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Opening title design: The golden lady twisting as Shirley Bassey belts out that fantastic song is very provocative and memorable.
Direction: While these actors are all very good, I do think it's only fair to give director Guy Hamilton some of the credit for this as well. I can't think of a single Bond film directed by Guy Hamilton where all the performers didn't work well in their roles. That doesn't happen if you're not a director capable of getting the best out of your performers.
Script: The dialogue is great--some of it even taken directly from the novel. The only real issue I have with the screenplay is that after Goldfinger decides Bond is more use to him alive, we have no reason to believe Goldfinger is going to let anyone hurt Bond. From Bond getting tranquilized until Bond is cuffed to the nuclear bomb it really doesn't seem like Bond is in any danger from the villains whatsoever. Up until this point in the film I am genuinely excited because there's all this escalating one-upmanship between Bond & Goldfinger but then Goldfinger decides to keep Bond alive. This was true in the novel as well, but in the novel I still got the impression that Bond was in danger after that. That crucial element didn't make it to the screen for a significant portion of the movie in my opinion.
Cinematography: I really like some of the shots in the PTS--particularly some of the low angle shots of Bond that (when viewed on the big screen) give the impression that Bond is towering over the viewer. Shooting Bond from down low in the scene where Bond is laying the plastic explosive & in the scene right after he electrocutes the thug in the bathtub makes Bond larger than life --not a towering god than a man. The shot in Miami seemingly from the exterior of the window that shows Jill lounging in her chair in the hotel room is also very atylish & I like the way one shot tracks Connery from about mid height as the Bond theme fades in and he introduces himself as "Bond, James Bond" with a cool sort of detachment.
Music: John Barry delivers another rousing score for Goldfinger--making particularly good use of the Bond theme in the previously mentioned scene and Shirley Bassey's voice is sexy & soulful.
Editing: There was an unusually detached style to the action in one scene that was achieved through a combination of the cinematography & editing and was every thrilling to watch. The scene takes place in the PTS when Bond fires a piton gun over a wall. Rather than show Bond climbing the wall, the camera cuts to show th dig into the wall on the other side. Then the camera cuts away again to show a guard making his rounds. This creative use of the camera and editing gives the illusion that we the viewers traveled over the wall with the piton and now we're watching a guard from the other side of the wall. Suddenly a black-clad figure flies out of the night, tackles the guard, & takes him out. This is so much more exciting to watch than if we had watched Bond climb the wall in real time and I love it.
Costume Design: I just want to mention how cool Connery looks strolling into that bar in his bright white dinner jacket with red corsage. I think it's because he stands out so much in the room compared to what everyone else is wearing that we're drawn to Connery even more than usual.
Sets Ken Adams's work with Goldfinger's rumpus room is pretty memorable thanks to the pool table that descends into the floor but the real crowning achievement here is the massive Fort Knox set which leaves one feeling lost among all those big stacks of sparkling bars.
Thursday (review/final thoughts):
I don't have much to say in terms of a formal review that I haven't said before. Going through and examining each part of the film like this gave me a new appreciation for the performances in the film (an aspect I will definitely focus the majority of my attention on next time I watch this one because it's definitely one of the film's biggest strengths). The movie has several memorable scenes like the golf match with Goldfinger and Oddjob slicing off the statue's head with his bowler hat and it's a film that I always think back on very fondly for these great scenes. Maybe this is why I had the movie ranked so high at number 8 because it's so easy to remember the great parts later. Utimately though, despite the great earlier scenes I did finish this film this time through thinking the second half of the film didn't deliver on the promise of the first half. I had GF ranked too high IMO. Yes the film did a lot of things first and is influential but you always make a rough draft before a masterpiece so first doesn't always mean best. I can certainly understand why a lot of people love it and taste is always going to be subjective. There's no need for us to hold one another in contempt based on something as trivial as differing movie taste. My opinions hardly invalidate yours or vice versa. With all that said, I am extremely excited for another Connery Bond film tomorrow in "Thunderball".
One point that needs to be made regarding the script of Goldfinger, is that the changes made to the Fleming novel are subtle but substantial, and result in a far improved storyline in the film version. I encourage everyone to read the Fleming original, of course, but believe me: the film is even better than the book!
Oh, and re: the locations -- I never fail to be amused by Felix being parked outside a Colonel Sanders' Kentucky Fried Chicken location. This was filmed fairly early in KFC's existence, of course. I wonder how much the Colonel paid for the product placement ad?
I've just watched Thunderball and enjoyed it more than I have in years! Copious notes to decipher, and reproduce
Same here dear @Birdleson. Either my viewing of Thunderball is really great or distinctly ok. We shall see later tonight which one is it!
Film Elements
Direction-
While Terence Young’s absence is felt heavily in Goldfinger, new director Guy Hamilton did his part to leave a mark on the series. While Goldfinger isn’t as artful or meticulously assembled as the previous films, Hamilton made additions to the Bond series on the set of this movie that would remain forever.
It was Hamilton’s idea to make the pre-title sequence a bit of “nonsense” unrelated to the plot that would allow the audience to know what kind of feature they were in for by showing Sean Connery rising out of the water, rigging a plant to blow and removing his stealth gear to reveal an ivory dinner jacket. Everything about the imagery is exciting and completely unique to Bond, by design. Hamilton was counting on these images being timeless and identifiable to the character and burgeoning series.
When Desmond Llewelyn wanted to play Q as a character that had a respectful rapport with Bond, Hamilton was there to advise the actor that, since Bond had shown little respect to Q, the gadget man should be annoyed with how Bond runs through his labs and messes with his toys. This template and dynamic between Bond and Q remained for the entire run of Desmond’s time as Q, and existed even thereafter.
Each Young Bond film has endless stories of crazy stuff the director had to do to get his shots, and Hamilton’s big moment in his Bond debut has to involve shooting the sequence where Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus were spraying their gas. It’s thanks only to Cubby Broccoli’s friendship with Lt. Colonel Charles Russhon that Hamilton and his crew were allowed to go within 100 miles of Fort Knox, but complications were still to come. On the orders of the depository, the crew were only allowed to have their pilots fly above 3,000 feet, which didn’t give the team the ability to shoot some compelling shots if they were up that high and Fort Knox was out of sight. Hamilton called the situation “hopeless,” and against orders he had the pilots fly at 500 feet instead so that he could get truly cinematic shots on film, “and the military went absolutely ape.” A fun story, one for the campfire.
