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Post by Floyd Dinnertime Barber on Feb 22, 2017 11:03:42 GMT -5
Floyd Dinnertime Barber Interesting stuff, especially about The Living Daylights. That's definitely not the characterization of Bond we've had in the movies so far - it's interesting that neither the version from that short story (regretful of cold-blooded killing) nor the version in the films so far (nasty piece of work masquerading as something else) are falling into the default-Bond role yet. It has been a long time since I read the books, so I hope I am remembering these details correctly. I had been thinking that the book that "The Living Daylights" was included in was one of the last things Fleming wrote, and was supposed to be some of his later assignments, but when I looked it up I found that while it was one of the last published (posthumously, in fact), that story had been written and published in a magazine around 1964, so it might reflect a much earlier phase of Bond's career than I thought. Maybe he just got more jaded and cold blooded as time went on. |
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Trurl
Shoutbox Elitist 
Posts: 7,699
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Post by Trurl on Feb 22, 2017 15:36:08 GMT -5
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 8, 2017 6:31:40 GMT -5
Goldfinger (1964)  Pre-existing prejudices: It’s Goldfinger. Also, for reasons best kept to myself, I’m aware that Fleming named the bad guy in the book after the Brutalist/modernist architect Erno Goldfinger, because Fleming so despised his concrete buildings. And obviously this contains a string of clichés even someone who has never seen a Bond movie would know – Pussy Galore, Odd-Job, “no, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” and so forth. Whatever else you can say about this film, its place as part of the cultural lexicon is unshakeable, and that must mean something. Let’s find out what!
The Actual Movie: As with F rom Russia With Love, we immediately start with the gun barrel opening still where it should be, and with the appropriate theme. And as with the last film we get a pre-credits sequence, though unlike the last film this one has absolutely no relevance to the movie whatsoever. Bond swims in to a harbour with a duck on his head – not the perfect disguise, and more than a little dignity-stripping. Still, there’s no obfuscation here as there was with From Russia With Love, and the Bond theme has piped up before the two-minute mark (and again to delineate action, which is now its sole use). But we’re all action here as Bond breaks into the wherever-he-is and plans to blow it up. His bomb clock timer is rather sweet, an alarm clock with a big square battery, attached to Big Red Barrels of Nitro. Then he legs it and, in the first of many unavoidable classic moments, slips out of his wetsuit to reveal a white tux. Bond lighting his cigarette as the explosion goes off and everyone panics is suitably cool, and one of Connery’s better moments in this movie. We get to our first topless girl three and a half minutes in, not that we get to see everything of course, but it’s not exactly subtle. Then, back in the bedroom while getting in a standard bit of romancing, Bond sees the reflection of an attacking man going to cosh him in the girls eye, then flips round so she gets hit in the head – what a gentleman! It’s not really a great moment. From thence we have Goldfinger’s first of many quips – “shocking” says Bond after electrocuting the bad guy in the tub, “quite shocking”. Urgh. After which, the pre-titles sequence is over and, other than filling up a few minutes of screen-time, accomplices very little. Next - the titles, and Shirley Bassey’s finest moment. So the film proper kicks off in Miami, and we know this because of one of those handy exposition info-planes that flies over locations with a big banner trailing behind it declaring “Welcome To Miami!”, should you need to know where this portion of your film is set. This is followed by (too) long, lingering helicopter shots of a resort, and it all looks very 60’s (which of course it is). “I thought I’d find you in good hands,” drawls Felix as he finds Bond getting a massage. Then the (female, naturally) masseuse is dismissed with a simple “men’s talk” and a slap on the arse from Bond, which is… not great. But yes, Felix is back and no longer played by Jack Lord, but instead by the noticeably older Cec Linder – though they make the effort of referring to him having being in Jamaica, which is something at least. Bond, it’s worth pointing out, is wearing a cyan/sky blue terylene dressing gown affair that makes him look like he’s roleplaying an adult baby – it’s hideous, and about as far from “suave” as it’s possible to get. We’re then treated to lots of generally very bad rear-projection that makes it clear Connery never made it to the location shoot – the direction rather lets things down here. Anyway, Bond’s finally on the job. Jo Masterson, the first of (count em) three “Bond girls”, is introduced helping Goldfinger cheat at cards. Connery’s edgy in his first scenes with her, which works quite well, and again plays to his strengths as an actor, though it doesn’t last long. It’s all a bit cheesy – “I know the best place in town” as he goes for the snog as a big pile of food is ignored, fairly typical Bond fare (ho-ho) that feels relatively undistinguished. This is also where we get the famously misjudged “The Beatles without earmuffs” comment, which feels strange. Odd-job is then seen in shadow only as Bond is knocked out. Aaaaand… that’s the end of Jo Masterson. The image of her on the bed covered in gold is incredibly resonant, and genuinely shocking even when you know it’s coming. What’s more, Bond looks properly upset and sounds it on the phone when he called in Felix for assistance, some decent work from Connery as Bond realizes how much his cavalier attitude has backfired and resulted in the death of someone innocent (well, fairly innocent). Now it’s personal. A quick establishing shot of Westminster and we’re back in London with the return of M, and it’s nice that Bond is threatened to be taken off the case and be replaced by 008 – it gives a sense of this being an actual department and not just Bond-plus-the-other-semi-regulars. He does kind of accept responsibility for Jo Masterson’s death, and seems properly contrite, which is also a good piece of characterization. We then cut to dinner and a lecture on economics and how gold works. It’s very old fashioned, and very “British” (that’s “British”, not British). But even if it is somewhat clumsy, it is the worry of the day – economic instability because of the price of gold (plus the suspicion that Goldfinger is smuggling gold as well as being a legitimate dealer – thanks for letting us know). Oh, and we get some plot-convenient Nazi gold as a lure for Goldfinger. Alongside M, Q is back as well, and this time out we get to see a bit behind the scenes. Desmon Llewellin is noticeably better than he was in From Russia With Love and actually seems to have a character here (“now pay attention”, which will go on to be his catchphrase). “Where’s my Bentley?” Bond asks, which again is such a minor detail but again gives the sense that these are an ongoing series of missions, not just a one-and-done. But we get the big Aston Marten DB5 reveal, and fair enough, it is beautiful. It’s a far cry from an attaché case with a knife in the handle, though the rather over-delivered explanation of every single gadget is just a touch too literal (and long) – the question it mostly leaves in the mind is, “how long till we get to see all these fancy things in action then?” Watch this space… Speaking of over-delivered and long, now we’re off to the golf course! Imagine the excitement… Actually you’ll have to imagine it, because it’s entirely absence here. Now Bond and Goldfinger are playing for Nazi gold… trying to stay awake… even the bar of Nazi gold isn’t making things interesting… Different balls, Slazenger 1 and 7… oh gods this is dull… Bond wins by replacing the ball – who gives a fuck? This is by far the dullest sequence from the three Bond movies thus far. I get they’re sounding each other out, and it’s meant to be a cat-and-mouse game as they try to one-up each other, but this is just tedious. Bond places his already-explained tracker on Goldfinger’s car, and it’s the size of a fag packet. Stevie Wonder could have found it… We also get to see Odd-Job’s lethal hat. It’s silly, in a typically Bond way, but not distractedly so. Bond gets his cash all the same, and we see the 60’s Google Maps built into the Aston Martin (it looks pretty good for the time, to be fair). Goldfinger’s car is loaded on to plane, the number plate for which is AU01, which is rather clever (AU being the chemical symbol for Gold, and the first two letters of Auric Goldfinger’s name. That’s some smart writing). From one location to another, and thankfully not a golf course in site – we instead shift to Geneva and some lovely scenery as Bond’s far-from-discreet Aston races a Mustang. Like you do. Bond feels up for the chase, but actively stops himself from being reckless, a nice touch, given his previous recklessness got Jo Masterson killed. We get to see Bond observing Goldfiger from the road, then pull back to see the same but with a shooter (apparently) pointing at Bond, a decent bit of direction at last. OK now the chase is on. Bond drives the mysterious woman in the Mustang off the road, and her dismissive attitude towards him as he attempts the usual charm routine is quite a nice contrast to his earlier sexism. At last, Bond gets to do some actual sleuthing, spying on Auric Industries. We get to see some time passing as he waits until nightfall to approach, so we see him actively putting in the hours rather than just turning up at a convenient moment, which is appreciated... So Bond overhears Goldfinger both explain how he smuggles gold (it’s in his Rolls-Royce, which is fairly neatly handled, though the smuggling plot is unbelievably minor) and something called Operation Grand Slam. The overhearing is a bit convenient to be honest, though it’s not the worst example in this film (we’ll get to that). Bond finds another spy, and we get to meet Jo Masterson’s sister, the not-exactly-intimidating-sounding Tilly, who’s out for revenge for her sister’s death (Bond doesn’t find it necessary to point out that it was basically his fault). Tilly is played by Tania Mallet – and she’s a terrible actor. Still, before she can stink things up too badly, we’re off to the car chase you all knew was coming as soon as Q laid out all the gadgets the Aston Martin was fitted out with. Bits of it are quite well done, but bits of it are clearly only there to show off what the car (by which I mean the special effects team) can do – it’s all a bit contrived. Nice big car crash when one of the bad guys’ cars plummets off a cliff though. If you watched this sequence with your eyes closed you’d swear this was a Western – all the gunshots sound like they should be fired by John Wayne with the standard “peeewwww- wwww” ricochet sound. Eventually the car is forced to stop and Tilly is taken down by Odd-Job’s hat – no great loss to the film frankly, but it’s good to see another example of Bond miscalculating and losing – he’s definitely not infallible here, and it makes him seem more real. All the hench-people at Auric Industries are Asian – why? We’re in Switzerland and we get no explanation for this on screen at all. To take Bond back to Auric Industries the henchepeople make the mistake of putting Bond back in the Aston Martin, which they’ve already seen have multiple “special features” - no wonder so many of them get killed off. Then at last we get to the inevitable ejector seat sequence, and laughs ahoy as a dummy is fired out the top of the car. There’s a bit of a car chase with some ill-advised speeded-up footage, and eventually Bond miscalculates and crashes into a wall. Because he drove at a mirror. D’oh! Which leads us to one of the most famous scenes in all the Bond movies – Bond strapped to a table while a laser works its way up to his crotch. Which is interesting at least in part because lasers hadn’t been invented in the real world then – they were purely theoretical. “No Mr Bond, I expect you to die!” guffaws Goldfinger in classic villain mode, yet there’s some real tension as we wait to discover whether Goldfinger will fall for Bond’s bluff regarding Operation Grand Slam (some good incidental music here really helps too). It’s the best written and directed sequence in the movie so far, and there’s a reason that it’s rightly remembered – it’s very well done indeed (points too, to Connery, who’s started to make a bit more effort). So Bond is knocked out and taken captive, as one would expect. As with the last two films, it takes a surprisingly long time to get to what we regard as a staple of the genre - we get the first appearance of Pussy Galore, the film’s “proper” Bond girl (after Jo and Tilly), at the 55-minite mark, way into the film’s run-time and just shy of the halfway mark. “You can turn off the charm” she tells him, “I’m immune”, and Honour Blackman is an immediately worthwhile foil for Connery. About time. The model “private jet” she flies is hilariously poor. Bond asks for his attaché case, which isn’t available but is a nice nod to the last film I assume. The spying equipment on the plane is all very low-tech - holes in walls, which is rather charming, and there’s a decent game of cat and mouse going on here. Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus! If that doesn’t make you fall off your sofa laughing then there’s something wrong with you. There’s just a tiny hint of feminism here – Pussy’s trained her pilots in contrast to expectations (the assumption is a man would do it), and all the pilots are female. It’s a start, but it’s very far down in the mix, and rather undermined by the “sexy” sax of the Carry On variety as the pilots emerge from their planes. The action shifts to a stud farm, because apparently the only thing Goldfinger likes as much as gold is horse cock. Funny that didn’t make it into the Shirley Bassey song. It’s also the first time Bond is “a welcome guest” of someone as a euphemism for being in prison (as opposed to Dr No, when he was in a gilt-lined cage). Now we get a whole conference room full of baddies getting exploited as Goldfinger uses their greed against them – “a million today or ten million tomorrow”. A typically-Bond big sliding control panel and map of the vastly impractical type dominates the room, alongside rotating and sliding floors and bars and… well it’s all a bit over the top, but fun. Goldfinger announces he wasn’t be the crime equivalent of a moon-shot. It’s… fine, they are sort-of explaining his motivation, but it’s all a bit plodding, and the fact that he wants to be seen as the master of crime, rather than just having a passion for gold and acquiring it any way he sees fit, is both introduced from nowhere then never spoken of again. The henchperson guarding Bond is incredibly dumb to open the door when he just can’t see Bond inside the cell. Not terrific. Still, at least Bond is out now, so maybe we can move things forward? Bond hiding inside the Fort Knox model while Goldfinger Explains His Evil Plan is a bit daft, but it does let him overhear Goldfinger’s blowhard routine. After which Pussy discovers and gets the best of Bond, with alleged judo (she just pulls his ankles, but OK, whatever). The bad guys are then all gassed, weirdly, which leads to a series of bad extras falling over (also something we’ll be returning to). The banker who pulled out of the meeting is unceremoniously killed off by Odd-Job to the strains of the Goldfinger theme, Bassey-free this time but with lots of shrieking brass. Bond did managed to plant a tracker (this one lighter-sized – do people in Q branch just build things the size of cigarette accouterments?) on his body, so obviously knew he was being taken out to be killed. Which, fine, and he gets a note to Felix so that’s something. Then the car Odd-Job drove to dispose of the banker is crushed. It’s a striking image, but a bit on the pointless side. And the sequence goes on way too long. Doesn’t work. We then get a scene between Pussy and Goldfinger, which bothers to take the time to establish a relationship between them, at last. Pussy’s motivation is to buy a little island in the Bahamas and go back to nature. Could it be any more 60’s? Interestingly, Goldfinger treats her as basically an equal and doesn’t leer after her, which is hugely appreciated, and at least she’s given some motivation. Felix has found his way to the stud farm now, so he can basically stand about watching the last twenty minutes of a Bond film. Then we get the explanation about Goldfinger’s true plan - irradiating the gold with a big Gold Irratiator atomic device to destabilise Western economies and increase the value of his own gold. It’s... a plan. Not the worst a Bond villain has ever come up with, not the best either. The air-raid assault pilots use the call-sign “champagne” for some reason. The actual attack on Fort Knox is fairly well realized, though there’s not a huge amount of tension, but we get the second instance of huge hordes of extras all falling over after being “gassed” in a wildly unconvincing fashion. Cut to – inside Fort Knox, and The World’s Biggest Steel Door. They break in using the crotch-laser (there’s something I didn’t think I’d be typing today), earlier used to threaten Mr Connery’s genitals, in what is actually quite an understated manor, then we’re straight into a pitched battle, with lots of machine guns and solders doing stunt falls off high things. It’s well put together, to be fair, as is the idea that Goldfinger can whip off a coat to reveal an American general’s uniform as a ruse to escape. Down in the vaults, trying to stop the atomic device, Bond defeating Odd-Job when Odd-Job clearly has him bested is some strong writing. This is because Bond visibly works out how to defeat him then puts his plan into action, so (a bit of a rarity in this film) we see Bond being able to use his intelligence rather than just strength or luck to defeat the bad guy, and Odd-Job’s death is a satisfactory end to his character, and a good moment for Bond as well. Bond stops the counter on “007” which is funny, stupid, cheesy and appropriate all at the same time, but it’s not nearly as funny as Bond looking at a collection of wires and circuits in the atomic device blankly with clearly no idea how to disarm the device, only for Felix to simply reach in and switch it off. So the day has been saved, hurrah! Or… has it? The final “Goldfinger gets sucked out of the plane” to be honest feels like a cop-out, and not a great end to the character. The intent seems reasonable – one final shock after the bad guy’s apparently been defeated! – but in practice it looks like a loose end to get Goldfinger out the way and then finish with the now-usual Bond-beds-the-girl sequence. It’s not a terrific conclusion. And why is Pussy, who has lest we forget mostly been working for the bad guy thus far and only swapped out the nerve gas to kill everyone at the last moment, flying Bond to the White House lunch? Well, obviously, so that her and Bond can escape together and have a final canoodle, but it mostly looks like the Americans have run out of pilots. Oh wait, that’s the end of the film.
