It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
The clause in Connery s contract only referred to his own shooting schedule.
I am not sure about this, but I seem to recall that the special edition DVD contained a quote from someone that they hoped to win an Oscar for it.
Or at least that they thought those special effects were revolutionary.
Haha really? For DAD? Just goes to show you can never trust anyone on the crew of a film. Something to keep in mind while waiting for NTTD.
It just takes me out of the film, however fantastic Barry's score is....
Let's not forget Tiffany's wig.
I dont mind Tiffany being a bimbo.Its funny and it is a Bond movie from the early 70s.
Agree with this. I can understand many fans' frustrations with DAF's production. There were all kinds of mistakes in the early films that still made it in. It seemed they were often rushed to meet a premiere deadline and they figured audiences wouldn't be that concerned. You'd think the critics at the time would've pointed out these flaws but I can't recall any original reviews noting these things. But it also kind of adds to the charm.
And that's where I do have a bigger problem with the newer films, like the DAD example. Viewers are more trained to notice the flaws and that puts greater pressure on the filmmakers to meet those challenges and when they don't meet that it seems to mean more. I think of the perfectly-timed subway crash in SF and Bond simply shooting down Blofeld's copter with the Walther in SP as taking me out of those films compared with the earlier ones. And it's not just those, but other problems I can pick through in those.
Film makers were aware of this, and therefore their primary aim was to make a film that people could thoroughly enjoy in just one viewing.
Even if an individual member of the audience noticed a continuity error or a plot hole in a movie, how would they make other people aware if it? There’s no social media back in the 70s. They could publish a letter in a film magazine, but then again how many people actually read film magazines?
Very different world today.
It just doesn't make sense. How would a seasoned smuggler turn from tough girl to bimbo? Bimbo's a plenty in 70ies Bond films, but none as transformative as Tiffany.
On the mistakes: I also am more forgiving to older films. And I've stated before if they'd not put that strange one-side-to-the-other shot in there, nobody would've complained the car came out on the wrong side. But instead of letting it be, they point and shout: look, we made a mistake!
Same goes for the buggy wheel. Why leave it in? It's not even a second of film that really adds nothing to the story. Its not like the chase and fight make much sense anyway. And that's how sloppy it was made.
DAD wasn't sloppy, it just had a director who was losing his mind. The shooting down of the chopper and the subway train are just bad storytelling. It'ss lazy writing. DAF suffered from faulty editing.
I think you can find things that dont make sense in ANY Bond film if you look hard enough.Besides,Tiffany never came across to me as particularly tough,shes got attitude sure,but we never got the impression she was used to being adept at hand to hand combat or anything.Shes a smuggler and experienced in that field but when the rough stuff happens like Bond killing Franks,shes clearly so shocked that you believe shes been in very little ( If any ) life or death situations.
And hey,i bet im not the only one who enjoyed seeing her in that bikini!
hahahaha fair enough. Still, it's far off from a carry-on movie as she ended up playing on the rig. But perhaps that's just the whole scene there: carry-on Bonding with Barry music.
Thanks. I agree with your comments.
I will go as far as to say that Bond shooting down a helicopter at a distance of half a mile with a 9mm handgun in SP is the most ludicrous moment in any Bond film - including him going into space, a pigeon double taking, and the same wine drinking holiday maker just happening to be in the same place as Bond's mission three times in a row.
In the case of DAF, the only reason I give it any credit is that it is clearly a comedy, and not an action thriller in the mould of its predecessor and most of what came after. It might be the only out and out comedy of the entire series. And it IS a funny film. So it sort of succeeds according to its own criteria. For that reason only, I don't have an issue with its mistakes or continuity issues.
We almost had a American Bond production made at Universal Studios in LA so count your blessings everyone. That would have been the nadir and tv movie Bond that so many accuse DAF of being I think. On the other hand I think Gavin would have been passable as Bond but it would have felt weird in a Hollywood production.
DAF can be considered a slight experiment in some ways or a stretching of the legs for the series. LALD goes in the other direction by being a straight down the line nonstop action film with a lot of DN elements and then TMWTGG sort of blends the two but never got to be fully polished in the writing due to the rush to get it to theaters for UA.
We almost had a American Bond production made at Universal Studios in LA so count your blessings everyone. That would have been the nadir and tv movie Bond that so many accuse DAF of being I think. On the other hand I think Gavin would have been passable as Bond but it would have felt weird in a Hollywood production.
