Amph 60+ Years of James Bond 007

She's a babe. Mentioned!

I was actually surprised by her treatment within the movie -- the villain has a gorgeous henchwoman, and she's only used for a quick bit of flirting, and then appears in a helicopter so Bond can identify her, and then she dies. She doesn't even get the chance to do much of anything, let alone get seduced by Bond. I guess it's a good play against expectations, but it certainly does feel like the character was underused.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaand I finally finished my rewatch of the whole series with Skyfall.

Interesting experience. My opinion on some movies I hadn't seen in years has improved with time. Hindsight, maturity and the clarity that seeing all movies together gives. Now I see The Living Daylights and the post-GoldenEye Brosnan movies in a different, more positive way.

My favorite movie hasn't changed in all these years, though.

 

TSWLM is still Moore's most famous movie, and from what little I remember of his others it's probably the best.

It has a lot of classic moments (the Union Flag parachute is great and copied of course in Die Another Day) and memorable characters like Jaws even if they were ridiculously done (why does Bond conveniently punch him and shoot him in the one place where he is made of metal? There's plenty of him to hit given the size of the guy).
It was really is one of those movies that epitomises what Bond had become in terms of the one-liners and big spectacle and ridiculous OTT baddies, but it does it all pretty well so in the end it doesn't really matter that much.

 

Interesting tidbit: Because the cinematographer on the TSWLM was losing his eyesight, Broccoli brought Stanley Kubrick in to light the massive submarine hangar.

 

Have you seen any episodes of "The Saint" recently?

 

With all due respect to Richard Kiel, I wouldn't have mind seeing Caroline Munro's character show up in a later movie rather than Jaws.

 

Slowly getting there. I should be up to date by next Tuesday.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Even if Connery gave his worst ever performance, it was never going to be easy for any actor to convince the audience that their charisma, charm, and sense of danger was worthy as being a part of the Bond legacy in the way that Connery did. Therefore, it's essential that the writing services the style and feel that the actor can bring to the film because it is detectable when the actor is not suited to the script or vice versa. I'll go into this latter because it is for the reason just discussed that I felt that by having Connery in the starring role, the film could have been improved quite vastly and may have been a worthy rival to From Russia With Love and at minimum surpassed Goldfinger.

The first thing to really note about this film is the setup. I wasn't really convinced by it because Bond's presence in the location is without any merit or prompting. It's unclear as to whether he is on leave from the service, on an assignment or any other reason you can think of. Therefore, it's just hard to appreciate that the events on the beach in the very early stages of the film just happen to be connected to one of the world's greatest threats. One of the films greatest flaws is also apparent at this stage; the editing. Despite how good the fight choreography seems to be, it can't be helped felt that On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the Batman Begins of the 1960s because of all the flash cutting and sped up footage. Unfortunately, this aspect took me right out of the action sequences no matter how much I wanted to enjoy them. Had they have been edited better, they could have stood amongst some of the finest Bond moments in the history of the series of films. Worst of all, this issue is present right from the beach scene until the final encounter (for this film at least) with Blofeld. But, the scenery shots are amazing, especially in the alps. This is especially the case when watching the film in HD. The colour restoration is terrific.

What's even more frustrating is that for the most part, On Her Majesty's Secret Service actually had a really good script. Having only been my second time ever watching it, I had forgotten just how effective of a doomsday threat Blofeld's plan was. Although the concept of economic chaos remains as the core outcome of the plan, the idea of destroying the food chain is wholly original and actually quite realistic because of the numbers of industry and socioeconomic classes that this will inevitably impact. If that were a plot device from one of Daniel Craig's films, i'd honestly buy it. The execution would have to be different as to how it is administered, but in a world where global warming and prices for livestock and fresh produce (at least in Australia) are major issues, the story feels quite timely in 2013. Though in light of the recent troubles in North Korea, a Nuclear Missile could have felt equally as topical.

Despite praise for the story, there are some smaller plot devices that do prevent the story from flowing logically. That is, the character of Shaun Campbell. We first see him assisting Bond when he is on leave from the service. His appearance is continued throughout the course of the film until his death. Although a minor character, I couldn't accept that there would be an MI6 agent who was willing and able to assist Bond in an unlicensed assignment while keeping it, I assume, off the MI6 books. I doubt he worked for free.

