Today’s birthday boy is Oscar-winner Paul Haggis. He is the only Bond screenplay writer to have won a Best Screenplay Oscar (for Crash—he was also nominated for Letters From Iwo Jima and Million Dollar Baby).

Haggis, of course, co-wrote Casino Royale with Purvis & Wade. But if you know the Bond films well, you know that the enormous restraint and care of CR was not a Purvis & Wade trademark, and you can suspect a strong Haggis influence, even though supposedly he just did a “script polish.” Whatever that means.

Full disclosure: I never saw Crash. I like Million Dollar Baby, but I thought the script made some very wrong turns. Iwo Jima was better; restrained, dignified, complex, beautiful.

Every time there’s a “scary” announcement about Quantum of Solace (bigger! more gadgets! invisible car!) (just kidding about the invisible car), I feel the need to rely upon my trust in Haggis, based upon his past performance. Right now, it’s all we can do.

As has been widely reported, Haggis rushed the QOS script to get it finished before the writer’s strike. And we thank him for that. I assume on-set tweaking based on location or whatever will be done by Michael Wilson.

So, happy 55, Mr. Haggis. Enjoy your day. Don’t let us down.