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You said in your review, "The irony here is Silva dies a minute or two before he gets the opportunity to realise his plan has succeeded." Well, for some reason I didn't actually get that before! So thanks for pointing that out in just that way; ironic indeed.
And you also noted: ”Only a certain kind of woman wears a strapless dress with a Beretta 37 strapped to her thigh.” sounds like something Connery would have said. Indeed, it is exactly what Connery's Bond may have said. I love that so much of Skyfall is really done with high quality, including some of the dialog and of course how that dialog was delivered. Quite fine, high level acting throughout this Bond film.
And, Nic, you are right about the "re-watchability" factor. There is so much to enjoy in this film, and I have seen it several times now. I am buying it as soon as I can (hopefully for Xmas).
Also, @SirHenryLeeChaChing , you said regarding QOS, "By the way, I found the Bregenz opera house in QOS to be iconic then for it's originality and brilliant contrast of Arnold's music sharing equal footing with Tosca as anything in CR or SF, and still do. " I just want to say I remember the opera house scene as my favorite of the entire film; iconic for me, too.
Agree with the pair of you on this. The opera scene is by far and away the best portion of the film.
When you get a chance, can you pick one actor or actress?
1. Casino Royale- 4.33
2. Goldfinger- 4.30
3. From Russia With Love- 4.26
4. Skyfall (6/7 reviews)- 4.17
5. The Living Daylights- 4.12
6. Thunderball- 4.09
7. The Spy Who Loved Me- 4.06
8. Licence To Kill- 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- 3.81
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- 3.09
21. Diamonds Are Forever- 2.99
22. Moonraker- 2.96
23. Die Another Day- 2.70
Good morning fellow originals and guests! I made an accounting error the last time and transposed a number. It was corrected there, but to reiterate, Spy has displaced LTK at #7 in the current poll. Fans of Sir Roger Moore can rejoice, 2 of his films have made our top 10!
Thanks to everyone who has participating in the thesis questions. It's generated some good discussion that's kept the thread both relevant and hopefully interesting for all.
Regarding the polling of the 4 Moonraker thesis questions.
1. Not all agreed, but the majority vote felt that Jaws should have remained as a part of Spy and not been brought back for this film. It wasn't the concept of Jaws more than it was the way the part was written as a foil for Bond that lacked any menace whatsoever in comparison to Spy. Dolly's role in this took an equal, if not worse beating.
2. The unanimous choice by those who gave a single actor per the question was Sir Roger himself. Enough said there.
3. Interest in the questions seemed to decline at this point. The answers that were given were all in favor of a more faithful adaptation of the Fleming novel making for a more enjoyable entry. EON will always have the last laugh on us due to the improbable boatload of money the film made. Will we ever see Gala Brand on screen? Hopefully one day.
4. We never really got a consensus on a favorite scene. Perhaps everyone was ready to move on and I asked one too many questions? Personally, I found Corrine "going to the dogs" to be the most powerful and compelling scene, Barry's music that accompanied it added a tangible feeling of the terror the character had to be feeling as she dashed for her life through the forest. Seems Corrine not only never learned to read, but forgot to learn that dogs can't climb trees. Silly girl. Only in Hollywood 8-|
That's all for now until we revisit For Your Eyes Only and read a brand new review from @Beatles, which I personally always love to both watch and discuss. Thanks as well to @NicNac, who gave a nice review of Skyfall. Good to have you back! Have a great weekend everyone!