What about Lazenby? I'll just say it straight off the bat, he's my least favourite Bond. That's not because I felt his performance ruined the movie or distracted me from the character, but it just didn't quite feel like Bond. I got a good sense of his charm and intellect but at the same time, there were moments it felt like Britain's tribute to Maxwell Smart. This also leads me to my earlier point where the script wasn't suited to him. The script did not service his Bond well enough because the lines felt forced as a result of where they were placed (such as, "he had a lot of guts") while outrunning Blofeld's henchmen. Despite Lazenby's best efforts to make the lines his own in terms of the pitch and speed of his delivery, it was constantly at odds with the more intellectualised and emotional Bond from the earlier stages of the film. His one liners almost came out of nowhere. This is why I feel that Connery's Bond would have been a better candidate for this film because Connery would have the appropriate panache for the puns and double entendres of this film. Lazenby simply didn't. That doesn't make Lazenby a bad actor. However, it just wasn't a script that best suited his talents.

But, I have to applaud the film for trying something different. We firstly learned a bit more about Bond's family name and upbringing. The slower pacing of the film justified this element of the plot, especially once he was in the alps. But, where the story does leave a negative impression is in its ending. Lazenby did not sell me on his reaction in the end. Seeing Craig's Bond react to the death of Vesper does have a lot to do with it, I admit. But I overall didn't feel effected by it. It felt odd, deranged, and out of character for Bond. Then the film ends on that exact note.

When I first saw this film, I thought it was a disaster. I didn't really have an appreciation for the story, Lazenby had lost me in the early stages of the film, and the editing threw me. Now only the latter is what bothers me the most (plus with the points raised above). On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a film that acknowledged, at least in 1969, that the Bond franchise was going to be one that would be around for a while and it needed to learn to mature and expand. This film made a genuine attempt at that but at the same time not quite knowing what it wanted to be. While it played down on the espionage aspects and made Bond more personable, at the same time it threw out what made James Bond who he is; cold, calculating and unrelenting. To me, that's precisely where this film fails to deliver. It serves and sets up well, but come execution, there's just something lacking.

So, while there were some glaring missteps throughout the film, it's far from an atrocity. The same can be said for Lazenby's performance. While well intentioned and generally played out, his portrayal just wasn't quite there.

3 out of 5

RANKING

1. From Russia With Love

2. Thunderball

3. Goldfinger

4. Dr. No

5. You Only Live Twice

6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

 

It's not only that. FYEO is simply a more rounded movie and Bond is more of a character instead of just a pun-spitting machine. The absence of a ridiculous supervillain plot really helps, although Ramza might disagree.

 

TSWLM was on here a few weeks ago, I caught a few minutes, the bits at the pyramids when Jaws takes apart the van Bond and XXX are in. Rather emblematic: enjoyable, to an extent, but just a bit too over the top.

 

The fight against Sandor and the Liparus battle are my favorite parts of the movie, although the battle probably drags on too much.

 

Diamonds Are Forever

I never had fond memories of this film after having watched it twice in my life. But, this time around I found it surprisingly quite charming. Despite the fact that we can see Connery looking his most weathered in the role (unless you count Never Say Never Again), we also see a 007 that aging gracefully. None of his fight scenes too far-fetched in terms of his ability to hold his own while doing it. The introduction to this film is the best since From Russia With Love with the use of the private eye style opening. Not only is Connery still effective in the role with respect to his physical presence, but his line delivery is spot on. In fact, some of his best one liners are here too. The "St Peter" line had me laughing out loud, along with "my hands weren't the only thing raised" or something to that effect.