In Conclusion: The ur-text for James Bond, for better or worse. There’s lots of things that can be said about Goldfinger, but the most obvious is just how clear a template it is for what comes after this film, rather than it being a movie that’s built out of what’s come before. That’s a great shame, because up until now the build from Dr No to From Russia With Love has proven effective and propulsive. But rather than doubling down on the Cold War thriller aspects of From Russia With Love, Goldfinger lurches in the opposite direction, and we get bright, clear, action-adventure of a noticeably more straightforward variety. Here there’s none of the murky motives and shifting alliances that defined the last movie. Is this an improvement? Well, it’s certainly different, but watching the films in order it’s a shame to see the careful work already laid down being discarded for a move in new direction that seems entirely unconnected to what’s come before. The pre-titles sequence lays this out right from the very beginning – the sequence has nothing to do with the movie, and it’s only real reason to exist is to give us a bit of action before Shirley Bassey lurches into life. The direction of the movie is, in other words, a lot more simplistic, but at the same time it’s obviously successful, since this ends up being how Things Are Going To Be from now on. But the subtle hints of Bond as an anti-hero who’s just playing the role of someone of culture? They’re almost entirely absent, and the sanding off of those rougher edges does neither the character nor the film any favours. Since Connery is better at playing the thug-just-in-control than light comedy, they don’t do his performance much good either, and he’s just too relaxed here. A couple of the lighter moments land, like his “I must be dreaming” reaction to hearing Pussy’s name, and there’s one or two rare scenes where he’s given a bit more depth – his contriteness about getting Jo Masterson killed – but they’re too few to really carry any weight, and signs of self-indulgence are already starting to creep in (the vast excess of puns and quips, for example). So why did this become such a defining text when it comes to Bond? Well, all the above criticisms do hold, but if you come to the film as a stand-alone item, then the simple fact is that it’s just good fun. The Aston Martin is kind of the synecdoche of this in regards to the movie – there’s some really great work done with it, some of it’s silly, and there’s a couple of moments which are outright bad, but mostly it’s hard not watch with a big smile of your face. A lot of the plot is fairly linear of the go-here-then-here variety, but it’s mostly carried off with such aplomb that it’s tough not to just get swept along by it. Though the direction is a step down after From Russia With Love’s superlative work (Guy Hamilton stepping into Terence Young’s shoes), it’s still competent and on occasion (the attack on Fort Knox) genuinely impressive, which helps paper over a few cracks (too much rear-projection and the should-always-be-avoided speeded up footage earlier in the movie). The (non-regular) cast too deserve some praise, but especially Honour Blackman as Pussy Galore. Whatever faults the film has in terms of its approach to women (of which there are many, see below), Blackman is never less than a striking presence on screen, and she clearly makes Connery up his game when they’re appearing in scenes together. Indeed, it’s a shame the film takes so long to introduce her and get the two of them together, because they make a terrific team, and her no-nonsense approach coupled with his similar-but-different way of working lights up the movie whenever we get them together. Similarly, Gert Frobe (in fact, mostly voiced by Michael Collins) is clearly relishing every second of his time playing Goldfinger, and though it’s a hugely fruity performance it’s exactly the sort of screen-filling presence the film needs to make any of the nonsense whirling around him work. Yet work it does, and it’s precisely because he’s such a magnetic anchor at the centre of the film that Goldfinger can get away with quite so much. Because there is a sense, watching it, that “getting away with it” is kind of Goldfinger’s modus operandi. In terms of the plot, what we get on screen mostly works, it’s fairly logical (by Big Bond Villain standards, anyway) and there are no gaping holes in the story, but it’s also completely preposterous and mostly succeeds on sheer momentum – stopping to think about it for even a second will derail everything. But the film mostly gets away with it, because, stupidly tedious golf sequence aside, it is a largely compelling, forward-moving piece with a big old ham of a villain dead-centre. In terms of the action, the movie more or less gets away with it as well, because the big centrepiece car chase is (mostly) good, and the set pieces are all competently delivered. The characters – Tilly aside – are all worth spending time with, even though Connery’s performance as Bond just isn’t as good as the last two outings. And so it goes. Every time it come to praise something in the movie, there’s a qualifier required, and that’s because Goldfinger is mostly skating by on luck, charm and hope. So that’s why it becomes such a defining text – in the end, despite and maybe even because of its fairly obvious flaws, this is simpler and easier to watch than its two predecessors, and coupled with its success at the box office (which was vast – the fastest grossing film ever at that point) the deal was sealed – this is what works for Bond, so this is what’s going to happen from now on. And to be fair, the experience of watching this film isn’t, race and gender issues aside, in any way a bad one. But it’s still impossible not to feel a loss for the more interesting, murky world that Dr No and From Russia With Love inhabited, and for the more morally ambiguous anti-hero that Bond seemed to be developing into. Goldfinger is, in the end, a decent action-adventure movie, though rarely more, but it also marks the end of one particular on-screen version of Bond, and that is something to be mourned.
What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut?About ten percent. The golf course material is both incredibly dull and strung out far too long, and Goldfinger spends way too long explain His Nefarious Plan to a bunch of people who are then promptly gassed a few seconds later anyway. This also, sadly, means Bond almost never has to work out what’s happening, he just overhears it – first at Auric Industries, then again at the stud farm – a sad undermining of his genuine powers of investigation in From Russia With Love. There’s little snippets here and there that could go as well, but 10% seems fair.
Quip Level: Oh without question Shoutbox Would Be Ashamed of This. Really. We kick off with the “shocking” quip – which certainly lives up to its name – in the pre-credits sequence and it just never lets up. That’s a bit of a shame because it rather makes Goldfinger difficult to take seriously. Of course it’s clear this movie isn’t going for the same tone as the semi-“realistic” feel of its predecessor, but it’s still pushed way too far, and it does rather undermine things. The excess of quips also don’t really play to Connery’s strengths as an actor. 2017 Cringe Level: We’re just scraping under the Trumpshake here, so let’s go with a What Were They Thinking? and hope things don’t deteriorate. In truth there’s just far too many decisions that would have seemed bafflingly poor in the 1960’s never mind today. It’s one thing to have “sexy saxophone” music as all Pussy’s pilots get out of their planes – kind of stupid, but perhaps forgivable given the context of the times (and it’s also not being played entirely straight, so the tongue in cheek aspects at least helps to mitigate things slightly). But the fact that every single one of Goldfinger’s henchpeople – all juniors – are Asian, not a single one of them gets a line, each and every one is nothing but cannon fodder, without a single word of explanation? It’s just straight-up racist. If you’re going to go for an all-Asian cast of henchpeople you need to explain why, even if it was something as crass as a line from Goldfinger about, “I do a lot of business there,” or, “they were provided by the Reds because I’m doing this for their benefit.” It’s not great, but it would be something. Of course, you could argue that Odd-Job is also of Asian extraction and he’s a major character… which he is, but he’s also entirely mute, and takes orders from a white man, even to the death. So… are only white men are allowed to speak in this film, or act with any agency? Because even setting aside the race problem (which we absolutely shouldn’t do), the gender issues are substantially more difficult to deal with than they were in From Russia With Love. Remember that moment when Romanova finds herself on the end of a Bond slap because he needs to get information? It worked because Bond was being characterized as a bastard anti-hero who treated everyone the same, regardless of gender. Here? The way he forces himself on Pussy during their literal roll in the hay is just ghastly, not in a this-isn’t-politically-correct way but the fact that he just forces himself on her for pleasure. This isn’t some cunning ruse to get information by any means necessary, or a cat-and-mouse ploy, or just a way to get information, it’s just someone who’s horny forcing himself on someone else. While it is going too far to say he raped Pussy, he also obviously, clearly pushes himself on her against her will until she – eventually – capitulates. The treatment of race and gender in Goldfinger is absolutely appalling, and it’s not good enough to try and forgive this simply because this is “a bit of a romp” or “because it was the 60’s” (as many have tried to do in the past). It’s dreadful, and the movie deserves to be called out for it. Now I’ve written that, I take it back. It earns a Trumpshake.
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Post by ganews on Mar 8, 2017 14:15:51 GMT -5
Goldfinger the movie was amazingly close to the book. I'm pretty sure I actually read the book first and was amazed that the golf sequence made it into the movie. (Wasn't Bond supposed to be into fancy European things like baccarat, not an old-man game like golf?) He cheats to beat Goldfinger because the latter is flagrantly cheating on the course, something that enrages Bond's caddy. The Korean henchman are all straight from the book, I don't remember why; Oddjob is supposed to have an un-repaired hairlip. The book is clear that Pussy Galore's flying force is 100% Lesbian, and when Bond asks her at the end why she changed her mind on him she says she never met a real man before.
In the MAD Magazine parody, the pilot's name is changed to the hilarious parody Tushy Galore.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 8, 2017 14:38:37 GMT -5
I actually kind of like the golf sequence. What can I say? I think we've maybe lost touch with just how hoity-toity golf still was in the early 60's. Municipal courses weren't a thing yet. Being able to play golf, both financially and in terms of the time it takes out of the workday, was still downright aristocratic. Not quite polo, but up there.
Tilly Masterson is the prettiest Bond girl of them all, actor or no.