This film is easily my favorite of the Roger Moore Bonds. After abandoning much of the Ian Fleming storylines that should have formed the cores of DAF, LALD, MWTGG, TSWLM, and MR, Eon Productions realized that there was an overwhelming need to return Bond to the sensibility that had originally made him such a popular character. After the outer-space outrage that had been Moonraker, the consensus of opinion, from fans and film-makers alike, was that Bond needed to come back to Earth. So veteran screenwriter Richard Maibaum teamed up with Michael G. Wilson in his debut scripting effort, fusing two of Fleming’s short stories and folding in one of the abandoned scenes from LALD, effectively producing the most true-to-the-source Bond movie to hit the screen since before Sean Connery had abandoned the franchise. Even the PTS, with an obvious (but unnamed) Blofeld being dispatched to his well-deserved final reward, seemed to demonstrate that the film-makers were intent on making up for past mistakes. Blofeld? Might he have survived DAF? Who cares! Been there, done that; he’s dead to us now.
BOND 5/5 The script gives us a more mature Bond than we’ve become accustomed to, and Moore rises to the challenge nicely. He has some regrets, notably a wife he buried far too early, and he’s willing to do a dirty job if it needs to be done…but this Bond makes a point of protecting the innocent whenever he can. No stranger to killing, he knows the effect it has on the human psyche, and if he can keep the revenge-obsessed Melina Havelock from traveling that same road then he will certainly try. And while some might name Bond a sexual predator of the first rank, this time around he has a certain sense of propriety, and declines the amorous advances of the underaged (but highly desirable) Olympic athlete, Bibi Dahl. For my money, Moore’s best moment in his long history as Bond occurs in this movie, when Bond kicks Locque’s car off the cliff, sending the assassin to his death. Reportedly, Moore was uncomfortable with that scene and first-time director John Glen persuaded him to film it. If this is true, then Glen’s instincts were correct, and this film gives us a far more emotionally complex Bond than any of Moore’s other efforts.
WOMEN 5/5 Carole Bouquet is just gorgeous as Melina Havelock, with long black hair and a crossbow to die for. She’s one of the more compelling Bond girls -- out to the avenge the death of her parents, Melina consciously evokes the mythic resonance of Electra. The audience sympathizes with her desires, and we root for her to find an emotional release that won’t require her to dig the “two graves” that Bond invokes in trying to dissuade her quest for revenge. Bibi Dahl is a fitting counterpoint to Melina; while the former is a dutiful daughter forced by tragic circumstance down a road that only the likes of Bond should travel, the latter is still youthful, energetic, and a little too sexually promiscuous for her own good. Lynn-Holly Johnson is note-perfect as Bibi; she’s gorgeous and beguiling, and just a little bit too self-absorbed for an adult like Bond to take seriously. While there is also a flock of bikini-clad bathing beauties gathered around the pool at Gonzales’ hideout, they are entirely there for the purpose of window-dressing. Cassandra Harris is far more notable as Countess Lisl. Her presence in this film serves as the entry-point for Columbo, who becomes Bond’s ally after some brief uncertainty; but her importance to the Bond series as a whole is immense, as Harris’ real-life husband, Pierce Brosnan, was first introduced to the Broccolis because of her participation in this film. Harris’ service to the series in this unique fashion earns her -- and this category -- a full five points in MY book!
