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Diamonds Are Forever
This film is easily my least favorite of Sean Connery’s contributions to the James Bond series. Like many members of this forum, I am not a fan of the campy sense of humor that permeated the series during the 1970s…in fact, my response to this movie upon first viewing it as a 17 year old in 1971was something to the effect of :“What were these people THINKING? Do they have any IDEA of how a James Bond movie is supposed to work???” However, in more recent times, I’ve come to a somewhat more nuanced opinion. Perhaps Broccoli & Saltzman et al. had not completely forgotten what it took to make a Bond movie…perhaps, instead, they had decided that changing times required something of a change to the established Bond formula. Perhaps they were thinking of the franchise’s needs in terms of ensuring long-term viability…and perhaps they had simply concluded that a more humorous direction was the best way to go for the coming decade. This is clearly exactly what they HAD decided -- after all, at one point they interviewed Adam West, TV’s Batman and the undeclared King of Camp, for the part of James Bond. Anyone with a distaste for some of the films that followed would be well advised to consider that fact. Things could have been so much worse…
BOND 3/5 Yes, Connery here is a fraction of the Bond he was at his peak -- but weak Connery is still a better Bond than full-strength Lazenby. In some moments, such as at the beginning of the film where he is asking a woman “Where is Blofeld?” just before ripping off her bikini and using it to strangle her, Connery is as ruthless as he has ever been. I really don’t think the Moore or Lazenby Bonds would have been able to pull off that scene, but for Connery it’s just another day at the beach. When he just “pops upstairs” by stepping out his hotel room window wearing full formal attire, and suddenly is standing atop an elevator, riding it to where he can use a piton-firing grapple gun to span the last leg of his journey to Willard Whyte’s penthouse, Connery as Bond is just about as cool as he’s ever been. And his touch with a quip (Plenty O’Toole being “named after your father, perhaps?”) has never been more deft. Yes, he presents a lighter, more playful Bond than has been the case in previous outings -- but he’s only giving this script the reading it requires.
WOMEN 3/5 Jill St. John as Tiffany Case is something of a contradiction. In the first 2/3 of the film she’s a tough, savvy career criminal. Once she’s kidnapped by Blofeld she becomes something of a bimbo, lounging around in a bikini, screwing up Bond’s switch of the computer tapes and firing a machine gun so incompetently that she’s thrown off the oil platform and into the ocean below by the gun’s recoil. Still, for most of the movie she’s a competent enough aide…displaying a brash, cocky persona (when telling the kid with the water pistol to “blow it up your pants” or distracting the motorists at the gas station) that fits this film perfectly. Lana Wood as Plenty O’Toole is no match for Tiffany in the greater scheme of this story…but she livens up the screen for every second that she’s on it, and one truly wishes that more of her material had not ended up on the cutting room floor. It would have helped the movie immeasurably if Plenty’s sudden reappearance in Tiffany’s swimming pool had been a little more understandable to casual moviegoers of 1971, who didn’t have access to the out-takes that were eventually included in the DAF DVD release a few decades later.
VILLAINS 2/5 Wint and Kidd. Bambi and Thumper. The pairs are wild in this film, the individuals somewhat less so. Wint and Kidd very nearly steal the show. Their repartee is priceless, their menace is palpable, and they come about as close to redeeming this film as any performers could. Bambi and Thumper are loads of fun, kicking Bond around the room for a few minutes until he can assert his natural male dominance. The stereotypical gangsters are moderately amusing, Bert Saxby is almost completely forgettable, and Professor Dr. Metz is almost as annoying as he finds Klaus Hergeshimer to be. (Urging Blofeld to surrender the moment the helicopters start firing on their base? Actually believing that Blofeld’s goal is to promote nuclear disarmament? How stupid do they grow the geniuses in Bond’s world, anyway?) Shady Tree is probably the least humorous “comedian” I’ve ever seen., in person or onscreen. And this brings us, finally, to Charles Gray’s performance as the transvestite known as Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Charles…I liked you as Dikko Henderson in YOLT. I’ll accept that the plastic surgery Blofeld used to change his appearance was based on a surveillance photo taken of you as Henderson a few movies back. I can even appreciate that Broccoli & Saltzman cast you in this film because they were sorry for writing you out of YOLT so quickly. But Charles…you just don’t work as Blofeld in this film. You appear to LIKE Bond a little too much. You’re much too eager to give him a tour of your base once you’ve got him captured with the clock ticking down on your fiendish master plan. Haven’t you learned anything from your mistakes of the last two films? You’re not imposing, you’re not fear-inducing, and you don’t really wear a dress and wig very convincingly at all. No matter how many times Bond kills “you” in this film, he just doesn’t kill you enough to make it count.
