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
Maybe its just me but, while I appreciate the sequence must have required a lot of staging/setting up, I don't think the Vegas car chase is all that good. It's just played for laughs and has nothing but cars crashing into eachother.
I agree Connery looks bored in a lot of it, or at least feels nothing like the person he was in the earlier films. One of his deliveries that DID make me smile was the "sorry about that old boy" line.
Its a dull, limp film with some awful acting from a lot of the cast - including Sean at times.
Listen to the line readings in the first few seconds of this clip:
For YOLT, I almost wrote the fight at Osato's plant, yes. I liked Aki, sorry to see her killed off so quickly and tragically. I like Tiger. But Sean is not really intensely involved in his performance, no.
Funny thing, though, is that the score for YOLT is so very beautiful! I do love the music in YOLT. :)
At least Jill St. John herself seems to have a bit of personality.
I actually prefer the fire engine chase in AVTAK to be honest. Yes that wasn't great but at least John Barry's music livens it up a little.
I always thought that playing the big car chase for laughs was a mistake. this wasnot the first car chase we are treated to in a Bond movie. YOLT and OHMSS contain car chases but those scenes had some real tension in them.
And @OHMSS69, you said: As for the lows, I never understood the decision to "lighten up the series and poke fun at the James Bond character" that EON choose. The subject is heavily debated among "originals" but it turned out to be the right choice financially. DAF made a lot of money and paved the way for the tongue in cheek of Roger Moore's films.
I think that is interesting. :-B In hindsight, I do feel that it was good that the Bond films changed, took different tones and directions over the years, because it would have died out otherwise. Each time things were made with a different style, it brought something fresh to Bond. I think LALD was crucial. I was very happy to have Moore as Bond, even though he went OTT at times and stayed probably one film too long. So, Sean had a great run, and his first 3 or 4 films are still strong. The first 3 especially. And I sort of see the value of "lightening up the films" as it did help the series continue. Anybody coming right after Connery needed to put their own personal stamp on Bond, yet still be entertaining and have us believe he was Bond, James Bond. Not an easy task. Sorry, Laz. I still wish Connery had gone out on OHMSS, it would have served the story and the film so well and then we could have gone right to Moore. Would have worked better, I think. :)
With DAF though I'm not laughing most of the time.
I think "lightening up" the films is ok providing there's still some suspense in the story. Humour itself can date quite quickly, but if there's a good enough story then hopefully the film will hold up in the years to come.
Lazenby was just too brief and it its all the same to you all, lets skip him and go to Moore.
I'd have to say GF hit that target. Probably better than all others save for TLD & maybe CR.
But honestly, he does not have an "era" does he? Just one film. :-?
Let's go for broke with talking about Sean's era until perhaps Sunday (a tad later if there is still plenty of talk about Sean's era); I will then change over.
I think Lazenby probably deserves a discussion time, too - he was Bond, after all. However, I don't think we need a full week on him. But I'll take that step by step. So many people love OHMSS, we can spend maybe a couple of days there I am sure. So maybe just two. I will decide this Sunday.
And "knives sharpening"? :D Just because so many of us do not like OTT humor and camp? Well, yes but ... the beauty of Moore is that he gave us many things besides that and some very fine Bond films. But that is coming up.
The Living Daylights
After twelve long years of Roger Moore's Bond (longer if you count DAF) with the films getting sillier and a disregard for the character, a new actor was announced as James Bond. Timothy Dalton. A great actor with the right looks for the part and, as Prince Barrin, probably the best thing in Flash Gordon. Although after AVTAK I had given up on the idea of Bond ever being taken seriously again, it appeared that the film-makers had taken a long hard look and decided to try and return to the glory days of Connery.
Driving back from the cinema after seeing TLD I had a grin plastered on my face and the thought that at last we had Bond back!
A fantastic espionage thriller, with a great introduction to Tim on Gilbraltar and a stunning PTS, some great action especially the genuinely thrilling fight out the back of a 'plane on a cargo net, a believable romance, Necros a henchman who was way better than the main villains (Joe Dan Baker is just too cuddly to be threatening!), some great humour - pipeline to the West! - fantastic locations and a truly beautiful score from John Barry. Which all added up to the best Bond film since OHMSS. I liked the way the relationship between Bond and Saunders changed so that when Necros did for him there was genuine emotion at his killing.
