License to Shill

Another clue that Richard Rohmer doesn’t know his Goldfinger from his elbow: a chapter in Golden Phoenix about celebrity endorsements for Peter Munk’s stereo system, the Clairtone Project G:

The star-studded cast included not only Sinatra, Peterson, Gillespie and Vaughn but an impoverished young Scotsman who was about to become James Bond and one of the highest-paid and most respected film actors of his time, Sean Connery.

Think about the logic problem that makes this statement unlikely.  Why would Clairtone want an endorsement from Sean Connery before he was famous?  “The Clairtone G: Ask the impoverished Scotsman who owns one.”  Rohmer has written himself into a corner to get the words “Sean Connery” at the end of the sentence.  Where it would mean the most in Rohmerland, attached to the information that Connery eventually made lots of money.

There is a Clairtone Project G stereo in the background of the creepy Connery misfire A Fine Madness.  It came out in 1966, after Connery had already played James Bond in Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball.  Maybe that’s what Rohmer means.