"very bad rear-projection that makes it clear Connery never made it to the location shoot" - God I hate this. We watched To Catch A Thief recently, and while it's a great movie, we also played a sort of guessing game all the way through trying to spy any shots that would prove Grant or Kelly ever actually went to the Riviera for the shoot. There might have been two scenes that were unequivocally them on location.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 9, 2017 6:42:29 GMT -5
Powerthirteen - I must admit my attitude to the golf sequence may be coloured by my own experinces - I played at a private club for fifteen years, my brother is a member of the Royal And Ancient in St Andrews and my dad was his club's captain, so being out of touch with how hoity-toity golf is is definitely not my slant on it... Yea the rear-projection here is just really badly handled, and what's most frustrating about it is that it's completely unnecessary. They've obviously built part of the "Miami" set in the studio back in London, so why not just have Bond interact with Felix et al on that? It's not a perfect 100% match to the location work, but its a million times better than the shitty rear projection, and we have enough establishing shots to make it work. It's just bad direction. ganews - Interesting that the pilots are 100% lesbian in the book. It's a shame that's not made clearer in the movie, though I suppose the time it was made might have prevented that. The fact that Odd-Job had an unrepaired hairlip I'm glad didn't make it across. But that's a point for a future entry.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 9, 2017 9:42:44 GMT -5
Powerthirteen - I must admit my attitude to the golf sequence may be coloured by my own experinces - I played at a private club for fifteen years, my brother is a member of the Royal And Ancient in St Andrews and my dad was his club's captain, so being out of touch with how hoity-toity golf is is definitely not my slant on it.... Let's be friends, and also can you introduce me to them and mention that I golf? But they're only REALLY hoity-toity if they still call the clubs mashie, spoon, niblick, and so on. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 13, 2017 9:50:02 GMT -5
Thunderball (1965)  Pre-existing Predjudices: None. I remember next to nothing about Thunderball, beyond Tom Jones’s attempts to drown out timpani on the theme song (“so he strikes! DUH-DUH-DUH-DA-DUUUUUH! Like Thunnnnnnnnnnnderball!”), and the inevitable fact that it’s the one with all the underwater action sequences. So a fairly clean slate, then. Let’s see how it goes! The Actual Movie: We open on a funeral, which is at least a new start for a Bond movie. Bond appears to actually be on point here, and it’s a reasonable fake-out that the flag covering the coffin has the initials JB on it – but not Our Mr Bond, of course, but instead SPECTRE agent Jaques Bouvar (yes, we’re in France). Cut to – country house, and Bond guessing that Bouvar’s “widow” is actually the man himself in widow’s clothes after faking his own death… and Bond works this out because he opens the car door himself, whereas the widow would have waited to have it opened for her. What, women can’t open car doors? What the fuck, Thunderball? This means veils and fisticuffs between Bond and an apparent drag artist, and seeing Connery trying to take down someone who looks like they should be on Ru Paul’s Drag Race is incredibly funny, though definitely not intentionally so... We’re back to poor speeded up footage, and it’s a not-great fight sequence. Still, Bond visibly kills someone by hand (choking out Bouvar with a poker) rather than a clinical kill which is appreciated. And now… he escapes on a jet-pack. It’s not a great means of escape (and involves some bad rear-projection), but the DB5 is back, and now comes fitted with water cannons rather than exhaust pipes. Water the chances of that? (ho-ho) Tom Jones has replaced Shirley Bassey as the Welsh bellower de jour. So we remain in Paris, which you know because there’s a view of the Eifel Tower. The people speaking French in what is clearly the French capital didn’t give it away then… Man With An Eyepatch opens…ohhh a slidey wardrobe in an office! So we’re immediately back with SPECTRE, and the white cat is apparently still in control, while its headless handler keeps it well stroked (oh fine, it’s Blofeld again, poorly disguised by a plastic partition to hide his identity), and everyone is still known by numbers. Mr Eyepatch is Number Two, not inappropriately. We get to see SPECTRE justice. Electrocution, then a handy sliding chair. A bit of a plan explained, then we cut to… … a health clinic. That might prove to be every bit as exciting as the round of golf in the last film! Bond spots a tattoo that might be a plot point, then he calls Moneypenny so she can have a couple of extra lines this time out. Bond is allegedly on leave, so it’s a bit of a coincidence that this is where the action takes place, as he investigates Tattoo Man. Its all OK but fairly mediocre and not really engaging. Then he meets the nurse/physiotherapist, who gets a forced kiss despite her clear lack of interest, but the commitment to this actually being a health farm seems strangely charming. Then Bond put on a spine stretching machine for his back, then someone in bandages turns it to maximum as he makes a bid for the world’s crappest assassination attempt. Again bad speeded up footage and zoomy cameras that make it seem more like Bond is fucking a table, rather than in any actual danger. The nurse/exploitation object rushes back in to apologize, and he forgives her for the thing she didn’t do with a fuck in the steam-room, but it’s all a bit tacky. Next we’re off to a steam closet, of the type that only exist in movies when people need to be trapped in one for some reason, with a broom pushed through the door handles. Bond then gives his suddenly-very-compliant physiotherapist a rub down with a mink mitten (not a euphemism, though, it also basically is), but this is all taking so long. Get to the point! There’s going to be a point, right? Some woman we haven’t met and don’t know is in bed with a pilot, who is in short order killed by his own duplicate. Clunk, clunky-clunk clunk. This is then explained in far too much detail, as the replacement pilot tries to extort more money from the caper. He’s meant to be flying an RAF plane on a training mission with two live atomic missiles on board, because that’s a totally normal thing. We get a cut between the loud noise of the flight taking off and Bond nearby, which is fairly well handled, then Bond sees someone being brought in to the health spa (yes, he’s still there) so goes for a snoop. The level of contrivance here is high. Bond finds the abandoned dead body of the pilot that’s just been placed on the spine-stretching rack table from earlier… then he sets off a fire alarm… god get on with it al-fucking-ready! Then we’re back with the plane, and gas is fed into breathing equipment of the crew to kill off any lingering extras, and the plane is stolen then landed/crashed into the sea – eventually. This is all taking far, far too long. Once on the water, the plane deploys its landing gear and sinks, all somehow without anything of actual interest happening. Nearby, a SPECTRE boat launches divers and kills the duplicate pilot, who’s handily trapped by a seatbelt – oh the surprise. The atomic bombs are stolen. Very slowly. There’s a lot of impressive but not especially interesting underwater stuff going on. It takes an age to get to the point that there’s sub and the plane is hidden and… urgh. This just goes on and on. Then we’re on the sub where the missiles are being loaded and it's still difficult to care. Finally, around ten years later, the sequence is over and we’re approaching an exotic island, and Number One is still being controlled by a white cat. Yet still we cut back to the health farm and Bond making his DB5 exist. A car following Bond taken out by some bikers and bad speeded up footage. Bond makes it to the office at last. “Every double-0 in Europe has been called in” (that should be exciting, huh? No), and we’re into the world’s most fancy conference room, where M is holding court. We meet a Home Secretary for the first time in a Bond movie, as Blofeld attempts to blackmail the government for 100 million pounds. We are now 40 minutes into the movie and everything that’s happened so far could have been done in under five. Bond asks to get set to Nassau to pursue the case, and M tells him he’s not surprised because he knows of “your enthusiasm for watersports”. Heh. Then we’re off to the Caribbean and swimming: “You swim like a man” Bond tells a girl he meets, who will turn out to be handily connected to the movie’s villain, as this is Domino, the Bond girl of the movie. “So do you” she archly replies. It’s all there… The they’re off to the beach and yes, it’s a beach. Now we’re onto a swimming pool, and … you know, this film is crap so far. Some flirting is mildly more successful: “What sharp little eyes you have” Domino tells Bond. “Wait till you get to my teeth” he replies, but this is generally better than last movie at least, and not a pun in sight. Next, off to the baccarat table to meet with Largo, he of the eye-patch earlier in the movie. Everyone knows he’s called Largo, but there never seems to be a point when he actually tells anyone his name or introduces himself, which is not helpful for the audience. Lots of bad SPECTRE (of defeat) puns make up the thus-far pun shortfall though. Then off to dancing and a bit of plot revelation but still nothing all that exciting. Bond heads off to a hotel room and finds a tape recorder inside a book. Bit of stuff, then a henchperson is found in the shower and defeated. The henchperson is sent back to Largo, who feels him to the sharks, so now we know he’s bad, in case being a member of SPECTRE and having an eye-patch didn’t rather remove any doubt. After which we meet the third Felix in four films, played almost anonymously by the marvellously-named Rik van Nutter – really, Felix could be anyone in this movie. Q gets to go on location to explain This Movie’s Gadgets, which is nice for him, so look out for those little toys later! Despite Desmond Llewelyn’s best efforts, we’re now an hour into the movie and still waiting for something interesting… Back to London and more threats. Stuff is discussed. Then we get to see the vision that is Sean Connery in a wetsuit – try to restrain yourselves. We get some more underwater action, but its still not exciting. Then… almost excitement! A chase, hand grenades thrown in the water, boats through the middle of catamarans. Yeah… almost excitement. It’s not that its badly done, its just not engagingly done, and of course Bond is perfectly fine. The wetsuit he’s wearing is orange, by the way, which is…. not discreet. After the attack he swims ashore and gets into a car with a speeded-up-footage problem, driven by a woman with a whacking great SPECTRE ring. So we know she’s no good, though the character is decent. On to a bit of a helicopter run with some nice areal photography, some clay pigeon shooting, we see the shark pool above, why are we supposed to care about this. Later Bond shows off a bit doing the shooting, but it’s not any better. Look I’m meant to be taking notes here, but if I do I’m just going to describe what’s on screen, because none of it is interesting or anything other than literal. Woman attacked etc… Right, let’s try to get back on point. Power needs to be out on part of the island, woman hostage, horrible dress. Some stuff, a fight, Bond ends up in Shark Tank, breather sure came in handy. Again, well shot but dull. He escapes, ends up in bed with someone. One hour twenty-five – nothing interesting yet… tick-tock baby… Yes! Wait! Something interesting! Volpe kidnaps Bond and he escapes her through a carnival! This is actually interesting, and in a change from using stock footage we instead have some stock music (from Dr No, though it’s more effectively used her). Bond enters the Kiss Kiss club. Lets hope there’s some bang bang to liven things up. Oh but there is! The killing of Volpe is really well handled, the climax of the drums matching the shooting, a terrific piece of writing and direction. About fucking time, even though it means we lose one of the only interesting characters so far. Bond finds the camouflaged plane – “shoot one of the sharks, keep the others occupied”, Bond tells Leiter, as he goes to investigate the plane, slowly and underwater. With lots of sharks, which you really would expect to up the drama quotient. Again, well shot but not exciting. Domino’s there too, and apparently they have sex underwater – “I hope we didn’t scare the fish” – which is some feat with both in full wet-suits, then to the beach where Bond “has to hurt her again” by explaining her brother is dead. So Domino at least has some motivation to hate Largo here, which is something. Yes, more underwater fighting as Bond sneaks in by taking out (yet another) henchperson. Stranded Bond waits to be rescued by Felix. Which he is. He’s able to communicate the target for the atomic bomb is Miami, which I guess is important, though it doesn’t play that way on screen. It could have been a municipal park for all the shock that’s communicated. Then we are back underwater yet a-fucking-gain... For the love of fish… Some impressive parachute stuff with lots of people jumping out of planes then swimming off underwater but it’s the same old story… looks good but doesn’t engage. Now, an underwater fight, #4,146. You know the one. Well shot, obviously, but just so so dull! The fight goes on for ages. It’s hard to write about because its just a lot of people thrashing about underwater. Bit of a fight between Bond and Largo, then Largo makes his escape. Bond follows. Largo gets in the ship and Bond grabs hold underwater. Largos yacht is surrounded, and “makes smoke” which makes it seem more like it has a really bad gas problem. The rear of the boat gets jettisoned – decent effect, actually – and blown up while the front bit makes its getaway with big aquaplanes, as Bond clambers on board. Big fight on the bridge, though we’re back to terrible rear-projection again and speeded up footage – sorry to bang on about it, but it’s just very badly done, the scenery outside appears to be passing at the speed of a jet plane, not a boat. The fight is good enough, the rest just overeggs the pudding. Eventually Largo is killed by Domino, so finally a woman in this movie has some agency. “I’m glad I killed him,” she comments. “ You’re glad you killed him!” said the just-saved Bond, as lots more speeded up footage in the background suggests things are coming to a head. Bond, Domino and Largo’s pet nuclear scientist (he freed Domino before the big fight on the bridge) jump out the boat, but only Bond and Domino get in to the dingy – he’s never seen again, which seems a bit harsh for the character that actually allowed the plot to resolve itself. The two of them are then rescued by skyhook, probably best bit of the movie and its about three seconds from the end credits. And it ends on the Bond theme rather than Mr Jones, in a failed attempt to kid on what we’ve watched was in any way exciting or worthwhile. In Conclusion: Christ, Thunderball is dull. That’s the overriding sensation sitting down to actually watch the film. At a punishing two hours and ten minutes, Thunderball is the longest of the four films so far covered, but it does absolutely nothing interesting with its extended running time. At an hour and a half, Thunderball could be a fairly taut action movie, but there’s just so much bloat here that any time the film comes close to building up momentum it will switch to another extended underwater sequence and it all grinds to a halt. Yet it would be a mistake to only blame the underwater sequences here – they’re part of the problem, but they’re not the whole of it. The opening forty minutes (!) of the movie at the health spa are equally as tedious as all the laborious underwater material, and it feels like the film is just marking time until… what? The theft of the plane? That could have happened a couple of minutes in and we’d be spared endless scenes of a shirtless Connery faffing about in some corridors. Saying that, though, one aspect of Thunderball that’s noticeably better than Goldfinger is Connery himself. The humour of Thunderball is much toned down compared to its predecessor, and as a result Connery’s performance improves noticeably. This isn’t the high point of From