills BSC

In a Bond era not automatically associated with landmark cinematographic artistry, Alec Mills was a gentleman operator blessed with the eye of Lean. From Star Wars to Michael Reed via Polanski, The Saint, Death on the Nile, Disney and The National Film School, Mills became a vital player on the camera unit of multiple Bond movies before rightly taking the main gig as cinematographer.

Alongside his brother Robert, Richard Sherman (The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins) wrote the words to every matinee singalong, every bedtime lullaby and every film that matters from Disney. He also lent the world of Ian Fleming and Bond a legacy making not just theme parks and the movies spin, but a fine four-fendered friend for a producer’s children by the name of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – a movie classic that could well be remade in more imminent times

The Moneypenny club is a bespoke, exclusive enclave of movie immortality. One of cinema’s smallest roles that creates the biggest impact, Bond’s Whitehall pleasantries with the administrative Moneypenny is a brilliant and necessary flirting trope of 007.

Pamela Salem was one of two Moneypennys in 1983. Appearing in Connery’s folly Never Say Never Again, she filled the role with that Sloane Square chic and Diana glamour.

He did not create the lobby art template for Bond. Yet, in 1979 American poster artist Dan Goozeé took that graphical baton and soared, teased and elevated Roger Moore’s marquee visuals to adventuring perfection.

With a brilliant lack of physics and a canny celluloid eye for lighting, the perspectives were always glamourous, perilous, sexual and sheer fantasy.

This burgeoning bullet catcher had a childhood surrounded by those sneakily signed images that would be pored over night after night as they forever invited me into that cinematic web of spin, a sense of location and movie glamour. Gifted from a Bond producer feeding a young fan’s enthusiasm, my A View to a Kill teaser poster is like a memory tattooed onto my soul. And that first and foremost down to Goozeé’s artistry – emblazoned across the first invite for any premiere ticket, newspaper listing or VHS rental.

Today poster art has different requirements, destinations and canvases. However, the twisting, undulating glories of Dan Goozeé’s work is an artistic gift that continues to flank, bolster and promote Commander Bond.

Robin Browne was an optical effects and aerial cameraman and camera operator who worked on a wealth of Bond bullets (For Your Eyes Only, OHMSS, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) and a rich wealth of titles and landmark movies (A Passage to India, Catch 22, Evil Under the Sun, Born Free).

Other sad losses from the Bond world in 2024 include casting director Dyson Lovell (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), game developer Brett Jones (N64 GoldenEye), actor Adrian Schiller (GoldenEye 007 – Reloaded), underwater cinematographer Jordan Klein Sr. (Thunderball, Never Say Never Again), make-up artist Paul Engelen (The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, Die Another Day, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace), actor Hassani Shappi (The World is Not Enough), actor James Laurenson (You Only Live Twice, BBC Radio, 1991), author James Fleming (Bond Behind the Iron Curtain), Merry Saltzman (Bond producer Harry Saltzman’s daughter), actor Michael Culver (From Russia with Love, Thunderball), United Artists International sales agent Ernst Goldschmidt, Bond actor Michael Jayston (You Only Live Twice, BBC Radio, 1991) and stunt driver Michel Julienne (For Your Eyes Only, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights).