Vesper Lynd
| Vesper Lynd | |
Character from the James Bond franchise  |
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| Occupation | Double Agent |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | MVD, MI6 (novel) HM Treasury, Quantum (film) |
| Portrayed by | Ursula Andress (1967) Eva Green (2006, shown above) |
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 of Casino Royale she is played by Ursula Andress. In the 2006 film of the same name 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. In the novel, the character explains that she was born on a "dark and stormy" night, and her parents named her "Vesper" after the Latin word meaning evening (see vespers) to commemorate the night. 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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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." In the following novel, Vesper is not mentioned, but the "job at Royale" is.
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.
Film biography
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.
2006 and 2008
In the 2006 film version of the novel, Vesper Lynd 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 Quantum. She is extorted into this role by a threat to her boyfriend Yusef's life. The necklace she wears depicts an "Algerian love knot."
Lynd 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. Lynd 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 Quantum's majordomo, Mr. White, who shoots and kills Le Chiffre for betraying the trust of his organisation by misappropriating the funds.
As in the novel, Bond and Vesper vacation, hoping to start a new life. Unknown to Bond, however, Lynd is still doing the bidding of Quantum. Despite complying with her orders to deliver the money, the thugs take her hostage when Bond confronts them, and lock her in an elevator while they do battle with him. After several explosions, the flooded building sinks, but Lynd resigns herself to a tragic end and locks herself in, even as Bond frantically tries to open the elevator. In her final gesture, she does not try to escape but she kisses Bond's hands to clear him of guilt, (an allusion to the earlier shower scene in which Bond had kissed hers to do the same for her). Bond finally gets her out and tries to revive her using CPR, to no avail.
Also, as in the novel, Bond copes with his lover's death by outwardly showing disdain for her due to her betrayal, saying, "The job's done; the bitch is dead." In the film Bond says these same words, but again without conviction. When he utters this line, M reprimands him, revealing that Lynd had cut a deal with Quantum to spare him in return for the $150 million. When Bond opens Lynd's 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 at the movie's end.
In the 2008 film Quantum of Solace, it is revealed that Yusef is a Quantum agent whose job it is to seduce high-ranking women in the world's intelligence agencies. He is then "kidnapped" by Quantum, and the women are forced to become double agents in the hope of securing his freedom.
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 René Mathis.
References
- ^ McCormick, Donald (1993). The Life of Ian Fleming, Peter Owen Publishers. pp.p.151.
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