Russia With Love, but Connery seems more invested in the role, and the result is a much more even performance. He looks the part too – there’s a lot of swimming and action in Thunderball and Connery’s Bond looks like he could handle the physical side of it – this isn’t Daniel Craig’s abs of steel, but there’s no question that, looking at this Bond on screen, he could do everything this story asked of him. So it’s a bit of a shame the film doesn’t ask a bit more of him, then. The story here – steal a couple of nukes, blackmail the British government into a ransom for their return – would seem too simple to get wrong, yet SPECTRE’s plan is a classic piece of James Bond Logic rather than real-world logic, and unlike a lot of James Bond Logic plans, this one doesn’t fall apart after you finish watching the film and start thinking about it, it falls apart right there while you’re staring at the screen (quite possibly in disbelief). Lots of Bond films skate by on shaky Evil Bad Guy Plans but get away with it through interesting characters or a propulsive plot, but there’s nothing propulsive at all about Thunderball, which just highlights how convoluted things are. It seems obvious to point out, but SPECTRE’s plan to steal two atomic missiles is insanely complex, involving a duplicate pilot that’s had two years of surgery to become identical to the pilot of the plane that will carry the missiles (lucky the RAF didn’t rotate out the pilots a couple of weeks earlier, otherwise the whole plan would be stuffed), then there’s the theft of the plane itself and the gassing of the crew, then there’s landing the plane on water, then letting it sink, then getting the bombs out with an inevitably-endless underwater sequence, then it’s camouflaged… if they can do all that it doesn’t seem like raising the money they’re trying to extort out of the British another way would all that hard for them (especially since we’re also presented with the AGM Of Doom, as the white cat Blofeld gets a run-down of all the money coming in from various nefarious SPECTRE deals). It’s ridiculous, in other words, and not really in a fun way, it just appears rather stupid. So if the main plan is a bust, and the pacing is a bust, can the supporting cast sweep in and save the movie? Sadly, not really. Domino retains some interesting characteristics – kept in a gilded cage by a man she clearly fears but can’t escape – that makes for a bit of a change from the run of female protagonists we’ve had so far, and she gets some real agency as she takes out Largo at the end of the film and saves Bond’s life in the process. The set-up here is a little clichéd, with Bond just about to be shot before she takes Largo out, but nevertheless points where they’re deserved, and it’s great to see a female character retain her agency and equally not get bedded by, or ever really show any particular interest in, Bond himself. This is a bit of an in-theory victory, though, because Claudine Auger is a pretty bland on-screen presence, and doesn’t really have the range to deliver the cowed-but-defiant performance the role really needs. This is thrown in to sharp relief, because elsewhere in the movie we have SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe, played by Luciana Paluzzi, who lights up the screen every time she’s on camera, and who works very well with Connery in their moments together. She’s a terrific femme fatale – not an original observation, I know – and her death at the Kiss Kiss Club is the highlight of the movie. An interesting, engaging female character? Yeah, there was no way she was making it to the end credits… Oh, and as for Largo, our movie’s ostensible Big Bad? Kind of a bust too. He ticks a lot of the Bond villain clichés – eyepatch, keeps sharks in a swimming pool, you know the sort of thing – but as played by Adolpho Celi, he doesn’t quite have the presence to really stand out. Say what you will about Gert Frobe’s fabulously fruity performance as Goldfinger, but he certainly filled up the screen. Largo just can’t compete. He’s not awful, but as the supposed Number Two in SPECTRE you’d expect something… more, somehow. Even the direction can’t help out here – this is Terrence Young’s third, final and weakest Bond directorial outing. The underwater sequences may long but they look amazing, so real points and credit are deserved there, but for the rest… yeah, we’re back to poor and overly-used rear-projection and speeded-up footage that renders parts of the film more Benny Hill than James Bond, with parts of it just seemly incredibly random (and that’s without playing the Where Did That Fucking Jet-Pack Come From game). The pacing issues, too, can be at least partially laid at the director’s feet, with just so much material that could be lost, and the tight, instinctive and developed style he used so effectively on From Russia With Love is nowhere to be seen here. There’s a… literalness to everything here, and no subtlety at all. But above all it’s that pacing that sinks Thunderball (sorry, that one wasn’t even meant to be a pun). Everything here is Just. So. Slow. We take far too long to get to the main plot (even Bond’s involvement in it is a massive co-incidence, since he just so happens to be staying at a health spa where something shady is going down), and when we do get there it barely seems worth the bother. A major western city being threatened by an atomic bomb should be tense, or at the very least exciting, but the danger never feels like it’s actually real, it’s just something people mention from time to time to remind you it’s a plot point, not an actual threat. It’s great to see Connery a bit more engaged this time out, and it’s nice that, whatever else you can say about the movie, it’s not just a more-is-more re-tread of Goldfinger, which it very easily could have been given how successful that movie was. By far the weakest of the four Bond films so far, there’s just nothing that Thunderball does better than any of its predecessors. Even the Bahamas location isn’t enough to distinguish it – on-screen it just looks like a more extensively-shot version of Jamaica from Dr No, and though Dr No wasn’t a remarkable film, it was a steady one that got things off to a reliable start. From Russia With Love had a distinct, Cold War aesthetic to define it, and Goldfinger soared so far over the top it almost succeeded in spite of itself. What does Thunderball have that can compete with that? A stupid, overly-complex plan to steal a couple of bombs, an eye-patch cliché of a villain who wouldn’t need major retooling to fit into Austin Powers and endless, dreary underwater antics where a bunch of identically-clad wet-suited men hack away at some other identically-clad wet-suited men. What a crap film.
What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut?An easy 25%, going up to maybe a third. The first forty minutes of the movie could be delivered in about five, and the endless, endless scenes in the health spa play more like a spy version of St Trinians than they do a proper thriller or adventure story. And the underwater sequences… my Gods do they go on. They’re technically astounding – clearly shot, excellently directed and exquisitely detailed – but just really, really boring to watch time after time. The problem with doing lots of action sequences under water is very obvious, and it’s this – everything happens very slowly under water. That means you can have an effective moment of hide-and-seek - one scene, shot around a wreck with Bond slipping inside then out the other side to bomb the two henchpeople that followed him, manages to be effective because it’s a tense little cat-and-mouse moment. But for the rest? The reason action works is because lots of things happen fast, and the reason the underwater action sequences in Thunderball fail to hold the interest is because they’re the exact opposite of that. This is definitely when a less-is-more approach would have been preferable – a few shots of really impressive underwater activity would have shown off what the film could do without becoming tedious or repetitive. Instead we have something like a quarter of the film below the waves. Talk about (here comes the bad pun) wrecking your own chances… Quip Level: After Goldfinger’s quip overload, mercifully Thunderball earns itself a Low. Only a few slip by, and it’s amazing how much more effective they are for being used relatively sparsely. Even the most obvious – “I think he got the point” quips Bond after killing obviously-gay henceperson Vargas with a spear gun late in the movie – works because we’ve not had hundreds of equally corny one-liners preceding it. Learn this kind of restraint going forward, Bond movies! 2017 Cringe Level: Mostly Ouch. We get another scene of Bond forcing himself on a woman (in this case the physiotherapist at the health spa) after she’s made it extremely clear she’s not interested, then immediately after he’s giving her a rub down with that notorious mink mitten. It’s ugly and unnecessary. Still, Domino earns points from being a little (only a little, mind, but still) more complex than any of the “Bond girls” to date, which, OK, isn’t a high bar to clear but it’s a step in the right direction. And the fact that it’s her that both saves Bond at the end and kills off the major villain of the piece gains some degree of credibility for the character.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Mar 13, 2017 10:30:39 GMT -5
Glad that I'm not the only one who finds Thunderball ungodly dull. I know it has more to do with the way contracts are written than anything else, but it's crazy that this is the one that got re-made/may get remade again.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Mar 13, 2017 10:35:28 GMT -5
Glad that I'm not the only one who finds Thunderball ungodly dull. I know it has more to do with the way contracts are written than anything else, but it's crazy that this is the one that got re-made/may get remade again. It's not likely to get remade again, if I understand the contract situation correctly. Sony got all of the Bond rights squared away a few years back, which is why they were allowed to use SPECTRE and Blofeld (badly) in the latest film. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 13, 2017 10:39:20 GMT -5
Glad that I'm not the only one who finds Thunderball ungodly dull. I know it has more to do with the way contracts are written than anything else, but it's crazy that this is the one that got re-made/may get remade again. Yea, to be honest though I came into this on a clean slate, I was expecting this to be OK - I really did not expect to trash Thunderball in this way, but it's just so boring. Thank god for Chianti or I'd never have made it to the end credits. I am now dreading Never Say Never Again, because it has to be worse than this and this is... really not good. |
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Post by ganews on Mar 13, 2017 12:04:31 GMT -5
MAD Magazine called it "Thunderblah".
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Post by Kangaroosevelt-Ecks on Mar 13, 2017 13:14:02 GMT -5
Glad that I'm not the only one who finds Thunderball ungodly dull. I know it has more to do with the way contracts are written than anything else, but it's crazy that this is the one that got re-made/may get remade again. Yea, to be honest though I came into this on a clean slate, I was expecting this to be OK - I really did not expect to trash Thunderball in this way, but it's just so boring. Thank god for Chianti or I'd never have made it to the end credits. I am now dreading Never Say Never Again, because it has to be worse than this and this is... really not good. You could choose to bail on the non-canon films and not include Never Say Never Again as it's not an Eon production... conversely, you could review it, double down, and also review the '67 "Nobody Was Sober While Filming" version of Casino Royale... preferably under the influence yourself, it helps... |
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 13, 2017 13:48:30 GMT -5
Yea, to be honest though I came into this on a clean slate, I was expecting this to be OK - I really did not expect to trash Thunderball in this way, but it's just so boring. Thank god for Chianti or I'd never have made it to the end credits. I am now dreading Never Say Never Again, because it has to be worse than this and this is... really not good. You could choose to bail on the non-canon films and not include Never Say Never Again as it's not an Eon production... conversely, you could review it, double down, and also review the '67 "Nobody Was Sober While Filming" version of Casino Royale... preferably under the influence yourself, it helps... Yea, I made the decision to do NSNA when I started the project simply off the back of the fact that it has an "official" Bond even though it's not Eon, while there's nobody "official" connected with Casino Royale so it got dumped. It's possible I'm just a sucker for punishment, though. I don't get overly worried by "canon" or whatever, and I am considering doing some "supplementary material" after Spectre, likely to include Austin Powers, In Like Flint and the like, so maybe the '67 Casino Royale will get tucked in there. Unless I'm completely burned out, in which case it won't. |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 13, 2017 14:49:23 GMT -5
Thunderball is both dull as dishwater and, at the same time, the paradigmatic "Bond film," as the idea of such a thing exists in the popular imagination. It's so dull that if I didn't know better I'd assume that Austin Powers was the original and this was the soulless remake.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 20, 2017 15:41:01 GMT -5
You Only Live Twice (1967)  Pre-existing Prejudices: Well, I know it’s the first of three “last” Bond movies for Connery, I know it’s the one with the volcano base, and I know it’s the one where we finally get to meet Blofeld. But it’s another I haven’t seen in its entirety for… actually I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it in its entity. Should be fun then! The Actual Film: Ohhh, we start in space! Or at least a painting of the Earth around which a small, unconvincing model is orbiting. That’s certainly something new. The spacewalk scenes are obviously man-on-wire, but they’re ambitious, and points scored for having the Earth actually rotate beneath them as they “orbit”. But then the capsule is attacked by a giant butt-plug/spaceship eater. They’re doing their best, and the model-work is clear enough in what it’s trying to achieve, but the special effects are bit more Gerry Anderson than 2001. The American capsule is drawn inside the mysterious new craft, and the astronaut left dead in space when his airline is cut is suitably nasty, as he floats away forever. Cut to a conference inside two golf balls, and a bit of UK/USSR/US politicking. The Americans and Russians accuse each other, but the UK thinks there might be a third possibility. Hmmm… The first time we meet Bond in this movie, he’s in bed – of course he is – and enquiring as to why Asian ladies taste different. This leads him to explain that he likes Peking Duck as much as caviar and his paramour gets the immortal line, “darling I give you best duck.” Then he’s betrayed by her, the bed flips into the wall (you don’t see that much these days…) and he’s machine-gunned. All this pre-credits material is actually relevant to the film’s plot, which is a huge improvement over the last two films. Shanghai. A well-placed newspaper informs us Bond has been murdered. Well, that was a short movie. Oh hang on, there’s more, as we’re on-deck for the funeral. Bond’s body is committed to the sea. This is, I think, the first time it’s made clear in the movies that Bond is a naval commander, which is interesting. His body is taken by two underwater divers – horrible memories of Thunderball… – into a submarine, filled with lots of naval officers in shorts. Lovely. Bond is cut out of his shroud, alive and well – ta da! Connery’s rocking a naval uniform which really rather suits him. Oh, Moneypenny’s down on the sub too, and oh the surprise, so is M (who at least bothers to tell us why the whole fake-Bond’s-death thing was necessary – to take the heat off him). Bond is given his mission, which is to investigate what happened in the pre-credits sequence. They assume that, since the USSR didn’t launch the thing that ate the American satellite, it must be Japan. ‘Kay. Bond and Moneypenny flirting over the “I love you” password is genuinely charming, and Connery and Maxwell really are terrific together – it’s a