Under Hamilton’s watch we also got to see the DB5 showcased on the big screen, saw Sean at his most alluring, watched Gert Fröbe play a larger than life villain, witnessed Bond bargaining for his life strapped to a laser table and saw some of the best Bond girls in pure sex appeal slink around the sets.
Mission accomplished?
Opening title design-
To put it simply, this title design is just genius. Genius. The design strives to tell a story with images projected on the arousing curves of Margaret Nolan’s body, an idea used in From Russia with Love’s opening titles but made more artful here.
There’s an endless series of visuals that make this title design like no other in its brilliance. For starters, the titles are bookended by Goldfinger’s mug imposed on Nolan’s hands, where the man starts first as a stranger and ends as a now vilified figure of legend. As the sequence goes on we get amazing visual shots of Oddjob’s face imposed on Nolan’s. Then, the license plates below the front grill of the DB5 turn and turn while overlaid on top of Nolan’s lips, creating a bizarre but engrossing image. Later, a shot from the film’s golf scene is projected onto Nolan’s torso as we watch a ball being erotically putt from her straightened out arm into the hole that has been placed strategically where her breasts make their cleavage. The sequence finishes as explosions paint themselves along the back of Nolan as she succumbs and falls limp (possibly Goldfinger’s newest victim?) as her body, now planked horizontally, is followed by the camera from her head to her toes as flames project against it, a final haunting image as Bassey shrieks her last notes to end the titles.
Immaculate.
Script-
While it’s clear that Goldfinger lacks the predatory Bond of Dr. No or the intrigue of the spy plot in From Russia with Love, it’s greater focus on fun doesn’t hurt it too badly, though there are warts to it.
The plot itself makes Bond seem like the worst kind of ineffectual agent, as so many nasty things happen to him that make him seem rubbish at his job. He’s told by M to investigate Goldfinger, but he decides not to so he can sleep with Jill, who is killed out of anger by Oddjob after Bond gets knocked out. He makes Tilly and himself exposed at the Swiss plant and accidentally draws the girl into Oddjob’s line of fire. He’s captured, then escapes, then is captured again. He finds himself strapped to a table laser, somehow convinces Goldfinger to keep him alive, then is knocked out again. Then, when in Kentucky Bond escapes his cell but is captured not long after and put back in his cell again. He tries to put Felix on the scent of Goldfinger’s plot by planting the tracker and message on Mr. Solo, but the gangster ends up getting crushed and the attempt fails. He sleeps with Pussy to try and turn her to his side, but doesn’t know if his plan worked even on the day of the Fort Knox raid. Then, during the raid he is led to the dirty bomb and gets strapped to it, left to die. He can’t even shut the thing off himself, and needs to depend on another man to save him.
It can’t be an accident that the script is constantly making a case for why Bond is ineffectual in the face of Goldfinger, perhaps to better display the villain’s power and resources in order to make the film more tension-filled, leaving you to question if Bond can pull it off. For me, however, it more often than not makes Bond feel far too incapable. The Bond of Dr. No and From Russia with Love wouldn’t have made these kinds of mistakes. It would actually be interesting to research if this was the intention of Maibaum and his team all along, because it feels so obvious, like it’s a full-on theme of the movie throughout.
Bond has some good moments in the film, however, as minor as they are. He plays a game of gold and slyly wins to get a read on Auric’s character, tracking the villain’s car with the bug and getting Pussy on his side while also overhearing Goldfinger’s Fort Knox plan when under capture in Kentucky. Other than this, however, Bond is a man who things just happen to, a reactionary character instead of an action-oriented one. Because of this, the script doesn’t given Bond a lot of meat to play with, especially when he’s a glorified prisoner for half the film.
Where the rest of the script is concerned, there’s a lot of luck and suspension of disbelief required as questions add up. When the Fort Knox raid is going on, has Pussy told the girls that they aren’t killing the population of the area with lethal gas, or are they fully informed? I hope the latter, considering how happy they look in that sequence. Did Felix and the rest of the CIA contact the entire population within a 5-mile radius of Fort Knox to tell them to play dead? I ask this because we see random civilians “dead” at their wheels that are clearly not military personnel stationed in Fort Knox, who are the only ones who would actually know about the plan to play dead. Furthermore, the barn scene largely seems to have no ready effect on the plot, because Bond goes to the Fort Knox raid not knowing if Pussy is on his side or not, evidenced later on by how surprised he acts once the bomb is defused and Felix tells him she contacted him and Washington to inform them about Goldfinger’s scheme. With this in mind, then, Bond must’ve thought he actually witnessed the death of the soldiers early in the raid, yet we get no sense of danger from him throughout.
If Dr. No is a film about Bond being the lone man striking back at a mythic force and From Russia with Love is about him navigating a convoluted series of frail agreements between the gangs of Istanbul in order to retrieve a crucial decoder, Goldfinger is about innocent women dying badly with a Bond that is constantly stumbling and often causing their deaths. Whereas Goldfinger has the Midas touch, everything Bond touches seems to wither and die in this movie.
Cinematography-
Cinematographer Ted Moore returns for the third time in the Bond series.
I think Moore worked best when he got to really play with atmosphere in interesting locales that allowed him to experiment with the colors and shifts in light and shadow around him, perhaps best exemplified by his work on From Russia with Love. You could say this of any cinematographer, though, because when you have access to interesting locations and are allowed to play with color, light and shadow, a really strong set of images can be composed that look good beyond how you frame your shots in the camera’s picture box.
I think many factors contribute to why Goldfinger may not wow in the visual department compared to the previous two films. For one, so much of the movie is staged at Pinewood where there’s a lack of the kind of exciting location shooting that we got to see in almost all of Dr. No and From Russia with Love, where Moore and Young made the settings of those films feel like characters all their own. In Goldfinger we don’t get that outside of the fantastic Switzerland scenes, which are far and away Moore’s greatest captures here.
It’s when Moore is confined to stages that I think his work rightfully sours, and we see this in some of the bad rear projection work used in the beginning of the film during the Miami scenes which are there due to the principal actors being unable to be on location to shoot with the production team. Because of this, the heavy use of projection makes the film feel very hollow and rightfully artificial. These kinds of rear projections can be forgiven in Dr. No and From Russia with Love, because at the time with the lower budgets they were smart solutions to complicated problems like car chases, but in Goldfinger these projections are used more often because actors couldn’t be on location to shoot, an issue that could have been fixed. The fakery of the Pinewood sets show badly here, especially when restored to 1080p quality.
