The man who made James Bond’s gun famous has died. Designer Joe Caroff, who styled countless movie posters — including West Side Story (1961) and Manhattan (1979) has passed away at the age of 103, just one day short of turning 104, according to the New York Times. As his many obituaries have pointed out, Caroff received just $300 for his work in making the immortal logo. But the details of how the logo came to exist, and the very specific way in which Caroff modified the silhouette of the gun in the logo, are utterly fascinating.
In fact, the one detail that has been left out of nearly every news piece published since Caroff’s death is the fact that the gun in the logo is not Bond’s Walther PPK at all, and Caroff actually took some liberties to make it look more easily recognizable as a gun.
The 007 Logo is not a Walther PPK
In a 2022 interview with a YouTube channel called James Bond in the Making, Caroff said that associating the number “7” in the 007 logo with the handle of a gun was a “spontaneous” moment of creativity. Caroff was commissioned to create a logo for a “publicity and release letterhead,” and confirmed in 2022 that $300 was the going rate for that kind of work at that time. It should also be noted that Joe Caroff was an American, and that the 007 gun logo he designed helped launch Bond in the U.S.
But what gets overlooked is that the gun itself has a small sight on its barrel, which is not the case with Bond’s gun in Dr. No. As explained in the James Bond Archives, Caroff wanted to make sure the gun in the logo looked instantly recognizable as a gun; hence, the site was added. This little nubbin on the Bond logo eventually disappeared in 1995 during the Pierce Brosnan era.
In any case, the gun with its long barrel and small, slanted sight at the end of the tip does not represent the short-barreled Walther PPK. Even with a silencer, the gun doesn’t look like that in any of the early movies. And yet, Caroff correctly knew that adding that detail to the gun silhouette in the logo would make it look more realistic, even if it wasn’t screen-accurate.
Sean Connery’s Bond promotional photos match the logo, but not the movies
Strangely enough, the first James Bond, 007 logo, also matches the type of gun that Sean Connery held in several very famous promotional photos for From Russia With Love.
According to the 007 museum, when Connery arrived for the photo session, “it was discovered that no one had brought 007’s Walther semi-automatic pistol.” But, as luck would have it, David Hurn, the photographer, had a 4.5 mm. Walther air pistol, LP Model 53. So, the same manufacturer as Bond’s famous gun, but not the same gun at all.
And yet, this gun, like the Caroff logo, has a little sight at the end of it. In the movies, Sean Connery’s Bond doesn’t wield a gun like the one in the photos or the logo. But, because of these images, we all tend to remember Bond with this kind of weapon, even if it’s not entirely accurate.
Basically, like all things James Bond, our shared perception of the character matters more than what the character does or says. The 007 gun logo is just one piece of that puzzle, proving that our dreams of Bond take on different forms and those ideas about Bond all come from different artists.
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