shame they’ve not spent more time on screen really. Off to the mission we go, and Bond’s back in the rubber so he can be fired out the torpedo tube. Er, Ok. There’s no easier way to leave the sub? Still there’s no time to ponder that, since now we’re in Tokyo, all neon and kimonos and modest-looking women. Connery’s given some Japanese to speak and does well with it – Bond properly looks like he can speak the language – even though he has the cliché of wandering through a Sumo locker room, and then to a Sumo match itself. He’s the only white person in the audience at least, which is something. Bond makes contact with Aki using the (intentionally) awkwardly-delivered password, and Connery is doing well here – suspicious of the girl that he meets, keeping one eye on the match, and also doing normal-Bond. Yes, decent. So off she goes (she’ll be back) after delivering Bond to Mr Henderson. Mr Henderson is quite the most gay thing in a James Bond movie to date, even given Rosa Klebb. It’s the lilac cushions and incredibly fruity performance that do it. Bond whacks Mr Henderson in the leg, which is wooden, to check his identity. Nice touch. Speaking of his acquiring Russian vodka, he tells Bond, “I get it from the Russian doorman at the embassy. Among other things.” What a massive queen he is! It’s all rather fabulous, then he’s stabbed through a paper wall, which is a bit of a shame. Bond chases the killer into the garden, kills the assassin, dresses up as him (luckily the bad guy was wearing a breath mask) and jumps in the getaway car. Which takes him to… … the rear-projected streets of Tokyo and eventually Osato chemicals. We arrive at a very fancy office for a bit of fisticuffs, and Bond gets outclassed again in the fight stakes by someone nearly twice his size, and wins as much through luck than strength. It’s good to see him being really challenged like this. He hides body in Worlds Biggest Drinks Cabinet, then pours himself a drink, which is appropriately cool – and pleasingly, there’s no quip, just a “cheers”. Then he finds a safe… and cracks it with hand safe-cracking gadget that he happens to have with him, which is far too overly-convenient. Connery looks suitably tense as the guards approach then leave at least. Bond get the safe open, then alarm immediately goes off, a nice touch. Bond legs it. Aki turns up in a conversable to save his ass as he runs out of the building, then he gets tricked into following her into a subway. He’s promptly captured, thanks to a sliding floor which deposits him into a waiting chair, which is very funny, though it’s not quite clear if it’s meant to be. He’s questioned by Tiger Tanaka! So they’ve made contact at last, since he’s a good guy, but there must be an easier way to get them together – a phone call would have done it, surely? Still he’s got his own personal train, which is quite something. Bond actually turns down a vodka-martini for sake, which is a small but appreciated nod towards the fact this isn’t business as usual. Then – the briefing. We get the name of a ship, a bit of coastline, and some divers. It’s is all fine, it’s just another way of getting the exposition out of the way. Then we get a bit of “we’re in the East, you know” stuff with a “civilized bath” and a few on-hand Asian women to wash Bond and Tanaka. Connery in a kimono is quite a, um, striking image. “I like the plumbing”, he remarks while staring at the girls. It’s all a bit “exotic oriental” but it’s not… I dunno, it’s a bit obvious but it’s not nearly as bad as I could be, and they’re addressing the fact that there are clear differences between their cultures head-on rather than just hand-waving it away or ignoring it altogether. SPECTRE gets its first mention. A towel is all that protects us from Connery’s modesty as he emerges from the bath at the end of the scene – thanks towel! Bond is off back to Osato Chemicals, this time in the day and with a cover story. He actually manages to use a name that isn’t “Bond” – Mr Fisher – rather than his usual technique of just strolling in and announcing that he’s Bond (yes I know he faked his own death at the start of the movie, but even so). He’s back in the same office as before, and there’s no sign of last night’s shenanigans. Chopper lands on roof, and in strolls Mr Osato himself, along with his personal secretary, Helga. There’s a rather nice moment where Bond turns down a drink because he’s afraid of Helga going into the drinks cabinet where he left last night’s guard. There’s some nice direction going on here too, with Bond reflected in the copper surface of Osato’s desk, and the x-ray of Bond carrying a gun is well done. “Kill him”, says Osato after humouring Bond throughout their conversation. Well that’s one way to end a business meeting. Bond leaves the office in someone’s gun sight, then Aki turns up in that convertible and saves him again. She’s getting good at doing that! But wait, the bad guys are in pursuit! The gunfire is very loud and obvious – there must be a lot of gun battles in Tokyo because nobody seems that fussed by it, or even to notice it (not even a couple of reaction shots of someone looking shocked or running away). Aki’s properly competent and calls in reinforcements. Ohh and the car has a videophone and TV screen, that’s pretty cool for 1967. There’s some rear projection here but fair’s fair, it’s generally better deployed than sometimes. Then, rather brilliantly, a helicopter turns up with an electromagnet and just lifts the pursuing car off the road, a good stunt and very funny. Then the car is dropped into the sea – “how’s that for Japanese efficiency?” Bond is asked, resulting in the inevitable quip, “just a drop in the ocean”. Bond then places a request for “Little Nellie” and her father. Down at the docks and we’ve found the ship from the briefing on the train – the Ning-Po. Bond is immediately spotted and escapes because the henchpeople didn’t think to cover the staircase he’s standing next to. Amateurs. Aki makes a break for it in one direction and Bond makes a run for it, with some impressive overhead helicopter shots as he fights his way across a building roof. He makes his way to escape by doing a couple of stunt falls onto conveniently-placed cardboard boxes, then gets immediately whacked over the head, which is both a good sequence and (intentionally, this time) funny. Also, slightly stupid. Bond is taken to Number 11, who turns out to be Helga, and she’s quite the flame-haired chanteuse in sequins – a symphony in brown. She threatens him with skin-slicing and then snogs him. He tries to bribe her and offers to take her to Europe. She goes for it, they embrace, and he slices her dress off for a bit of canoodling (“Oh the things I do for England,” sighs one of the most immediately-identifiable Scotsmen on the planet), then they’re making their escape in a small plane. But ah- ha, Helga actually wants to kill him after all! By, um, tying him up on a plane then crashing the plane while she parachutes out (with some truly awful rear projection as she hangs on her parachute). Bond escapes his bonds, just about lands the plane then manages to just about get out of it before it explodes. But it’s the usual why-didn’t-she-shoot-him? There was literally no reason for this. Q’s here! “Hello daddy!” says Bond, with a big smile on his face. Uh-huh. Q looks like every “Englishman abroad”, lacking only a pith helmet to complete the picture. “Little Nellie”, an autogiro, is put together in stop-motion. So she (well, and Bond) takes too the air now they’ve identified the relevant bit of coastline from earlier. Bond takes a look in an old volcano for some reason… hmm how could that turn out to be important? For the first time in this movie we get the Bond theme as six grown-up choppers chase Little Nellie in the action sequence we all knew was coming from the loving way Q informed us of all the weapons on board. The stunt flying is pretty good but every time it cuts to a special effect or bluescreen it looks pretty bad, and the cutting between them just serves to emphasize the point. Points for trying, though it’s all a bit unnecessary and really just exists to show off Little Nellie. It’s also one of those sequences you know when the action is going to be over, and it’s when they run out of Bond theme to play (even though there’s clearly one helicopter left unaccounted for, because it’s in the final shot). The Russians launch their next rocket. It’s eaten by the same butt-plug from earlier in the movie, but it’s a better-executed sequence than the first one. Still, SPECTRE’s plan here – playing the Russians and Americans off against each other while they take advantage in the middle – is reasonably solid up to this point, even though it’s mostly just the same one from From Russia With Love. Lots of people are speaking Russian at the rocket launch and they’re un-subtitled which is a good tack to take. We then get a long shot of the butt-plug going through re-entry (help yourselves), and… oh look, its landing inside a volcano. The set, though, is vast, and genuinely impressive, even though the landing sequence goes on too long. The craft lands, and it looks like it’s a model (because until then it has been) then people start to run up to it. Really great work. The white cat is back! It’s behind everything! The USSR capsule is removed from the butt plug, and this is all genuinely well done. The cosmonauts are taken from the capsule and led away as prisoners – they won’t be seen again. This set is amazing – working elevators, multiple levels, a monorail. Everyone on Team SPECTRE is satisfied, then “Hans” – hello, Hans! – throws a ham-hock into a pull full of piranhas. Because, yes, there’s a pool full of piranhas. Ohh and Number 11/Helga is here as well – this time dressed in red rather than brown, thankfully. We get one of the classic lines – “This organization does not tolerate failure”, then Helga is fed to the piranhas for failing to kill Bond as the cat watches on in glee. That is one evil cat. Meanwhile, back with Bond, at Tanaka’s training ground, he asks, “Do you have any commandos here?” “Much, much better,” he is informed, “Ninjas!” So we get a bit of a ninja training camp, and it’s all very, very obvious – throwing stars, swordfights, and one guy that doesn’t know how to not look down the camera. But then we reach “modern ninjas” – gunfire, cigarettes with exploding darts etc – and the whole “stereotyped ninja” thing is nicely undercut (there’s been a small theme of cigarettes being bad for you throughout the film, which is an interesting slant). Bond is told he must take a bride, but it can’t be Aki, and instead Tanaka has someone in mind with a “face like a pig”. Eesh. Connery’s then made up to “look Japanese” as part of an infiltration ruse, and that goes about as well as you’d expect – bad wig and eye makeup. Despite the pig prospect, he’s off to bed with Aki, and there’s an assassin in the roof and there’s the famous poison-down-a-bit-of-string routine. It’s not really tense but it is something different. So the assassin gets Aki instead of Bond, and it’s all a bit too coincidental and a terrible end for Aki, who so far has been strong, competent and full of agency, yet gets taken out because Bond turns over in his sleep. It’s meant to be tragic, but instead it’s just a waste. Bond is callously dismissive after her death though, which is good for the character and feels like a return to the “nasty bastard” characterization of From Russia With Love. We then get two more days of training… it’s nice that they’re taking the time to show Bond preparing but it kind of kills the momentum of the film, and we spend minutes over a marriage ceremony – to Kissy Suzuki, Aki’s replacement – for his cover. This is achieving nothing, and is most dreadful, essentially boiling down to “ohh look at the funny Japanese people”, which the film has largely avoided so far. OK so at least all that rubbish is over, and we’re off on a tourist boat for the mission, at long last. Bond comes ashore and limits of his disguise are immediately apparent, at least to the audience – nobody seems to have realized that a strapping six-foot slab of Scottish beef isn’t going to blend in among the willowy five-foot-nothing’s of the local population. Still, everyone gamely kids on that it’s working, despite it clearly not. It’s easy to appreciate what they’re going for here, but its deeply unsuccessful. Someone died in a cave, so they go to investigate. More abysmal rear projection, the worst yet, with Bond and stand-in Aki… um, sorry Kissy in a boat, then into a cave that’s abruptly gassed (the cave, that is), and we’re underwater... but again thankfully only briefly. They work out their must be a vent leading to the volcano. “There must be a long tunnel!” says Kissy. Genius. We lost Aki for this? Bond finally gets his honeymoon on the slopes of the volcano, while a helicopter does a fly-by. Which then lands in our volcano set – again, genuinely impressive. Elsewhere, it’s now the Americans’ turn to launch a rocket via some stock footage., though it’s quite well integrated. Climbing down the inside of the volcano/studio set, Bond asks Kissy, in relation to the water pooled inside the volcano, “are they deep?” while staring at something that’s very obviously metal. Then he walks on it. Hey he’s got a utility belt thing! Where did that come from? Spider Bond!, He sucker-cups his way into the base. That monorail’s back too, though still looking good. Bond has a natty little balaclava, which is not threatening, but Bond is in and rescues the American astronauts. And beats out a few guards. Meanwhile, Little Miss Swimming Champion Kissy is off trying to get back to bring help but is attacked from the air – at least they bother to show her actually having to work to get back to the others. The cat is giving orders again! Bond is in disguise as one of the astronauts and is ready to be loaded into the space butt-plug, but fucks up and the cat demands that he’s brought before him. Then, The Big Reveal. It’s not the cat, it’s actually Dr Evil Donald Pleasance! He’s even got the Collar Of Evil! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! There’s a lot of eye contact between Bond and Blofeld during the rocket countdown, and the editing does no favours here. Just kiss already! Finally the rocket takes off and it’s awful, a crap model with poorly overlaid “flames”. That’s a shame, it’s been doing pretty well until now. Ah, but now the ninjas are ready to attack… Yes, the ninjas are ready to attack. It’s worth stating twice I feel. Why is the guy that says “zere are men in ze crater!” German? Anyway, the ninjas attack and we have some explosions, and it all looks pretty good. We get another From Russis With Love moment with Bond asking for a last cigarette again, this time with the exploding dart, and the ninjas are rappelling into the volcano and and and… the pace has certainly picked up a fair amount here. “I shall look forward to exterminating you personally, Mr Bond” says Blofeld. So why doesn’t he! You’ve got a gun right on him! Its typically stupid. Still, if Blofeld was any more arch he’d be parabolic. Now the ninjas are in and all the locals are doing very impressive stunt falls and dives. Yet the rappelling-in ninjas are done in sufficient numbers that this really looks like a full on pitched battle – though there’s a very incongruous tractor in the middle of it all. The battle itself is very bloodless but it’s extremely well executed, there’s no doubt about that. Oh, Mr Osato (remember him?) has been shot for failure. Fine. BUT JUST SHOOT BOND! Finally it looks like that’s what Blofeld is going to do… and then he gets struck in the hand by a throwing star. For Christ’s sake! The action sequences remain pretty good though as Bond goes for the stairway into the control room. Then Bond is fighting Hans in the big piranha room – how will this end…. yes Hans is in the pool. The Americans launch some planes via some more stock footage, and there’s a big race but Bond just manages to detonate the butt-plug in time. Blofeld sets the base to self-destruct (why is that a feature you would even build in? Does he expect to fail?) and his fate is left undetermined, and we get lots of big explosions with some lava overlaid on it – the explosions look good, the lava looks awful. Then they all swim for it, and there’s a rubber life raft and some more poor explosions from the volcano. Big snog with Kissy. Then a submarine arrives and lifts the raft out of the water, and, joyfully, Moneypenny gets the last line of the movie (“it’ll be a pleasure, sir” she purrs).
