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My favorite villianess was the redhead from thunderball. She attacked the role with a genuine lust for it. The remake, Never say never again, had barbara carrera. And while i lusted for her then, the redhead ( I used to know her name and now can't recall it...ah, the ravages of age) really stood out.
-------------------- Damn you, you kids! Get off my lawn or I'm callin' tha cops!
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Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe. (Watching it today!)
She was also in TO TRAP A SPY, the "expanded" color theatrical re-edit of "The Vulcan Affair", the pilot for THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (Strange but true-- they added several subplots for the movie version that were never seen on the TV show.) And, she was also in THE GREEN SLIME, a really cool, fun US-Japanese sci-fi space horror film written by Bill Finger.
Registered: Aug 2003
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"The one i am thinking of is the Laird of Murcaldy, in Gardner's first Bond book, License Renewed."
My best friend Jim and I used to read each new Gardner Bond book as they came out. The game we liked to play was trying to "cast" actors as the various characters, all the while wishing they'd do movie versions, while Broccoli & co. repeated stressed NO interest whatsoever in doing so.
For example, we BOTH thought of Veronica Hamel as the "bad" girl in NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (the 5th book), and Caroline Munro as the "good" girl in the same story. I also thought of Joe Don Baker as the CIA guy in ICEBREAKER (my favorite Gardner novel by a mile)-- what a surprise when he actually turned up in virtually the same role in GOLDENEYE!
Registered: Aug 2003
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The first 2 times I saw THUNDERBALL, I found it hard to follow, and later, I couldn’t recall what it was about. This never happened with the other 007 films. In my reading, I caught up with the book—and enjoyed it IMMENSELY. One of Ian Fleming’s best works, I felt. Nice, tight, fast-moving plot… which all left me wondering what the problem was. Then I saw the film on ABC a 3rd time. THAT’s when I knew.
“Too many cooks.”
THUNDERBALL started out in 1959 as a film project intended to bring James Bond to the screen for the 1st time. It was thought for worldwide ticket sales that an international crime syndicate—S.P.E.C.T.R.E.—would make better recurring villains than the Russians. The plot went through at least 12 scripts before the project fell apart. As he’d done twice before, Ian Fleming turned the story into a novel (and was promptly sued by Kevin McClory over it!). Can a book be called a “novelization” if it’s based on a film that was never made?
Now, I don’t know exactly what was in all those script drafts, but Fleming must have pruned that tree right to the bone. The book is SO simple, direct, and easy to follow—yet loaded with all the typical Fleming personal touches, details, and fully-fleshed out characters. The eventual film, however—based more likely on the earlier scripts than the novel—is a bloated, overstuff MESS that seems too proud of all the girls, gadgets, dangers and plot twists. Add commercial breaks on ABC and severe CUTS in reruns, it’s no wonder I couldn’t follow the plot of this on TV!
As an example, the book has 2 girls—Pat, the therapist, and Domino, the sister of the dead pilot & mistress of Emilio Largo, SPECTRE #2 and mastermind of the criminal plot. The film has 4 girls! The additions were Paula, Bond’s “assistant” in Nassau, and Fiona Volpe, SPECTRE #6, the red-headed Italian assassin! (WHOO-HOO!) In one of the ’59 scripts, she was named “Fatima Blush”; the name would be reused in the ’83 remake. In addition, it’s Domino’s brother who sells out to SPECTRE—whereas the film has him murdered and impersonated by a double, who double-crosses his bosses and is ALSO murdered. The whole “double / plastic surgery / man in bandages” thing just strikes me as the film-makers trying too damn hard to say, “LOOK how clever we all are!”
Then you have about a 45-minute sequence in the middle of the film which TOTALLY deviates from the main plot of the story. It starts when Bond is picked up by Fiona, continues when Paula is kidnapped by SPECTRE goons, Bond goes to rescue her but finds she’s already dead, has a cat-and-mouse game at Largo’s house Palmyra, then runs into Fiona in his hotel room—eventually being captured by SPECTRE goons, escaping, and running all over the “Mardi Gras” parade before she’s accidentally killed by her own men. (OOPS!) It’s no surprise that the very next scene has James & Felix in a helicopter searching for the missing plane & bombs—EVERYTHING with Fiona could be CUT, and the film would move much better, and have a lot more room for character development.
It’s a sad thing that THUNDERBALL has so many good actors in it—and NONE of them have enough screen time to do anything! This even includes Bond. Unlike the 3 previous films, Sean Connery appears to be just walking thru this. He shows no emotions, no anger, no sadness, no humor. The whole thing’s just become a job to him! Considering his talent as an actor, this is the real crime of the picture—not somebody stealing 2 atomic bombs!
So, while some have complained about the “slow” underwater sequences, to me, it’s everything else that’s the problem. In some alternate reality, I can envision what this film COULD have or SHOULD have been like.
Let’s start with the beginning. It took me decades to realize the pre-credit sequence is really ripped off from the CLIMAX of the book, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE! Bond goes after somebody who’s wearing a disguise for the murder of someone he knew. In the fight, he breaks their neck with a fireplace poker—then escapes INTO THE SKY! (No wonder I sometimes think you need a “score card” to tell what came from where.)