Some of the campy charm to the film can of course feel a little dated and ineffective. I'm mainly referring to the clones of Blofeld. Without meaning to, it just screamed Austin Powers. Despite this, the story had a more stripped back, down to earth type story. It was well paced, generally well written with some interesting characters. I really don't have much to say because the film works for what it is. It's not Connery's best, but it is a good one for him to go out on. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

4 out of 5

RANKING

1. From Russia With Love

2. Thunderball

3. Goldfinger

4. Diamonds are Forever

5. Dr. No

6. You Only Live Twice

7. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

 

Yeah, if they'd kept the battle tighter, and given a little more room to the actual confrontation with Stromberg at the end, the pacing at the end wouldn't be so off.

 

TSWLM was incredibly fun when I saw it back in 2007. I actually enjoyed the soundtrack despite the obvious 70's feel. Yeah, the showdown between Bond and the villain was pretty anti-climactic.

"I'm too lazy to get up, so I'll just wait for you to shoot me."

 

Moonraker (1979)

Behind the scenes

Cubby Broccoli had gotten away from genre-aping with The Spy Who Loved Me. The massive success of Star Wars in the same year as TSWLM, however, sent him running right back to that well, this time cashing in on the booming space-adventure craze. Moonraker may have been a novel about a nuclear missile threat, but the title gave the franchise the perfect opening to go into space. TSWLM's credits had announced For Your Eyes Only as the next Bond film, but Moonraker was quickly put into production instead, as another half-adaptation. Tom Mankiewicz's original treatment was largely thrown out, and Christopher Wood wrote this one up again for the returning Lewis Gilbert.

The Spy Who Loved Me had fulfilled Moore's original three-film contract. Moore signed on again for Moonraker, but not on a long-term contract. His habit from here on out of contracting for one movie at a time would throw pre-production of each film into a perpetual state of semi-uncertainty as they tried to make sure Moore would be back and tested actors in case he wouldn't. Kiel came back as Jaws, the first recurring villain outside of Blofeld, and the first recurring henchman. Lois Chiles, who had been offered Amasova, came onboard as the lead Bond girl. Moonraker is also the final appearance of Bernard Lee as M.



The movie shot in France, rather than the UK, to escape the British tax system. It was the last Bond film the iconic production designer Ken Adam, who had done Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, and The Spy Who Loved Me, worked on. The film is the first appearance of the space shuttle, as the program, though in progress, hadn't yet launched its first shuttle and the design hadn't even been finalized when the film was in production. No significant cosmetic details were changed from the version of the design the filmmakers were working with, however, and the result is a film that can at least brag of being ahead of its time. The other main notable facet of production is the mid-air fight at the beginning, which was shot midair using actual skydivers equipped with super-thin parachutes hidden under breakaway jackets. It required eighty-eight skydives to shoot, since the cameramen had only a few seconds to shoot before everyone had to open their parachutes.

The film was hilariously well-received at the time, and blew away the rest of the series at the box office, being the first Bond to break the $200 million mark. No Bond film would hit that again until GoldenEye blew past it many years and a great deal of inflation later. Its reputation since has soured, and it's now often placed near the bottom of Bond movie lists.

Plot

When a space shuttle is hijacked and disappears, Bond is sent to investigate. He focuses on the manufacturer, California-dwelling European industrialist Hugo Drax. Drax essentially confirms Bond's suspicions by trying to assassinate him multiple times, while Bond flirts with Drax's pilot Corinne Dufour and scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead. Bond follows blueprints to Venice, and there finds a secret laboratory producing nerve gas. He kills Drax's Japanese assassin and finds Goodhead, realizing that she is a CIA agent who's also investigating Drax. When Bond tries to expose Drax's operation, he finds the lab has disappeared.



M allows Bond to continue the investigation, however, and Bond follows Drax's operations to Brazil. Drax replaces his previous assassin with Jaws, who falls in love with one of Drax's astronauts. Bond avoids capture, but Goodhead is snatched. After reconnecting with MI6, 007 learns that the nerve gas is derived from a rare orchid, and goes up the Amazon in pursuit of Drax's secret base. He finds it inside a pyramid, where Drax captures him. Drax's plan is to send several Moonraker shuttles into space with the physically perfect specimens he has had training as astronauts. Once aboard his space station, Drax will use the nerve gas to destroy all humans on Earth, so he can repopulate it with his master race. Drax leaves Bond and Goodhead to die, but they escape his fiendish death trap of sitting unattended in a room, and board one of the shuttles.

