It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
**Back on topic, Creasy, before the mods go crazy in here...**
Anyone else on Connery's most ruthless moments?
One of the best scenes in a Bond film, in my opinion :-D
:-bd
The best part of that is the "Speak up, darling, I can't hear you" as he continues to choke her. That's probably one of his more ruthless moments, I'd say.
But seriously, gunning down Dent.
Tossing Wint overboard with a bomb strapped to his groin was rather ruthless too.
By ruthless I mean taking these guys down with prejudice, emphasis etc. All business. "Enough of your crap" type thing.Goodbye, good riddance.
Which is pretty much how Bond operates anyway.
Licence to kill, and all.
The Franks fight is then ruined by the "You've just killed James Bond" line. The most ruthless Connery scenes are the Bouvar killing and chocking Marie.
I love the crack of Bouvar's neck that you can hear when Bond twists the poker.
The Marie choke is also great, as is how crazed Bond looks. One of the best parts of Diamonds Are Forever is the implication of just how much Bond had lost it. Following Tracy's death I think M was forced to get the agent focused and sane again after many nights spent drinking himself into stupors and promising the brutal demise of Blofeld in delirium, the worst kind of obsession that he devoted his every breath and thought to realizing. It's clear that M gave Bond the time off to kill Blofeld just so he would focus on MI6 work again, likely because he refused to do anything until SPECTRE's No. 1 had died by his hand. The sadistic nature of Bond, and how he celebrates Blofeld's death in the moment ("Welcome to Hell") and after when M is briefing him on the diamond smuggling make him seem the real bastard. He's so rude and arrogant in that opening scene, blowing off M and embarrassing him in front of a colleague, it's like he's a different person. After all the wiggle room M gave Bond to get his selfish mission done and over with, the agent has no respect or thanks to return to his boss in repayment. By this point in the series the most Bond dared to do to M (when Connery was playing him) was to raise his voice a few octaves in infuriation, which the boss quickly shot down with a death glare. Seeing him act out this badly is wild.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service really gave us a window into how Blofeld was becoming a big source of conflict between Bond and M, as the former had too much of a history with the organization to let up ("Something of must with me") and the latter couldn't have his agent getting so emotionally attached and distracted from other worldly concerns that demanded his attention. After that film Bond's relationship with Blofeld is even more disruptive, and now M really can't keep him on the leash after all the tragedy the villain brought on his life. Tracy's death really cracked Bond big time, and it shows.
The sheer brutality of it :-D
One of my favorite Connery Bond moments, with great touches of Fleming.
Nice analysis. Agreed that the true magic of this scene was in how Bond's distaste for both the bloodshed he was involved in and the adversary who'd just been dispatched was visible through his sardonic facade.
I always liked to think that Connery's quips and dry wit were just a way of him coping with his plight (as Fleming intended) - his portrayal of 007 wasn't any more cold-hearted than that of his successors, he merely masked it better, within character.
Like Dan's approach in the modern films, Sean always went for dry deliveries that let us peek in on some of Bond's palpable anger, frustration or bitterness at key moments, grounded in his amazing screen presence. When he's speaking with Dr. No at dinner he ribs him with spiky derision, visibly fuming underneath his skins as he keeps pricking his supper mate's ego. When he informs Pussy that Oddjob kills women, he notes it with a big hint of built up fury in his voice, still feeling the deaths of Jill and Tilly whose blood is on his hands and whose beauty was oppressed and shredded by the mute man only after he put them in his sights.
There's no deaths Connery's Bond enjoys, nor any he belittles joyfully with one-liners that would become groaners in later films. The only exception is in Diamonds Are Forever when he thinks he's killed Blofeld, after which he delivers a sadistic quip, but I accept that as him celebrating the death of a man he saw as despicable. Tracy's death had twisted him and his joy at the death of the man who was responsible for it is more than understandable.