10 minutes into the film, as soon as we see Bond at Shrublands, the whole film cranks to a halt. So much goes on there, intercut with other scenes, it’s rediculous. I suggest scrapping the entire pre-credit sequence, and replace it with a very tightly-edited health club sequence. Bond’s there for therapy, sees Count Lippe, who recognizes Bond as an enemy of SPECTRE and decides to bump him off. Meanwhile, Fiona has seduced the pilot to work for them—thereby increasing her sexual prowess in the story—and warns Lippe not to do anything that might draw attention to their current plans. He tries to kill Bond anyway, fails, Fiona contacts her boss and gets orders. We then see Bond on the road, Lippe about to ambush him—several shots fired, cars swerving everywhere (it should be much more exciting than it was in the actual film), when out of nowhere, this black motorcycle appears, BLOWS Lippe to HELL, then disappears while Bond is driven off the road and barely escapes with his life. Some ways off, we find the cycle rider is Fiona—as she dumps the cycle in the lake, the “underwater” opening credits with Tom Jones’ song fades in.
The SPECTRE board room scene is one of the best in the film. The only flaw is, we never get to see Blofeld, who was described in great detail in the book. I picture going direct from this to the Vulcan bomber hijack, without any intercutting with other scenes (see above). Bond could have seen Domino’s brother talking with Lippe—he needn’t have seen him “dead” as stated in the film as an excuse to go to Nassau.
Connery once said Felix Leiter was “forgettable”—sure, when he’s played by a different actor in every film, and never given any decent screen time. The lengthy sequence where Felix skulks around, a bad redo from DR. NO, was probably left over from the earlier scripts. What we needed was a scene of Bond arriving at the airport, met by his best buddy Felix, who’d say, “When I heard you were coming here I KNEW this was where the action would be, so I had myself assigned here too.” Then when Bond meets Domino the first time, it could be Felix in the boat with him. I’d dump Paula entirely. She adds nothing to the story, and exists only as an excuse for Bond to traipse around Largo’s house at night and fall into his shark pool. There’s enough sharks around the Vulcan bomber, and later during the climactic battle—we didn’t need that pool sequence!
My one problem in restructuring this story is Fiona. I’m tempted to just follow the book, except Luciana Palluzi is SO good, I’d want to keep her—especially if by dumping some extraneous things she could have more screen-time, too. I’d say she should run into Bond in his hotel room and seduce him, WITHOUT his having gone to save Paula. Later, I’d have her shot at the Kiss Kiss club—but only injured, and wanting Bond dead even more. Later, on the beach, I’d have her sneak up on Bond & Domino—and get it with the spear gun. It was a much more memorable death, after all, and would have allowed her to stick around until just before the start of the climax.
The rest of my changes all involve the cast. Last year, I began thinking a lot about this, and got double-visions as I watched it, as I pictured who SHOULD have played certain parts. To begin with, Ernst Stavros Blofeld has NEVER been cast properly. I’ve read that CURT JURGENS would have been perfect. In fact, he almost did play the part—until a McClory lawsuit over THE SPY WHO LOVED ME had Broccoli thumb his nose by changing the villain’s name to Stromberg. When I saw Jurgens as a German general in THE LONGEST DAY, I knew he should have played the part. For consistency, I’d have had him appear in EVERY film—FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, THUNDERBALL, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. (I’m getting ahead of myself here, I you get the idea.)
Next, while suave & “cool”, Adolpho Celi is too old and “stiff” to play the virile, action-oriented Emilio Largo. Plus, they had to dub his voice (with the same actor who also dubbed a policeman in DR. NO, Tanaka in YOLT, and the guy pretending to be Blofeld in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY). My choice? TELLY SAVALAS. It’s been said Savalas was all wrong for Blofeld in OHMSS. I agree—but the script he had and his performance was SO good, he’s become my #1 favorite Bond movie villain of all time. Even so, I’d be willing to recast him here for a better fit, and even more screen-time!
Then there’s Domino. RAQUEL WELCH, an expert swimmer and one of the icons of the 60’s, was actually cast for the part. I’ve even seen a photo of her in the bikini Claudine Auger wears. But her studio took advantage of the 007 publicity and then yanked her out to appear in something else. Shades of what happened to Pierce Brosnan in 1986!!! Auger’s pretty, but not “tough” enough. Just imagine HOW MUCH MORE memorable Welch would have been, and how much better the film would have been with her in it!
For Felix, obviously, JACK LORD. While Rik Van Nutter has been described as the “closest” in appearance to the character in the book, he doesn’t get a chance in the film to show if he’s got any personality or not. Even without any, Lord has more presence.
Finally, the nuclear physicist, Kuntz. George Pravda was wonderful as the chief of police in the DOCTOR WHO story, “The Deadly Assassin”. Here, he seems too wimpy and in some scenes reminds me of Peter Lorre. My choice? DONALD PLEASENCE! Sure, I loved him in YOLT, but he was even more wrong for Blofeld than Savalas. Had HE played Kuntz, it would have been a perfect fit—as seen in the character he played in FANTASTIC VOYAGE (opposite Welch, as it happens).