In Conclusion: Until about the two-thirds mark, You Only Live Twice is quite an effective little thriller. It’s not exactly revelatory, but there’s a sense that the film really knows what it’s doing, and has certainly learned from the missteps of the last two outings. We’re not back to the highs of From Russia With Love just yet, but things are vastly improved nonetheless. The new-to-the-series location is deployed effectively, there’s some good little twists and turns and, crucially, Bond is back to actually investigating stuff, rather than just having events happen at him and/or overhearing plot-convenient pieces of dialogue (hello, Goldfinger). It’s not fast paced, that’s certainly true, but there’s a methodical deliberateness to the proceedings that shows a film that’s really in control of where it wants to go. It doesn’t need to hurry along to the big action set-piece because there’s more than enough other stuff going on to hold the attention, and there’s a real sense of restraint as well – precious few quips, action deployed in small but effective bursts (the office fight that ends with Bond stuffing his unconscious attacker in the drinks cabinet), and a proper sense of progression as each clue leads Bond on. Sure, there’s the odd moment of ridiculousness, like the somewhat-convoluted way Tanaka gets Bond into his office via a collapsing subway floor, but when it’s done briefly it’s entirely forgivable, and it’s also pretty fun. Even the unconventional opening, with Bond’s faked death, feels new to the series, despite that sort-of being how the last film opened, and suggests that there’s still plenty of fresh approaches that can be tried. Then we get to the two-thirds mark, and the film falls apart like a Gelbian sand-sculpture. Really, it just utterly collapses, and instead transforms itself into an Austin Powers movie, a self-parodic end to the movie played entirely straight. Everything from the moment Bond turns up at the volcano (and, you know, he turns up at a volcano) just descends into ridiculousness and all the careful plotting and well-executed thriller material is set aside for big ‘splosions, ninjas (ninjas!) and every other attendant Bond cliché imaginable. The problem here is that this isn’t a problem caused by watching the film contemporaneously – we’ve seen all this before. Maybe not on this scale, but still. The “pool of piranhas” is just the “pool of sharks” from Thunderball. The “playing two sides off against each other” is the same plan SPECTRE had in From Russia With Love. Lower member of the organization get killed for failing to kill Bond ( From Russia With Love again, and Goldfinger bumps off a SPECTRE board member during the AGM Of Doom). Big Underground Base ( Dr. No). You get the point – we’ve seen all of this before, and it’s obvious watching the movie just how much the back third of the film is just bits from the other movies but shuffled around very slightly. And as for the Blofeld reveal… well, we’ve gone through four other movies to find out who the Man Behind The White Cat is, and… oh, it’s Donald Pleasance in some not-especially-great scar make-up. The one thing You Only Live Twice really needed to nail was Blofeld and the fact that he actually represents a threat, but here he’s mostly just laughable. He has multiple chances to kill Bond, yet doesn’t, indulges in stupid plans when more straightforward ones would obviously be more successful, he kills off henchpeople at such a rate you wonder why anyone would work for him… and it’s all delivered by Pleasance in a camp, near-giggling tone that makes Blofeld seem less like someone bent on world domination and more like an errant schoolboy. It’s not a successful conceit. There are moments in the last third that are defensible, though. For one, that base set is stunning – it’s by far and away the most impressive set of any Bond movie up to this point, and it’s utilized really well in the climax. We get launching and landing helicopters, and working monorails, the big butt-plug getting fired off, the whole nine yards, and that’s before it’s used as an excuse for dozens of extras to show off their martial arts skills. The ninjas themselves might be an insanely over-the-top inclusion but you can’t say that they didn’t get their money’s-worth out of them. That sense of space at least lends some degree of scale to proceedings, and makes it seem like SPECTRE are a proper, huge concern, rather than it all coming down to a confrontation between Bond and Blofeld. But even given this, there’s just way too much wrong with the final third of the film for it to work as a conclusion to what has essentially been a five-movie arc of meeting Blofeld. The emergence of “exotic Orientalism” is extremely unwelcome as well, especially for a film that managed to strike a fair balance between using its Japanese location well and not falling in to (too many) obvious cultural clichés, or at least when it did use them they weren’t quite as straightforward as they could be. Since this is the first of three farewells Connery has to the role ( Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again being the other two, of course), it’s worth pointing out that, even this late in the game he’s still doing pretty well. His performance here is a mark up from Thunderball and Thunderball itself was an improvement from Goldfinger, so far his worst. His callousness over Aki’s death is very well handled, and early in the movie, as Bond navigates the unfamiliar world of Japan, he’s played exactly right, with all the correct levels of restraint and respect, and here Connery shines. As with everything else here, he loses it a bit in the final third of the movie – his “to hell with that plan!” after being told he’d be marrying someone with the face of a pig (sigh…) is especially lamentable – though he’s better during the final big fights and confrontations, and looks genuinely scared he won’t stop the Big Countdown in time to prevent the American rocket being “eaten”. There’s no real sense that Connery has run out of things to do with the role and, Goldfinger apart, his consistency in the role has been really rather pleasing – there’s a reason people still claim Connery isn’t a James Bond but the James Bond, and it’s because he’s mostly been great. Time will tell whether his remaining two films will continue this streak… The over-riding feeling here though is that this just should have been better. There’s no reason for the film to fall apart quite as spectacularly as it does. It all goes really well right up until the moment… it doesn’t. Thunderball was incredibly slow and tedious, but it’s not hard to understand why all those underwater sequences might have seemed like a good idea, even if they didn’t pan out in practice. Here it seems like the scriptwriter got to the two-thirds point, ran out of ideas and just threw everything against the wall to see what would stick. Sadly, however, very little does, and we’re left with a confused mess of an ending that wipes out all the good will from earlier. It’s not like Bond movies can’t embrace the preposterous successfully – this film already managed it with the first meeting between Bond and Tanaka, which was daft, but endearingly so – yet this ends up being stupid-preposterous, not fun-preposterous, and it’s self-indulgent in the extreme. The big action climax tries to give the impression that all this matters, but it’s just a lot of smoke and explosions in the end, unable to cover for what got us here in the first place. The “potential war” between the US and USSR never feels real, which means the threat remains fairly abstract even as Connery does his best to sell Bond’s fear at not destroying the satellite in time, and Blofeld can’t help but feel like a let-down after all the build-up. You Only Live Twice concludes feeling…unsatisfactory, just not good enough, and given how much of the movie actually works well, that’s quite the failing. Oh, and Nancy Sinatra’s “You Only Live Twice” is a million times better than Robbie Williams’ “Millennium”, which uses the same string pattern. Seriously, fuck “Millennium”.
What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut?Maybe 5%, which is mostly just the very uncomfortable “exotic Orientals” material, but especially the fake marriage ceremony, the “face like a pig” material and at least some of the ninja training camp. The last third of the movie is stupid, but there’s not a lot of trimming that’s really needed, and it’s not a movie that feels overly long (especially not next to the three and a half years running time of Thunderball…). Quip Level: Low. There’s one or two, but, as with Thunderball, the relative paucity of quips means that when we do get one it’s easy to appreciate, rather than getting an overload that just makes each one worse than the one before. So at least there’s one area of the film that’s exercised restraint… 2017 Cringe Level: All over the fucking place. It’s hard to know what to assign here, because some parts of the movie work really well in confronting the fact that this is taking place in Japan, and some parts are just beyond terrible. The rule of thumb is basically the earlier in the movie some reference to the locale is made, the better it’s likely to be. Bond accepting sake, knowing at what temperature it should be served, being apparently genuinely interested in a Sumo match, and showing proper cultural respect and understanding? All absolutely terrific, and though there’s a real awkwardness about the “bath” scene, at least there’s the acknowledgement that neither Bond nor Tanaka entirely understand the world the other comes from, and they make hesitant steps to bridge that gap. It’s clumsy (especially “in Japan, the men always come first” being met by Bond’s reply of “I might just retire here”), but it’s written as the characters being clumsy, rather than the scriptwriter being culturally insensitive. But despite that good work it all ends with Connery in a kimono, cheap wig, and slanty-eye make-up of the very worst kind, and ninjas (because we’re in Japan so there has to be ninjas, right?) doing yelling swordplay and flinging throwing stars at the bad guys. It’s true that, in 1967, Japan would have seemed impossibly exotic to grey old England… except England wasn’t grey in 1967 at all, this was the era of Carnaby St and psychedelia, so the exoticism feels markedly out of step even in the context of the time it was released (just a couple of years earlier this might have been easier to… well not forgive, but explain certainly). Let’s give it an in-the-middle Oh Dear… since it does get some things right as well as wrong.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Mar 21, 2017 14:05:09 GMT -5
I think You Only Live Twice is the one Connery Bond I somehow haven't seen. Does having seen You Only Move Twice give me an accurate idea of the finale, though?
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 21, 2017 14:18:22 GMT -5
I think You Only Live Twice is the one Connery Bond I somehow haven't seen. Does having seen You Only Move Twice give me an accurate idea of the finale, though? Fun fact: when Homer says "Yes, once," he's referring to the scene in this film where Connery throws away a shoe. |
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Post by pairesta on Mar 21, 2017 15:55:40 GMT -5
Man, how have I missed so many of these?
You're alot easier on YOLT. I re-watched it a few years back, and like you, I really enjoyed the first two thirds of the movie, liking the dated but still worthy attempts at navigating the culture. Then Bond puts on that makeup and YEEESH. I had completely forgotten that part. Plus, yeah, poor Aki and Bond being an absolute bastard about her death. I couldn't even finish.
I've seen NSNA more than Thunderball, simply because it was an HBO mainstay growing up. I actually saw NSNA first, then Thunderball a few years later, without knowing the context, and got really mad at NSNA for just ripping off the earlier movie.
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 22, 2017 1:55:49 GMT -5
Man, how have I missed so many of these? You're alot easier on YOLT. I re-watched it a few years back, and like you, I really enjoyed the first two thirds of the movie, liking the dated but still worthy attempts at navigating the culture. Then Bond puts on that makeup and YEEESH. I had completely forgotten that part. Plus, yeah, poor Aki and Bond being an absolute bastard about her death. I couldn't even finish. I've seen NSNA more than Thunderball, simply because it was an HBO mainstay growing up. I actually saw NSNA first, then Thunderball a few years later, without knowing the context, and got really mad at NSNA for just ripping off the earlier movie. Poor Aki indeed. One thing I should have probably pointed out during the Cringe Factor, but it didn't really occur to me until later, is that as far as I can recall neither Aki nor Kissy are actually named during the movie - you only learn their names in the end credits. That's a bit of an oversight, to put it mildly, and it doesn't suggest the film has a lot of confidence in its two leading ladies. But I liked Aki - there's something rather great about someone who can just Get On With Stuff, and her death really feels like a stupid waste. Kissy is mostly rubbish, which just highlights the loss more. So you're basically confirming that NSNA is worse than Thunderball? *shudders* |
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Post by pairesta on Mar 22, 2017 7:28:29 GMT -5
So you're basically confirming that NSNA is worse than Thunderball? *shudders* I dunno. There might be some camp value in it. Connery is so over the hill, you have an insane vidya game sequence, an over the top hench[wo]man, Klaus Maria Brandauer devouring scenery. |
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Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster 
Immanentizing the Eschaton
Posts: 5,673 
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Post by Post-Lupin on Mar 26, 2017 9:06:42 GMT -5
Supplementary Materials: The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross. Second of Charlie's 'Laundry Files' books, a series about the branch of British Intelligence that deals with the occult, specifically preparing for when Cthulhu emerges from R'lyeh. The first in the series is a deft Len Deighton pastiche; this is Charlie vs Bond - specifically, he lifts most of the plot of Thunderball, guts every daft part of it in a manner befitting TV Tropes... then reveals the white cat is in fact the evil mastermind. Gets the taste of Thunderball out of your mouth (but also points out Bond's shaken-not-stirred martinis taste like boozy petrol). |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2017 9:26:51 GMT -5
A few years back before I was on here or the AVC even. I started a blog and was going to watch and analyze every bond film, watching most of them for the first time. I was going to go out of order. I started with Casino Royale, loved it and was super pumped to keep going. The next one was World is Not Enough. I deleted my blog.