[/quote]
Not calling you out, but I've seen this claim about Universal Studios being the base for DAF's production here multiple times now and had never heard that from any other source before. Was there an article or book where this was claimed previously? I know they were going for a more American-feel but it just seems abrupt, although understandable given Vegas was the primary location.
1. Cubby said to reporters that he had a dream of Bond in the desert in his white tux...hence a scene to make that happen. Such inspiration can be marvelous, and I'll admit I like the entire sequence -- even though it falls into the category of "why not just kill him ?" I remember reading this account before the film's release.
2. For a while it was planned to bring back Gert Frobe, as Auric Goldfinger's brother, as the villain. Apparently there is a "regatta" of sorts they'd heard about, where the big casinos sponsor a boat. They'd have used it in the finale. (This I'd not read until years and years later.) They switched to bringing back Blofeld along with bringing back Connery -- a much better idea, but for confusing the audience by employing the same actor who had appeared in Connery's prior Bond film, but as an ally. Other than that -- they seemed to know they were going for a campy Bond film, and he was great for a campy Blofeld. You might watch his performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
3. For those too young to know -- in real life at that time, Howard Hughes was notorious for having "gone weird" and holed himself up in a penthouse in one of his Vegas casinos. Hence: Willard White (repeating initials), in a penthouse (though it was Blofeld). The biography of Hughes with Leonardo D in the title role, by Martin Scorcese, barely touched upon Hughes' pecadillos -- to be quite understated in describing his change in behavior. It got much weirder over time. For those who have visited the Acapulco Princess in Mexico, with its Mayan pyramid shape, that was Hughes' last refuge and it took a lot for "his people" to get him to leave and fly to the US for an attempt at medical care at the very end of his life. A bit more -- or "Moore" ? -- the actress Terry Moore, best known for roles played in the 1950s (but also including a film in 1968, A Man Called Dagger, one of the less-well-funded Bond-craze copycats, which also starred Sue Ann Langdon, who appeared with Sean Connery in A Fine Madness in 1966, and had appeared in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in 1964, a show which Fleming helped sketch out, certainly the character of Napoleon Solo), claimed to have married Howard Hughes in 1949 at sea, and that, though they did not live together, they never divorced. She married other persons afterward, and Texas courts rejected her claim after Hughes died. Still, Hughes' heirs acknowledged her long-time relationship with HH and financially settled with her. She posed nude in Playboy in August 1984, and was featured on the cover at the age of 55 -- and looked lovely, though they used a lot of soft focus. Whew. Apologies for chasing tandem items, but it provides a more complete context.
The truest line in DAF.
Going back to this, I also include Bloodstone and Goldeneye Reloaded in canon with DC's timeline. Once again they both bring some things full circle. Namely, Blofeld's arguable impeded connection to Nicole Hunter, and making Bond more of a veteran agent in Skyfall.
Also, I do consider Everything or Nothing as canon, as it felt like a true Bond adventure, and had connections to earlier films (TSWLM, MR AVTAK and DAD), and it did send PB on a high note. Plus, it's storyline was on par with GE as the best of PB's era. I liked the more emphasis on the villain's part, adds more depth, with Nikolai Diavolo's revenge being on par with Alec Treveylan as most reasonable.
Obviously I didn't live through the times, but was OHMSS really that much of a let-down, or was that mainly because of Lazenby basically undermining the promotion by leaving before the film was released in the first place?
I do like the WW/HH reference, my main gripe with the film is its' sloppyness. Too many things happen for no apparent reason, and that's ok as long as it all comes together again, but because of the silliness, you never know if it was intent or just clumsyness. What is that wheel doing bouncing around? Was that on purpose? Could well be, as Blofeld's a villain-in-drag not too long after. Why focus so much attention on the alley? Nobody cares if the car purns out the other way, or if there are too many people on the street in the background, it's Vegas anyway. So why the carry-on-driving switch clip inserted? How come Killers don't kill, but leave Bond in a pipe, even though not long before it was merely secods or he'd been burned alive? The film bounces around.
would love to learn more about HH though, is there a good biography somewhere?