Try picturing all this in your mind next time you watch the movie. It could have been SOOOOO good!!!
Lastly… you know how from THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS to TOMORROW NEVER DIES 4 films in a row had 2 songs—a “villain” song and a “romantic” song? THUNDERBALL almost had a song by the name of “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” over the opening credits. The lyrics were SO silly, however, and sanity prevailed, so at the last minute the song Tom Jones sang was hastily written & recorded (and Jones reportedly DID faint after he finished it in one take—heehee). I think any DVD releases of this movie should have a video tacked onto the end of what could have been an end credit song—if end credits were as long back then as they are today. It was recorded by Shirley Bassey—too shrill for me—and Dione Warwick—which I’ve come to love. I’d go with that one. Ah, what could have been…
Registered: Aug 2003
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Thunderball - I've always thought of Claudine Augur as the sexiest of the "primary" Bond girls.
(Primary - Bond's main love interest in the film Secondary - Bond dalliance within the film with a girl who serves the main adventure plot in some capacity but is not the primary Tertiary - Dalliance with a girl who is nothing more than sexy window dressing)
I'm one of those rare folks who has seen all of Bond andlikes Moore the best. (Which is not to say I think all the Moore films are gems - Moonraker was an abomination, for example) I like the lighter touches amid the heavy intrigue, and no one did those better than Roger.
-------------------- Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@nyc.rr.com Legion-Reference-File Lad
From: New York, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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MOONRAKER has long been at the bottom of my list, scraping out below DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. It's frustrating, because when you look at the story and the scope, it had such potential! An article in 007 magazine even pointed out how it was THE SPY WHO LOVED ME redone without the plot problems. But it has 2 MAJOR drawbacks. It's IDIOTIC-- the style of humor is completely out of place, moreso when you consider how they worked so hard to find a proper tone in the previous film. But-- and I forgot about this for years-- it's also BORING. None of the action scenes are exciting. They all seem to be taking place in slow motion, and with an air of detachment.
I can't talk about the film without mentioning Derek Meddings' STUNNING effects work on the space shuttle lift-off. NASA had delays with the real thing, and when they finally got one off the ground (almost 2 years later), I saw the photo in TIME magazine and thought, "Hey! Derek Meddings got it ABSOLUTELY right!" Imagine if HE had done the spaceship work in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.
On the other hand, that space station... AAAAAUGH! Not only is the design confusing and meaningless, WHOSE bright idea was it to show it generating "artificial gravity" by rotating-- while the floors are all in the same direction? If we're to believe they were generating centrifugal force, as in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, then everyone would have been thrown to the outside edges of the structure. The kind of "artificial gravity" used in this space station was more of the LOST IN SPACE Jupiter 2 or STAR TREK Enterprise variety. I could accept that-- but the spinning just makes NO SENSE at all.
There's a reason FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is my favorite Roger Moore film... a LOT of reasons!
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Yes, but the primary reason,no doubt, is because it's the most Connery-like Bond Moore played. On the other hand, I love Diamonds Are Forever, one of your bottoms, partially because it's the most Moore-like of Connery's films. And your other bottom, Golden Gun, is my favorite (although the reason is that I think Scaramanga was an awesome villain...there were definitely some things wrong with it)
Moonraker, on the other hand, was just absurd. It was so clearly done to rip off the popularity of Star Wars. Whatever level of realism exists in any Bond film were thrown out the window here, from the way-too-easy shuttle launch (no ground control???) to the apparent existence of a U.S. military space corps with laser weapons. It's one thing to have Q give Bond a special technology weapon, it's quite another to put these things into the hands of the regular military.
-------------------- Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@nyc.rr.com Legion-Reference-File Lad
From: New York, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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It's a shame MOONRAKER wasn't one of the earliest films made. I've always liked the book. So typical of the "mix and match" mentality of "adaptations", the climax of the book turned up in the movie THE SPY WHO LOVED ME-- so "obviously", it couldn't be used in the film supposedly based on it 2 years later.
As a fan of the books, I can't help but feel that Roger Moore-- and the producers' approach during his run-- were just WRONG for the character of James Bond. As a fan of THE SAINT (I've read 25 of the books so far and have ALMOST every film & tv episode on tape), I'd have much rather seen all that effort going into making big-budget "epic" SAINT films in the 70's with Moore, a character he at least seemed a good fit for, and apparently had more respect for. I can't understand his continual refusal to take Bond seriously-- while it turns out he often played Simon Templar TOO seriously for that character! (What went on there??)
Never mind Connery-- I've NEVER been able to visualize him or "hear" his voice in my head when I read any of the books (Fleming or Gardner). FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, made the way it was partly due to a backlash against MOONRAKER, returned to the Fleming source material BIG-TIME. There's a 20-minute sequence right in the middle that is an ACCURATE adaptation of the short story "Risico" (except for killing Lisl, which only happened in the movie). In addition, I counted pieces of at least 5 other Fleming stories used in the film, including the previously-missing climax of LIVE AND LET DIE. I also think Bill Conti did a much better job on the score than John Barry had done on anything since 1969. (Barry would not really return to form until 1986-- when he did his only score for a Timothy Dalton film!) And finally, it features my #1 favorite Bond girl-- Lynn-Holly Johnson! (You can tell this is personal taste-- she ALWAYS gets overlooked in any Bond girl retrospective.)
