Six Weeks And Counting To 007

With Roger Moore finally settling into the role of Bond in “The Spy Who Loved Me”, the producers were left with only one final place Bond hadn’t been…outer space (he almost got there in “You Only Live Twice” but was stopped by Blofeld before he could get on the rocket). Bond would finally go where he hadn’t before, even though he probably shouldn’t.

Having spent several movies just taking the title, a few character names and maybe one or two scenes from Fleming’s original works, this time out all they took was the villain and the title. The plot is partially a retread of “The Spy Who Loved Me” (maniac wants to destroy humanity to create a new perfect race underwater/in outer space) only with more silliness.

Jaws returns as comic relief (not that he wasn’t in “The Spy Who Loved Me’, but here it’s even more obvious).  Lois Chiles plays Holly Goodhead…a Fleming name if ever there was one…a CIA agent who is far more attractive than Felix Leiter would ever be. Michael Lonsdale plays the villainous Drax with a relish that almost borders on ridiculousness, but seems “normal” in comparison to most of the rest of the proceedings.

I have a love/hate relationship with “Moonraker”. It’s the first (and only) Bond film I saw in theaters with my dad before he died, but it’s also an absolutely terrible film. The only thing that does save it from being the worst Bond film (which on most days is “The Man With The Golden Gun”) is the fact that it’s silliness is entertaining at the end of the day. The film is never boring, has a nice pace to it and does keep you laughing. Perhaps if they knew then what we know now about space travel, it wouldn’t be as funny…but probably not. Luckily, Moore’s next film would bring him back down to Earth.

“For Your Eyes Only” is most likely Moore’s best Bond film (it’s a close race between this and “The Spy Who Loved Me”). Going back to the start of the series and sticking close to Fleming’s stories, “For Your Eyes Only” is much more serious in tone, which is a bit of fresh air for the usually jovial Moore.

Taking two short stories by Fleming (the title story about a woman out for revenge on the hit man who killed her parents and “Risico” about two rival smugglers) and throwing in some political/technological Macguffins, the film strikes the right note, keeps moving at a great pace and remains exciting and “believable” throughout. Only the pre-credits sequence (featuring an unnamed wheelchair bound Blofeld – we assume it’s Blofeld because of the white cat and bald head -- trying to kill Bond via a remote controlled helicopter) and the very end (featuring a Margaret Thatcher impersonator) veer into the silliness of what has come before.

Moore reaches his peak as Bond here, but he's certainly showing his age (there's a point where he's running up some steps and you wouldn't be surprised if he started wheezing, threw up his hands, said "Fuck it" and started back down). The rest of the cast supports him nicely especially Chaim Topol and Julian Glover as the rival smugglers. Sadly missing is Bernard Lee as M who passed away before he could start shooting his scenes for this film. They were rewritten to include Chief of Staff Bill Tanner and Minister of Defense Frederick Gray (the former being a character from the novels who had yet to make it to the big screen and the latter being a creation for the series first appearing in "The Spy Who Loved Me" played by Geoffrey Keen who would continue to do so through "The Living Daylights"). 

From here Moore has nowhere to go but down...luckily, his last two films don't descend to the depths of blandness of his first two films.

Be seeing you.

Seven Weeks And Counting to 007

Roger Moore goes into his second out pretty much the same way he went into his first...badly. Only this time it's worse.  Taking the "new model" created by "Live And Let Die", the producers fashioned one of the blandest and most boring Bond films yet that slogs along from start to finish with very few highlights along the way. "The Man With The Golden Gun" could be the worst Bond films ever made...and it didn't have to be.

Instead of drug running filtered through the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s, we get a film mired in the energy crisis filtered through the Martial Arts films of the 1970s. None of this works and the return of the walking redneck stereotype Sheriff J.W. Pepper (again played by Clifton James) makes no sense (since the film takes place in Thailand) and isn't even funny this time around. Toss in Britt Ekland as the worst Bond girl (until Denise Richards) and the dumbest M.I.6 Agent ever and it's a recipe for disaster.

The film starts with a marvelous pre credits sequence setting a tone for the film that rarely gets used again. Christopher Lee is easily one of the best villains of the series (although having him tied to the ridiculous subplot of the Solex Agitator is a huge mistep that even he can't recover from). Herve Villachaize's Nick Nick is one of the more interesting henchmen, but he's played more for laughs because of his diminutive size...though he does have a few moments of seriousness during the proceedings. Moore just seems to be clowning around as he moves from place to place in a seemingly random manner based on the script choices and not logic of story (cause there isn't much...even for a Bond film).

The less said about this one, the better...Luckily, Moore & company get it right for the next outing.