Aboard Drax's space station, Bond and Goodhead disable its cloaking system. The US responds by instantly unleashing the space marine platoon it apparently always has on standby for threats just such as this, and there is a big laser-shooting space battle with space shuttle fighters, while Jaws captures Bond and Goodhead but then rebels against Drax when he realizes that he and his dweeby lover would have no place in Drax's master race. Bond kills Drax aboard the disintegrating space station, and Jaws then helps Bond and Goodhead escape in Drax's laser-armed shuttle, which they use to shoot down the handful of released nerve gas globes. Jaws, of course, escapes yet again.

Bond himself

There is really nothing to say. I'm just amazed at the fact that Roger Moore was able to get through this nonsense with a mostly-straight face. I salute his professionalism. But as far as Bond goes . . . there's absolutely nothing new in the movie to comment on. The parade of women just falling into bed with 007 for no particular reason is ridiculous, and Moore mugs for the camera, and there's absolutely nothing serious about Bond to latch onto for discussion. I was amused at the moment when Jaws flashes his metal teeth at Bond, and Bond gives this sort of what-else-can-I-do grin back. That's my commentary on Roger Moore's performance.

How it fits into the series

It fits into the series as the nadir. I suppose I should get out of the way up front -- it's Lewis Gilbert's last movie, Bernard Lee's last movie, and Ken Adam's last movie. In that, it represents the wrap on a certain era of Bond. No more Ken Adam lairs, no more original M, no more 1960s directors. With Saltzman gone, the only major elements of the Connery era, going forward, will be Broccoli and Lois Maxwell.



But more importantly, Moonraker fits in as the low point of the Moore run, when genre-chasing descended into its most insane, out-of-place, nakedly money-grubbing form, and Bond went into space for the most gloriously ludicrous climax ever. But even before that third act, the film is full-on lunacy, packing in gags and "humorous" gimmicks with any attempt at serious storytelling completely out the window in favor of another formula adventure. That said, Moonraker is in an odd position. It's the worse Moore movie, stuck between the two best movies of Moore's run, showing the competing tendencies in the production team. There's some understanding of what they should be doing, but they just can't resist the slide toward camp, and audiences seem to eat that up. The Moore years thus become a weird sort of roller-coaster ride. It's the cornball camp trend at its height, but it went so over-the-top in that regard that it seems to have brought the producers at least somewhat to their senses, and we see the camp trend diminishing afterward. Thankfully, for all its box-office success, this is at least the last of the genre ripoffs. Broccoli must have gotten that out of his system.

Review

Moonraker is so outrageously stupid that you can kind of get through the overwhelming boredom by laughing at how dumb it is. But that's pretty much the only thing it has going for it. Until the third act, it's pretty much like any other Moore farce – cheesy, not that interesting – but the third act blows that all out of the water, going completely insane, in the "How did even Roger Moore not throw up his hands and walk away?" sense.

The introductory scene for Bond follows the usual Moore pattern: take something that could be pretty good – a great stunt featuring Bond fighting over a parachute in midair – and then ruin it – this time by having Jaws appear out of nowhere inside the plane, then appear out of nowhere again to fight Bond in midair after the first fight, then play circus music at the climax of the stunt and have Jaws fall onto a circus tent. Thanks for letting us know not to take your visceral action sequences seriously, Gilbert.



After that, though, there's not a lot there under the cheese for me to complain about the cheese ruining. It's just farce. A space shuttle gets stolen in midair by people dressed in leather jackets so that you know they're thieves, so Bond goes to see the guy who made the shuttle, and we get probably the most incredibly contrived sequence ever, where Bond hops into a centrifuge for the hell of it, and Goodhead leaves, and the assassin guy comes in and turns up the centrifuge like we all knew he would because why else would we spend five minutes on Bond getting into a random centrifuge that no one is monitoring? We got some scenes where women have sex with Bond right away purely because he's James Bond, and then he goes to Venice and gets attacked by a guy who's in a casket full of knives for absolutely no reason, but it turns out that his gondola is a hovercraft so he escapes and everyone watching the movie cries uncontrollably. Then, in the nadir of the Bond franchise, and possibly the entire human experience, an incredibly bad freeze-and-rewind is used to make it appear that a pigeon just did a double-take at Bond's hover gondola. Any viewers who survived this sequence without killing themselves now have to sit through another assassination attempt that's maybe even worse than the imbecile in the casket, when the Japanese assassin guy decides that the best way to assassinate a secret agent is to dress up in kendo gear and attack him with a bamboo stick. Screaming loudly well before launching the surprise attack makes it even better. Apparently no one in this movie ever heard of a gun – Bond included, who never even draws a Walther and shoots exactly once, taking out a sniper in Drax's hunting preserve with a loaner shotgun.