I was glad to see the 'humour' was toned down and some silliness that was filmed - magic carpet ride, etc - taken out to stay with the more serious tone that Timothy was striving for. Dalton has been criticised for his delivery of the one liners, but I quite like the way he does them, he's not Roger Moore and people were just so used to Moore's delivery that anything else just didn't seem right to them. The Living Daylights is a joy to watch and I was really looking forward to a long Dalton era…
DAF was a huge hit, wasn't it? And the music was beautiful. If we did not have Sean as Bond first, we would not have had the excellent franchise series of films we have gotten.
Oh, so nice to read your thoughts about The Living Daylights, @Lancaster007! One of my favorites and I so agree with you. I love your description of TLD, especially this whole part:
A fantastic espionage thriller, with a great introduction to Tim on Gilbraltar and a stunning PTS, some great action especially the genuinely thrilling fight out the back of a 'plane on a cargo net, a believable romance, Necros a henchman who was way better than the main villains (Joe Dan Baker is just too cuddly to be threatening!), some great humour - pipeline to the West! - fantastic locations and a truly beautiful score from John Barry.
So nicely summed up! I think I may watch that one this weekend.
Dalton in The Living Daylights= :x
You forgot the fight in the elevator, how was that not intense???
That was a great fight and intense but I think the only exciting and intense moment of all of DAF. What do you think?
In Amsterdam and an amazing tense fight clearly a win win moment for Dutch fans. :!!
My biggest regret about DAF was the absence of a real revenge after having his wife killed, Connery never convinced me being a widower in grief. Lazenby should have done this one with Hunt.
But I will never blame SC for the DAF he played in simply because the wages of this movie gave a lot of kids in Scotland a chance to improve themselves.
If you swap OHMSS and DAF in viewing order, DAF becomes a prequel and sequel to YOLT as the very opening shot is Bond tossing around a Japanese gentleman. I'll always see DAF as a Sequel to YOLT and OHMSS as a sequel to DAF. That way. Blofeld got away, hid for 10 years and decided to strike again. And it makes sense as Blofeld still has the neck brace.
For Dr No, director Terence Young, himself an erudite and sophisticated man, took Connery and knocked him into shape. The alliance of Young and Connery proved irresistible; Young turned the rough diamond Connery, into a ruthlessly elegant bon vivant, which embodied all the hallmarks of Fleming's 007; charming, yet very lethal.
Connery himself had a natural strength and aggression, which Cubby so admired, tempered with a calm authority, great grace and elegant poise. In addition to his smooth, sexual magnetism and wry charm, Connery's Bond was underpinned by a real sense of danger; his was a Bond, like the novels, that had earned his 00-prefix, and this was a key development in translating Bond to the masses.
In Dr No, one gets an excellent, Fleming-esque performance by Connery, even if Connery's Bond was a little short and overtly authoritative in a few scenes - the scene where Bond and the Police Commissar are inspecting the crime scene in Strangway's house, comes immediately to mind.
By From Russia With Love, Young and Connery continued to work on the character of James Bond, combining Fleming's cold, but charming, original, with the cinematic version of machismo and sophistication; thus creating the definitive “Bond style”. Moreover Connery's “rough edges” he displayed in Dr No, have been smoothed over – Connery really was the perfect Bond, being the most complete, definitive Bondian performance, ever. Connery is cool, sophisticated, dangerous, suave, cold, arrogant, elegant, charismatic, virile and has a great sense of savoir-faire. He represents the ideal blend of both the cinematic Bond, and the literacy 007. Every Bond actor would try to live up to the high standard that Connery had reached.
For Goldfinger there were two key changes in the crew, and it was a major artistic turning point in Bond lore; Goldfinger had a new director, Guy Hamilton, and a new screenwriter, Paul Dehn. Together they presented a more stylised film and violence. Hamilton influence at the helm makes the film less callous, less brutal, more stylised, more overt.