VILLAINS 4/5 Julian Glover is enjoyable if unspectacular as Kristatos. He’s crafty as a fox, and certainly evil enough to deserve Bond’s attention…but he’s entirely life-sized, and after so many Goldfingers and Scaramangas, “life-sized” is something of a come-down for this category. Thankfully, he’s got plenty of help to take on Bond. Stefan Kalipha is a slimy weasel as Gonzalez, the actual triggerman who killed the Havelocks and thus earns Melina’s first crossbow bolt. The most interesting villain of the movie may well be Michael Gothard as Emile Leopold Locque…we don’t learn very much about him other than who he’s killed (notably Bond’s Italian contact, Ferrara) but he just oozes malice for every moment’s he’s on screen. John Wyman is also notable as Erich Kriegler, another blonde Germanic would-be superman. He’s actually fairly amusing when he throws his motorcycle at Bond in a fit of what I can only assume is ‘roid rage. Better watch that sort of thing if you really want to compete in the Olympics, Erich! Individually, perhaps none of these specimens is particularly noteworthy, but taken together they are one of the best villainous assemblages since Klebb, Kronstein & Grant in FRWL
HUMOR 4/5 While this film gets praise from many fans for its more-serious-than-usual (for Moore) tone, you would be mistaken to think it totally without humor. For the first time ever, the humorous car chase early in the film is actually suspenseful as well as mirth-inducing, as Bond’s Lotus self-destructs in response to the villains’ tampering, leaving Bond & Melina to escape in her tiny Citroen. This chase down winding mountain roads and through narrow village pathways is one of the highlights of the film for me, and I am not easily pleased by light-hearted chases. Bibi also comes in for a fair amount of mockery from the film-makers -- though not from Bond himself, although his promise to get her an ice-cream if she puts on her clothes does come close. Q is always good for a laugh, and this time around he gets off one of his better lines: as Bond comes to a church and enters the confessional, intoning the traditional statement, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” On the other side of the confessional, Q removes his fake whiskers, revealing himself to be no priest at all, but rather Bond’s contact in the field, and relies, “THAT’S putting it mildly, 007!” The movie’s closing scene, with Janet Brown as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is very nearly Eon’s promise to the audience that matters will be back to humorously-normal in the next film, as Max the parrot requests that the PM “Give us a kiss! Give us a kiss!”
ACTION 4/5 The realistic tone of this movie makes its action sequences that much more thrilling -- to my mind, at least -- than anything we saw in Moonraker. The mountain-climbing sequence near the end of the film is truly chilling, as Bond comes close to falling to his death several times. There are some excellent ski scenes -- can’t go wrong with skiing in a Bond movie!-- as well as some wonderful underwater footage. The raid on Kristatos’ opium warehouse, culminating in Bond on foot, charging up stairs while Locque tries to escape him in a car speeding through a winding tunnel, only to have their paths converge at the top of a seaside cliff, is quite enthralling! Another one of my favorite moments in this movie is the sequence rescued from the novel version of LALD, where Bond & Melina are towed through the coral reefs by Kristatos in a power boat. My overwhelmingly positive reaction could just be because I was so happy to finally see that sequence in a Bond movie, ANY Bond movie! I cannot praise the script by Maibaum and Wilson highly enough for the masterful way they melded two separate short stories, added this scene to the mix, and still produced a tightly-plotted espionage thriller. Some people may find that the absence of world-threatening consequences and over-the-top, scenery-chewing villainy makes this a lower-entry Bond film in their estimates…but I am firmly in the opposite camp. It’s nice to be reminded that Bond is an agent of international espionage, not a super-hero. And the film’s denouement, with Bond destroying the ATAK so that it doesn’t fall into Russian hands, was a surprising yet entirely logical result of this situation. Now THAT’S détente, comrade!
SADISM 3.5/5 I don’t see an awful lot of cruelty for its own sake in this movie. Much of the death and destruction presented here is a matter of professional requirements rather than any true sadism…except for the keelhauling bit lifted from LALD. Perhaps Melina’s mission of vengeance is the closest thing we can find in this storyline, and even here, Bond does his best to dissuade Melina from a course of action that he believes will cause her (emotional) harm. Kristatos is just trying to make some money, and if a couple of people have to die in the course of the operation, that’s just the price of doing business. And when he slaps Bibi across the face when she tells him to go to hell -- well honestly, didn’t a fair amount of the audience want to do that themselves? Locque is probably the only true sadist in this film -- did he really need to kill Lisl by running into her with his car? Ferarra, of course, was a professional and understood the risks involved…but Lisl could have been left alone with no real impact on his employer’s scheme. Just call it an overzealous employee…
MUSIC 3/5 The theme song is a very nice one, sung very capably by Sheila Easton. Unfortunately, too much of the rest of the sound track is just not to my taste. The music played by the pool at Gonzalez’ estate was just hideous. Maybe it was intended to convey the impression that Gonzalez had rotten musical taste and deserved to die… Maybe Bill Conte was just trying to sound too contemporary a note, but personally, I want my Bond music to be a little more timeless. At any rate, the soundtrack is one of this movie’s few weak points in my estimation.