Bond then departs for Rio, where he has sex with another woman for no particular reason and gets bedeviled by Jaws, whom Richard Kiel plays with just enough goofy charm to make him more funny than menacing. Bond is saved by a small crowd of people dancing away Jaws, who apparently is no longer strong enough to push through a small crowd. Then he's attacked again on a cable car thing. I have to admit, the multiple shots of Jaws trying to make sure that stupid wheel isn't moving on him are kind of endearingly hilarious. Jaws fails, but he falls in love with a dweeby-looking girl, and the constant barrage of stolen gimmick musical cues have finally gone much, much too far.



Bond then finds himself in the Amazon, in the middle of the world's crappiest Star Wars cash-in attempt. This is the point at which the film launches itself to new heights of hilarity. The unbelievably bad uniforms, the terrible space-talk nonsense, the station's cheap-Death-Star-ripoff aesthetic, the ludicrous plot to wipe out Earth's population with nerve gas in the upper fricking atmosphere, the fact that that villainous scheme is a pure ripoff of the Bond movie they literally just made two years ago, the slow-motion zero-g effects that make everything look unintentionally epic, Jaws turning into a good guy, the near-instantaneous launch of a space shuttle loaded with a platoon of space marines with laser guns that the US apparently must just keep on standby at all times, Jaws toasting his love with the hilariously bland line "Here's to us," Bond doing his best trench-run ripoff by shooting down these stupid orbs with a laser-armed shuttle, the incredibly strained setup for the "Hey, they're screwing!" finale scene, the fact that even the end credits are ripped off from Star Wars . . . there's no part of the finale that isn't uproariously, ludicrously, how-could-anyone-ever-think-this-was-a-good-idea awful.

This movie is impervious to traditional criticism, but in the interest of keeping this from descending purely into a list of mockeries, I'll note a few things that were kind of interesting. The dog chase scene in which Corinne is killed is genuinely sort of harrowing, with a big, dramatic score. Jaws turning into a good guy is a terrible, stupid idea, and the way it's done is absolutely atrocious, but I do kind of love how much gawky, goofy charisma Kiel is able to bring to the character without losing the menace, at least until he turns good. M showing confidence in Bond and getting into a sort of winking conspiracy with Bond to do an end run around the government is a nice touch, and a good note for Lee to go out on. Drax isn't an absolutely terrible villain – the genocide thing is dumb in execution, but the master race thing is at least creepy, and Lonsdale plays him with a weird quality that makes him stand out. I also like the little touch of his complaining that Bond keeps screwing up his amusing death traps; at least they're spelling out that they're ludicrous because he's trying to be entertained. Goodhead's condescension toward Bond makes for a good dynamic, with a woman finally showing some resistance to Bond's charms, and his chauvinism getting him into trouble, but the relationship doesn't really go anywhere the way it did in TSWLM. Finally, I'll note that the X-ray safecracker is exactly the kind of gadget Bond should use more often, instead of the impractical goofball crap and transformer cars.



None of that comes anywhere close to watering down the fact that, for most of its run, Moonraker is a boring, stupid, corny mess, before achieving new heights of idiotic, lazy camp suckery in the third act. It's absolutely hilarious to laugh at, but holy crap is it a terrible movie. No value whatsoever. If there was ever a point at which the franchise deserved to just die, for Broccoli to acknowledge that he'd turned this series into a total mess, for the public to decide it had been a good run but it was going to walk away, Moonraker was it.