Though the heavy set shooting hampered Moore’s creativity while on Goldfinger, there’s a lot of fantastic stuff here worth applauding. We get to see the Moore of From Russia with Love return in the pre-title sequence where the DP replicates the atmosphere of Istanbul and the smoky, exotic surroundings of Latin America on a simple set, shooting the great image of Sean in his ivory dinner jacket.
As previously stated, the Switzerland sections of the film are legendary, and match up to the best of Moore’s work before and after this film. He gives a great sense of scale to the action, making the cars and Bond feel minuscule amidst the surroundings, exemplified best by how he and Hamilton chose to shoot the scene during which Tilly tries to shoot Goldfinger and nearly hits Bond. The camera rests behind Mallet’s head, and the barrel of her rifle acts as a visual line that directs the viewer’s eye down to the next hill, with Bond eavesdropping along it. Bond’s head leads it’s own line down to the far hill below his position, where Goldfinger’s car is parked. The shot creates a great moment of cinematic magic, where the actors and their props in the scene direct the eyes of the viewers subconsciously across the frame to take in the action in a diagonal fashion. On top of all this, Moore explodes the color of the green Swiss hills and the icy blues of the far away mountains for added visual punch, and the way he shoots the narrow, winding roads of the pass Bond is traveling on makes you think he could steer off the path to his death at any minute; there’s a feeling of danger that keeps the beauty of Switzerland company throughout the sequences. It is the travelogue sequence of Goldfinger that tricks you into thinking you’re actually in Switzerland with Bond, and may be my favorite part of the film for this reason as it is the most beautiful, immersive and technically artful section on display.
Where action is concerned, the shooting of the DB5 chase around Goldfinger’s facility are also masterfully done, a real improvement over Dr. No’s attempts at shooting a similar piece of action. While rear projection is still in use here to shoot Sean and Tania Mallet in the DB5 to give the illusion that they are really behind the wheel, much of the chase is done and shot for real, with many clever frames in between, including a great close-up of Goldfinger’s gunmen shooting into the camera as they give chase to Bond, very noir-esque.
There’s also a lot of great visuals that are strong in composition in Goldfinger that Moore and Hamilton brought alive. For one, I love that at the beginning of the movie Bond leaves Jill by saying he wants to have dinner with her later, then the next shot we get is a set table that appears to be a dinner table, giving you the expectation that you will next see Bond and the girl eating at a fancy restaurant. Instead, the camera pans away from the table as a bed is revealed and up we continue to the feet of Jill and Bond as they roll around, finding that they skipped the meal to have a frolic in the sheets. It’s a fun little moment that visually plays with your expectations of what you think you’re seeing or are going to see next.
Other honorable mentions go to the moment in the pre-title sequence where Bond sees Capungo coming from behind in the iris of his lover’s eye, and later on in the film when we get a close-up of Bond’s eyes appearing through the windows of Goldfinger’s Fort Knox model as the villain shares his plan with his benefactors. It’s also great how our first introduction to Pussy is through the camera’s blurred image as we as the audience simulate Bond’s wooziness as he wakes up from the tranquilizer dart that put him to sleep following his brush with the laser table.
Music-
Composer John Barry had already debuted as the main music man for From Russia with Love, but it’s with Goldfinger that he changed history forever and gave birth to what is now defined as the “Bond sound.”
The score for Goldfinger is an endless eargasm of brassy big orchestra sounds that are now synonymous with James Bond on the screen. Hearing the horns blasting with Barry’s orchestra working together like a finely oiled machine is something else, and the score almost produces an out-of-body experience for the listener.
When he’s not bringing action alive like no other Bond composer out there, Barry was also able to create terribly intense compositions that made you feel like Bond was going to face death around every corner. His choice to give Oddjob a theme made only of piercing chimes is genius to say the least, and every time you hear them ring you know what’s coming. Barry’s minor theme makes Oddjob feel like a proper horror villain, a monstrosity that can’t be killed. This in turn amps up how mysterious he feels as we are only introduced to his silhouette at the beginning of the film, and meet him in the flesh only when the chimes sound for a second time at the end of the golf sequence.
And then there’s Shirley Bassey singing “Goldfinger.” It really doesn’t get more iconic, and it’s the song that started the Bond tradition of a vocal tune playing over the opening titles. Barry’s brassy gives life to the voice of Bassey (see what I did there?), and the instruments and vocals make a perfect team better seen in few places. The lyrics are immaculate, building up the legend of this dreaded Goldfinger before we ever get to meet him (again, genius), and the way Bassey gradually wails and shouts the words in a higher pitch over time amps up the impact of the song as she feels like another of Auric’s victims.
It doesn’t get much better than this, folks.
Editing-
The cut-master himself Mr. Peter Hunt returns for a third go at editing a Bond film with Goldfinger.
Because so much of Goldfinger is focused on character moments where there’s not a lot of action to cut, Hunt more than makes up for it when the movie kicks into gear.
Hunt’s best work in the film is represented from the point where Bond and Tilly alert Goldfinger’s goons at the Swiss facility, all the way until Bond survives the laser table. Hunt’s classic method for speeding up the action and punching up the sound returns as shots of Sean driving madly flash against those of Goldfinger’s goons opening fire as tension is amped up. The best moment comes when Bond believes he’s about to have a head on collision, which Hunt edits with a heavy and repetitious switch to the flashing lights of a car in the distance as Barry’s music does its work. The tension only ends when Bond steers himself into a side wall to evade certain death.
One of Hunt’s greatest career edits comes next, when Bond is strapped to Goldfinger’s laser table. He makes nothing but a little light and some flames on a metal surface seem as tense as a shootout as he switches from shots of a petrified and sweating Sean to those of the glaring, burning hot laser as 007 bargains for his life. The fast cuts ramp up the tension alongside Barry’s score until a release is felt by Goldfinger’s order to kill the laser.
Costume Design-
In some ways, I can appreciate Goldfinger as a how-to style guide just as much as I can for it being a solid Bond film. Dr. No and From Russia with Love weren’t experimental in their costume design, instead putting Sean’s Bond through a small rotation of gray and grayer suits with white or light blue dress shirts in an effort to keep the ensembles timeless, always capped off with navy grenadine ties. It’s in Goldfinger that Bond’s fashion exploded, and we saw a fantastic variety of suits of all kinds and colors that changed the series forever and made this film alone a time capsule of timeless style.