The third time is the charm. The writers have stopped trying to write for Connery and are now writing for Moore so the balance of comedy and seriousness is a bit more equal. The plot gets stolen from "You Only Live Twice" but works much better here. Maniacal villain with his own personal army hiding in a secret lair steals things from both the Americans and the Russians in an attempt to start World War III. Instead of Blofeld, we get Stromberg. Instead of a volcano we get an underwater base. Instead of a giant spaceship that can swallow other spaceships, we get a supertanker that can swallow submarines. Toss is the new goal (of repopulating a more perfect world underwater) and some stolen scenes from other Fleming novels as well as interesting characters, locations and gadgets and you've got a new winner on your hands.

Fleming had stipulated that the only thing they could use from the novel "The Spy Who Loved Me" was the title. Luckily, the producers of the films had stopped using much more than that a while ago. Here they had to craft something spectacular from the ground up. Moore seems much more at ease here than in the previous films. Maybe it was the new director (Lewis Gilbert returns for his second outing) or maybe it was the loss of producer Harry Saltzman (personal financial issues forced him to sell his share of the series). Whatever the case, the tone changes for the better. We even get a score by Marvin Hamlisch heavily mired in disco that barely seems to have dated in almost 40 years.

Easily one of the two best Moore films, we'd be taking a slight diversion into ultimate silliness before coming back down to Earth for the other of the best of the Moore era.

Be seeing you.

Eight Weeks And Counting Down To 007

With Connery returning, so does the attitude of where the series left off when he was previously Bond making the serious, relatively faithful adaptation of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" an anomaly (never mind that Connery's first four films before "You Only Live Twice" were also somewhat faithful to Fleming's novels or at least more faithful than the series was becoming). Connery brings with him an amped up bag of camp, wit, gadgets, silliness and charming sex appeal all while the series is struggling to find it's footing yet again with a change of leading man to someone who is starting to look a bit old for the role.

This is the third and last time we will see Blofeld on screen (at least his face) and this time he's played by Charles Gray (best known to today's audiences as The Narrator of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" -- he seems to have no neck in this film either). Gray is better than Pleasance, but not as good as Savalas. He's got the charm, but very little of the brutality & creepiness. Jill St. John is adequate as Tiffany Case. She varies between strong-willed and ditz at the drop of a dime.  We get a new Felix Leiter (Norman Burton) who is about as memorable as all the prior Felix's (that four in seven films for those keeping score at home) as he has little to do but play Zeppo to Bond's Groucho (literally -- Bond seems to keep tossing one liners at him).

The plot involves Blofeld using a kidnapped Howard Hughes-ish businessman (named Willard Whyte and played by "Sausage King" Jimmy Dean) to threaten the world with a giant diamond laser on a satellite. I'm pretty sure this is where the "Austin Powers" movies stole all their ideas from. Bond pretty much stumbles into this story as the film opens with him still hunting Blofeld (presumably for the murder of Tracey in the previous film...but he goes about it pretty casually for a man bent on revenge for the death of his wife). The action scenes are exciting in that late 60s/early 70s way before "The French Connection" hit the screen (even though it came out two months earlier). Yet, the film is saved from being complete bottom of the barrel Bond by an exciting John Barry score, a fun title song sung by Shirley Bassey and the presence of Connery...which would be his last in the EON Bond series...

Connery was replaced by Roger Moore. Moore was 46 at the time he started. Connery was 41 at the time he stopped. You do the math. Moore does a decent job, but the tone of the series continues down the road of gadgets and comedy. We also get the continued trend of taking Fleming's title and a few characters and chucking the plot of the novel out the window.

Moore's first outing is bland at best. Instead of dealing with megalomaniacs with grand plans of world domination, we're back to the smaller plans like Goldfinger's. A gangster known as Mr. Big wants to give away free heroin to put the mafia out of the drug business and then jack up his own prices. He's being helped by the dictator of the island of San Monique where the drugs are manufactured. All of this is wrapped up in the cliches of the blaxploitation era of the 1970s with a touch of Voodoo thrown in for good measure.

For the first time since he appeared in "From Russia With Love", Desmond Llewelyn's Q is missing from the series. So Moneypenny not only gets whatever dialogue he would have had to introduce the gadgets, she does it at Bond's apartment (where she & M show up at the wee hours of the morning -- is it normal for the head of the British Secret Service to personally go to the houses of his agents to give them new missions). The first scene is the first in a series of silly things that derail the film. We get an overly long boat chase with one or two good stunts across the bayous of Louisiana. This scene also adds the character of Sheriff J.W. Pepper to the series played by Clifton James (who would pretty much play the same character in "Silver Streak" and "Superman II"). Pepper is a walking stereotype that sticks out like a sore thumb.

While the film's pace is all over the place, what works best are the villains and their voodoo aspect. Yaphet Kotto is pretty imposing as both Mr. Big and Kananga. Julius Harris' Tee Hee is a memorable henchman almost on the level of Oddjob. Geoffrey Holder brings a creepy air of the weird and the strange as Baron Samedi (is he real or a spirit or what). Jane Seymour makes her big screen debut as the fortune telling Solitaire who is of course seduced by Bond (with many more witticisms from Moore than Connery ever had). Kananga's plot makes sense (for the 1970s), but it unravels once we get to his secret lair in the last ten minutes of the film (where he gets what has to be the most ridiculous death in a Bond film ever).