Rankings

1. From Russia with Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Dr. No
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. Goldfinger
6. Thunderball
7. You Only Live Twice
8. The Man with the Golden Gun
9. Diamonds Are Forever
10. Live and Let Die
11. Moonraker

Questions for discussion

1. Does anyone have anything to say? Because, honestly, I just can't muster up any kind of piercing commentary on this thing.
2. In the absence of anything meaningful to say, the fact that we're now past ten films brings to mind comparisons. I've been ranking the movies, and so have many of you, but what else would you rank? How would you rank the directors so far? The Bond actors? What's your ranking of top and bottom Bond girls? Bond cars? Bond villains? Go ranking-wild!


Because.

 

I'll do a villain ranking:

1. Auric Goldfinger
2. Grant/Klebb/Kronsteen
3. Dr. Julius No
4. Blofeld (OHMSS)
5. Scaramanga
6. Kananga
7. Blofeld (YOLT)
8. Blofeld (DAF)
9. Drax
10. Stromberg
11. Largo

Note that the four best Bond films, up to that point, coincidentally showcase the finest villains. (Actually, it's not much of a coincidence, as the scripts in question happened to boast well-realized characters all across the board. It's amazing what transpires when writers aren't pumping out formulaic pap!)

 

I suppose I'll give my own villain ranking:

1. Blofeld (OHMSS)
2. Grant/Klebb
3. Scaramanga
4. Goldfinger
5. Dr. No
6. Jaws (TSWLM)
7. Stromberg
8. Drax
9. Kananga
10. Blofeld (DAF)
11. Largo
12. Jaws (Moonraker)
13. Blofeld (YOLT)

YOLT Blofeld is actively off-putting and Jaws is a bad gimmick concept who goes off the rails, while Largo and DAF Blofeld are straight-up boring. Kananga is a fun actor in a bad role, and Stromberg and Drax are villains with something compelling underneath that isn't mined that well by their movies. I'm giving Stromberg points more on concept and potential than anything else, since he was so underused. Jaws, in TSWLM, was a bad concept, but at least executed very, very well, and someone who was both a physical match for Bond and his match in actual tradecraft as an assassin. The actual good villains start with No on up. Goldfinger is the best of the pure plotting villains (and has the best henchman), but as I've said, I'm a sucker for Bond having a direct match in the villain, someone who can challenge him on his own playing field. Scaramanga and Grant do that exceptionally well, and Blofeld combines physicality with mastermind status.

I'll also go ahead and offer a ranking of actors.

1. Good Connery
2. Lazenby
3. Bad Connery
4. Good Moore
5. Bad Moore

Connery, at his best, is the only actor so far that I really like in the role. Lazenby got by with a respectable performance in a great movie, but he wasn't really anything special, and it's hard to get enthusiastic for a fundamentally undistinguished performance in his first acting role. Had he done a few more movies, he might have really grown in the role. But as is, Connery is the only really good actor to show up in the role. He's tough, charming, ruthless, suave, a cultured thug. He's everything you want in the role, really, and there's a reason he's so iconic. When he stopped caring about the role, though, his performances took a nosedive. He was still able to skate by on his charisma and physicality, but when he checked out, the really good acting went with him. It's still better than Moore at his mugging, listless, goody-two-shoes worst. At his best, Moore isn't listless, just a mugging goody-two-shoes. A checked-out, charismatic, inherently dangerous Connery is more Bond than Moore, who just can't bring himself to project the quality of a professional killer. The really great actors in the role -- Connery, Dalton, Craig -- all can play a villain. That's a question that's not asked enough when casting a dangerous hero -- can the actor project the danger necessary to play a villain? If not, don't let them play your dangerous hero. Moore, however, is pure leading man, happy playing a glib, charming, do-gooding audience fantasy a la The Saint, uncomfortable when called to project menace or ambiguity. He never should have been allowed near the role.

 

Havoc: Kudos for segregating the two Connerys; the difference is as stark as the Harrison Ford of ANH/TESB and that of ROTJ. The former is as iconic as Bogart's Sam Spade; the latter is downright dispiriting.