Registered: Aug 2003
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I'm just trying to picture in my head who would make a good Sir Hugo Drax, that famous British Nobleman scientist struggling to bring England into the space age (when in reality he's an ESCAPED NAZI WAR CRIMNINAL bent on destroying London with a missile loaded with an ATOMIC WARHEAD), if they ever made a "proper" period adaptation of the book. Usually I'm at a loss for "current" actors, but right now, the 1st person who came to mind was Anthony Hopkins.
Any thoughts on casting "period" Bond films with current actors? (Or past actors-- this was a fun game at the DC boards with the JSA.)
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Probably no Bond film ever got less respect than ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.
In the wake of the THUNDERBALL lawsuit, which dragged on at least 2 years, Ian Fleming wrote THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (an “experimental” novel he was so ashamed of he forbid Broccoli & Saltzman from doing an adaptation of it) and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (which ran in a competeing newspaper than the one running the 007 comic-strip, resulting in THUNDERBALL getting yanked 1/3rd of the way in—was there a CURSE on that story?). Right around the time he signed the deal with B&S, he decided to write a sequel to THUNDERBALL. In that, he’d introduced S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and Blofeld, and made great strides to make Bond more “human” than he’d been in the earlier books. OHMSS continued the new trend. We see more of Bond's “personal” life than ever before, and he actually falls in love and (GASP!) gets married. Meanwhile, he tracks down Blofeld (wanted by the authorities after that atomic bomb incident), meets him face-to-face for the first time, has to escape, but then comes back and blows his plans all to hell. Except the villain escapes—and gets revenge.
Peter Hunt had edited the previous films, and really wanted to direct. When THUNDERBALL became Kevin McClory’s film property, OHMSS was planned as the 4th in the B&S 007 series. It got pushed back when McClory made his deal with B&S. By all rights, it should have been the 5th film—but for a variety of reasons, none of which really make sense to me, they decided to do the SEQUEL to OHMSS first, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. They also decided the plot, which focused on a travelogue of Japan and Bond’s personal revenge on the man who killed his wife, was “unfilmable”, and so spun off instead an epic of action, violence and visual spectacle. It gave Connery (or anyone else) little to do as an actor. How ironic that the NEXT film, without Connery, would have the best script in the entire series?
First-time actor George Lazenby was cast, and he proved even more expert with the fight scenes, though far less with most else. He also had the INCREDIBLE stupidity to decide that by 1969, spies were “on the way out”, and announced before the film’s release that he wasn’t planning to come back for another. The producers got pissed, decided not to promote the film properly, it naturally did disappointing business at the box office, and for most of the 70’s became “the forgotten Bond”.
When HBO ran their Bond festival in 1980, they ran Connery’s 6 films, and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. No OMHSS. Earlier, ABC ran the 6 Connerys and several Moore films before running OHMSS. But how they ran it was a disgrace. They decided it was “too long”—and so split it up over 2 nights. But not 2 consecutive nights—over 2 consecutive MONDAY nights. There was a WEEK between halves of the film! As a result, since the film follows the book, they decided the first half was “too slow”—and so they took the ski chase from the middle and tacked it onto the beginning, turning the entire first half into a series of “flashbacks”. This was on top of all the severe CUTS they made, like trimming the intial 90-second fight scene down to 45 seconds (I timed it once).
I was just about caught up to OHMSS in my reading but wound up reading it not long after seeing the film on ABC. I’ve long had a thing for the Winter Olympics, so a film involving snow, ice skating, skiing and a tobaggan run naturally grabbed me big-time. Once I realized JUST how close the film was to the book, it rose even higher in my view. Over the years, it became my #1 FAVORITE 007 film. And amazingly, around the 11th time I watched it (having long before gotten an UNCUT copy), I suddenly realized that, for once, ALL the changes they made were serious IMPROVEMENTS! Director Peter Hunt & writer Richard Maibaum had taken one of Fleming’s BEST books—and made it EVEN BETTER!!!
The book opens with Bond fighting some thugs on a beach, getting beaten & captured. He spends the next 3 chapters thinking how he got into this predicament. These events are shown in the film, except they take place in the order we see them. Somebody must have figured film audiences would get confused by “flashbacks”. 4 years later, ENTER THE DRAGON followed Fleming’s lead and outdid him, including flashbacks WITHIN flashbacks. Nobody seemed to mind.
Following Bond’s fling with Tracy & meeting her father, Bond is brushed aside by M when he tries to tell him he finally may have a lead on Blofeld. In the book, Bond considered resigning; in the film, he has Moneypenny draft a letter of resignation! He’s then surprised when M grants him a 2-week vacation instead. M, always eavesdropping on his secretary, tells her, “What would I do without you, Miss Moneypenny?”
