“Ever heard of EVEL Knievel?”: James Bond meets the Rural sheriff

Authors

  • John D. Schwetman University of Minnesota Duluth

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2017.160

Keywords:

secret agent, globalization, action film

Abstract

James Bond emerged as an international film hero because he represented an aspirational cosmopolitan ideal offering viewers an opportunity to escape to an exciting international arena of adventure during the Cold War. Sheriff J. W. Pepper’s appearance in Guy Hamilton’s Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) disrupts such cosmopolitan aspirations by calling attention to a cosmopolitan-rural divide that lurks in the shadows of these films. As a provincial throwback, Pepper presents a starker contrast to Bond than any of the most brutal villains he encounters, thus requiring Bond filmmakers to neutralize the conceptual threat that Pepper’s localism poses to Bond’s trans-global battle against evil on movie screens around the world.

Author Biography

John D. Schwetman, University of Minnesota Duluth

Assistant Professor

Department of English

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Published

2017-09-14

How to Cite

Schwetman, J. D. (2017). “Ever heard of EVEL Knievel?”: James Bond meets the Rural sheriff. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 6(1), 94–118. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2017.160

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2017): Spring 2017

Section

Articles

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