LOCATIONS 4.5/5 The scenery is gorgeous throughout this film. From the ocean footage to the snowy settings, the world of Bond is still one of surpassing beauty. If there is anything missing, it’s the famous Ken Adams sets -- but they probably would have been out of place in this “real world Bond” adventure. The monastery at St. Cyril’s was a nice substitute, and for once, no sets needed to blow up at the end of the movie. If there’s one minor gripe I have in this category, it’s that the underwater footage (utilizing stunt doubles) and the close-ups of Bond and Melina (which were faked, as Carole Bouquet’s sinus condition did not allow her to shoot underwater) don’t really match up in terms of color saturation.
GADGETS 3/5 Gadgets aren’t exactly this film’s strong suit. The Lotus gets pulled out of the garage but only barely used. The Identigraph utilized by Bond and Q to identify Locque is nice but fairly minor. The underwater scenes probably get the most gadget time, with the Haverlocks’ mini-sub, the Neptune, and Kristatos’ underwater “Rover” having some nice moments. This category was another sacrifice to the interest of having a “real world” Bond adventure, I suppose…
SUPPORTING CAST 4/5 Nice work from nearly everybody in this category. Topol is one of the Top 10 Bond allies as Milos Columbo, all smiles and pistachio nuts. Desmond Llewellyn is in fine form as Q, even if he doesn’t have much to do this time around other than provide necessary exposition. Lois Maxwell is starting to show her age as Monneypenny, and the absence of the late Bernard Lee as M is sorely felt. Geoffrey Keene is annoying as ever playing Sir Fredrick Gray, and James Villiers is something of a stiff as Chief of Staff Bill Tanner. Jill Bennett could have probably used a few more lines as Jacoba Brink -- I like to think she and Columbo struck up a nice relationship in Countess Lisl’s absence once Columbo took over as Bibi’s sponsor. John Moreno is pleasantly engaging as Ferrara, but again, his role could have been fleshed out a little more. This film is probably Walter Gotell’s shining moment as General Gogol -- Gogol was essentially created to be the face of non-threatening Russia once the Cold War had ended, and here Bond‘s “That’s détente, comrade!” line pretty much highlights the point with a red felt pen. Gogol smiles broadly, gives a “What the hell!” gesture with his hands, and gets back into his helicopter, only to return in the next film.
TOTAL AND RECOLLECTIONS 40/50 I enjoyed this movie a great deal when I first saw in in 1981...and I may have enjoyed it even more with this most recent viewing. The return of Ian Fleming’s plotlines to the world of Movie Bond was past-due to my mind, and I only wish that Eon could be a little more energetic in pursuing this vein for future releases. At least, that’s the view…from my eyes only.
THE END of this review
But BeatlesSansEarmuffs will return soon…
To review OCTOPUSSY
(And you’d better believe that he will be watching Never Say Never Again shortly thereafter as well!)
To pick one actor or actress though, I'll go with Lonsdale as Drax, as the best realized performance of the bunch. He pulls off his larger-than-life deranged supervillain with a sufficiently convincing, understated camp menace.
The phrase "breath of fresh air" is the most apropos I've ever heard applied to this film's place in the Moore era. Moonraker had clearly gone way too far in the opposite direction of what Bond is supposed to be as defined by Fleming and original fans like us who in most cases during Moore's tenure had longed for a return to the tone of the first 4 films. There's a little bit of silliness in keeping with Moore's version, but the film generally gets the job of bringing Bond "back to earth" done very well indeed. Indeed it is my favorite Moore film and personal performance of his.