Goldfinger utilizes the character of James Bond and the situations that he finds himself, in a different, almost imperceptible way. It's a subtle shift, and that is the difference between the cinematic and literary 007's, but the spirit of Fleming's writing remains, even if the context has been altered.
Sean Connery is in magnificent form as 007. Every line, every movement is prefect. In Goldfinger, Connery is really a pleasure to watch, even if he starts to move away from the Fleming-esque Bond into a more cinematic interpretation.
By Thunderball, the original director Young was back, and he ensured Thunderball would be brutal, visceral and very stylish and sophisticated, just like his two, previous entries. What is more Young, and indeed Connery, who had a distaste for “gimmicks”, (and there were a lot of “gimmicks” in Thunderball) would not overwhelm the story.
After Goldfinger, and the enormous success of the gadgetry and spectacle that film presented, the film-makers decided to up the ante, in terms of gadgets. There's a natty mini re-breather, in case ones oxygen has run out; the DB5 makes a welcome return in the PTS; an infra-red camera; a Geiger Counter hidden inside a camera and the villains yacht broke in two, revealing the front half to be a hydro-foil, to name but a few, but luckily Young's influence at the helm prevents them from taking centre stage.
In part the increased spectacle was down to the producers trying to show the public, and indeed their imitators, that there was only one true Bond; with Thunderball the Bond's became truly epic, and the only exception is when Bond straps on a conveniently placed jet-pack in the film's opening sequence; a fore-warning of the excess to come.
Despite the increased gimmickry quota, 007 is well characterized; we see him at his most blunt instrument best when he and Largo, the villain of the piece, are playing Chemin de Fer, provoking Largo, and paradoxically, 007 is at his most suave and achingly cool in this scene.
We also see some rare emotion from said “blunt instrument”, when Bond tells Domino, the villains “kept woman”, about her brother, who'd been stabbed. In a moving scene, Bond much to his chagrin, was very harsh. 007, after all, has a job to do, as much as he wanted to protect Domino. To avoid betraying his emotion’s, Bond covered his eyes with sunglasses; secret agent first, human second.
It's a multi-faceted Bond performance, all carried of with great panache, great virility and undeniable charisma by Sean Connery, who is at his zenith playing James Bond, 007.
Ian Fleming once said “take Bond beyond what is probable, but never the possible”, a mantra that Dahl's plot for You Only Live Twice fails at, unfortunately. Alas it's too big, too outlandish, which is a shame, because Dahl and the film-makers almost manage to pull the whole notion off, wonderfully well.
However by the time of You Only Live Twice, the gadgets and spectacle overwhelm the story; it's too epic for it's own good. The film-makers saw the impacts on gadgets and spectacle on the audience; thus the producers decided to show their imitators, that no-one could be as spectacular as Bond. Perhaps they forgot “less is more”.
In Goldfinger and Thunderball the use of “gimmicks” were just right, a perfect balance, with You Only Live Twice, however, the scales are upset, producing an uneven film.
It was reflected in Connery's performance; one can tell that Connery is bored with the role; he doesn't have the same enthusiasm as he once did. It's not a bad performance per say, but when one compares it too, say, From Russia With Love or Goldfinger, it's a sad way to say goodbye to this charismatic and virile man.
By 1967 the press were hounding Sean Connery, especially the Japanese press. During production on Thunderball, Connery told the press he was looking forward to stretching his acting chops, after his reign as 007 was over.
The pressure of being 007 became too much for Connery, who liked it to “living in a goldfish bowl”, what with the intense media coverage, and intrusions to his private life. Moreover Connery and the producers were not getting along; Connery threatened to walk off set if Saltzman was there. During filming of You Only Live Twice, Connery announced he was leaving the role of James Bond, 007.
In Diamonds Are Forever, the returning Connery gives a more relaxed take on the character, befitting the tone of the movie. Connery managed to find that missing “spark” that deserted him in You Only Live Twice. Tom Mankiewicz said about Connery, that he “has an old graces pro” about him, mirroring that Connery is maturing in the role. He can still knock the living hell out off someone, as exemplified by the lift fight, but Connery has the air of a veteran agent about him; calm, collected and authoritative.