HUMOR 3/5 DAF has a greater emphasis on humor than any previous Bond movie, and this new direction is somewhat difficult for many to accept on the heels of the tragedy that occurred at the ending of OHMSS. It works best when the cast is ostensibly keeping a straight face, as in the chase scene between Bond and several police cars on the Strip (and into a parking lot) in Las Vegas. However, when everyone is consciously playing a scene for laughs, as with the moon buggy chase which immediately precedes the neon-coated Strip chase, the film threatens to go off the rails. Some of the humor is totally forced, as is the case with the elephant playing a slot machine in the casino, or goes against established characterization, with Q using his technical expertise to induce a row full of slot machines to all pay off at once. Too much of the humor we are given is broad and juvenile--at the very beginning of the movie, a fez-wearing gambler gives his dealer the instruction, “Hit me,” and Bond punches the man from off camera. Still, some of the humor we see here is fairly subtle, and would not have been out of place in earlier entries in the canon, as when Bond informs Felix that his placement of the smuggled diamonds in the body of his alleged brother is “Alimetary, Dr. Leiter!” Mixed marks are the best I can give for this newly-important category in this pivotal picture.
ACTION 3/5 I appreciate the fact that the screenwriters had a tough row to hoe with this picture, as much of the original novel from which this film takes its name is simply not up to Ian Fleming’s usual level of spellbinding storytelling. I understand that the film-makers did not want to spend undue time in this film dwelling on matters that occurred in the previous one. But there is a sense of creative torpor throughout much of DAF that dulls many critical scenes, leaving the audience unsatisfied with the film as a whole. The use of still another space-based plot (the diamond-studded laser is our third such macguffin out of seven films so far) left me with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu in my first viewing of DAF way back in 1971. This motif has been reused a few more times as the series has progressed, but it seems far fresher in Goldeneye, decades later, than it does here. The concept of Blofeld stealing the identity of billionaire recluse Howard Hughes -- oops, sorry: Willard White -- is an original one, and gives this movie a fair amount of whatever charm it does possess. The retention of the “Bond as diamond smuggler Peter Franks” plot from the original novel is a good creative decision, and the fight with the real Franks in a moving elevator generates some real tension -- which is immediately negated by Tiffany’s astonished exclamation that “You just killed James Bond!” The PTS with Bond pushing Blofeld into his ostensible death in the mud baths is a nice attempt at retaining one of the novel’s most chilling scenes, and indeed, the first half of this movie is far more satisfying than most of what takes place once Bond sneaks into Professor Dr. Metz’s van without so much as a squeak of protest from the motorist directly behind Metz who is witnessing this subterfuge in silent complicity. The scenes showing Bond about to be cremated at Slumberland, and Plenty being tossed out of his hotel window into the pool far below, are effective and chilling. But the climactic helicopter assault on Blofeld’s latest base is simply turgid, by-the-numbers storytelling. One can almost hear the film-makers saying out loud, “If this is the film’s final reel then we’re going to have to blow up another facility. Where is it this time? An oil rig in Baja California? Fine. Let’s just see if we can get away without actually damaging too many helicopters this time, those things are expensive!” The famously botched scene with the car on two wheels exiting the narrow alley with the wrong side of the car elevated is emblematic of the creative laziness that constantly bedevils this film. Upon viewing the unused sequence that got this minor detail correctly, only to be deemed worthless because a police car and several public onlookers are plainly visible in the background, I am left with the impression that somebody in the shooting crew JUST WASN”T DOING HIS JOB. The offending onlookers within camera range should have been detected before film rolled, and the crowd should have been moved so that they were no longer spoiling the shot. The fact that this elementary step was not taken is a clear indication that at some level, our team is running on autopilot.
SADISM 4/5 Although I am inclined to give this category a full 5 points, I am forced to make one important deduction. Wint and Kidd are a pair of truly sadistic killers, clearly taking great joy in their work. Bond himself seems to be taking more pleasure in brutalizing his opponents than has ever been the case before. And my practice of assessing “kink points” in this particular category ought to give even fuller marks here, as Wint & Kidd’s homosexuality is simply acknowledged and accepted. Bambi and Thumper’s acrobatic assault on Bond also deserves a mention in this category, although we really don’t know much about their personal tastes in the causing of pain to their victims. Why the deduction, then? As mentioned previously: Blofeld the transvestite just doesn’t work for me. It does leave me wondering about his established fanaticism for white Persian cats, though…
MUSIC 3/5 Shirley Bassey’s theme song is an obvious attempt at re-living the glory of Goldfinger. For me, it doesn’t quite reach that Olympian height. Much of the soundtrack is of less than stellar quality to my tastes this time around. Another iteration of “007 Steals the Lektor” during the climactic battle sequence? I think John Barry is coasting this time around…
LOCATIONS 3/5 A few boring desert sequences, a too-brief visit to Amsterdam, and a whole lot of neon in Las Vegas. It’s colorful I guess…but it’s just not inspiring. Whyte’s penthouse is nice enough, and the house that Whyte is being kept prisoner in is pretty snazzy…but I’m looking for something more exotic in a Bond film, and we’re just not getting that here.
