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Man, don't you just hate it when life gets in the way of completing your Bondathon? This must be my most viewed Bond movie. It was on all the time on ITV when I was growing up, and then later when I got the VHS/DVD's I used to have a double bill with LALD and DAF; they just fit together so perfectly.
Anyway, enough reminiscing. I always enjoy LALD; the contrast between the dark, mysterious Voodoo and the witty script, make LALD one of Mr Bond's most enjoyable outings. Plus you have Sir Rog making his début, full of his urbane and laconic charm; the plot is rather good, and understated, cunning in it's simplicity; Jane Seymour as Solitaire, and whole host of charismatic villains, topped off by Yaphet Kotto's underrated nasty, whose urbane veneer is just a coating for a truly sadistic man.
Unfortunately as soon as Pepper is introduced LALD takes a nose dive; having to stop the action in the marathon boat chase in order to "laugh" at Pepper's antics is demeaning. Humour for humour sake. Anyway, as soon as LALD moves from Pepper's baleful influence it gets much better.
Apart from Pepper I enjoyed, yet again, LALD.
Sir Roger Moore provided a steady hand, when the films were at their most inconsistent.
Next up;
Diamonds Are Forever
I haven't watched since May so i was aching to revisit it. And by god is it good. It continually sits secure on my top spot since it have done since the premiere. It is by far the most emotional, the best executed and directed film in the series. And even though SF may have better actors in it, i still find CR's characters much more indulging and intresting. I fall for Vesper as Bond do, i see the pain in Bond as Fleming wrote it and i can feel Le Chiffre's sinister looks on me. It's just a film that i always get's swept away with and which always leaves me with a lump in my throat when Vesper dies. That is truly a horrific moment in the film. You can really see Bond die emotionally there.
It is just a splendid movie with very, very small problems in it.
10/10
I rewatched it 2 nights ago, and since the last time it improved in some ways, for me. Especially Dalton's acting, first I wasn't convinced about it, then, I've reviewed my judgment. Same remark about the score of Kamen and BG acting.
It may move up in my ranking.
truly near perfect! my favorite Bond film and one of my favorite films of all time. Agree with all your points here! :)
I watched Tomorrow Never Dies last night, which, like most Bond films, continues to grow on me. This one jumped up quite a lot however. I ahd a ton of fun.
Concluding the seventies Bond movies is Diamonds Are Forever, a microcosm of the whole seventies, what with it's fantasy, macabre elements and humour. DAF is my least favourite Bond film. But guess what - I still enjoyed it. All Bond pictures entertain me royally, and isn’t that what a movie is supposed to do?
Some things still rankle; from the very first moments of the film it screams "sloppy", take the first piece of dubbing - "Ca-Ca-Cario!". It is as if Hamilton has given up already.
Still, Sean Connery adds to lot of presence to a decidedly lightweight cast; Jill St. John is a delight; she brings dignity to the role of Tiffany Case, where none should exist; Charles Grey is a hoot; the John Barry score is a magnificent; the tacky, gaudy nature of Las Vegas contrasts nicely with Bond's world, and Tom Mankiewicz serves up some sizzling one liners.
Diamonds succeeds as an entertaining comic strip Bond adventure, being fun and often quite bizarre entry into the cinematic world of Bond.
Same with me. Until I rewatched it last year, It was at the very bottom of my list, now it's in my top 3.
I do have a man crush on the young Connery. I love every second of this movie. It is authetic Bond. This movie is the real deal. That's Fleming's Jamaica. That's Fleming's supervillain. That's Honey come to life.
The first 16 minutes are the coolest minutes in the entire series. Fleming's Jamaica, followed by late-night Bond at leisure in classy gambling parlour, Sylvia Trench and the iconic first meeting in M's office. M very much favours green lampshades btw.
We don't need anyone making period Bond movies, as we already have four that were made while Fleming was alive and writing books (TB is close enough)
The casting in this movie is book perfect. I do believe these are the real Fleming characters. Not actors. I think their actor names are covers. Sean is obviously an actor, but most of the others are authentic, stepped right out of the Fleming pages.
DN's lair and entire compound is one of the best in the series, and this was the first film!!!
Sean is triple-plus awesome. Monty Norman's score is so very sixties suspenseful and dramatic.Nice job.
A few credit anomalies. John Kitzmiller's name changes to Kitzmuller in the closing credits. Margaret De Wars becomes Margaret Dewars.
The closing credit "Superintendent" character by process of elimination is actually I think the "Commissioner" character that accompanies Bond to Strangways house.
Otherwise the closing credit characters are all easily identified.
I am launching another '60s Bondathon. These early films are so damn good. I never weary of them. FRWL to OHMSS are on deck.
The '60s is authentic Bond. Even YOLT. And OHMSS is basically the book spilled onto the screeen, arguably with improvements.
Then I think I will continue with a rotation of old and new. ie DAF/SF LALD/QoS TMWTGG/CR etc.
Once you get over the shock of George Lazenby as Bond, he gives one of the most underrated performances. Ever. Lazenby is the most natural Bond; sure he looks out of his depth early on, but as the film goes on, he settles in to the role, by and large he gets by with his naive charm, and by and end of it, I was rooting for his Bond; he made me care. Lazenby is the Human Bond.
Other than Lazenby, everyone is on form here; from John Barry to Diana Rigg, this is a sublime experience.
