The movie in question is the inaugural cinematic outing for a certain James Bond. Please watch Exhibit A - 'Doctor No'. The key scene to which I am referring is a scene where the baddie commands Professor Dent to kill Bond by slipping a DEADLY CREATURE into his bedroom! Dent is then presented with a tarantula in a cage. To which, if he knew anything about spiders, Dent should have then responded, "Thank you Doctor for this docile pet. Now, where is a deadly animal that I can use to kill Bond??!"
Of course, Dent does not, he instead fearfully takes the cage at arm's length and whimpers as he retreats from the room. The spider is then slipped into Bond's room and wanders inexorably towards Bond's sleeping form. It then climbs the bed, creeps under the sheet and up Bond's body, until it emerges on his arm, finally waking him (heavy sleeper?). Bond is obviously no scaredy-cat - he doesn't scream, cry or start to babble incoherently: he just stares at the dark spider, planning his moves before the vicious and bloodthirsty monster in all probability devours him! Twisting with cat-like reflexes, he suddenly flicks the beast heroically to the floor, whereupon the music crescendos as he manfully squashes it half a dozen times with his standard-issue spy-shoe. What a chap."So, smarty-pants," you ask me. "What is likely to have happened in this situation?" Well, in all likelihood the tarantula's first thought upon being chucked into Bond's room would be to find a quiet, dark area to hide - safety first, eh? After a while it might have explored the room, looking for possible food sources - large insects, or maybe small rodents. The tarantula has poor eyesight, so it certainly couldn't have seen Bond from the other side of the room. If the spider were to have stumbled upon Bond, sleeping like a tired pixie, it would have probably ignored him. If, however, the womanising spy had rolled on top of the spider, or cuddled it too tightly (he is an amorous gentleman!), then the spider may have used its venomous bite for self-defence. Bond would certainly have woken up due to the ouch-inducing bite; and had to stay awake for a short while until the wound, similar to a hornet-sting, had eased its tortuous soreness. His arm would have been tender for a few days later, after which it would have been all healed up nicely.
So, do I think Fleming is a fool? Well, not exactly... the original novel calls for Dent to send a venomous centipede into Bond's room instead of the mostly-harmless tarantula - it was the movie producers that changed this, due to more 'awareness' of tarantulas as a scary beast. But Fleming is not entirely off the hook, because large, venomous centipedes, too, are rather demonised as deadly beasts, in a similar way to the tarantula (see the American Tarantula Society's article at: http://atshq.org/articles/centipedes.html). There are no known cases of death-by-centipede, although they can cause a very painful, nasty bite.So, film-makers have a lesson to learn - tarantulas aren't deadly. However, until the general public embrace spiders as their friends I expect there will be many more instances of vicious spider attacks onscreen.
If you have been affected by the issue raised in this blog - the tragic criminalisation of the beautiful tarantula - then don't watch the following:
The Hound of The Baskervilles (Hammer version)
Arachnophobia
Eight Legged Freaks
Enjoy watching, Nature Gazers