GADGETS 1/5 Bond has a mousetrap of sorts in his jacket to surprise anybody trying to disarm him. Also a set of fake fingerprints to enhance his impersonation of Peter Franks. The piton-firing grappling gun is realistic and useful…but when the film’s best gadget, the electronic voice-impersonator, is in simultaneous use by both Blofeld and Q, we’re pretty clearly not giving this category a whole lot of thought. And as previously noted, I found Q’s jackpot-inducing ring to be far too frivolous for the man who claimed to never joke about his work just a few films back.
SUPPORTING CAST 3/5 Jimmy Dean as Willard Whyte is moderately enjoyable but little more than that. M and Moneypenny seem to be pretty much going through the motions. Felix Leiter…is once again a shlub. It seems like every other movie, we switch off between a moderately cool guy and a total loser. Felix, if you are indeed a “friend who can fix anything,” can you at least fix it so that you can be played by the same actor for two films in a row?
OVERALL SCORE AND RECOLLECTIONS 28/50 I was somewhat disappointed in DAF upon my first viewing of the film in 1971, and my reading of reviews from a variety of other Bond fans leads me to believe I am not alone in this regard. But here’s a radical suggestion: perhaps that was exactly the effect that was intended…or at least, the effect that was required. The movie-going public never really accepted George Lazenby as James Bond, so UA and Eon Productions ponied up the largest payday ever offered to any actor for one more go-round with Sean Connery in the role that he made famous (and vice versa.) But clearly, this wasn’t going to be a permanent solution. Connery didn’t WANT to be James Bond anymore; he needed new horizons creatively. Perhaps the message both Connery and Eon Productions were sending to the audience was: it’s time for a change. You don’t really want us to keep running in place anymore, and we don’t want that either. Let’s see if a fresh face might bring some new energy to the franchise. If only we can find a “new” guy that you’ve already accepted in a Bond-like role. But what sort of actor might that be? He’d have to be a real saint……
THE END
of this review of Diamonds Are Forever
but BeatlesSansEarmuffs will return
to review Roger's Moore's initial outing as 007
in Live And Let Die
"...and you don’t really wear a dress and wig very convincingly at all."
!!!!
Wow BSE, I can't fault your critique much (except about Barry 'coasting'; it's one of his best scores IMHO), but you really hate this movie!! :O
It looks spectacular on the screen. It's Bond on steroids.
Nice job with the Bond song too. It's easy to sing-along with those lyrics. DAF is an inspired Bond theme.
BOND 5.0 Craig nails it once again. He brings a gritty and tender side to Bond in two of his three outings. I always felt he was a combination of Laz and Dalts. If I have any complaints it would be his invincibility but not enough to nick pick him for.
Women 4-0 Eve is a very well developed and likable woman. I liked the way they arched her and made her so believable.She is not just window dressing. Severine is attractive but just does not get enough screen time. She is killed off so soon after we meet her. She has the misfortune of sleeping with Craig and his bedmates seem to have a very high mortality rate.
VILLAINS 4.0 Silva is cunning , a little crazy and diabolical. Bardem is a very strong actor and he displays good chomps here. Did not care for the blond hair though...
HUMOR 5.0 The grim movie has a good blend of humor, comedic timing and great one liners. None of it was out of place and it worked. Bond and Q, Bond and M, Silva and Bond, Bond and Eve. It all comes together very nicely.
ACTION 5.0 this film is not short on action. From the PTS to the second act and finally the butt kicking climax.
SADISM 5.0 This film has enough to go round. Cold blooded murder of Severine, Bond's brutal fight and killing of Patrice, breaking one assassins neck under the frozen lake, of course my favorite seeing that heavy dragged off by the Komodo dragon. Can this film rival LTK?
MUSIC 3.0 The theme song is very good and oscar worthy. Adele does a great job. The soundtrack is good and probably my favorite of the Craig films.
LOCATIONS 4.0 Great and well utilized. Like I always say, it gave me a feeling of being there.
GADGETS 4.0 Kept to the minimum like I always like to see (or not see them)./ The gadgets here pay homage to earlier films in a subtle way and not "in your face" like 40th anniversary film. The signature gun, the DB5 and just like old days, the gadgets are destroyed or lost in the field.
SUPPORTING CAST 5.0 This is where SF knocks it out of the park for me. Everyone was well cast and it was great to see the return of Q, this time a nerdy, geeky kid...this was an interesting choice on the part of the producers. I liked Gareth Mallory and look forward to seeing Fiennes continue in the role as the new M, Eve was a peach, and of course Dench is up to her high standards.