It's a bit of a revisit that I intend to keep as short as possible, but when @Beatles mentions how the focus of certain films abandons the Fleming storylines, I can't entirely agree with all of these examples. As one that I find a bit glaringly obvious, DAF's movie plot was largely lifted from the novel in it's focus, the humorous tone of the movie obviously being the biggest change from the novel. Bond's relationship with Tiffany also underwent a facelift (no falling in love here for our favorite spy) and Blofeld/SPECTRE was substituted for the "Spangled Mob". Elements of MR and LALD are within their movie versions as well, with more liberal substitutions than those in DAF. The two novels where the film itself really goes in another direction are TMWTGG and Spy, and it's obvious that the YOLT novel was dismissed by screenwriter Roald Dahl as a "plotless travelogue". The one that struck me to be in the most dire need of revision as far as a screen adaptation was Spy. I agree with Fleming's reasons for wanting the title only to be used, not that Anya Amasova was a useless character in name and deed, but you simply can't have her (or in this case non-spy Vivienne Michel) be in that degree of focus in telling the story and have Bond as the main character.
3 thesis questions for this movie coming tomorrow!
DAF- British Secret Service agent James Bond, 007 is sent on an assignment by his superior, M. Acting on information received from Special Branch, M tasks Bond with infiltrating a smuggling ring running diamonds from mines in Sierra Leone to the United States. Bond must travel as far as possible down the pipeline to uncover those responsible. Using the identity of Peter Franks, a country house burglar turned diamond smuggler, he meets Tiffany Case, an attractive go-between who developed an antipathy towards men after being gang-raped as a teenager.
LALD- British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, to New York City to investigate "Mr. Big", real name Buonaparte Ignace Gallia, an agent of SMERSH and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in Harlem and Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the pirate Sir Henry Morgan.
TSWLM- the shortest and most sexually explicit of Fleming's novels, as well as a clear departure from previous Bond novels in that the story is told in the first person by a young Canadian woman, Vivienne Michel. Bond himself does not appear until two thirds of the way through the book. Fleming wrote a prologue to the novel giving Michel credit as a co-author.
P.S- By the way, what did you think of the Popov story?
Could you possibly furnish a link to this You Tube programme, @BeatlesSansEarMuffs?
I would be eternally grateful.
Hoover- "Are you trying to teach me my job???"
Popov- "I don't think anyone could teach you ANYTHING!"
Your last sentence was hilarious as well :))
1. In the finale at St. Cyrils, Gogol has the perfect opportunity to have his machine gun toting pilot blast a long standing thorn in the Soviet's side in Bond, and elects not to. Considering the Soviet intelligence apparatus was very much alive and well, and the term "détente" was so inappropriate considering the Soviets and the Western powers were in the middle of the "Second Cold War" with Reagan and Thatcher turning up the heat and making them both paranoid and uncomfortable to say the least, do you think this was a realistic response given the real life climate? Would have adding a shot of Colombo's armed men in the background given Gogol a better reason not to shoot Bond without a weapon in hand and only Melina and her crossbow as a defense? Or was it just a case of acknowledging a mutual respect between the two men and a way to continue Gogol's character in future movies?
2. The PTS featuring the return of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, obviously plotting a personal revenge on Bond for his current condition and past defeats, is one that's always been a point of discussion. I think everyone would acknowledge that this was EON's way to finish the character and stick it to Kevin McClory in a way that he couldn't do more than go crazy, because he knew he couldn't threaten nor launch yet another of his nuisance lawsuits. Despite the obvious references between the bald head, white cat, and Nehru jacket, there are still some fans out there who want to deny his all too obvious death here and want him to return because (a) if Bond was rebooted, why not Blofeld? and (b) Bond needs an archenemy supervillain to fight as he did in the classic era. Before this turns into a ?/QUANTUM vs Blofeld/SPECTRE discussion and the possibility of a "Blofeld revival", now is not the time and we'll discuss that when it's more appropriate during our revisit of "Quantum Of Solace". My question for the present is, was the death of Blofeld one you found to be satisfying and conclusive? I think most everyone would acknowledge this was far from certain during his prior appearance in DAF.