I think that Lazenby jumping ship hurt a lot, though for some fans who did not keep up with such things, the simple fact that it was not Connery was the significant downer. There was more enthusiasm for Moore while LALD was in production and when it was released. I think the producers and studio made relatively little effort for OHMSS since Lazenby was not sticking around. Moore was quite enthusiastic for the role, and visibly so. Several positives, as well: the record-setting boat jump, which I recall hearing about even in pre-internet days, before release; Paul McCartney and Wings performing the title song, and it was quite a good one. As for the sloppiness, a few observations: people I knew and I all regarded the tire bouncing off the moon buggy which somehow still is fully-equipped a moment later saw it as an error which the film-makers simply did not bother to fix by re-filming it. Sometimes these things are not noticed on-set and by the time they realize it, they choose not to go back to it. I thought the same of the Mustang coming out on the wrong two wheels -- when I read years later that they considered the crowd too distracting I regarded the reasoning as silly. As you note: Vegas is full of people. Then again -- I've not seen the footage. I remember, though, that when Bond and Tiffany lean the other way it was curious. Why would they do that ? It certainly does not explain the car coming out the other way -- that just won't work, and, even if it did, you'd need the alley to be wider, but it was not ! As for killers going to some ingenious lengths to kill our hero in a complicated manner, well, that was rather common, actually. For example, in LALD -- no one bothers to wait but a few minutes to ensure Bond was killed by the alligators ! For years, these things did not seem to trouble most, since, it seemed: It's a Bond film, just for fun; they didn't have unlimited budgets. They're more well-funded now, but it seems that these days their problem is in getting a well-considered script done in time for the commencement of filming, much less well in advance. In this manner, despite the big budget, they wind up with dumb moments which are noticeable and interrupt the viewer's suspension of disbelief -- such as shooting down a moving helicopter from a moving boat with but a handgun in SP, even though that boat could have contained significant arms with a mere slight set-up in the script. In that regard, SP was quite a return to "the old days" since back in "the old days" they had dumb and easily avoidable goofs then, too: witness the "stirred, not shaken" line in YOLT, as inexplicable an error as any in all the films !
So if we accept Everything Or Nothing as canon,i wonder what made Jaws go back to his old job of killing people for a living? ( Did things not work out with Dolly? )
She probably got killed on impact on her way back to earth.
This can be debated in a lot of ways. I think Lazenby was destined to be a letdown on the basis he wasn't Connery. Not sure how much his not doing promotion had on the film. I guess it would've helped for audiences to know the guy since he wasn't a known face, a distinct advantage Moore had. Then again, there weren't that many outlets back then for interviews as there are today. Connery didn't have to do that circuit, he was Connery and sold it on his name alone.
But, and I've asked this before, did that many people know Lazenby wasn't going to be Bond again with no Internet, cable entertainment outlets, Entertainment Tonight and the like? I think the times played into it as much as anything. The spy craze was dying out when YOLT was new and movies were changing and Bond was becoming a casualty of it all. It seems a bit like what would occur 20 years later when LTK underwhelmed audiences in favor of other things but responded a few years later.
While now we can't believe Lazenby listening to his advisor's claim Bond was passé, I can actually see what he meant at the time.
I guess by '71 that the great memories of Connery caused people to see him and want to continue watching Bond as nostalgia was a comforting thing in those turbulent times.
Besides, a novel having weird structures isn't an issue EON can't handle. By the time COLONEL SUN came out they were already taking giant liberties with the source material and doing their own thing. If they really wanted to adapt it, they could have easily found a way to make it work with heavy alterations.
So, will we ever see adaptations of continuation novels? I think once EON is controlled by producers that aren't Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, then MAYBE. But by then, how many of the continuation novels would be outdated? Would we just go back to using titles? I do think LICENCE RENEWED makes a cute meta title not only because it was the first novel in many years but it could serve for a new Bond actor taking the role.
Also, I don't think the Bonds have ever had to deal with complaints from Fleming loyalists that ran the gamut from "it's too literal an adaptation" to "you haven't included enough." From DN onwards, a clear demarcation between the books and the films has been universally accepted. We're not like Tolkien or Potter fans who will scrutinize over every similarity and disagreement between books and films. And if we won't even get the pitchforks out for what some of the scripts have done to Fleming's stuff, why should EON worry about the lesser-known authors who took over after his passing?
At the end of Moonraker in the control room,you hear one technician mention that the capsule carrying Jaws and Dolly safely landed '' It had a tall man and a short blonde woman ''.
Maybe it just didnt work out when Dolly found out about all Jaws previous kills and couldnt justify living with him.....or Jaws accidentally killed her in the bedroom!
The more important question is: Which toothpaste is Jaws using?