OVERALL 44/50
As you gather, I liked this movie a lot. Maybe I am a little generous with the scores but I think SF is one of the best Bonds since LTK. After the letdown of QoS, EON bounced back with a film that would rival CR. Everyone was up for this one and Babs and MGW are to be congratulated. It was a pity the film did not get a nomination for Best Picture, it was sure deserving of at least the nomination.
I'm not sure why you think that, @chrisisall. The "all rights" were a quip in @SirHenry's direction for expressing impatience at the absence of my review a few hours earlier. I thought I had expressed some genuine fondness for a number of elements in DAF, including Wint & Kidd, Bambi & Thumper, Bond's fight with Peter Franks in the elevator, Bond's near-cremation, the "Willard Whyte" impersonation scheme, and several other aspects of the movie. I did express an overall sense of dissatisfaction with DAF, but that's nowhere near "hatred." Wait until you see my review of Moonraker!
If the one for MR is bad I'm dreading your review of a certain Bond film made in 2002 ;)
Well, you are preaching to the choir when it comes to me, OHMSS69. If you checked out my Skyfall review, you can see I rated everything pretty highly, to put it mildly. An outstanding Bond film, in my opinion.
I love reading your work @BeatlesSansEarmuffs, keep it up.
SF for me had the same atmosphere as the early connery films. A sense of adventure, class, a bit sinister. It's a combination that only a few films have IMO (DN, FRWL,TB and now SF).
I would like to see a return to deal with Quantum and the mysterious Mr. White. But part of me thinks that EON may have turned the page on that storyline.
I would also like to see Craig's bedmates not be killed off.
And Sir Henry appreciates that you quipped back. Not impatience, just me wondering out loud since I know you won't be doing one every week. We have plenty to talk about before stage two of the reviews begins, so don't feel rushed. This is the safe haven for the original fans and your participation is valued!
You did indeed express genuine fondness for certain things in DAF, and as I've often stated even to displeasure from other Forum members, I don't believe there is a single movie among the 23 official films that doesn't contain some memorable scenes everyone can enjoy. I find it personally strange that some members actually hate certain films and refuse to watch them, and feel it's contradictory to true fandom, of course no one has to share that opinion but that's what I believe.
I've talked about DAF and my views at length between my own review and the flurry of activity we've had here about the film before yours, and like Silva I'm not much for being redundant very often. So what I really liked was your opening statement regarding the change in the direction of the franchise, and feel it's dead spot on. In many ways DAF does usher in the Moore era, to the point that Moore could have easily done the film himself, and I believe many other fans have expressed similar sentiments. I also think Lazenby's failure played a part in the decision, as we saw people were not going to accept a Connery-type adventure such as OHMSS without the magic of Sean himself. Not the most popular decision among people like us who only accepted him to that point, but we took the ride and Moore proved to be the right guy going forward.
I'm sure you must be pleased that Geoffrey Wright broke the dilemma of who was going to play Leiter for consecutive films. As far the rest, a recent interview with him posted fairly recently here indicated he's been advised by EON that they want him back, and it sounded like they even gave him an indication of when they would need him, which bodes well for BOND24 possibly going into production for a 2014 release and for him to break the record he shares with David Hedison :)
Hopefully it's back to being a Bond film with all the cliched, yet classic elements we all enjoy. No gun barrel at the beginning and no Bond girl in the end (sorry but I don't count Harris as one even though the amount of screen time, character development, and innuendos were in the level of depth) aren't sitting well with me after SF. That needs to be remedied going forward, this is what most fans want to see and it is part of what makes Bond, Bond. The good news though is that MGW has stated that at least QUANTUM will be back in time, there is a lot they can do with what little they've teased us with. Christensen I'm not so sure about, but he's another loose end they can leave dangling or resurrect. I'm expecting them to resurface in the next film based on MGW's statements and wouldn't be surprised at all if they do. A lot of opportunity there.
operation led by a mysterious egomaniac Mr. White who replaces Blofeld and the dark cloud he always presented in the early films.
I am fine with never seeing Blofeld or SPECTRE turn up in a future Bond film. It has been suggested that Austin Powers and his silly parodies have torpedoed SPECTRE forever. I'm okay with that and the over the top storylines. YOLT was a wham bam film but lets face it: it stretches credibility to the breaking point. Stromberg in TSWLM had a wild scheme as did Drax in MR but those fantastical plots may be a thing of the past and I say good riddance.
Craig's films are very believable and I see EON continuing the trend.
I agree with all of this. I hate the really far-fetched plots of the villains and agree that the Craig era has found great grounding on the plausible, and hopefully continues with that.