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Post by ganews on Mar 26, 2017 20:32:58 GMT -5
(but also points out Bond's shaken-not-stirred martinis taste like boozy petrol). What of the assertion on The West Wing that a martini is stirred so as not to break the ice and dilute the booze, meaning that Bond is "ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it"? |
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Post-Lupin
Prolific Poster
Immanentizing the Eschaton
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Post by Post-Lupin on Mar 27, 2017 4:46:38 GMT -5
(but also points out Bond's shaken-not-stirred martinis taste like boozy petrol). What of the assertion on The West Wing that a martini is stirred so as not to break the ice and dilute the booze, meaning that Bond is "ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it"? He compensates by adding more booze. |
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 27, 2017 9:30:31 GMT -5
(but also points out Bond's shaken-not-stirred martinis taste like boozy petrol). What of the assertion on The West Wing that a martini is stirred so as not to break the ice and dilute the booze, meaning that Bond is "ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it"? Assertion: Denied! As I understand it, the reason for having a cocktail "shaken" dates back to Prohibition, when bathtub liquor was so bad it could separate from anything else it was mixed with. Shaking a drink together meant that the cheap booze and mixer(s) would stay combined long enough to actually be drinkable. After the end of Prohibition, when booze returned to less... bathy levels, having a drink "shaken" became an affectation, rather than something that was necessary. It's exactly the sort of affectation someone who moves in Bond's circles would acquire (and the amount to which shaking rather than stirring would dilute the booze would be minimal at best). |
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 27, 2017 9:33:17 GMT -5
A few years back before I was on here or the AVC even. I started a blog and was going to watch and analyze every bond film, watching most of them for the first time. I was going to go out of order. I started with Casino Royale, loved it and was super pumped to keep going. The next one was World is Not Enough. I deleted my blog. Ha! Pity me when I reach the stretch that's going to go Octopussy -> Never Say Never Again -> A View To A Kill |
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Post by Lurky McLurk on Mar 27, 2017 9:39:39 GMT -5
Hey, Dr. No was on TV yesterday.
I... didn't watch much of it. You're quite right though about how bizarro the opening credits sequence seems now.
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 11, 2017 7:46:34 GMT -5
James Bond Will Return!
Sorry for the delay in getting round to On Her Majestey's Tax Return Secret Service everyone, it's been a busy couple of weeks here and I just haven't had time to catch up on my viewing. Hopefully this weekend, since it's a long one, should rectify things!
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Post by Prole Hole on Apr 16, 2017 6:30:34 GMT -5
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)  For the first time in the series, “James Bond Will Return” means Bond but not the actor playing him, as Connery gives way to George Lazenby’s one-and-done attempt to take over the title role. But is his poor reputation deserved, and does one of the most forgotten of all Bond films deserved to be relegated to “oh yea, that one” status? Pre-Existing Prejudices: If I’ve seen this one all the way through then I have absolutely no memory of it. I know the famous final scene well enough, and a couple of set-pieces, but beyond that… blank. So Lazenby is going to get a fair crack of the whip, if nothing else – I honestly have no idea how good or otherwise he is in the role, nor anything else about him at all, really. I’m rather keen to watch what amounts to an entirely new Bond, so let’s get on with it! The Actual Movie: So here we go with Lazenby’s big moment in the spotlight and we start with the Bond theme and the gun-barrel sequence, which feels right, though the theme is a bit plinky-plonky. We open on Universal Exports, and start with M and Q chatting away. They’re looking for Bond, it seems, though it’s a rather peculiar scene with Q waffling on about radioactive pocket lint. Then we get Lazenby’s first moment, in a rather dark-shot Aston Marten with the Bond theme tootling away, but they do a good job of keep him in darkness even as he lights his cigarette. So there’s a real effort made to actually reveal Lazenby as Bond, not just have him be there, despite a car chase that seems slightly familiar. And oh look, it’s Mrs Peel Diana Rigg! Bond zips down to the beach (in the car!) and runs into the sea after her as she wanders into it. When she’s pulled from the water, Lazenby gets his “Bond, James Bond” moment, then he gets his first big fight moment. He looks physically up to the part, and when the fight moves into the ocean it works well, all fading light and arcing water, but the bits on the beach prior to that are not well directed at all. Still, the fight-at-twilight isn’t really something we’ve seen before and it’s a good attempt to give a different visual aesthetic even if the fight is not remotely convincing, with bits of speeded up footage looking as rubbish as ever. The pre-credits sequence ends with the famous “this never happened to the other fellow” but it’s delivered pretty well, self-aware but not really winking. Then after a title sequence apparently designed to remind people that there used to be a different Bond and a different Blofeld (why would you do that?) the film kicks off properly. Bond pulls up to a requisite fancy hotel in an Aston that’s not a patch on the DB5 of the previous few films, and we get a bit of exposition. Bond is shown to his room, and there’s an excellent cross-fade of a high-shot of the pool in day, filled with swimmers, to a night shot, with the Casino name reflected in the water. Bond makes it to a card table in a shirt with so many ruffs Jimi Hendrix would have been ashamed of it. He plays for a while but… it would be quite nice to have some idea of why he’s even here? Still eventually Diana Rigg puts in an appearance, still un-named and motive-free. Off to dinner the two of them go, and she’s named as Tracy, so they listened to me. They do appear to be staying at the Liberace hotel – it’s pretty chintzy, and the 70’s have arrived whether we want them to or not. There’s a fight sequence in her suite, and Lazenby really looks like he can really throw a punch, not that it does him much good in the short term. But he eventually wins, and looks like he actually could have. He gets his first quip – “gatecrasher!” – which… yea it’s certainly not Connery delivering it, that’s for sure. But he shortly thereafter gets to slap Tracey – so some similarities, then – but its not quite there yet. Christ that shirt is awful. This is a noticeably gentler Bond – they do sleep together, but she kisses him first, not the other way round. The next morning Bond is ushered at gunpoint outside – “We’ll give it to you outside” is followed by “perhaps we can make it a foursome” which is not, I think the sexual innuendo the script was going for. Then he’s driven into an office with a dwarf and a broom? Um, sure. There is a fight sequence, which is simply awful, before Bond bursts into discover… Draco! Draco introduces himself before narrowly avoiding a knife, then he and Bond chat away. SPECTRE gets a quick name-check, but we’re informed Draco is running a crime syndicate. Bond, its worth pointing out, is wearing an orange turtleneck and a brown onesie. Draco is… not good while delivering the Tracy Exposition. Turns out Draco is her father, which is nice, and has been keeping an eye on Bond because of his interactions with his daughter. She needs help, we’re told. This scene goes on for ever. But Draco presses Bond into pursuing his daughter. How very fatherly. Back to London, and Bond gets to do the throwing-the-hat-on-the-stand routine. Moneypenny is described as “Britain’s last line of defence” and again shows how good Maxwell is because she almost has chemistry between her and Lazenby. Almost. M takes Bond off the case, and we’re told that Blofeld has been pursued by Bond for two years without success, so M is giving him a newer target because he’s rubbish at this one. Which is a surprisingly accurate judgement. Bond resigns, and ends up going through a few of Connery’s old props for some reason. Ahhh, nostalgia. Then he gets drunk, reflected in the portrait of the Queen, a strangely touching little moment. M accepts Bond’s resignation, with two curt words (request granted). But actually he’s just been given two weeks leave – Moneypenny really is the greatest! Tracy’s arrived at a ranch in a car with a massive F for France on the rear of it. With horses. Then bullfighting. And… um… where is this set again? Anyway Bond is there, making zero screen impact. In truth, Diana Rigg is acting Lazenby off the screen, and indeed everyone else including her father. Her father eventually tells Bond that Blofeld is in Switzerland. She storms off, he follows her, and actually she’s rather unexpectedly crying, because, um, they’ve fallen for each other. Okay... When? Then we get a bit of a montage of the happy couple, which works fine as a shortcut, but there needed to be more establishing work done before the montage to sell it. But OK the work is done, and they are all in love, while Louis Armstrong reminds us that they have all the time in the world, r at least until the closing credits roll. Still now they’re back in… somewhere. This film is not doing a good job of establishing locations. Austria? Germany? Switzerland? Lets go with the latter, since its at least been mentioned. Bond sneaks into an office, rearranges the furniture then steps out onto a balcony. A black box is ferried across to Bond from a crane by a curly-haired man – a strange sequence, but sure – and it’s got a big old safecracker inside. Didn’t Connery have a hand-held one of those in the last film? Lazenby isn’t great at doing relaxed, and he’s still not got a lot of on-screen presence. But Bond gets into the office safe. Turns out the safecracker also works as a photocopier! Oh, high-tech! Couldn’t he have just taken pictures? Bond sneaks the photocopier back out the way it came in – by crane – as the office person returns, but there’s no tension here at all. Finally we get confirmation that this is in Switzerland after all, while M does some stuff with butterflies. Bond is going undercover exploring his family tree – the motto The World Is Not Enough is mentioned, which is rather great – and we are off to Switzerland proper at long fucking last (obviously there’s an advert for Toblerone visible) and they meet up with Bunt, a grim Klebb-lite. They get on a sleigh while Lazenby does his best upper-crust Englishman impression (it’s not great). Up to the lodge they go then into a helicopter. The blonde from the crane move is following Bond, though we know not why, and have no real idea who he is. Well, at least the scenery is nice, which is just as well because we get a lot of it. Until we eventually get to the Big Mountaintop Base which is “prrrrrivate!” we are informed. This is al fine but it’s going on too long. Lazenby in his disguise looks rather like Phil Coulson… Telly Savalas gets his first appearance, shot from above and behind, but at least he looks like he owns the cat rather than the cat looking like it’s the one in charge. After checking his room for bugs, slowly, Bond turns up to a reception party in full highland kit because it seems that, even when played by an Australian, Bond is still Scottish. There’s a lot of ladies, and und zie fraulein Bunt is definitely now established as a Rosa Klebb Mk II. Like the new Aston, she’s not as good as the first one. The room is full of women, for some reason, and lots and lots of food. It’s opulent, but pointless. Oh, there’s a Princess Leia haircut – this haircut might just might be the most interesting thing in this scene so far! Oh, but someone has written her room number on Bond’s leg, under his kilt, with her lipstick, which is genuinely funny in a way nothing else so far has been. But finally he leaves the fucking dinner and we move into something rather more… Underground Base-y. About time. Finally Telly Savalas actually gets a scene, and he’s already great, even when delivering tedious stuff about his family past. About Which We Don’t Care. There’s not really a sense of Blofeld and Bond circling each other, though it’s kind of interesting they’ve both changed their face since they last met. Then on to a bit it of late-night seduction which even manages to include a “what do Scotsmen wear under their kilt” gag. Then some stuff about curing someone from Morecombe Bay of her chicken fear, which is… prosaic. Daytime, and That Curly Haired Guy is trying to get to the super-verboden-mountaintop-base. He tries to climb, but he’s thrown off the mountain… Well, escorted off at the very least. Bond observes this while curling with the ladies from last night’s dinner. When he’s making passes them he just seems creepy, and there’s very little charm or sense that he can actually get away with that. So off he goes for another liaison, and it all ends with him finding Bunt in bed rather than his paramour, and ends up being knocked out in spectacularly unconvincing style. On waking, Blofeld finally drops the act and admits he knows who Bond is – which, duh, they’ve met before – and tells us of This Movie’s Big Plan, how he’s threatening the whole world economy. Savalas is a million times better than any Blofeld we’ve had so far. His threat – to wipe out whole species at a whim – feels more credible than some of SPECTRE’s plans (not a high bar, admittedly). And we find out what the ladies are for – they’re Blofeld’s Angels Of Death. Somewhat quirkily, Bond is locked up in the machine room for the cable cars. Why? Um… Anyway his pockets are ripped out to cover his hands on the cable while Bond tries to make his escape, while the Angels are fed drugged egg-nog. Of course the cable car lurches into life while Bond is on it, leading to some awful speeded up footage and no tension. On the second attempt Bond makes it outside, and its almost tense as he jumps onto an approaching cable car. Blofeld, meanwhile, is still conditioning his Angels Of Death. It’s all very of its time, as they are sort-of hypnotised with flashing lights, drugs and Tell Savalas’s soothing baritone. We should be grateful he didn’t try to croon “If” at them… We get another woeful fight scene as Bond comes out of a lift, and again Lazenby is delivering on the action only to be let down by more shitty fight direction. So now it’s time for Bond to make his escape on skis, and it’s a mixed bag. The actual skiers look great, and the action is well staged, but there’s some rear projection which very much isn’t. It’s a slightly uncomfortable mix. Bond is, at least, down to one ski, so its not all plain sailing, though he does look a bit silly with one. Henchepeople getting taken out by trees is never not funny (“Idiot” says Blofeld, and he’s not wrong). One hencehperson goes off a cliff and has a looooooong fall, and that looks absolutely great. Bond takes out another with his own ski, and it looks like Lazenby’s Bond might be starting to show some worth (an hour and thirty eight minutes into the movie). Well at least Bond has two skis now, and makes it to the village down below. There’s a fist fight among some bells, which is unusual. Bond makes it into a crowd (safety!) and discreetly avoids Bunt who’s on the hunt… and oh there’s Tracy, conveniently back in the movie after a long stretch of not being. They make their sharp exit under fireworks and get to her car so they can drive to a post office to make contact with London, which is very sweet. But it doesn’t work, and Bunt has found them. So we’re back into car chase mode. Turns out Tracey can drive pretty great (note to self: avoid obvious Mrs Peel joke here), and certainly better than her pursuers. They swerve into an improbable stock car race (the crowd might discourage them from pursing suggests Bond… sure). “I hope my big end will stand up to this” Tracy declares, which, sorry, this is unavoidable but does sound a lot more Mrs Peel than Tracy). Despite being fairly nonsensical, this is still a well-shot sequence. Eventually their pursuers tip over, apparently out of a desire to just not be in a chase scene any more, and they make their exit from the race. A blizzard whips up, and with a now-failing car they make their way into a barn, which