On leave, Bond becomes more involved with Tracy, and her father tips him about a lawyer who may be connected to Blofeld. After a little B&E, Bond visits M at his home, and this time is reassinged to track down Blofeld officially again. Bond then travels undercover to a “research institute” located at the very peak of a Swiss Alp, Piz Gloria. As villains’ HQs go, this has to be the most amazing in the entire film series—and it’s REAL! The producers kept delaying when they couldn’t seem to find a suitable location to match the one in Fleming’s book. By incredible luck (and only slightly bad timing), they discovered a restaurant was being built and struck a deal. They’d help finish & furnish the place, plus build a REAL helicopter pad, in exchange for being able to shoot there before it opened.
Bond meets the director of the institute—really Blofeld—as well as 12 gorgeous girls, all there for alergy treatment. As O.F. Snelling said in his 1964 book, JAMES BOND: A REPORT, “Of course Bond doesn’t get to sleep with ALL of them—that would be too much, even for Bond!” But he does bed 2 of them, with the exact same dialogue (the nerve of some people). In the book, he suspects they’re onto him and escapes. In the film, he’s caught—but finds out what Blofeld’s plans are, THEN escapes! This change allows for much more screen time with the villain, eliminates a “slow” point later on, and allows for almost a FULL HOUR of action to follow!
Bond is almost caught again when Tracy appears. In the book, she was in the area seeing a specialist (she’d suffered from depression). In the film, she’s there because she got her father to tell her where Bond was and wanted to help. This makes her a much stronger character, and ties her in much more with the main story. The book often seemed like 2 “parallel” stories that only intersect here and there. Pursued by car, the book has Bond cause the baddies to go crashing off a cliff. I’m guessing the producers figured we’d already seen this in DR. NO and GOLDFINGER. Instead, Tracy steers into a stock-car rally, which quickly turns into a demolition derby thanks to her and their SPECTRE pursuers, who barely escape with their lives when their car explodes after overturning.
In the book, Bond & Tracy make it back to England, where he proposes marriage. Blofeld’s plans are discovered, and Bond decided—on his own—to go back and stop him. This is where the biggest change in the film takes place. Still in Switzerland, Bond & Tracy are stuck in a snowstorm, take refuge in a barn, and it’s there he proposes marriage. The next day, though, Blofeld & henchment are again in ski pursuit, eventually causing an avalanche—one of the most spectacular action scenes in the film. (Shades of FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE !) Blofeld sees Tracy’s still alive, and orders her capture. BIG mistake! Back in England, M refuses to mount an assault, telling Bond “This department is not interested in your PERSONAL problems.” Bond calls up Tracy’s father, crime lord Marc-Ange Draco, and mounts one without official sanction. The difference is, while they both have “very good reasons” for doing it, rescueing Tracy makes it PERSONAL! Oddly enough, this kind of situation had appeared in the books CASINO ROYALE, LIVE AND LET DIE, MOONRAKER, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, and DR. NO—but not OHMSS. This was the first time it happened in a Bond film, but by whatever luck it repeated in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, LIVE AND LET DIE, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER—but never as good as it was here!
The finale is possibly the finest in the entire series. I get chills every time I watch it. The suspense just builds and builds as the “Red Cross” helicopters approach Piz Gloria. Tracy recognizes her father’s voice on the radio and decides to “distract” Blofeld until it’s too late. The assault team finally arrives and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!! And while the “epic” quality of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE’s climax may be unmatched, that was done on a fantasy sound stage—THIS one’s on a real location!
Fighting, shooting, killing, explosions everywhere! Draco takes Tracy away while Bond goes to find info to stop Blofeld’s scheme. Blofeld takes pot shots at Bond, then runs as Bond chases after him. They get out of the building—JUST as it’s BLOWN to pieces! Then follows an incredible chase on a pair of tobaggans, as Blofeld & Bond shoot at each other while desperately trying to keep control and not fly off the run. It finally gets up-close and personal here, until a low-hanging tree branch tears the villain away, apparently breaking his neck. Too bad nobody checked to make sure.
The film ends with the wedding—followed quickly by Tracy’s murder. What a shock. What a DAMN SHAME they never did a proper follow-up to this, as Fleming had.
OHMSS has possibly the best cast in the entire series. Gabriella Frizetti as crime-lord Marc-Ange Draco; Ilse Steppat as Fraulein Irma Bunt; George Baker as Sir Hillary Bray; Bernard Horsfall as Bond’s assistant in Switzerland; the girls—all those girls, including Angela Scoular as Ruby Bartlett (my favorite of the 12), Catherine Schell (later a regular on SPACE: 1999), and Joanna Lumley (later of THE NEW AVENGERS and much later of ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS). And then there’s Diana Rigg, already famous as Mrs. Emma Peel on THE AVENGERS, who plays Tracy, “the” Bond girl of all Bond girls. Reportedly, Bridget Bardot would have been a better fit, but she was off making a western with Sean Connery at the time (!!!), and I’ve never really seen one of her films so I have no idea what kind of an actress she is.
And let’s not forget Telly Savalas as “Balthazar, the Count De Bleushamp”, alias Blofeld. I’ve read so often he was “all wrong” for the part—but between the script and his acting, he’s become my #1 FAVORITE Bond movie villain!