To put it simply, everything in this film is pitch perfect fashion, and somehow just this one film contains not only the greatest suit in Bond history, but the greatest suit in cinema, in addition to all of Sean’s greatest Bond suits from the entirety of his era. Each suit is perfectly fitted to him, and he wears them like a second skin. He can even pull off that hideous terrycloth blue playsuit; the only man who could, probably.
When you think of all the great clothes Sean wears in this film, both formal and casual, it’s astounding. His formal wear, as seen in the form of his polo shirt and Slazenger jumper-with hat-from the golf scene is pitch perfect causal style that gives Bond an extraordinary appeal. From the end of the golf game through to the entirety of the daylight scenes in Switzerland Sean is seen next in a brown tweed jacket with slightly mismatched pants that manages to be an ensemble that is somewhere between formal and casual, and wholly timeless. This look is one that Daniel Craig recalls in Spectre as the ensemble he wears when he is taken to Blofeld’s Moroccan lair.
And then there’s the fully formal suits that are better than anything in Bond before or since. First there’s the ivory dinner jacket Sean helped to make an iconic part of Bond in its series debut here, which he follows up not much later with a finely crafted tuxedo that is a perfect partner to the one he introduced himself to the world in while shooting the Dr. No casino opening. In his briefing with M, Bond wears a brown Houndstooth check suit that he looks downright princely in. While speaking with Q about his gadgets, Bond switches to a blue Herringbone flannel suit that resembles the classic dark suit, dark tie attire that is synonymous with spies, but because it’s Sean Connery wearing it, a greater sense of distinction and sophistication is added to the look. This get-up closely resembles the dark brown Shadow Stripe suit Bond wears during the Fort Knox raid; even when facing certain death, Bond is dressed to the nines. After the Fort Knox raid is over and done with, Bond goes off to meet the president of the United States (or so he thinks) dressed in a fine charcoal flannel three-piece suit that is a top 5 suit for Connery’s era, easy, and that closes the film in style.
And then there’s the granddaddy of them all. The suit without equal in Bond or in the entirety of cinema. The suit that made me start praying to Anthony Sinclair as if he were a deity. The suit that defined and cemented Sean Connery as a sex symbol and fashion icon in one fell swoop. That’s right, folks, I can only be talking about the tropical-weight grey and white glen check suit with matching vest coat and pleated pants, finished off with a knitted navy silk tie that Bond wears in Kentucky. Or, as it’s otherwise known, “The Goldfinger suit.” We get introduced by pure surprise to this suit while Bond is on the plane to Goldfinger’s Kentucky ranch. We know he’s taking a suitcase into the restroom to change, but have no idea just what it is he’ll be wearing next. When he exits and we get a full look at the suit, you can feel the ripples its entrance creates in cinematic history. This is “the” Bond suit, the best of the entire franchise with no equals, and the greatest suit I have ever seen in cinema, period. It’s a great suit of fine tailoring and composition on its own that is deemed a sure-fire masterpiece when worn by Sean Connery. Everything about it, the pleats, the length of the vest, the light gray fabric, the simple white linen handkerchief; it’s all immaculate, and there isn’t one wrong stitch in the entire damn suit. This is when suits become pieces of art worthy of their own museums.
Out of all the Bond films, Goldfinger is the one that does fashion best, and contains more great suits in just two hours of its running time than some Bond actors got to wear in their entire tenure as James Bond. I would do anything to have Sean Connery’s Goldfinger wardrobe, and I don’t think we’ll see anything like these suits in Bond ever again.
Special mention must also go to the ensembles made for Fröbe’s Goldfinger, which are entirely rendered with the color palette of browns, yellows and pure golds, from his casual wear all the way up to his dinner jacket that glistens like a bar of the stuff from Fort Knox. Goldfinger’s style is perfectly fitting for a villain that loves all that shimmers, and the ensembles allowed Fröbe to slip even more into the character.
As Pussy Galore, Honor Blackman got a professional and classy ensemble that helped to paint the picture of her as an all-business kind of gal, up until the moment that she changes into the top she wears while romancing Bond and wrestling with him in the barn, revealing to the eye all of her not-so-hidden beauty.
Sets-
After sitting out From Russia with Love to design Dr. Strangelove, Ken Adam returns for his second go at Bond sets in Goldfinger.
At this early stage in his history with the franchise he was already producing pieces that would live on forever. Three major sets that are most representative of his genius are the laser table room, Goldfinger’s Kentucky planning room and of course, the Fort Knox set.
The laser table set is as successful as his Dr. No sets because, like the anteroom chamber of that film, Adam deftly plays with scale to make Bond appear miniscule in the face of the giant laser, which the designer rendered without making the device feel too sci-fi. The reflective paneling Adam used gives the room a shiny, golden look when lights are placed inside it, perfect for Goldfinger’s personality and the kind of torture room he’d have.
The Kentucky planning room set is perhaps as successful as it is because of how regular it appears to be on the surface. The set just looks like a nice lodging space that you could see yourself frequenting if you were going skiing and needed a place to stay. It has a warmth to it and a Kentucky feeling that is hard to place, evoked by the dark wood paneling that gives the structure a sense of American majesty. It doesn’t feel like a set built in England, it feels purely American, like it would be right at home on a Kentucky ranch, which doesn’t seem like it means a lot, but it really does. When the set is revealed to be more than just a nice lounge, it’s one of the coolest surprises in the franchise. Walls turn to reveal maps, the floor parts like the Red Sea to showcase the vast model of Fort Knox, and our awe at the sight of this matches that of the gangsters Goldfinger is surprising with these hidden items of the room.
And of course there’s the granddaddy of them all, the Fort Knox set, a space of great size and wonder (and logistical nightmares) that is a precursor to what may be Adam’s magnum opus in the volcano set of You Only Live Twice. Adam’s design was at first criticized for being too prison-like in its visuals, but Guy Hamilton gave it his stamp of approval, and it was brought to life. Adam always knew the right materials to use, and the metallic, shiny nature of the space matches perfectly with a film whose villain is attracted to the shine of such objects, and the gold inside the depository. If Goldfinger wasn’t bombing the place, you could imagine him wanting to buy it to make the place his new home, where he could look at the shimmer of the gold and metal paneling all day.
