Continued from Part 1…
- Roger Moore is here, the first Bond who’s actually English.
- The Beatles are here! Well, Paul McCartney and George Martin (their producer, often known as “The Fifth Beatle”).
- No more uber-widescreen; we’ve switched to a taller 1.66 : 1 aspect ratio.
- This seems a strange one to introduce a new actor with. I mean, you’ve got voodoo, tarot cards, Harlem, and New Orleans/greater Louisiana to give the whole thing a real Blaxploitation vibe. It doesn’t help that there’s no more SPECTRE or Blofeld either.
- Two important Bond movie precedents: the henchman with an impediment-turned-enhancement (Tee Hee), and a fictional country playing a key role (San Monique).
- The watch is starting to get out of hand. Not only does it have a powerful magnet, but apparently it can also turn into a spinning blade.
- Overall, ‘Live and Let Die’ is not a very strong entry in the 007 series, but it does have a pretty fantastic (and long) speedboat chase. It’s like the ‘Bullitt’ or ‘French Connection’ of boat chases.
- Jane Seymour.
1974: The Man With the Golden Gun
- It hard to put my finger on why this one doesn’t stand out. Maybe it’s because the MacGuffin is solar power, but I don’t know. Even the theme song is pretty blasé.
- I find it a bit odd that despite jet setting all around the Orient, from Macau to Hong Kong to Bangkok (complete with Muay Thai), at no time does Bond end up with an Asian girl.
- That said, the Hong Kong setting offers one of my favorite Bond movie sets: the Secret Service headquarters aboard the wreck of the RMS Queen Elizabeth. Very clever indeed.
- Poor Britt Ekland. She plays arguably the most ineffectual Bond girl of them all (at least in terms of ones who live), and it’s not even her fault; it’s the character as written.
- I really don’t know what else to say. I like Christopher Lee. I like the car flip. I like that car-plane. There’s just not much to talk about with this one; for a 007 movie, it’s pretty simple.
- Big is back. We’ve returned to 2.35 : 1 Panavision, but we’ve also returned to big sets, big locations, and big effects (like blowing up some fine-looking miniatures). It’s very similar to ‘You Only Live Twice’ (including bringing back Lewis Gilbert to direct), but done ten years later, so certain things look better.
- Submarines! I love submarines.
- Detente: The Soviets enter the scene in a way we haven’t seen before.
- We’ve also never seen another agent tag along for such an extended period of time.
- Karl Stromberg may not be Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but Curd Jurgens plays a great supervillain nonetheless.
- Introduction of arguably the most iconic henchman of all time: Jaws.
- A Lotus that turns into a submarine. Total fiction, but movie magic makes it real enough.
- Lots of wonderful underwater photography, as we’ve come to expect from this series.
- A lot of people point to this one as the nadir of the series, but I couldn’t disagree more. In terms of entertainment value, I think it ranks near the top. Does it get a little silly at times? Yes. Was it cashing in on the Star Wars craze? Yes, but who wasn’t in 1979? *COUGH*StarTrek*COUGH*
- Also, in terms of cinematic spectacle, ‘Moonraker’ goes all out. Derek Meddings’ effects were rightfully nominated for an Oscar, and I’d argue that this film represents Ken Adam’s best work in terms of production design. I mean, these guys gave us the Space Shuttle before NASA did! That’s impressive.
- Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax is one of the best (and most ruthless) villains in the series, and despite things getting hokey at times, I think his doomsday plot is an effective MacGuffin.
- The cinematography is downright beautiful, and they take full advantage of Rio de Janeiro’s vistas.
- People often rate Lois Chiles as Dr. Holly Goodhead one of the worst Bond Girls, but I disagree. Despite the dumb name, she’s one of my favorites, not only because she’s gorgeous, but she’s also a good foil as well.
- Space Marines! No, not like ‘Aliens’, but Marines in outer space nonetheless.
- Blofeld returns! Well, sort of. The intro to this one features a bald man in a wheelchair with a white cat trying to get the best of 007, but not succeeding. No doubt a rather open middle finger to Kevin McClory, who Eon was in near constant litigation with over the story rights to ‘Thunderball’.
- How do you follow up going to space? Come back down to Earth, of course. This is among the best in the series because of the focus of the story and the commitment to keeping as many things as possible “real” in the camera lens.
- Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock: beautiful, deadly, and gorgeous dark hair for days. Love her.
- How B.A. Baracus is Julian Glover that he’s played a Star Wars Imperial General, a Bond Villain, and an Indiana Jones Villain (in that order)? The world needs to know!
- He’s a curious casting choice, but I actually like Topol in this movie. Gives it some heart.
- Sadly, Bernard Lee passed away before they started filming, making M conspicuously absent.
- Another curiosity is Bill Conti (of ‘Rocky’ fame) doing the score. I don’t know if his style is a good fit.
- The pre-credits sequence gets back to what I like, which is James Bond finishing another mission that’s totally unrelated to the plot of the movie. Something to merely whet the audience’s appetite rather than setting the plot in motion. Don’t get me wrong, the other way can be done very well, but as a general rule I like it to be the end of a different adventure.