1. Casino Royale- 4.33
2. Goldfinger- 4.30
3. From Russia With Love- 4.26
4. Skyfall (5/7 reviews)- 4.20
5. The Living Daylights- 4.12
6. Thunderball- 4.09
7. Licence To Kill- 4.06
8. The Spy Who Loved Me- 4.05
9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service- 3.99
10. For Your Eyes Only- 3.91
11. You Only Live Twice- 3.90
12. Live And Let Die- 3.83
13. GoldenEye- 3.75
14. Octopussy- 3.73
15. Tomorrow Never Dies- 3.63
16. Dr. No- 3.57
17. Quantum Of Solace- 3.42
18. A View To A Kill- 3.28
19. The World Is Not Enough- 3.17
20. The Man With The Golden Gun- 3.13
21. Diamonds Are Forever- 2.99
22. Moonraker- 2.97
23. Die Another Day- 2.70
Good afternoon fellow originals and guests! No changes in position from last week to report, although LALD could make a move up or down a position when @Beatles brings us back to revisit the Moore era and those times we lived through. Thanks again to @OHMSS69 for delivering an excellent SF review, happily now we won't be needing any volunteers :)
Have a great weekend everyone!
Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in April of 1968, race relations in the United States fell to a new low. While the civil rights movement had included both white liberals and black people agitating for equal rights among the races, the Black Power movement of the post-King era held a strong element advocating in favor of black separatism. James Brown, a major figure in black music from the late 1950s onward, released a mega-hit anthem in August of 1968, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Sly and the Family Stone, one of the only bands of the time with a membership that was integrated both racially and sexually, released the album STAND! in 1969 that included a track titled “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey/Don’t Call Me Whitey, Nigger.” In this crucible of a fragmenting culture, the Blaxploitation films of the early-to-mid 1970s were probably inevitable. Shaft, released in 1971 is credited as being among the first of the commercially-successful films in this notable genre. Several more releases following the template established by Shaft soon followed, with titles like Superfly and even Blacula. In 1973, the James Bond franchise decided that Black was indeed Beautiful. Perhaps they were just cashing in on the trend; perhaps they were taking a gamble. Ian Fleming’s 1954 novel, Live And Let Die, has been criticized in some quarters for its treatment of racial issues. Looked at from today’s perspective, one could easily say that the views Fleming puts to paper are indeed somewhat racist, but that it is a racism that was quite widespread and somewhat benign for its time. The folks behind the Bond franchise were taking a step with this movie that could have easily backfired: in choosing to release this racially-loaded title now of all times, they were putting at risk the debut of the newest actor cast in the role of James Bond. Their first attempt to replace Sean Connery as their title character had been something of a disaster: George Lazenby did not win the hearts and minds of the movie-going public in the role of the world’s most famous secret agent. Now it was Roger Moore’s turn to walk into the sights of that famous gun barrel…
BOND: 4/5 Forget about Dr. Kanaga, Mr. Big, voodoo, and the heroin plot. Roger Moore’s real mission in this movie was to make the audience accept him as James Bond. Mission Accomplished. Circumstances probably worked in Moore’s favor; after his relatively-weak performance in Diamonds Are Forever, the audience was willing to allow Connery to leave the role of James Bond; and after welcoming him into their living rooms week after week during his stint as Simon Templar aka The Saint, that same audience was already primed to accept Moore as the new Bond. Moore’s Bond is somewhat different from Connery’s: more the gentleman agent and less the “blunt instrument” of Fleming’s description. The important thing is that Moore took the role Connery had defined and made it unmistakably his own. Moore’s portrayal of Bond as the Perfect Gentleman is the best possible choice for this particular storyline: he takes no notice of anyone’s race, leaving the issue of racial attitudes to other characters in the movie. If Moore’s Bond has one drawback, it is that he is too much the charmer and far less the physical brute that Bond sometimes needs to be. He is especially incapable of getting rough with women. When he points his gun at Rosie and threatens to kill her if she doesn’t give him information, we just don’t believe him. When he deceives Solitaire with a doctored deck of Tarot cards, we may think he’s something of a cad, but we know he’s just being Bond…JAMES Bond.
WOMEN: 4/5 Jane Seymour is radiant as Solitaire, the virginal psychic in thrall to this film’s Main Villain. This role was Miss Seymour’s first big break in the entertainment world…and she capitalized on it in an admirable fashion, going on to become a major televsion and movie star in her own right, most notably as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Here, she’s beautiful, exotic, vulnerable, and courageous…often acclaimed as one of the most popular Bond girls in the series’ history. Gloria Hendry is far less well-received in the role of Rosie Carver, a double-agent who nonetheless has the distinction of being the first black woman to share intimacies onscreen with 007. Rosie could have been more sympathetic if we’d gotten a sense of the pressures she was under as a CIA agent who is also susceptible to outside influences due to her superstitious belief in voodoo. Unfortunately, she’s written as something of a cipher, incompetent as both a CIA agent and as Dr. Kanaga’s pawn. Madeline Smith is quite beautiful in her brief appearance as Miss Caruso, but she’s pretty much there just to play hide-and-seek with M, appearing unannounced at Bond’s flat for no particular reason other than to announce to the world that from now on, humor is going to play a much larger role in the world of the Bond films.