It’s just possible the producers cast 2 such highly-established actors as Rigg & Savalas, AND cranked up the amount of screen-time they’d have (compared with the book) as “insurance” against George Lazenby’s lack of experience. In any case, for the ONLY time in a Bond film, characters from a book get MORE screen-time instead of less, yet without sacrificing time for action. In fact, this movie has more of THAT, too. Incredible. With such a good script, there really wasn’t any way for Lazenby to screw things up. Had HE been in something as totally action-oriented as YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, he might have been an even better fit that Connery, who looked bored throughout that and its predecessor, THUNDERBALL.
So… to me, for once, this film is SO good… SO PERFECT on virtually every level… I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it. Except, just maybe, for 2 members of the cast. Yep—no matter how good he was, JUST IMAGINE how much BETTER Connery would have been in this, with a script that would have allowed him once agan to really ACT. And also, despite Savalas being my favorite villain here, I’d rather he’d have been Largo in THUNDERBALL. Earlier in 1969, THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU had featured (among others) Rigg & Savalas, which showed off the real chemistry between them. But also in that film was CURT JURGENS. It’s a shame they didn’t get HIM for Blofeld. If OHMSS had featured both Connery AND Jurgens… oh wow, how good could it have been then?
Registered: Aug 2003
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It should have been the big epic finale. It almost was—but not quite.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was Ian Fleming’s follow-up to his epic OHMSS. While that seemed designed with making it into a movie in mind, YOLT was something else. Fleming’s health was failing after 2 years of that lawsuit and a heart attack, and this is probably reflected in the dark, sombre tone of the book. Following the murder of Bond’s wife, he’s so depressed his chief yells at him to pull himself together, as he has a “most important” mission for him. This proves to be opening up lines of communication with the Japanese Secret Service, and its leader, “Tiger” Tanaka. Almost the entire first half of the book is virtually a “travelogue”. Then Tanaka asks him for a favor to close the deal.
It seems there’s a growing fad among the youth of Japan for suicide. Some foreigner calling himself “Dr. Shatterhand” has set up a “Garden of Death” where people can go to kill themselves in a wide variety of horrific ways. Tiger feels this is an embarrassment that must not be allowed to go on. He has no legal way of stopping it—so he asks Bond to go in and KILL the son-of-a-bitch. As there must be no official connection, it must all be strictly secret and undercover. To this end, they do their best to make Bond look oriental (all those Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan movies must have proven how well this can be done with Europeans!). As further cover, he also goes through a ritual of marriage to a local “Ama girl”, who make their living diving for pearls. All this is done so no one will suspect an official of the government is sanctioning MURDER!
Just before leaving on his mission, Tiger shows Bond the only known photograph of Shatterhand. He looks, memorizes, and hands it back. And he DOESN’T tell Tiger he recognizes the man is the really Blofeld—the man who murdered Bond’s wife! (NOW it’s PERSONAL!!!) Bond sneaks into the villain’s castle, but is caught up by a trap door and captured. Confronted, about to be fried by an active geyser, he admits his identity. Blofeld’s sanity is not what it was, either, and he goes on espousing his “philsophy” on life and death. But then Bond gets loose, and the two engage in a swordfight—with Blofeld dressed in full samurai armor! Bond gets the better of him, and winds up KILLING him—by BREAKING HIS NECK with his BARE HANDS!!! (Now THAT’s “personal”!!!)
Bond escapes via a balloon, but somehow winds up with amnesia. When he fails to return, he’s assumed lost, and the British newspapers report his obituary, which contains the fact that he was half-Scottish (the influence of Sean Connery, no doubt). But in truth, Bond is now living as a Japanese fisherman with his “wife”, ex-movie star and occasonal agent “Kissy Suzuki”, though troubled by memories of having a connection with… Russia. (What a way to end the book!)
Broccoli & Saltzman reportedly felt this book was “unfilmable”. RIGHT. The guys who did the British newspaper comic-strip apparently didn’t agree, and did an EXTREMEMLY accurate adaptation of it, which was JUST reprinted in one of Titan Books’ collections. (Highest reccomendation!!!)
For whatever the reason, when 1967 rolled around, the film-makers decided to do YOLT instead of OHMSS next. This is the equavalent of filming RETURN OF THE KING before THE TWO TOWERS, or RETURN OF THE JEDI before THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Screenwirter Richard Maibaum was unavailable, and instead children’s book writer Roald Dahl was recruited. He was given a run-down on what details to include, and he apparently followed their instructions to the letter. This included having 2 main girls, one who would die partway through the picture, and the other who’d come in for the rest. Dahl’s story essentially jettisons 90% of the book in favor of a “completely new” story. Sadly, this would become the standard for most Bond film “adaptations” from then on.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, in many ways, is a celebration of the 60’s. It’s been pointed out the plot in many ways is a remake of DR. NO on a much bigger scale. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. has a secret underground base on an island, and are interfering with the space program—this time of both the US and Russia, for the purpose of starting a nuclear war, on the pay of Red China. While Bond’s OBIT appears in the film, it’s at the beginning instead of the end—and the whole idea of faking his death so his enemies will be put off their guard actually comes from the Dean Martin-Matt Helm film, MURDERERS ROW. Similarly, the volcano-crater base—a set built in England for the cost of the entire budget of DR. NO—looks very much like the underground base from THE SILENCERS, only much classier, and on a much grander scale. Bond tackling a crime organization operating on a Japanese island is strikingly similar to a 2-part SECRET AGENT story, “Koroshi”. The spaceship whose front opens up like alligator jaws to swallow a smaller space capsule is straight out of the 2nd episode of LOST IN SPACE, “The Derelict”! When we finally get to meet SPECTRE #1 face-to-face, his bald head and the scar running down one side of his face and around his eye looks suspiciously like Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, HYDRA #1 from the Jim Steranko run of NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. in STRANGE TALES!!! Like—weren’t there ANY really “original” ideas in this whole movie?