Regarding Bond performances, I agree with everything save for the last statement. By the time DAF rolled around, the writing was on the wall. And however misguided the producers were in settling for borderline-farce, they should at least be lauded for choosing the proper clown. When I declare Moore the Adam West of James Bonds, I'm being complimentary. He was perfect for the material, and guided the series through its wacky sojourn.

 

Ugh. Moonraker. Such a dreadful, dreadful film. Again, ugh.

 

I would agree insofar as Moore is competent as a handsome, glib leading man, though I'm sure they could have found someone to bring a little more personality to the role while punning and eyebrow-raising through the material. His ability to get through Moonraker with a straight face is certainly what that sort of movie needs, I guess. But I think there is a real issue in that the series is so schizophrenic at this point, throwing the Moore-style camp on the screen right alongside Connery-style serious-Bond moments. And Moore has real trouble playing those cold-killer beats. It especially limits something like For Your Eyes Only, which is trying to go back to Connery's Bond but doesn't have an actor able to elevate the material all the way there. By the time we get to the movies that are essentially written purely for Moore -- Octopussy and A View to a Kill, both of which are entirely stripped of brutal Connery moments, and feature a genial Bond gliding through pure formula (and frankly, Moonraker basically falls into this category too) -- Moore has aged out of the role, and he's just reduced to sort of listlessly sleepwalking through the film, without bringing the full winking charm he had as of TSWLM. So I don't think he ever got to be quite as perfectly suited to the material as you'd like.

 

Not much to say, other than Corinne Clery is achingly beautiful. Let's... leave it at that and move on (it took me three days to rewatch this movie for the thread).

1. From Russia with Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Goldfinger
4. Dr. No
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. You Only Live Twice
7. Thunderball
8. The Man with the Golden Gun
9. Diamonds Are Forever
10. Live and Let Die
11. Moonraker

I'll add a couple of rankings to pad this review. First, villains:

1. Ernest Stavro Blofeld (OHMSS)
2. Francisco Scaramanga
3. Doctor Julius No
4. Auric Goldfinger
5. Rosa Klebb
6. Hugo Drax
7. Emilio Largo
8. Ernest Stavro Blofeld (YOLT)
9. Doctor Kananga
10. Ernest Stavro Blofeld (DAF)
11. Kurt Stromberg

Then henchmen:

1. Red Grant
2. Wint and Kidd
3. Oddjob
4. Jaws (TSWLM)
5. Irma Bunt
6. Fiona Volpe
7. Hans
8. Baron Samedi
9. Tee Hee Johnson
10. Jaws (MR)
11. Bambi and Thumper

And finally Bond girls:

1. Tracy di Vicenzo
2. Anya Amasova
3. Tatiana Romanova
4. Honey Ryder
5. Corinne Dufour
6. Solitaire
7. Pussy Galore
8. Andrea Anders
9. Rosie Carver
10. Domino Derval
11. Holly Goodhead
12. Tiffany Case
13. Sylvia Trench
14. Kissy Suzuki
15. Mary Goodnight

 

What about Aki from YOLT?

 

I forgot about her. That should say enough.

 

Live and let Die

For any actor, this would have to be the weirdest film to make their Bond debut on. It's by far the most left field of the Bond films. We're talking drug smuggling, voodoo, tarot, Harlem gangsters, and a mechanical armed henchman. In another unusual step for the Bond franchise, I only just realised that this is in fact the only Bond film that does not feature James before the opening credits. Ok, maybe From Russia With Love since it wasn't really Bond, but for a Bond actor to not appear is quite strange. Q is also completely absent from the film and there's no appearance of the tuxedo or the vodka martini.

More than anything, this movie speaks to the Beatle fan in me. From a very young age, Live and Let Die (even before knowing it was a Bond theme) is one of my favourite post-1960s McCartney compositions. It's a timeless, catchy but complex piece that combines various genres into a tight, concise pop song. When it comes to pop music, it is as close to perfect as it gets. Not even Guns n Roses had the talent to truly make it their own, they simply followed the blue print. The song is so well structured and orchestrated, you really can't move away from what makes the song so outstanding because if you do you effectively lose the song. But it's not only the theme that works but also Sir George Martin's score that runs throughout the film.