On producing the set, Adam himself had this to say:
"No one was allowed in Fort Knox but because [producer] Cubby Broccoli had some good connections and the Kennedys loved Ian Fleming's books I was allowed to fly over it once. It was quite frightening - they had machine guns on the roof. I was also allowed to drive around the perimeter but if you got out of the car there was a loudspeaker warning you to keep away. There was not a chance of going in it, and I was delighted because I knew from going to the Bank of England vaults that gold isn't stacked very high and it's all underwhelming. It gave me the chance to show the biggest gold repository in the world as I imagined it, with gold going up to heaven. I came up with this cathederal-type design. I had a big job to persuade Cubby and the director Guy Hamilton at first."
In the end, the prison look of the set worked immensely in its favor. You believe that only a hyper-guarded and heavily barred place like what we see could house all of America’s gold supply. Behind dozens of endless barred panels are stacked piles of gold that go on forever. Even out in the main floor of the set, where Bond defuses the bomb, there’s a lower level just below him that houses even more gold stacked on itself. The entire set has a suitable and fitting sense of shine and wonder to it, and the gold housed inside it seems infinite in supply.
During filming the set was deemed so real that EON even had to have a 24-hour guard stationed around it to prevent anyone from trying to steal the gold bar props used in its expansive space. In the end, Adam was more happy than not that he wasn’t allowed inside the real Fort Knox, because it allowed his imagination to blossom. "In the end I was pleased that I wasn't allowed into Fort Knox, because it allowed me to do whatever I wanted," the man once said.
Up to 0:45 into the movie DULL AS DISHWATER, visually unattractive
once in Nassau (0:45) the very best Sean Connery Bond hour begins up to 1:45 just before the lengthy underwater battle begins.
A shame, the first 45 minutes feel like it was done by a completely different director.
The underwater scenes, while technically brilliant, are sadly quite a bore.
Especially the final battle drags on way to long and is edited quite awfully.
To make matters worth the last 6 minutes of the movie mostly contain of sped-up scenes which is about as fun as dusting the bookshelves.
Having said this, it is still one of the 60s classics outside of Bond.
After the perfect DN-FRWL-GF though, TB falls quite flat on its nose.
Largo is a shadow of his predecessors Dr. No, Grant, Goldfinger. Not sure if it's the actor or the script, but Largo just doesn't cut it compared to what came before him.
Therefore my ranking is crystal clear:
1 GF 10/10
2 DN 10/10
3 FRWL 10/10
4 TB 6/10
In all truthfulness, these extensive write-ups are a bit daunting considering the amount of writing I'm currently having to do for uni (essays and reports for four different modules!). Coupled with the fact that this is my fourth consecutive Bondathon this year, I'm starting to feel the fatigue so my heart hasn't been in it. But after reading NicNac's post above, I think I'll still participate, but I think I'll just post in a more condensed fashion and to use these Bond viewings not to scrutinise/analyse but to help relax and unwind after a busy day. I'll stick on GOLDFINGER tonight and Thunderball tomorrow and I'll post my thoughts on both at the same time so as to disrupt the focus of the thread.
This thread is meant to be flexible to how you want to experience these Bond films, full stop. Some of us are doing comprehensive reviews/analyses because we haven't gotten this in-depth before (including myself), while others are doing less expansive posts because they have done bigger write-ups elsewhere and don't want to retread that ground or they don't have the time in their schedules or the energy to do that much writing.
We've all got personal schedules and things that we need to do outside the Bondathon, and that's fine. The thread is designed to be relaxed, where you can check out for a film or two if you need to, or play catch up even if we've moved past a particular film. The only rules here are to be respectful, and with the few people we've got consistently posting, that's not in danger of being broken. The key is to have fun and enjoy the experience of this communal, enlightening come-together we've got here.
Just watched Thunderball. Frankly I wasn’t keen on seeing it. I watched it last month and not enough time had passed, I thought. I was going to skip it. Yet, what’s a Bond-a-thon without seeing the whole bloody lot of the Bonds again? Plus my OCD wouldn’t allow me to skip Thunderball
I passed on Friday and Saturday – I wasn’t feeling it and it felt as if I was obligated to view Thunderball, as opposed to me wanting to watch it. So today – Sunday – I felt in that place. Unusually for me this was an afternoon viewing – I view films in the evening.
The last two viewings of Thunderball I complained about the concealing of the Vulcan. So it didn’t start of well – after a great fight between Bond and Bouvar there’s the jet pack gag and the Aston Martin underwater cannons. This isn’t a complaint garnered by my cynicism over several watches of Thunderball - when I first watched it when I was a wee lad, the jet pack seemed infantile and how heavy must the Aston be with all that water?
And then the Main Titles. Wow. After the Main Titles, I was hooked. Even the Vulcan concealment sequence and the climatic battle, which is my main issues with the film – I couldn’t believe they were over so quickly.
I’ve always struggled between over Thunderball – is it an overblown mess or a feast for the eyes? I’m going for the latter.
Royale’s Ranking -
1. From Russia With Love
2. Dr. No
3. Goldfinger
4. Thunderball
P.S. I have reviews from DN to AVTAK, on the reviews section of this site, if anyone is struggling to sleep, btw.
It's got the predatory Bond, half spy and half detective of Dr. No, and a plot with a massive conspiracy of great mystery and peril at the center of it a la From Russia with Love. Add in the fact that the plot involves a threat to drop nukes (!!!), sees a return of Felix and has all the classic Bond elements in better presentation than Goldfinger with action packed fights on ground and in the water all with a Barry score, and I don't know how this film is viewed lukewarm by some.
It's been a long time since I've seen it all the way through, maybe over two years, but I really look forward to visiting it again more than most others in this Bondathon. It's always been tied for second place with Dr. No in my ranking of the Connery era behind From Russia with Love, so we'll see which of the two feel more supreme tonight. I know I'll already like it more than Goldfinger.
One or two scenes are clumsy for other reasons. When Bond tells Pinder to contact London for provisions, we get the following exchange
Pinder: Anything else?"
Bond: Tell them Paula's dead.
Pinder: OK
OK? Is that all you have to say? (And by the way, Pinder doesn't even open his mouth when he says it).
Later on the boat Bond asks Domino who the funny little man with the glasses is (Kutze).
Erm James, it's the man you saw standing over Paula's dead body proclaiming her to be dead. The same man James.
Yet, it is effortlessly glamorous, lovingly photographed and Connery..well, I'm afraid I have run out of superlatives to describe Sean Connery as Bond.