There is a LOT of terrific stuff in this film. So much so that, given a choice, I’d rather keep as much as possible in any “fantasy” alternate-universe version of it I could envision. But there’s also a lot of problems—though none, I think, that couldn’t be fixed.
While YOLT is very “episodic”, unlike THUNDERBALL each big sequence seems to flow naturally into the next. You may have trouble following it with commercial breaks, but without them, the films holds together much better than its predecessor. If only it made as much logical sense!
As with TB, YOLT has a lot of terrific actors in it, almost all with little to do. Henderson (Charles Gray, much better here than he was in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER) is needlessly bumbed off less than 5 minutes into his appearance. Akiko Wakabayashi, who plays Japanese agent Aki, is also bumped off pointlessly 2/3rds thru the film, after clearly falling in love with “Bando-san”. (Life must really be CHEAP in Japan—the body count in this film is unbelieveable!) Mie Hama (who has a much bigger part in KING KONG ESCAPES), plays “Kissy” (whose name is ONLY ever mentioned in the end credits—NOT anywhere in the dialogue!). Hama had trouble with the English language and just before filming swapped roles with Aki. She gets my vote for the most beautiful Japanese girl I have ever laid eyes on—but while she’s there for the action, we hardly get to know her character at all. Ed Bishop (CAPTAIN SCARLET, UFO) and Shane Rimmer (THUNDERBIRDS, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME) both have bit parts as NASA techs, while Burt Kwouk (A SHOT IN THE DARK, THE BRIDES OF FU MANCHU) serves the same role for SPECTRE. Teru Shimada as industrialist Mr. Osato, could have been the main villain here—instead, he’s only a front. Karin Dor (THE FACE OF FU MANCHU), his red-headed German assistant, seems to be here only to fill Luciana Paluzzi’s role of would-be seductress & assassin. Both she AND her boss wind up bumped off by THEIR boss for gross incompetence (failing to kill Bond).
One other actor, whose name I don't know, appears briefly as one of Tanaka's ninjas. He's the guy who shows off such skill with a samurai sword-- and he was one of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN-- the character, in fact, who was later played by James Coburn in the US western version of the story!
Only Tetsuro Tamba as Tiger Tanaka really gets to shine in this picture. He’s Japan’s answer to Nick Fury—head of the Japanese Secret Service AND, during the climax, at the front of the fighting when he and 100 Ninjas storm SPECTRE’s secret base. When we first see him, he speaks in sinister tones, saying, “Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond!” As seen in the film’s coming attractions, one is inclined to think he’s the head bad guy—when in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Classy, stylish, confident, filled with more than a little pride in himself, his organization and Japan and its culture in general, he fills a similar role to that of Kerim Bey in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. One could easily picture a whole series of films starring this guy. And yet, this is despite the fact that his entire performance was dubbed—and by the SAME actor, Robert Rietty, who dubbed Emilio Largo in THUNDERBALL, a policeman in DR. NO and about 95% of the male characters in the Italian film THE LAST DAYS OF SODAM AND GOMORRAH. If they dubbed HIM, why the “need” to find Japanese actresses who could speak English at all?
But the guy who gets all the BEST lines in the film is… Donald Pleasence. After not revealing his face in 2 previous films, the producers were somehow at a loss as to who to cast as SPECTRE’s “#1”. In fact, more than half the picture was shot without him, including half of the scenes he appears in! Reportedly, Harry Saltzman cast Czech actor Jan Werich in the role, but onset Broccoli found he didn’t look villainous enough, and had poor English. Pleasence was brought in at the last minute, and dubbed any scenes shot earlier where you couldn’t see his face. I really love him in this film—and yet, if it were possible, I’d rather have seen Curt Jurgens. (I wonder what HE was doing in ‘67?)
In wondering how more of the book could be salvaged while maintaining the spectacular action set-pieces of the movie plot, I started with the idea that the film, first and foremost, SHOULD have been made after OHMSS. This would have allowed the “personal revenge” plot to remain intact. Also, imagine a Bond depressed at the death of his wife, having to pull himself together for his most important, desperate mission. What an opportunity this could have been for an actor of Sean Connery’s abilities! I’m picturing Bond having to go through his paces, clearly not all there—somewhat like Kurt Russell’s character in STARGATE. There was really no reason for the “fake death” subplot. Also, there is no logic to Bond early on saying Osata is only a front and SPECTRE is probably behind him. The revelation that Blofeld & SPECTRE were the villains could have been held back, as it was in the book.