VILLAINS: 4/5 A more enjoyable, outrageous bunch of villains cannot be found in the Bond canon. Their sense of Bond as an insufferable “honky” shows the villains to be far more racially prejudiced than Bond himself. Geoffrey Holder is a stand-out as Baron Samedi, with his dancer’s sense of movement and a round, full voice that erupts with mocking laughter. Julius Harris is suitably menacing as TeeHee, with his metal prosthetic hand promising ugly, brutal violence at any moment. Earl Jolly Brown and Tommy Lane are also enjoyable in their respective roles as Whisper and Adams. The unnamed cab-driver is a really fun character who delivers far more charm than the script really wants to give him. Yaphet Kotto, our main villain, gives an impressive performance as the dual-identitied Dr. Kanaga/Mr. Big…but as Big, he is forced to wear a completely unconvincing, plastic-looking mask that telegraphs his big reveal, thereby leeching this pivotal moment of any drama it may have otherwise held. The concept of one man holding these two identities is one of the film’s biggest stumbling blocks: last I’d heard, the position of Carribean island dictator and voodoo chieftain was a full-time calling. I should expect that the career path of a Harlem ganglord is similarly demanding, to say nothing of the challenges inherent in managing a nation-wide Fillet of Soul restaurant chains where you intend to be clandestinely distributing the entire US supply of heroin. (Big’s plans for heroin distribution throughout the rest of the world go conveniently unmentioned.) Nonetheless, Dr. K and Mr. B has been able to hold down both positions flawlessly. He must be amassing an awful lot of frequent-flyer miles…to say nothing of his countless sleepless nights. No wonder Solitaire is still a virgin…
HUMOR: 4/5 While I am not the biggest fan of the significantly expanded role of slapstick humor in the Bond franchise, I have to say that it is handled rather well in this particular film. Moore’s smooth delivery of an eye-rolling quip is unsurpassable. Clifton James’ addition to the cast as Sheriff J.W. Pepper is the stand-out performer in this category, and in this context Pepper’s presence is entirely appropriate. His swaggering authoritarianism and racist buffoonery is perfectly placed here. Not so amusing is Mrs. Bell, whose stock-in-trade is a wide-eyed expression of astonishment, an occasional vulgarity, and a generally dazed demeanor. “Let’s just wing it, shall we Mrs. Bell?” Sorry James, but I’d really rather you didn’t…
ACTION: 3/5 Having dropped two of the most memorable bits of action from Ian Fleming’s novel (Bond’s response to Leiter’s “disagreeing with something that ate him” and the trawling of Bond and Solitaire through the coral reef) the script of this movie is too dependant upon chase scenes for ratcheting up the excitement level. The boat chase through the Louisiana bayou is a great sequence, including a classic Bond moment with his speedboat taking to the air and passing over Sheriff Pepper’s outraged head. The chase with the San Monique police pursuing Bond and Solitaire in a double-decker bus includes another classic stunt, as the upper level of the bus is completely removed from the rest of the ponderous vehicle by a low-hanging bridge. The third “chase” with Bond and Mrs. Bell taxiing around the field in an airplane that never leaves the ground, pursued by Kanaga’s hirelings on foot and in cars, is nowhere near as funny as the film-makers evidently intended it to be. Perhaps the biggest disappointment for me in terms of the action of this movie was the sequence with Bond escaping from the alligator-surrounded island by simply running across the backs of the conveniently lined-up gators. This moment totally drains the movie of any sense that Bond is ever actually in any danger; and it makes him seem more like Bugs Bunny in a tuxedo than the action hero that Ian Fleming created and Sean Connery brought so convincingly to the screen. The two jazz funeral sequences are much more in keeping with the tone that I found appropriate for this movie -- colorful but morbid, but just a touch of humor to spice things up. Finally, we have the climactic battle in Kanaga’s subterranean lair. Kanaga swallows a compressed-air bullet from a shark gun…swells up like a balloon, soars to the ceiling and bursts. Um…no. The human body is not a balloon. Under these circumstances, a human being might very well explode…but it would not first take the attributes of a helium balloon. Again, the action taking place in this movie is more suited to a Warner Brothers cartoon than to a James Bond movie. This sort of farcical action greatly degrades the overall quality of the movie, and should have been reconsidered before the script reached the hands of the actors.