CIA Agent Felix Leiter shows up again and we get the fifth actor in the role in eight films. David Hedison (best known for playing the title role in "The Fly" in 1958) doesn't bring anything new to the part, but will later on get the recognition of being the only actor to play the role twice (before the Daniel Craig reboot). The character continues to remain little more than a prop in the films to get Bond from point A to point B and get him out of trouble with American authorities.

This is not a good start to Moore's tenure. Most of the film is boring, bland and silly. What does work is barely there. While Fleming's novel was filled with racist language that would have been offensive in the 1970s, there was probably more to use since the novel ultimately works better than the film (and it was only Fleming's second novel -- still would love to see Daniel Craig and company tackle this one in the same way they did "Casino Royale" modernize it, lose the racist stuff and give Jeffrey Wright more to do as Felix and you'd have a cracking good film). Unfortunately, Moore's Bond (and the series as a whole) was about to get worse before getting better...

Be seeing you.

Nine Weeks And Counting Down To 007

The fifth Bond film was to be Connery's last. The man was tired of playing the part and being hounded by the press and felt unappreciated by the producers. All of this kind of shows as Connery goes through the motions. Sure, he's witty and brutal but there's something missing now. 

This was also the first film to take the "formula" as established in the previous films and send it in another direction. Roald Dahl (yes...THAT Roald Dahl of Chocolate Factory fame) was hired to write the screenplay. Fleming (who was dead by this point) was good friends with Dahl. Dahl felt the novel was one of Fleming's weakest and decided to take some character names and locations and come up with an entire new plot (this would become the normal way of adapting Fleming's books once the 1970s rolled around).

The film takes place in Japan and involves Bond trying to stop Blofeld from starting World War III. Blofeld and his SPECTRE agents have gone from sending American rockets off course (in "Dr. No") to just plain capturing them once they reach outer space (and doing the same with the Russians). Up until this point in the film series, we have been given hints about Blofeld and mostly seen him as a shadowy deep voiced figure petting a white cat (nothing like the descriptions by Fleming in the novels). Now we get to see him and he looks and sounds like nothing we've come to expect from those hints. Donald Pleasence is completely anti-climactic for a first time Bond meets Blofeld appearance (he's bald and has a weird scar...but he's still got that damn cat).

 The film ends with a climactic battle inside Blofeld's hollowed out volcano (which houses his launching pad for his space ships -- thankfully Bond didn't actually get into outer space in this film...but he will eventually). An army of Ninjas (who aren't very stealthy) battle the SPECTRE agents to the bitter end. Blofeld escapes, Bond gets the girl and the world is right. James Bond will return...so will Blofeld...but Connery does not (and neither does Pleasence).

With Connery out of the picture, Broccoli and Saltzman brought in Australian model George Lazenby (so far we've had a Scot and an Aussie play a British Spy). They also gave the directorial reins to editor Peter Hunt (who had been the editor on every entry in the series to this point and had directed the second unit on "You Only Live Twice") who insisted that the film hew as close to Fleming's original source material as possible since it is one of Fleming's strongest. The result is one of the best, most dramatic and tightest Bond films yet (even as it's the longest in running time and I'd argue that it may be John Barry's best score in the series as well).

Fleming's "Blofeld Trilogy" consisted of "Thunderball", "One Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "You Only Live Twice" in that order. Obviously, filming "You Only Live Twice" before "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" screws up that continuity...assuming there had been any to begin with since screenwriter Roald Dahl changed the entire plot anyway. The only oddity is Blofeld claiming he's never met Bond before (even though Bond is still on his mission searching for Blofeld). And you quickly forget it was mentioned and move on as the story moves at a brisk pace (thanks to editor John Glen...who would follow director Hunt's path and eventually wind up directing a few Bond films).

Say what you will about Lazenby, he had a tough act to follow. And he's not bad here for his first time out. He's supported by some in jokes and references as well as an amazing supporting cast in Diana Rigg as Tracy and Telly Savalas as Blofeld. Rigg and Lazenby have great chemistry and it's very easy to see how Bond falls madly in love with Tracy. Would a super spy really go and marry someone like that realizing it could end his career? Who knows, but these two make it believable. And that's what makes all of this all the more tragic (storywise) as the crew has kept this as one of the most faithful adaptations of a Fleming novel...right down to it's tragic ending.

Savalas is infinitely more charming, brutal and menacing as Blofeld (yet he's still got that damn white cat). His plot for world domination is still a bit out there, but much less so than kidnapping space ships with a larger space ship launched from a hollowed out volcano. It's too bad Savalas didn't return as Blofeld for a return match...but neither did Lazenby...

James Bond will return in "Diamonds Are Forever"...and so will Sean Connery...

Be seeing you.