is… a stable. They sure do love their horses in this film series. Tracy was doing quite well – all spunk and good driving – but now she’s suddenly in soft-focus. For… reasons. Then some more soft focus and a bit of a heart-to-heart. But strangely when Bond is on shot, everything is perfectly focussed, but the reverse shot has so much Vaseline smeared on the lens its untrue – it’s a really weird scene as they cut between the two. But Bond admits he loves her – and they’re going to marry! The next day they make their escape down the slopes on skis, but they’re being followed again by Blofeld and his goons, somehow. Shes at least given the chance to show off he own skiing skills. One henceperson ends up in a snow-plough – “he had lots of guts” – then they’re in an avalanche zone and of course Blofeld sets one off. The avalanche takes care of a few hencepeople and eventually catches Bond and Tracy. They survive – just – but more by luck than judgement. Blofeld is able to retrieve Tracy, which is no good to Bond, who’s next seen in London (there’s a brief but excellent moment of him at a window with her being dragged away projected onto it, with Bond staring lonely into the distance, which suggests what Lazenby might be better at). M wont countenance any kind of attack as Blofeld asks for immunity, recognition of his title etc. So Bond goes to Draco to get round that, because Draco is a demolition man. Tracy is now with Blofeld, who is trying to work her. Helicopters approach on a “mercy mission” and there’s a lot of “but we really are on a mercy mission!” thing, which goes on a bit too long. Then the attack begins. Finally, some action! Tracy takes on a couple of henchpeople with champagne bottles. The Bond theme kicks in and we’re off with lots of jumping out of helicopters and so forth. Some well directed sequences here (Bond sliding across the ice on his belly, firing). There’s a brief reunion where Bond and Tracy both get to be safe, then more action! It’s all kicked off now! Bond finds Blofeld’s Big Map Of Evil, then it becomes really personal between them – about fucking time! The base is rigged to blow. Five minutes! “He knows the schedule”, Draco ominously declares. Tracey won’t leave so her father punches her out. Daddy Of The Year award remains safely out of his reach. Then the explosives go off and a pretty convincing model of the base gets blown up while Telly Savalas does some decent stunt work and he and Bond have a luge escape. Some more decent footage as they shoot at each other, then Blofeld throws a grenade. Bond survives (allegedly – it doesn’t look survivable, but anyway) and then jumps on Blofeld’s luge for a bit of fisticuffs. At least this finally feels like the personal battle that Blofeld vs Bond always should have been. No music here, just punches, kicks and fighting – the right choice. Eventually Blofeld is pushed into a tree – looks a bit silly but actively painful. “He’s branched off”, Bond attempts to quip, despite nobody having used “branched off” in that way, ever. Bond jumps to safety and… a St Bernard ambles over to him for a final tick on the cliché-o-meter. Off to the wedding! Mr and Mrs James Bond! Even M and Q are present (Q getting another seventeen seconds of screen time or so). There’s the Aston decked out in flowers as everyone wishes him well. Moneypenny’s in tears as Bond throws her his hat. Bless. So off they go, into the sunset, and it’s all fairly charming. They pull over to take the flowers off the car. Tracy telly Bond, in classic someone’s-about-to-die style, that Bond already gave her a wedding present – “The best I could have – the future”. They’re playful together, so that’s something. Then Blofeld (in a stupid-looking neck brace) and Bunt zoom past, opening fire. Bond is fine… but not Tracy. She’s dead. But a question – Blofeld opened fire side-on, but the bullet that killed Tracy came through the windscreen. How? Well, perhaps it’s best not to dwell on the details, since the film clearly hasn’t. Still, Lazenby gets his own moment of actually good acting, and it ends quietly on the bullet hole in the glass. Which would be great. Except it then cuts to the Bond theme, which feels crassly misjudged. Yea. Not great. (Oh, and Joanna Lumley is credited as “English” in the closing titles, which might just be her most perfect screen credit ever.) In Conclusion: If there’s a word to describe On Her Majesty’s Secret Service that word would be “frustrating”. There’s obviously a decent Bond movie in there somewhere, at least on a scripting level, but unfortunately this isn’t it. What we do get is a sub-par run-around which, while not the worst movie in the Bond series so far (that honour still goes to Thunderball), does nevertheless seems to be incapable of not working against its own best interests. To take one example which summarizes this – the pre-credits scene on the beach. There’s some lovely dusk shooting, which looks more cinematic than almost anything else in a Bond movie to date. There’s a few properly impressive shots in there, and really suggests that either the director or cinematographer is going all out to make things look strikingly different – as they should, with the whole series needing to find a new direction after Connery’s departure. And Lazenby gets a fight where he shows off his prowess physically as a way to help establish him in the role – and holding back the reveal of Bond is an inspired way of handling the transition from Connery to Lazenby. But he’s let down at almost every turn by incredibly shoddy fight direction, ill-advised speeded up footage that’s often lacking only “Yakkity Sax” to complete the transition from tense to hilarious, and a general antipathy towards making any of this look remotely convincing. It all ends with “this never happened to the other fellow”, which could have been dreadful but actually works well – Lazenby delivers it with a light touch that stops it from becoming overly self-indulgent – before… launching into a title sequence that seems to have been custom-built to remind the audience of other, better, Bond movies that came before this one. It’s a series of really interesting approaches let down by obvious failings that should have been easy to pick up on and correct. See what I mean about frustrating? One thing that is welcome is that this doesn’t try to top You Only Live Twice in terms of going for an even bigger scale. There we were, technically, threatened with all-out war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., there was a spaceship-eating spaceship, a vast underground volcano base, and more henchpeople than you could shake a stick at. Here Blofeld does have that rather lovely base in the Swiss Alps, but it’s at a much more relatable – and practical – level, so though his plan to blackmail the world is just as improbable as before, it’s taking place in a setting that suggests credibility, and thus lends credibility to his plan. Well, some of it. Not his Angels Of Death, which is a stupid idea done stupidly, but the idea that he’s developed a virus that can wipe out whole species feels real in a way that a lot of Blofeld/SPECTRE plans don’t, so the sense of threat behind it holds water. But for all that, here we go again, because the movie is once more working against itself– the plan is good, the execution via make-up kits is idiotic. Still, if nothing else On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is gifted with the best Blofeld of them all. Telly Savalas (but not Tellyfier as far as I know) makes an immediate impression as Blofeld, light-years away from the camp, childish giggling of the last movie that was so difficult to take seriously. And, because Savalas is actually a decent actor, he’s able to do the different aspects of Blofeld just as well as the mwa-ha-ha-evil-plan side of the character, which also goes a long way to selling him as a real person. And he has a physicality – he can ski, he can take part in chases normally reserved exclusively for henchpeople, he looks like he can physically handle himself in a fight – that helps imbue the character with more credibility than he’s ever had. Even the fact that one of his blackmail demands is that his title be recognized helps put some character meat on the bone – even after all his nefarious plans, he still wants to be accepted by the Establishment. Make of that what you will… So yes, Blofeld is one of the great successes of the film. What a shame it takes us to nearly the halfway point before he’s actually introduced (so more movie-working-against-itself then). And what of Lazenby himself? Well, after Connery’s career-making performance over the last five movies, it was always going to be tough finding a leading man to take over what had become such an iconic role, and something the film definitely succeeds in is that it doesn’t have Lazenby just try and be Connery’s Bond but with a different actor. There’s moments where there are obvious similarities – his bedding two women in one night at the lodge seems like an obvious point of comparison – but by and large Lazenby isn’t stuck doing a Connery impression. Unfortunately. Look, comparisons to Connery are both inevitable and unavoidable here, and that doesn’t do Lazenby any favours at all, but even without the comparison to his predecessor, Lazenby never really convinces as Bond. I really, really wanted to like him in the role, to find a Bond that’s overlooked but a worthy addition to the series, but that’s not what Lazenby’s Bond is. He simply has no screen presence. He can say the lines, and he looks the part, but there’s no spark there. He lacks that crucial something that animates the character beyond stock lines about martinis and evil bad guys, and he’s simply dreadful at delivering the puns and quips. These are – thankfully – kept to a minimum, but every time he’s given one to deliver the film crashes to an awkward stop. Indeed Lazenby appears far more comfortable (and is simply better) playing Bond-in-disguise rather than Bond himself, which is a huge failing. His Bond has at least some rapport with Tracy, but that’s almost all coming from Diana Rigg, who’s simply brilliant here, and really rather wasted in this film. She’s able to give her character that extra dimension that Lazenby’s Bond so obviously lacks, and seeing them in scenes together just helps emphasize how much better she is. She acts him off the screen, in fact, but then again of course she does – quite apart from the fact that Rigg is a great actor, she’s essentially been playing a competent Bond girl over on The Avengers for years, so this is second nature to her. There’s a few moments when they do work well together – hiding in the barn after getting caught in a snowstorm, despite the weird soft-focus thing – but for the most part it’s all from her, not him. Really, Savalas and Rigg aside, this isn’t a well-cast film, and little of the supporting cast make any impression at all, even in fairly major roles like Draco. Ilse Steppat steps into the second-in-command henchwoman role, taking up the mantle of Rosa Klebb’s grimly-Eastern-European approach to working for her boss, but even then… well she’s fine but she’s just Klebb Mk II, where a more distinct character would have been a better approach. So, anyway. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service just doesn’t convince. It ought to, but it doesn’t, and it’s easy to see how it could have. The fact that there are a few moments of real quality just highlights how mediocre everything else is, and there’s a… flatness to much of the film that stops it becoming engaging for great lengths of its run-time. The action sequence at the end, with the big attack attack on the lodge? Fantastic, and indeed as good an action sequence as we’ve had. But it’s taken us two hours to get to it and, good though it is, that feels like way too long. The setting, high in the Swiss Alps, is pleasingly different from any previous film, but it takes us half the movie to get there, and indeed to the point of any of this, and that also feels way too long. Blofeld’s defeat-by-tree feels like a poor way of Bond finally besting the character… ah but of course he doesn’t actually best him here at all, and Blofeld makes a return to take his revenge on Bond. Those final few minutes of the film, with the wedding and the death of Tracy, get a lot of focus and attention, and quite rightly so. The wedding works well, with the regular cast turning up to wave Bond off (and some more great work from Lois Maxwell, naturally), even if it’s not the most… discreet wedding for a super spy, before the final, shocking couple of minutes. And there’s something that works well in the fact that Tracy’s death is almost arbitrary – either of them could have been shot or neither of them, but the random nature is something that even someone like Bond can’t predict or prevent. Lazenby gets his best moment of the film here, cradling her dead body while telling the attending police officer they have all the time in the world, and it’s really quite affecting. But it’s also too little too late – and once again we return to the dominant theme of this film working against itself, because the moment with Bond holding Tracy’s body is terrific, then it cuts to a shot of just the bullet hole in the glass and silence… and it’s a powerful moment. Then the Bond theme crashes in and ruins everything, crassly undermining a rare moment of real emotion. And that’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in a nutshell. Unable to overcome its own flaws to actually allow itself to work. What a terrible waste.
What Percentage Of This Film Could Be Cut? Loads of it. It takes us so damned long to get to the Swiss base and Blofeld’s actual plan that much of the run-up to it just feels like marking time until the plot gets going. Yes, there’s a bit of that time spent trying to persuade us that Bond And Tracy Are A Thing, but it’s not hugely convincing, and it’s not worth spending half the movie on. And once we get to the base we spend far too long with the Angels Of Death, faffing about rather than getting on with things. So let’s go for… oh 25%. At two hours and twenty minutes, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is already the longest Bond film, and often feels like it. Shave off a good chunk of the first half, jettison Draco altogether and just have Tracy and Bond meet in some (any!) other way, and pare back the character-free Angels Of Death (tellingly, in the credits they’re not even given names, just nationalities) and you’d have a noticeably stronger film. Quip Level: Low, thank Rassilon. Lazenby just can’t deliver them, so the fact that the puns and quips are few and far between means the film doesn’t shudder to a halt too often. Especially lamentable is Blofeld’s “he’s branched off”, which isn’t funny and barely counts as a pun/quip, though as mentioned, he does the “this never happened to the other fellow” surprisingly well. 2017 Cringe Factor: Performances apart, you mean? Other than Bond slapping Tracy or Draco punching out his own daughter (!), actually, this can probably scrape a Fine, because surprisingly there’s nothing really cringe-y here. Bond’s slap of Tracy is deliberately recalling the same action in From Russia With Love, and though Lazenby doesn’t have the steel that Connery does, the film is obviously going for the same thing. The Angels Of Death walk up to the line of cringe, but they’re just a crap idea rather than being actively buttock-clenching. Yet there’s no racial stereotypes (unless you want to count the Swiss having a love of winter sports), no uncomfortable power dynamics with even Bunt seeming to be there of her own volition, Tracy herself has skills and agency and isn’t just a love interest for Bond (she even gets to do a bit of henchperson beating!), and the whole thing is broadly cringe free. But wait, actually I’ve made a mistake, because there is one thing that is incredibly cringe-inducing, and it’s this – the fashion. It’s fucking awful. This might have been made in 1969, but the 70’s have crashed the party early in all their orange-and-brown glory. One of the things that holes On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – though not the only thing by a long chalk – is that it just looks incredibly tacky on screen. Bond movies don’t have to be glamourous – Dr No certainly isn’t – but they do need to avoid looking cheap and gaudy on screen, and that test On Her Majesty’s Secret Service fails badly. So lets up the rating to an Ouch and do our best to forget Bond’s orange turtleneck, the disco-hypnotist lights in Blofeld’s base, or The Most Ruffled Shirt In Cinema, shall we? The Bonds, Ranked1. Connery 2. Lazenby
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