So, in summary, I enjoy the Connery-era immensely (who doesn't?!), and in TB, GF and, particularly FRWL, Connery is perfection personified, whilst Connery's performance in Dr No and DAF, are very good, regardless of my feelings for the latter. Three of Connery's films (DN, FRWL and TB) are in my top ten.
Thanks for all the readers that managed to get this far! Thank you and Goodnight!!
I think you are right about the gadgets, how they developed into bigger and more fantastic, and I believe you have hit the right note for Sean's portrayal, too.
Yes, Terence Young helped mold Sean into the role a good deal, from what I understand. Thank goodness, he had the perfect "raw material" shall we say, when it came to Sean Connery. Connery's "natural strength and aggression" as you put it, served him well. I think he wanted very much to stretch and fulfill this role; I believe he sensed he was right for it and could do something special. Sean has a natural magnetism that many people would die for, a strong charisma and one that attracts both men and women. Sean helped take this portrayal to another level, and he was fortunate to have the right director/mentor/coach assisting him. Everyone, including the public, were lucky that Young teamed up with Connery to give us this well-rounded, nuanced, strong, and exciting new character called James Bond.
Bond is iconic for a reason: that reason is Sean Connery.
Bond changed over the years, and we have been treated to a whole series of fine adventures, with different takes on the whole world of Bond as well as the character himself. But it started with a proud Scot who believed in himself and had the intelligence to listen to good advice, tried to use what fit him and the character best, and go for broke. Not an easy or common thing to do. Especially as much of what makes Sean's Bond unique is subtle and nuanced.
Thanks again very much, @royale65. A great summation of Connery's era as we spend another couple of days finishing this topic. (As always, I will stretch it a day or two as participants join us).
When he was first cast, Connery was something of a controversial choice, with some doubting that this rough Scottsman could adequately portray the smooth urbanity depicted in Fleming’s novels -- but under the expert guidance of Terence Young, Connery soon proved the wisdom of Broccoli and Saltzman’s casting genius. Roger Moore may very well have been the best choice to guide the good ship Bond safely through the ‘70s -- but Connery was there first to get the vessel launched and well on its way in the swingin’ 60s. If Sir Sean himself eventually tired of the role, I don’t think any of us can really blame him. Mortal man is a fragile creature in the long run, but a skillful creation lives on long after its creator has passed from the scene. Due respect must always be paid to the creators of lasting works, and for the superb fictional creation that is James Bond, Sean Connery will always stand as the original -- the iconic -- celluloid incarnation of the world’s most famous secret agent.
When I first saw GF on the big screen at the age of 14 or 15, I had already seen Lazenby and Moore and thought they were great. I figured Connery was more loved by adults because he was the original, but by the time the PTS was over I was blown away by his presence and performance, and knew what those old farts meant!
Many of us consider Sean Connery to be the best James Bond because of the quality of his performances, especially in the first 3 or 4 films - not merely because he was first. If he hadn't been great (not merely good), and unique, and charismatic, the series most likely would have died out after maybe one sequel.
It is hard - because Bond is such an iconic character and long been part of our culture - to really put ourselves in his place back then, just forming this character and bringing him to the screen for the first time. Bond was different in several ways, like Beatles mentioned. Not really like any detective or spy film that had come before (credit to producers, director, everybody). And Sean was new to most viewers. Bondmania had a huge influence on films and TV; thanks for reminding us that, Beatles. Hard to imagine it these days of "viral" internet and super in-your-face tabloid TV everywhere, YouTube everybody's life instantly, etc. I think there were 3 or 4 TV channels when I was growing up in the 60's. For Bond to become so mega-hugely popular, like the Beatles (yeah!), it was astonishing back then, because it was not easy to make that happen without all the instant communication we have these days.
And Thunderfinger (geez, you both have amazing usernames!!) ;) ... you are right when you talk about Sean's presence. He really had something special that audiences could sense. Not many actors have a naturally strong presence personally; Sean does.
By the way, I rather like what you said here: " ...but by the time the PTS was over I was blown away by his presence and performance, and knew what those old farts fans meant!" (I just made a tiny correction.)
:)>-
Be assured, I was just joshing you. :D