Meanwhile, Roger Moore brings a formidable presence to the role from fairly early on in the film. It doesn't take long to see why he suits the role so well too. At a younger age, I always felt that perhaps he was a little too polished for the role and a bit neat. But, i've really grown to like his take on the role the most out of any of the Bond actors. His line delivery is perfect and has a good handle on fight choreography. All of this relates back to the point I was making during my On Her Majesty's Secret Service review where it is simply not about raw talent but also knowing the kind of talent you're bringing to the role. Roger Moore was precisely the actor required to follow up to Connery's performance. On the flip side, the Bond girls are probably the weakest for any Bond film (so far at least in this series of reviews) because they just feel too girly and submissive. They're far too trusting, especially for what they're enduring in his presence. This undermines their dignity and makes the chemistry between them hard to appreciate.

On that note, the story does unfortunately let this film down a little. Even now, it's hard to see what they were going for because of the mixed bag of tones this film has. The film opens with a political thriller espionage, then injects some of the humour and wit, then goes to a gritty Blaxploitation setting and story, then to oddball mystical stories, followed by a drug lord plot. All of this of course are all connected to the one plot but it's by far the most schizophrenic in terms of feel and style when it comes to a Bond film. Some of the far-fetched stunts and escape moments made me groan to. Pretty much the entire crocodile scene is of a throwaway quality. Meanwhile, the guy in the hat with the painted face was just...strange.

But, if there was a part of the story that I struggled with, it was Bond's relationship with Solitare. I remember seeing the seduction scene for the first time and finding it funny when it was revealed that every card in the deck was a lovers card. For the first time though, after just watching it, i'm somewhat bothered by it. Not disturbed or disgusted, but just not sold on what it is that 007 would do. Sure, he's known to exploit, manipulate, force, and in extreme situations execute to make his point. But when it comes to women, no matter which portrayal of Bond we're watching, there's always an element of class and dignity he brings to the girls. I understand the attempt at humour behind the scene but I can't escape the fact that he's manipulated a vulnerable woman into bedding with him by using her own spiritual beliefs against her. It's almost like promising someone salvation to get something you want out of them. In all fairness, it did make for a very tense and dramatically effective scene later on when Mr Big confronted him on just exactly what Bond and Solitare got up to. Perhaps this was the intention all along. Not playful humour, but maybe to see that Bond isn't alway the innocent one.

Overall, Live and Let Die is still a pretty odd film. Out of any of the Bond films, if there were to be a remake, i'd nominate this one and get someone like Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorcese to direct. For this type of film to work, it needs a consistent tongue and cheek quality while maintaining that gritty feel of danger. I admire the idea that Live and Let Die was going for, but there are times where the mix was so weird it felt directionless and for that reason lacked cohesion. If you want an oddball film, you need an oddball director. What I really enjoy is the more real world feel of this film. Its urban feel, despite occasional political and racial awkwardness, gives it a modern feel. I'm glad they eschewed traditional Bond elements and kept the final confrontation somewhat minimal as oppose to hollowed out volcanos and overly elaborate schemes to destroy currency. Although uneven, it may well be one of the most human 007 films yet. For that, it deserves at least some praise.

3.5 out of 5


RANKING

1. From Russia With Love

2. Thunderball

3. Goldfinger

4. Diamonds are Forever

5. Dr. No

6. Live and Let Die

7. You Only Live Twice

8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

 

I'm surprised that I saw no mention of John Barry's great musical score and Shirley Bassey's third Bond theme song, which was also great.

As for the movie, I like it. It's just a fairly harmless adventure. And it's kind of cool to think that the U.S. Marines have their own space shuttle and a couple of platoons of EVA troops.

 

Yeah, as silly as hell as Moonraker is, it's too amiable and silly in its knowing rip-off act to be considered the nadir of a franchise that includes the geriatric lust of A View To A Kill, the misogynistic hatefulness of The World Is Not Enough, and the hypersonic affront to taste that is Die Another Day.