3. Bibi Dahl. Ahhh, now there is a name guaranteed to produce a near universal and eye rolling reaction from Bond fans. The question is, was her character necessary to the narrative, or included as a way to offset the more serious tone that was somewhat alien to the general public who by then had expected and welcomed the camp and cartoonish aspects of the Moore films?
I look forward to the responses!
1.
As Gogol said at the beginning of the film, "there will be no direct involvement" from the Russians. Therefore I think he wasn't prepared to incur the wrath of the West by killing one of it's top agents for an item they were't supposed to be interested in, thus increasing the likelihood of plunging the Cold War into a potential nuclear crisis.
Or at least that's my understanding of it.
2. Yes, as I was mostly disappointed to the conclusion of Blofeld in DAF (I'm still not sure whether he was meant to have been killed off or if it was supposed to be ambiguous in order to bring him for a future film). Given what I know now surrounding the whole McClory drama that had raged for decades, I think the way EON dealt with it in FYEO was pure class. And so yes, to answer the second part of the question. Blofeld IS dead. It was meant to be final and indeed it WAS final.
3. Was she necessary to the narrative? No she was not. I understand why her charcater exists though in order to bring some light relief (no pun intended) to proceedings. I don't think the character represents a problem for the film. Just the actress playing her!
It may not have been perfectly realistic, but it was very much appreciated by me; the movies are sometimes at their best when showing us OUR best.
2. was the death of Blofeld one you found to be satisfying and conclusive? No. All because of the stainless steel gag, GRRRRR....
3. Bibi Dahl. was her character necessary to the narrative[/quote]
No. She was there as a demographics ploy IMO. The movie would have been leaner & meaner without her.
@Willy- that's a very good alternative point. Well done mate!
1) Depends on if you're talking "Real World" or "Movie World" reasons. At the time the film came out, I thought your second rationale the likeliest one: a bit of battlefield respect to a worthy adversary, and an assurance that Gogol would be on hand again soon. @WillyGalore's rationale is also a good one.
2) Yes, I found Blofeld's death satisfying and conclusive...but I'd still LOVE to have somebody explain the "delicatessen in stainless steel" line to me. I recognize and appreciate the dig at McClory intended by this scene...but what the heck is up with that damned delicatessen?
3) I'd have said "No" before doing my recent FYEO review...but now I must reply in the affirmative. Bibi's character provides a perfect balance to Melina's, just as Kristatos and Columbo balance one another. She also gives the aging Moore a way to demonstrate that he's aging gracefully. The Brosnan Bond would have probably done the deed with Bibi, age discrepancy or no. The Moore Bond of FYEO is a more admirable character than had been the case in his past few movies precisely because he tries to advise Melina against her path of revenge...and because he offers to buy Bibi an ice cream.
As do private workouts with dirty old men wearing trench coats :))
That delicatessen line is surely out of left field and I never got that one either. Here's one I get even less- there's something about the way he says it that makes me laugh. My son too. I dunno...
X(
That's an interesting analysis. I used to think that Bibi Dahl ("Baby Doll") was a major reason FYEO was not quite Moore's very best Bond outing. But the more times I've seen this film, the less she annoys me. Bibi actually provides 007 with inside information about the KGB agent. Would it have been better without Bibi? Yes. But it looks like you found some justification for her existance.
It was easy enough to find. In the query box on the YouTube greeting page, I just typed: Dusko Popov, Real 007 -- and up it came. The specific link for the first segment is this:
As awesome a comeback as that is, I wonder if perhaps it's one of those "What I SHOULD have said was..." nuggets that most of us can only come up with in retrospect. If not, and Popov really DID say that to Hoover, then my MopTop is doffed even more than it was upon learning that when Popov finally retired from the espionage game due to his advancing age, he married a beautiful 19 year old and fathered several children by her! The interview segments with Popov's son were also quite enlightening. Well done indeed, Mr. Popov!