So comfortable is Connery in the role that when he responds to Pam's line "Haven't you had enough exercise for one night?" with "Funny you should say that" you just have to laugh out loud and maybe even punch the air and offer a muted WHOOP. He has become irresistible to all women, and it's so easy to see why.
The women are top notch here. Fiona, Pam, Paula and Domino are possibly the most perfect collection of Bond ladies ever to gather in one Bond film.
In each case the actresses give functional performances, with only Fiona (the villain) standing out for sheer screen presence.
Adolpho Celi fails to bring the same charisma to the screen as Gert Frobe in Goldfinger. He's a tough mother though, barely noticing when one of his Spectre colleagues is fried across the table to him, while everyone else there dabs the sweat from their brows.
We get the usual wonderful scenes between Bond, M and Moneypenny ("And I would thank you not to refer to me as the old man" ), expertly played by one and all.
Another new Leiter -the wonderfully named Rick Van Nutter - and he's more like the all American CIA playboy we got with Jack Lord, rather than the avuncular Cec Linder.
The sex scenes have been ramped up, with Bond stepping dangerously close to the line, as he forces himself on to Pam. The scenes with Fiona should come with a parental warning sticker.
He even threatens to put Moneypenny across his knee! I mean Miss Moneypenny? You don't speak like that to her do you?
Well, you do when you are James Bond, and what's more, she loved it.
Who else?
Count Lippe who seems to survive 3rd degree burns after Bond locks him in a small steamer. He looks perfectly fine in his next scene, before Fiona shows Bond how to do it properly and blows him in to the middle of next week.
It isn't as exciting a cast as the last 2 films, but it works ok for all that, and Connery carries it along with aplomb.
To begin with, the jump-cuts that worked so well for Dr. No and the other films so far, are just a little too jumpy here. Additionally, the speeding up of the above-water fight scenes don't increase the tension for me -- rather, they draw attention to themselves. The timeline for the whole story doesn't really work for me, truth be told. Bond & Leiter have just a few days to find the bombs, and yet they spend a lot of time messing around at irrelevant locales like the Junkanoo -- why? So that Paula can be left alone, kidnapped, and need to take her cyanide pill. I get the feeling that Paula and Fiona both were added to the original storyline so there could be more gorgeous women in the film than are in the novel. Fiona works well with the existing plot but Paula is kind of extraneous. That's why she dies without having much impact on the proceedings. I also wonder exactly what impact Executive Producer Kevin McClory had on the film under discussion. Shrublands isn't really the sort of place Ian Fleming would have normally put Bond into; Fleming tended to write what he knew and a healthy lifestyle wasn't exactly his strong suit. Its' extended presence in both TB and Never Say Never Again leads me to believe that Shrublands is more McClory's idea than it is Fleming's. The jet pack is a terrible disappointment; a film's signature gadget should be integral to that film's action. The briefcase was, so was the Aston Martin. The jet pack is there for about 30 seconds in the PTS and then jettisoned.
But still, all things considered, TB is a rollicking good time and that's what we're looking for in a Bond film, isn't it? My score at this point is:
1) Goldfinger
2) From Russia With Love
3) Dr. No
4) Thunderball
They may be now but I suspect once George & Roger get added to the mix there'll be some divergence. We'll see!
Current ranking:
1. FRWL
2. DN
3. TB
4. GF
1. GF
2. FRWL
3. DN
4. TB
Previous ranking:
1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. On Her Majestys Secret Service
3. Casino Royale
4. From Russia With Love
5. Skyfall
6. Goldfinger
7. Octopussy
8. Spectre
9. Dr No
10. The Living Daylights
11. Goldeneye
12. Live And Let Die
13. Licence To Kill
14. A View To A Kill
15. For Your Eyes Only
16. Moonraker
17. Thunderball
18. Quantum Of Solace
19. Diamonds Are Forever
20. Tomorrow Never Dies
21. You Only Live Twice
22. The Man With The Golden Gun
23. Die Another Day
24. The World Is Not Enough
Bond and actor performance
Connery is once again excellent as Bond, although I do feel that, after 4 movies on 4 years, he’s almost going through the motions. Almost like he doesn’t give it a second thought and it comes very natural to him. As confident as ever.
Bond girl/s and performance
Is this the best, most beautiful, line up of Bond girls in the series? It would be hard for Bond fans to argue it, I think. First up, one of the two naughtiest girls in Bond movies, Molly Peters as Pat Fearing. A beautiful woman with a very playful and naughty side, “I can see there’s only one place for you” before tying him to the traction table, he groans as 007 rubs her back with the mink glove etc. A playful Bond girl and one of the best of the minor women in the series.
Paula Caplan – another beautiful woman but used in an odd way, the doomed assistant. I like Martine Beswick but felt she was there just to be killed off as part of the plot. The weakest of the four in the movie.
Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe (or should that be Voluptuous). One of the best femme fatale’s in the Bond movies, if not the best. A stunner. Paluzzi is brilliant in bringing this character to life. The second of the naughty girls in the series, it’s a surprise 007 had any energy left to carry on with his mission after handling this one. She had some great lines within the movie too. A brilliant character worthy of any Bond movie.
Finally, we have the beautiful Claudine Auger as Domino Derval, the mistress of Emilio Largo. Great character, although I did feel she was a little bland to begin with, but grew as the movie went on. To me, she initially comes across as a nice and quiet, with “kept woman” all over her but, when she finds out that Largo has had her brother killed we see quite a change in her and she wants revenge; I really like this about her. For example, when Largo finds out she is working with Bond against him and he grabs her by the hair, she has a tough look on her face that, to me, suggests that he can’t control or hurt her anymore. She becomes a fighter, and her killing of Largo completes a bit of a journey for her in the movie.
Bond henchman and performance
Vargas – For me he’s a bit pointless (no pun intended) as he doesn’t seem to do anything. Where’s the fight with 007? Nothing. A dull henchman.
Bond villain/s and performance
Adolfo Celi brings us Emilio Largo, number 2 in the SPECTRE organisation. A good character, far removed from the villain we saw in the previous movie. He’s SPECTRE through and through (the kiss of his ring certainly proves that) and there is nothing, apart from 007, who can stop him in his mission. A very ruthless character who thinks nothing of disposing of those who fail their objectives, or disposing of them for the greater good (Quist thrown to the sharks; the closing of the pool when Bond is fighting one of his men). This point also proved in the SPECTRE meeting room when one of his colleagues is sent packing; apart from a quick glance he barely notices and carries on making his own notes. Tough and no nonsense. However, while I say all this, I wouldn’t say he is one of the best villains in the series as he doesn’t have the character that some have, although that probably has something to do with the points I have mentioned. He isn’t one of the character remembered by non-Bond fans when I’ve had discussions in the past about this movie.