* I watched Majesty's on my parents big screen T.V, on my UE DVD. And my god it looked epic.
Yes, the Lowry pristine digital restorations, of the first 6 Bond films especially, are things of beauty. These films are truly epic when displayed on either UE dvd or blu-ray in a big screen format. Especially I think TB, YOLT and OHMSS, as all three films have such large scale.
From Russia With Love;
Absolute Bond perfection. There, I have dutifully included a 50th anniversary viewing.
I do not believe that is Ian Fleming standing beside the train track. Just my hunch.
A very fine cast of supporting bit-player Bond girls including Eunice Gayson as Sylvia Trench ( returned from DN), Nadja Regin as Kerim's girl ( who would return in GF) and Eliza Gur and Martine Beswick as the Gypsy Fighting Girls, with Beswicke returning in TB. A nice smorgasboard of lovelies to augment the featured Daniela Bianchi, the former Miss Universe first Runner-up and youngest lead Bond girl ever, age 21. Also youngest Bond girl period, until supplanted by 18 year old Alison Doody in AVTAK.
I'm kind of mixed about Laz's overall performance in the film. There are parts when he's quite bad, mainly early on as you say ("why not...perhaps we can make up a foursome, "that's quite an enducement...but I don't need a million pounds, "and kindly present it to that monument in there"). You can tell he's trying to "act" cool by the way he delivers some of his lines, but agreed he improves as the film goes on.
@BAIN123 - the more I see Majesty's the more I like Lazenby. As the film goes on Lazenby settles down in the role. Which is weird, because films are not shot consecutively. Hey ho.
Yes, re the '60's and '70s films, they do look best in the UE and hi-def formats, moreso than the '80s and '90s films. I think for the reasons you suggest and possibly they benefited so much from the frame-by-frame Lowry pristine digital restoration treatment. Lowry managed to put a bright new shine on the first two-decade batch of 11 films.
Disappointinly though, at the Designing Bond film-fest that I attended last year, only the first 7 movies, were presented in a glorious cleaned-up 4k treatment. The '70s and '80s films appeared to be only passable old prints dug out for the Bondfest.
I would love for the chance to see both the Rog '70s, and even the '80s films in 4k bigscreen presentation too.
I'm not sure what this attributes itself to, but for some reason, I found the third Bond outing to be a little better on this viewing. From the opening PTS, to the arrival of Goldfinger's jet into Kentucky, I was really enjoying every minute! Unfortunately, it began to fall apart at Goldfinger's farm, and I would chalk this up to the fact that Bond is simply lingering around in captivity. Many fans have expressed their dislike at Bond being so incapacitated, and I understand why. Even though he does escape the cell at one point, with a nice, brief little fight with a guard, it just doesn't make up for the fact that Bond is still held prisoner, technically. Thankfully, the Fort Knox climax comes around to save the day! Even so, such a splendid finale is partially ruined by the rushed events following it- the fight with Goldfinger is pathetically short, and the resulting plane crash is even more fleeting. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded if the movie left off with Bond boarding Air Force One and flying off into the distance as the credits roll. Goldfinger would enter the ranks as one of the only Bond villains to escape justice, and Miss Galore, well, I hated her so much that I wouldn't want any more screen time from her anyways. Talk about a disappointing Bond Girl. There's no character more annoying to me than Galore- yes, even Jinx is better than Galore, and that's saying a whole lot! As for the soundtrack, there are portions I like and portions I dislike. Such tracks as the jazzy Miami entrance, the blistering theme song music, and the suspensful climax tune at Fort Knox exemplify the best in Barry's work for Goldfinger. However, some tracks just aren't worth their weight in gold (no pun intended), so the soundtrack, for me, is just "in the middle". Overall, GF's been raised a few points for me, which is fairly surprising, haha! :P
Current Bondathon Movie Ranking
1. GoldenEye
2. License to Kill
3. SkyFall
4. A View to a Kill
5. Tomorrow Never Dies
6. Live and Let Die
7. Octopussy
8. The Living Daylights
9. The Spy Who Loved Me
10. From Russia with Love
11. Thunderball
12. The World is not Enough
13. The Man with the Golden Gun
14. Dr. No
15. Goldfinger
16. Diamonds Are Forever
17. Casino Royale
18. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
19. Quantum of Solace
20. You Only Live Twice
21. Moonraker
It'll probably happen again though, haha; they rarely ever inch their way up the rankings, especially OHMSS. At the very least, GF has a spot-on Connery, classic villains, nifty set pieces, and many memorable scenes, so it climbs up a little bit from time to time. OHMSS has hardly anything to offer except some great fight scenes and an exciting finale, so it almost always retains the bottom of the bucket position, hahaha.
I also did have chance at the Designing Bond traveling show which settled in here last year, to witness her acual cat suit up close and personal, the genuine gondola-fight cat suit in all its display glory. I spent almost as much time gawking at it, as I did at the display of Olga's actual little black dress from QoS.
Chiles limited performance I think is part of the charm of MR. She offsets her lack of range by just looking so damn good. She reminds me of a chipmunk.
But her fighting abilities were about as convincing as Bach's.
And yes her performance is pretty much identical in scope to the lovely Soto's work.
But yes it would have been interesting to see if her role couldn't have been cast with a stronger actress not to mention fleshed out more. MR would have been one hell of a Bond film, if it just had a little more edge and substance in parts.