SADISM: 4/5 The use of voodoo throughout this film gives it a feel like no other Bond movie…and as far as I’m concerned, the way Kanaga uses voodoo to manipulate and frighten people easily qualifies as sadism. Still, sadism as it is commonly defined is prevalent in many places in this film, with death by snakebite, shark, or crocodile attack popping up or threatened in every other scene. “Take him out and waste him!” is evidently Mr. Big’s favorite directive to his crew. Why, then, does he neglect to have Tee Hee snap off Bond’s pinky finger as promised when he realizes that Bond has indeed “messed with” Solitaire? He’s certainly willing to slap her silly! Why not take some measure of personal revenge on Bond before having him dragged off to the crocodile farm? Sorry, Doc, but you get a one point deduction for that lapse!
MUSIC: 5/5 Paul McCartney’s title track still receives plenty of radio play even today, and when the movie first came out it was nearly as huge a hit as the theme to Goldfinger. George Martin’s one-and-only score for the series gives this film a unique vibe, one that is well appreciated by this viewer.
LOCATIONS: 4/5 New York, New Orleans, and Jamaica (subbing for the fictional San Monique) -- what’s not to like? The island locations are gorgeous and the bayous around New Orleans provide a fabulous setting for Sheriff J.W. Pepper’s big scene. The jazz funerals of New Orleans are also a special treat. The seedy bars of the “Fillet of Soul” are well portrayed, and Kanaga’s underground lair is briefly glimpsed but suitably evidence of the high quality work of Ken Adams. My only dispute here is with the Oh Cult voodoo shop, which just seems to clean and antiseptic to really serve the needs of its purported clientele.
GADGETS: 2/5 Not an awful lot to go on here, Kanaga’s crew has better gadgets than Bond. I particularly like the dart-firing automobile mirror early in the film, which takes out Bond’s driver and sets his car speeding uncontrollably through the city. Bond’s magnetic wristwatch --which he has to explain to M (I guess “the old man” has more important things to keep up to date on than the tools his agents are equipped with!)--is also equipped with a buzz saw function that WE DIDN”T KNOW ABOUT UNTIL BOND HAD REASON TO USE IT! Bad form, crew -- maybe if you’d bothered to include a Q scene we might have had some idea of what Bond’s gadgets could do!
SUPPORTING CAST: 3/5 Yes, there is no Q in this movie (BOO!) and as previously mentioned, M and Moneypenny show up at Bond’s apartment in the middle of the night so that we can be treated to a little bit of bedroom farce. David Hedison is a very good Felix Leiter, Lon Statton is nice but ultimately disposable as Harold Strutter, and Roy Stewart is a very nice Quarrel Jr. Still, the supporting cast in this film is totally overwhelmed by Clifton James as the unforgettable Sheriff J.W. Pepper. If only the Eon crew HAD been able to forget about him when it came time to make the NEXT Bond film…
TOTAL AND RECOLLECTIONS: 37/50 Despite my strong objections to certain elements of the script, I hold fond memories for LALD, and find the majority of it tremendously entertaining. I understand that the increased use of humor in the Bond series was a necessity to ensure the overall survival of the franchise into and through this particular era of popular culture. The racial aspect that is part and parcel of this particular storyline is handled with notable ease. Bond is no racist, although several characters in the movie clearly are. The villain’s main objective isn’t entirely believable, although that’s certainly even more true for other villains in the series. Most importantly, Roger Moore establishes himself firmly and permanently in the audience’s collective mind as a worthy successor to Sean Connery in the role of James Bond, secret agent 007. The fact that he’s not MY favorite of the post-Connery Bonds is immaterial. He’s here, he’s Bond …and he WILL indeed return.
THE END
of this review…but BeatlesSansEarmuffs will return (before too long)
to review The Man With the Golden Gun.
Oh yes, and finally: what are we to make of the fade-out shot with Baron Samedi riding on the front of the train, laughing at the audience? Did he survive the snake-filled coffin, and is he going to attack Bond moments after the film closes? No, I don't think so. As the Baron is Lord of the Dead in the voodoo pantheon, I think this is the one and only actual ghost we'll ever see in a James Bond movie. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!
=D>
LALD is a fun movie, and I felt it was a smooth intro for Moore. I like him as Bond very much. But it must have taken a leap of faith in himself to take on this iconic role. Glad he made that decision. You are right that this movie was taking a risk, in several ways. After Laz and then Connery in DAF, the producers really needed the right man - or saint - to step into the role. And he did, to the franchise's - and Bond fans' - great benefit.
However, the Samedi as demon option is very much in play as well.
If we allow that Solitaire had powers, which she very much seemed to possess, and was the priestess of the demonic Samedi( which is the voodoo underpinning and source of her powers) then it's not a stretch to allow that the character Samedi in the film, was actually the supernatural Samedi, who thus couldn't be killed.
In this context then, Kananaga, who believed in the voodoo, had enlisted the Baron's supernatural help. Samedi was a demonic presence in the Kananga posse.