Supporting cast performances (M, Moneypenny, Q, allies, minor characters etc.)
Bernard Lee is, again, brilliant as M. A couple of things of note; don’t refer to him as the old man as he’ll have you stand there like naughty school children in the headmasters office and the scene that, apart from 007, has Leonard Sachs’ Group Captain be told “If 007 says he saw Derval last night and he was dead...that's enough for me to initiate inquiries.” With a reply of “Yes, of course”. Such authority he brings to the role, brilliant.
Q – Desmond Llewellyn is his usual brilliant self, bring down Bond as he talks of his new gadgets.
Moneypenny – Lois Maxwell is he lovable self once again and, as mentioned above, I love the scene where she calls M, the old man, only to be shot down as if told by the headmaster. Have to admit, I always wondered about the “On yoghurt and lemon juice?” line (after Bond tells her he’ll put her across his knee), until I realised that it’s because he’s at Shrublands and whether he’ll have the energy with the food he’s eating. At least I think that seems correct but it’s taken me until last night to work it out.
Rick Van Nutter (great name) is ok as, another new, Felix Leiter. A little wooden at times but certainly better that the Leiter we had in GF.
I do love how she straightens her dress to answer the door, and checks her make up in the mirror. Very natural for a woman to do that, and I imagine Martine Beswick adding that herself.
On the down side, why would Bond be given a gorgeous assistant when he is trying to make contact with Domino? Would the latter not assume Bond had a partner (ie Paula) and lose interest rapidly?
There is little to be gained from giving out the impression that Bond is already taken. Why didn't Domino question who the dark haired beauty was? And later, why didn't she seem to notice that Paula was no longer around?
Every time I see Thunderball, I’m blown away by Sean Connery’s subtly nuancedTM performance.
It is difficult to choose between his first four portrayals. He brings such depth to his performance, it’s easy not to notice, how much characterization he displays. If anyone either picked DN, FRWL, GF or TB as his definitive performance, I wouldn’t disagree.
@Birdleson was quite right in saying that Connery’s performance gets less intense as he moves through the first four films. But that is balanced out by his sheer calmness and assertiveness.
In DN Connery was more of a Fleming’s Bond, with a little cinematic 007 throw in - namely a combination of humour and machismo. He’s still a rough diamond, yet conversely that’s ideal for Fleming's “cold instrument” - i.e. a bit of a prick. (Fleming said that Bond should never be particularly likeable.)
From Russia With Love - I would choose this as Connery's best: for me Connery may well have delivered the greatest Bondian performance; suave, professional, poised, authoritative, decisive, charming, virile and ruthless. The novel and the cinematic Bond are two different animals, thus why I went for FRWL, because it represents the ideal balance, between the literary Bond and the cinematic Bond.
By the time we move onto Goldfinger, Connery has the movie Bond down pat, but there is still an awful lot of Fleming's Bond in the mix; his cold fury after Jill’s death or “discipline 007” - Fleming's Bond liked a girl in a fast car.
It’s more of the same, even more so methinks, in Thunderball. The blending of the movie Bond and the literary Bond is just superb. Connery is just on top of his game here. Playing with Fiona, for example. There’s much more humour in Connery's reactions - “Well you can’t win them all” or giving Fiona her heels to wear when she gets out of the bath. Just priceless. I could watch Connery do anything. Going shopping in Aldi. (Which is why I don’t have a problem when Bond is visiting Shrublands. It’s a nice break for the audience to see Bond on his day off for a change).
In Thunderball we are treated to Connery’s virile and uber cool portrayal. The way Bond deals with Largo at the chemin de fer table. Connery is so bollockly aching cool in that sequence. Yet, Bond is trying to provoke Largo. How civilized, two men trying to bluff one another over the baccarat table! Lovely stuff.
There are issues with Thunderball, but Sean Connery’s performance isn't one of them. Like Craig in Spectre. Both of those two performances raise the respective films up quite considerably.
Just a brief mention of the MI6 regulars; M telling off Moneypenny and Bond’s reaction to it; Bond gently teasing Q “on the run in the field”; Bond’s “I resent that remark” to Q’s flare description and M backing up Bond - “if 007 said he saw Derval dead..” and “if 007..” before being cut down by the Foreign Secretary. The same attention to detail – little character moments - is present in TB as was the case to DN, FRWL and GF. Making these four movies something else. Only OHMSS does this as well, and defines the 60’s films.
Writing this up has made me want to see Thunderball again!
It isn't a perfect film to the level of a From Russia with Love, but boy does it play like a best hits album of Young's Bond, the definite take on the character. After Goldfinger brought us a Bond that really felt too static and reactionary, in Thunderball the reigns are back in Young's hands and the more serious and tense portrayal of Bond returns. This is the man we've seen develop from Dr. No and From Russia with Love, and nothing less.
While I think the first two films of the series pose great competition to this one because of their great atmosphere and performances, from Connery most of all, Thunderball matches their mark more than Goldfinger could ever hope to. Sean has matured into the role, and is as devil may care and scheming as ever, setting off villains, bugging his rooms to counter-attack any foes, and being as much a detective as he is a spy once again.
In the larger context of the film, Thunderball earns greater respect from me than most films in the series, simply because of all that the team was against. All the locations that had to be scouted, all the permits they no doubt required for water shooting, how heavily they had to choreograph and film the underwater sequences with sharks circling the dozens of actors, all the boats they had to purchase or build for models to simulate the action, and on and on and on, all in a day where they lacked the technology and tricks of today's CGI. A logistical nightmare that looks so effortless when we see it on the screen.
Some call this film boring, but I see it as a return to the Cold War spy drama of From Russia with Love mixed with the exotic feeling of Dr. No's Jamaica. It's the perfect amalgam of Young's first two, making it a fitting final film for him. While some say Sean is progressively more bored in each film, here I see a cool man being even cooler, continuing to give an effortless performance that deceptively makes it look so easy. Whereas some see Largo as a limp return following Goldfinger, I see a sadistic, creepy, abusive and ego-hurt man that is tantalizing to watch as he breaks down in the face of Bond's superior skills and cunning. When people look at the underwater sequences and begin to snore, I marvel at how operatic and "epic" it feels to watch Bond's fellow soldiers jump out of planes, parachuting into the sea, where they do battle with knives and torpedoes with an equal opposing force, wrestling for supremacy and to stop nuclear destruction. The chaos of all the actors, of all the moving pieces of the scene and the consequences that could've arose if things went south takes me aback every time, and it's truly the greatest underwater shooting I've seen in a film, before or since, even over 50 years on.