- This is another movie, like ‘For Your Eyes Only’ where everything is kept pretty tight and practical. However, it is punctuated by some rather silly moments that take you out of the movie (like a Tarzan yell).
- There aren’t really any supervillains in this one, but I do enjoy Louis Jourdan and Kabir Bedi and villain and henchman, respectively.
- There’s also a really cool weapon in this one, which I will simply refer to as the giant yo-yo of death.
- As for Octopussy herself, she’s okay, I guess. Maud Adams wasn’t really given a whole lot in the script, so I just have to assume she did the best with what she had.
1983: Never Say Never Again (non-Eon)
- With respect to “Cubby” Broccoli and the rest of the Eon crew, this was the superior Bond movie of 1983. Yes, it’s a rehash of ‘Thunderball’, but it’s got the right balance of wit, girls, gadgets, and high stakes; not to mention Sean Connery (and he’s not phoning it in this time). It goes in my Top Five without question.
- Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximillian Largo is among my favorite Bond villains. He’s a crazy killer, yet charmingly playful, and the repartee between he and Connery makes the movie for me.
- I like that fact that the movie actually makes reference to changing times and embraces Bond getting older.
- This might be the closest we ever get to a Spielberg/Lucas 007 project. Director Irvin Kershner was hot off of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, cinematographer Douglas Slocombe shot the Indiana Jones trilogy, and the sound stage work was done at Elstree Studios (as were the Star Wars and Indy films). Honestly, there are so many crossovers with the cast and crew alike, I can’t name them all here.
- A lot of people hate on this one, and for good reason: Roger Moore’s too old (and he knew it), Christopher Walken was not a good fit to play this particular villain, it’s arguably the worst crop of Bond girls ever, and the finale takes place on a blimp.
- All that said, I like the actual story and how it’s told, even if it’s somewhat of a rehash of Goldfinger. Max Zorin’s background and his going rogue are interesting elements, and it’s nice to see a villainous plot that’s much more localized than then entire world.
- I like the subtle nod to ‘My Fair Lady‘ in the racetrack scene (Moneypenny makes a certain outburst).
- San Francisco doesn’t seem to be the most obvious location for a Bond movie, but they get a lot out of it.
- Snowboarding, cool.
- Believe it or not, the strongest aspect of this one might be the music. It’s not all great, but the Duran Duran theme is cool, and John Barry has some really nice french horn-heavy cues.
- New Bond; new Moneypenny. It’s interesting watching this now, because I think they were trying to accomplish so much of what ‘Casino Royale’ was going for 19 years later, like, “The series has become too bloated and unrealistic; we need to find a younger, tougher Bond and put him in something that’s closer to reality.” They didn’t strip things down to degree that ‘Casino Royale’ does, but they definitely want you to know that this is a NEW Bond with a NEW attitude. Maybe the world wasn’t quite ready for it, “but your kids are gonna love it.”
- Many people think they don’t like Timothy Dalton as James Bond, but I think he’s rather well-suited for the role. He’s almost an amalgam of the previous three: the toughness of Connery, the humanity of Lazenby, and the sophistication of Moore. Maybe that makes him jack of all trades, master of none, but he’s not a “bad Bond” by any stretch.
- If ‘The Living Daylights’ has one particular weakness, I think it’s a slight case of Too-Many-Villains Syndrome; and I wouldn’t call the story convoluted, but if you blink you might miss what the endgame is, and that can be frustrating in a movie you just want to be entertained by.
- I’m not sure if it was intended as a nod to ‘The Third Man’ or not, but 007 does ride the Riesenrad (giant Ferris wheel) while in Vienna.
- Of all the 007-mobiles, the Aston Martin in this one is my favorite.
- Some movies, particularly ones that exist as part of a franchise, earn a bad reputation because they have an identity crisis. ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’, ‘Mission: Impossible 2’, and ‘Licence to Kill’ all suffer from this. They are fine movies of their own merit, but as part of their larger series they feel out of place. Frankly, ‘Licence to Kill’ might be one of the best action movies of the Eighties, but so much about it feels so un-Bond like that it turns people away.
- That said, this movie marks the end of an epoch in cinema history. In 27 years, Eon Productions churned out 16 James Bond films, but the series would go underground for more than half a decade, a veritable eternity given the usual turnaround time. No more “Cubby” Broccoli at the helm producing; no more Cold War; no more John Barry scores or Maurice Binder title sequences; no more Pan Am flights; no more Richard Maibaum scripts; no more rear screen projection; and no more “Bond continuity” through different actors. It was a hard goodbye for the audience.
- Until the Daniel Craig movies, David Hedison was the only actor to portray Felix Leiter in multiple films, but why they brought him back for this one in particular I don’t understand, especially since John Terry had played the role two years earlier in ‘The Living Daylights’. See what I mean about that “Bond continuity”? Very strange.
Continued in Part 3…