One of the things that bugs me the most about YOLT is the casual way Aki is murdered and cast aside for Kissy. They spent so much time building up Aki’s character and her growing relationship with Bond, yet he hardly reacts at all when she’s killed! Imagine if she’d ALMOST died—but didn’t. How much more emotional impact would it have had if, after seeing Tracy killed, Bond had managed to save Aki’s life. This could have been the thing that brought him out of his depression, and given him a new lease on life. There really never should have been 2 main girls in the film—only 1. Given the choice, I’d have taken Mie Hama, but if her English was such a detemining factor, Akiko Wakabayashi could have had the entire film to herself—and Hama instead could have played Osato’s assistant. (What WAS a red-headed German girl doing in Japan, ANYWAY???)
The whole “Bond turns Japanese” thing could also be jettisoned. A lot of English actors can make convincing Orientals—SEAN CONNERY is NOT one of them! Now, for all that’s been made of the “wedding” sequence, it’s one of the things taken straight from the book that, in the context of the film, MAKES NO SENSE at all. It could have—but only if the girl he was “marrying” was someone he’d been getting to know as well as he had with Aki.
The one thing YOLT excels at is its action sequences. Every time I watch the helicopter battle, it thrills me. But that’s nothing compared to the climax, inside the hollowed-out volcano that’s been turned into a hidden spaceship launch pad. I’d want to keep as much of this intact—while adding emotional contect that just wasn’t there before. Imagine the scene where Bond is brought before Blofeld. Instead of being a first glimpse, it could have been a final confrontation. Bond, desperate to stop SPECTRE and prevent a World War from happening—but ALSO wanting to get the man who killed his wife! Instead of getting away at the end, this should have been Blofeld’s LAST appearance. Try combining the fight with the samurai sword from earlier in the film (in Osato’s office) with the pre-credit sequence fight in THUNDERBALL where Bond fights hand-to-hand before breaking the guy’s neck. THAT should have been HERE! In the structure of the film’s climax, perhaps the best place for this to fit would be where Blofeld shoots Osata and then gets away. This would leave room for Bond’s fight with Hans over the control-room key (where the guy goes into the pirahna pool) to remain as-is.
With SPECTRE’s biggest scheme stopped and their leader DEAD, YOLT could have been the epic spectacle climax to end all epic spectacle climaxes. Bond could have even been serious about “retiring” to Japan and being married to Kissy (or Aki, take your pick of character name). What a way for Connery to have gone out! The series could have ended on the highest possible note. Instead, it went on, to mixed results. Ah well…
Registered: Aug 2003
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Encore had a JB festival a few weeks ago, so I've watched all the movies recently. I was appalled by the special effects in YOLT. Yuk.
From: Cincinnati | Registered: Jul 2003
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Technically, the space stuff is the ONE thing that really lets it down. Damn shame, considering what Derek Meddings was doing (THUNDERBIRDS, CAPTAIN SCARLET) around the SAME TIME. Even the outer-space stuff on LOST IN SPACE tended to be better than this. Jump ahead 12 years and Derek Medding's effects on MOONRAKER were the ONLY GOOD THING about that movie.
Now if somebody could pull a "George Lucas" and redo the spaceship stuff on YOLT...!
It had an AMAZING music score, didn't it?
Registered: Aug 2003
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The above line is from HEAVY METAL. But it sums up the film I just watched-- THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.
To think, this used to be one of my favorite movies... in fact, it was my #1 film of 1977. Yet now...? I'm afraid that article some time ago in 007 magazine really ruined it for me. It's like, some movies have the occasional plot hole or lapse in logic. Not this one. In this, EVERY SINGLE SCENE has something in it that just DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!!! Apparently, they tried to cover this by being bigger, more spectacular, more exciting, and, unlike the 3 previous films (the "Tom Mankiewicz trilogy", you could call them) about 90% of SPY is played VERY seriously. I do wish the rest of Moore's films had had this general tone. It's almost dead serious until the Karnak Temple scene, when Jaws needelssly starts to rip apart the van. For a few moments there, with Moore's dialogue, you'd almost think you were watching a Burt Reynolds comedy. I mean-- it's really funny!!! --but if you think about too much, forget it. It continues on it's "epic scale" and "played straight" ways (in spite of the multitude of utterly illogical things going on) until the end, when, between the electro-magnet stunt (stolen straight from MURDERERS' ROW, just as the "Well now that you're dead" routine in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was) and the "Keeping the British end up sir" and the blaringly loud chorus of singers that follows, you'd think you were watching a Dean Martin movie.
Shane Rimmer (the voice of Scott Tracy) has a pretty big role in this-- yet in the credits, he's reduced to merely the anonymous top name on the list of "US Sub Crew" actors. (No wonder nobody seems to remember his character's name.)
And of course, my personal pet peeve about SPY is... Caroline Munro got ripped off. After THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and CAPTAIN KRONOS, VAMPIRE HUNTER, she had far more experience and screen presence than the rather wimpy Barbara Bach. (Compared to Anya Amasova, Holly Goodhead in MOONRAKER seemed a lot tougher!) They should have switched roles...
Registered: Aug 2003
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