Add to that some all-time great moments for the series, including the Bouvar fight, the SPECTRE meeting, the MI6 briefing, Bond and Largo's face off at the card table, the Palmyra shoot-out, Bond and Fiona's mutual seduction in the hotel, Bond's near death and strategic murder of Fiona in the club, and the ending battle for the control of the nukes, and you've got a special Bond film. In fact, aside from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, for me it's the last Bond film to truly feel like a Bond film as it was birthed in 1962, until Timothy Dalton's films came to screens and we got a brief taste of what we'd lost.
It's got its warts, as all Bonds do to varying degrees, but the ambition of this film, Young's logistical finesse for making the difficulties of the production come together, the talent of Adam, Barry, Lamont, Maibaum, Hunt, Moore and co. for being able to use their separate skills to come together as a unit, and the great mix of the best elements of Bond this film has that still kept the feeling of Fleming's spy thrillers alive has to be applauded.
The only issue for me is deciding what should rank higher, Dr. No or Thunderball? I think in the face of Thunderball, in its ambitions, what it strives to be and all that it does successfully to paint the picture of a spy thriller in tune with what Young really excelled at, with how much time we get to spend with the villains and get a sense of them as in From Russia with Love, of how much danger and fatality the film presents in the face of a nuclear crisis, and in its use of all the best Bond elements while honing them with no funny business, I've got to rank it thusly:
Bondathon Ranking (2016-2017)
1.) From Russia With Love
2.) Thunderball
3.) Dr. No
4.) Goldfinger
More on all this later...
The first four Bond films do have a level of specialness that few of the others can match.
Finally, we get to see Sean Connery in the gun barrel opening. This is great, from the music to Connery’s turn and shot. He looks so much better than Simmons in this, confident walk, the quick turn and drop to the knee. Excellent.
PTS
This is a great pts, with a super fight between Bond and Colonel Bouvar; a very hard fight. Love the little touch of Bond throwing the flowers over Bouvars’ body after getting the better of him. And after that, of course, we get the infamous jetpack part of the pts, where we see Bonds’ escape. Very good.
Locations
Great locations in this movie, in particular the Bahamas. Look stunning and in a similar vein to how Jamaica was made to look in DN, but even better.
Gadgets
Gadgets galore in this movie, and not just for 007. With the wonderful Aston Martin, the jetpack, watch/Geiger counter (a decent upgrade from DN), camera with Geiger counter, the tape recorder in the dictionary, the rebreather and the radioactive homing pill, Bond certainly has enough for any active spy and, while there is an abundance of gadgets, they all have their use during the movie. Very clever.
But it’s not just 007 that has gadgets, how about Number 1’s control panel, Largo’s cigarette case remote control, Fiona’s motorbike torpedo and the brilliant tapestry map used in the briefing scene.
There are just so many gadgets on show here. It could be said that there is too much gadget on show but I don’t think that it hinders the movie greatly.
Action
The action is there, the great fight in the pts vs Colonel Bouvar is very good and the underwater battle looks brilliant. It’s been said that it goes on a little long, and I’ve been guilty of that myself, but in this viewing it didn’t feel like that at all.
Humour
Again, the humour is great and mainly because of Connery’s one-liners he’s given. Always make me chuckle.
Plot plausibility
I’ve said before that credible plots are few and far between in Bond movies but, in TB, this feels different as the theft of nuclear weapons could be a very real danger in today’s world.
Villain’s scheme
Steal nuclear weapons and ask for ransom. Simple enough and in typical SPECTRE fashion. Largo will stop at nothing to get what he, or rather SPECTRE, wants.
The gun barrel is Connery at last. Best so far for that reason.
The PTS looks wonderful. Gorgeous locations, fast pace, a clearly beautiful woman who turns into a weather beaten man, plus the jet pack and as Bond says 'no well dressed man should be without one'. And Jacques Bouvier effectively pulls off a trick (feigning death to escape his enemies ) which Bond blatantly copies in his next assignment.
It's immediately noticeable that the explosive sound effects have been upped a little for this film. A punch sounds more like they used a baseball bat.
And the significance of the water spray from the Aston Martin to close the PTS isn't lost on us.
The action in Thunderball is a curious affair. By the time of Goldfinger we had action set pieces which became the staple of the series. In this film the action is less obvious, more integral to the film. Often the action is simply Bond moving quietly around, but it all feels very exciting due to John Barry's sublime music score which rips through the film. At times it feels like the film doesn't deserve such a magnificent score.
The climatic underwater battle must have been a logistical nightmare. Yet for all the obvious pitfalls it comes together quite well, driven along, as already mentioned by John Barry's score.
The film bristles with witty banter. Bond insists on taunting Largo mercilessly at every opportunity.
(lining up a clay pigeon) "It looks terribly difficult....(shooting from the hip) no it isn't is it?!"
But then Largo taunts Vargos in a cruel and unnecessary manner. Vargos is his most loyal aid, but Largo clearly feels no need to reciprocate that loyalty. Everyone has a patsy in this film.
The plot relies a lot on an almost Dickensian need for coincidence. Bond always seems to be in the right place at the right time, especially at Shrublands. But then I have never minded Bond films playing fast and loose with plausibility. If anything it's part of their charm.
The film is half an hour old before the first uncomfortable feeling of clock watching comes in. The theft of the bombs takes 10 minutes of screen time. It really could have been trimmed, but it is what it is.
And of course we have the issue of Leiter's first scenes showing out of sequence.
All in all though, as I said before Thunderball is so effortlessly glamorous, Connery is so at the top of his game, the women are so spectacularly beautiful, the sex is so hot, the music so cool, the dialogue so funny that really, at the end of the day, I can simply forgive Thunderball anything.
Bob Simmons must be a shapeshifter.
Yes hah. You can see the woman under the veil on a few occasions.
It is to those who question the size of the Aston's water tank! It's called movie magic, people
Personally I like the segue into the main titles, not sure if it has any more significance than that, other than the water theme