The Bond films are all about the pathetic delusion that the British conjured up in the 1950s, once it was clear that they had been superseded as a global power: that they were the Athens to the American Rome. Tied up with this was a sense of implicit superiority, no matter what the realities of power and culture actually said. That's why the early Bond films (in particular) are anti-American but also crippled with insecurity about America. It's always interesting the note how CIA agents are depicted in these films: friendly rivals, efficient and well-resourced but lacking style, humour and inventive gadgets. The Bond films fulfilled a need to deflect the crushing disappointment and shame of very steep decline in British prestige and power. You could say the films are haunted by Suez and try to bury it in this fantasy of British style, ingenuity and sly omniscience. We are still running the world but nobody else knows it.