When Bond blew everything to hell, including the corrupting of Solitaire, the good Baron moved on, in search of fresh souls to corrupt, as any self-respecting demon would be wont to do.
I thought Hamilton/Mankiewicz and company deftly handled the voodoo and supernatural aspect of the film. The element is definitely there, but it can also be stubbornly ignored if one prefers to dismiss it as just something unexplainable, which effectively was Bond's approach.
Bond has to keep things grounded. He's not ghostbuster.
=====Also of note re LALD, @BeatlesEarMuffs made mention of no Q, and the visit of M and MP to Bond's flat.
I think what was going on here is that Eon was taking pains to avoid direct comparisons with Connery. ie no familiar Bond and Q scene, and no traditional Bond/M, office briefing scene, preceded by flirtations with MP.
I think the intent was to allow Moore to establish his Bond, without being burdened by such direct comparions, and then work the familiar elements in later, which is what happened with Golden Gun, after Moore's Bond had passed the audition.
I really like LALD and the way the voodoo is handled. It's Flemings knack for the absurd at its best. As a kid I always wondered about the Samedi-on-the-train final scene. Nowedays I prefer to see it indeed as Bond did: something inexplicable that probably has a very mondaine reason compared to the magic it seems to be.
An interesting thing to keep in mind if you go watch 'Now You See Me' which runs in cinema's, at least in Europe, right now.
My high school years (late '68 to mid '72) were spent in a school that was demographically made up: 51% black and 49% other. The sound track of every party I attended during those years was a mix of Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Led Zeppelin...and local favorites, Tower of Power. The opening bars of ToP's "You're Still a Young Man" never fail to bring on a strong case of notalgia for me. Glad you appreciated the mention of Sly & his family; always remember: "I Want to Take You Higher"!
I reserve the right to be somewhat surprising. While I have a fairly low opinion of DAD for many of the usual reasons, I don't detest the invisible car the way so many seem to. As a long-time fan of Marvel Comics and their Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, I had no problem with the invisible car. Fury had one back in the '60s, I was perfectly fine with Bond receiving one 40 years later!
And also, on the subject of guilty pleasures, I have to admit that AVTAK is one of mine. Yes, Moore is too darned old for the role...but I just enjoy seeing 007 tooling around my home base in the San Francisco area! The burning of SF City Hall and the chase with Bond driving the fire engine around town are a blast and a half as far as I'm concerned!
I've heard the rationale that Lazenby's failure to capture the existing Bond audience with a serious performance was a factor in moving the series toward the humorous tone that followed, and while that may indeed have been a contributing factor, I don't think it was a fair decision on Eon's part. Lazenby would have failed with a serious OR humorous script. That failure was primarily due to his own lack of experience as an actor.
While I saw the casting of Hedison in LTK as a wise choice on Eon's part, I am even more pleased that they have chosen to stick with Geoffrey Wright as Leiter on an ongoing basis. The revolving-door policy of casting as regards to Leiter has been a weak spot for this franchise for far too long. Wright does a great job as Felix and I'm looking forward to seeing him as a semi-permanent member of the cast. Not every film NEEDS to include Leiter, but Wright should have the right of first refusal for the forseeable future.
I look forward to seeing more of Quantum...I think Bond has been missing the element of a wide-reaching, clandestine group that Spectre once represented for far too long, and Quantum has the potential to be an updated version of that same concept.
@Beatlessansearmuffs
Had Lazenby been more mature, and not taken such horrendous advice, he could have signed a 4 picture deal, took some acting lessons in between, maybe picked up some more work and built up his resume before giving up the Bond role.
Also it is good to see them continuing with Wright as Felix. I never understood the many different actors playing Leiter. He was a key character and I hope that Wright will continue to make the part his.
All the hate that Dalton gets for his dark and serious Bond is so unfair. Dalton was a very good 007 and had it not been for legal wrangling, he might have continued in the role for a third film in 1991. Cubby was very high on him and would have loved to have kept him in the role.
That being said a lot can be summed up to how Roger had so endeared himself to audiences during his light hearted 12 year run. Remember: to many younger fans at the time Roger Moore was James Bond. After 12 years of the juvenile humor, the public was not ready for Dalton's more gritty and realistic Bond.
Craig has been praised butDalton gets hate and quite unfairly.
Re Leiter: I think the reason Eon kept changing up Leiter is two-fold. First off and most importantly, they didn't want another alpha-male lead type like Jack Lord stealing any of Connery's thunder, so the older, far less dashing Cec Linder was introduced for GF.
Also by changing up the actor, they could again play with the audience not recognizing Leiter.
We saw this technique originally in DN, where it appeared that Leiter might be an enemy, until he introduced himself.
Terence Young re-visited the scenario in TB with this time Bond identifying him.
And Bond identifies Leiter for us again in DAF.