James Bond Friday: From Russia with Love (1963)

Many film scholars and long-time James Bond fans will tell you that Goldfinger (1964) -- the third Eon film -- is the greatest of all the twenty-three 007 films, but I respectfully disagree with that assessment.

The very best of them all is actually Goldfinger’s immediate predecessor, From Russia with Love (1963).

This judgment is rendered for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, this superbly-crafted entry in the young 007 series features a coherent, concise and extremely tense storyline rather than a series of action set-pieces loosely connected by an umbrella narrative.

In particular, the film finds James Bond (Sean Connery) forced to survive on only his wits if he hopes to escape enemy territory: Istanbul. He makes good his escape by train, by foot, by truck, and finally by boat, with enemies in hot pursuit throughout. The last half of the movie features a relentless, unceasing push, as Bond seeks sanctuary in Venice.

And although there are some nifty gadgets on hand in From Russia with Love, namely an explosive attaché case provided by Q Branch, Bond still must mentally out-maneuver his most fearsome opponent, Red Grant (Robert Shaw), if he wishes to make use of it in battle. This fact makes the film’s climactic conflict all the more suspenseful. Cleverly, the manner in which Bond ultimately outwits Grant goes right back to matters of class and class resentment in England, a recurring motif in the Bond novels and films.

From start to finish, From Russia with Love also depicts a significant core idea, a conceit that helps to tie many moments together.

A secret organization (SPECTRE) monitors and shadows Bond’s movements at every step, and sometimes even gets one step ahead of him as he undertakes his mission. He is a man under the spotlight, then, but he doesn’t realize it.  This point is made clear by visual framing which frequently positions Bond in unknowing danger; danger that only the audience detects.

Also -- in terms of the film’s virtues -- the primary characters surrounding Bond in From Russia with Love, Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) and Red Grant,  represent two sides of the same dangerous coin, a connection established visually by the importance of a “choker” to both.

Finally, two more brief notations to make. 

From Russia with Love features one of the cinema’s greatest fight scenes: the claustrophobic brawl between Bond and Grant inside a cramped train compartment.  Today the fight scene remains incredibly impressive in terms of stunt choreography and editing.  It still plays as absolutely brutal.

And furthermore, this early Bond film is legitimately sexy, unlike some latter entries, which are more... let’s just say…a bit Disney-fied in their approach to sex.

Here, Bond emerges from a hotel room shower in only a towel to find Tatiana in his bed. After observing that her mouth is “just the right size” (for him…), Bond beds her, blissfully unaware that SPECTRE is taping the whole affair. 

Today, this scene may not seem particularly graphic but there’s a palpable sexual chemistry between Connery and Bianchi nonetheless, and the scene still goes further in terms of innuendo and deed than anything we’ve seen in the 21^st century Bond films.  

In 1963, this scene in From Russia with Love was downright scandalous, and it helps to explain why Bond was considered so edgy, and perched on the very vanguard of pop culture.

“They always treat a trap as a challenge.”

As the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West intensifies, a criminal organization, SPECTRE, makes plans to heat it up even more. 

A mastermind named Kronsteen (Vlaedk Sheybal) -- who works for an unseen master, Number #1 00 collaborates with former SMERSH operative Rosa Klebb to lead the British Secret Service into a trap.

A Russian patriot, Tatiana Romanova (Bianchi) will dangle out the possibility of the West recovering a cryptographic instrument, the Lektor, in exchange for a meeting with 007, James Bond (Connery) and his help arranging her defection. In truth, however, SPECTRE plans to humiliate Bond make East-West tensions worse.

The British understand they are being led into a trap, but do not know who is behind it, and send Bond to Turkey, where cipher clerk Romanova is stationed. 

There, Bond meets a British ally and local power-broker, Kerim Bay (Pedro Armendariz), who assists him in the theft of the Lektor. 

After acquiring the device, Bond, Tatiana and Bay board a train to West, unaware that Kreb’s agent, Red Grant (Shaw) has been shadowing Bond’s every move. 

When Kerim Bay is discovered dead on the train, Bond seeks help from another agent, Nash.  But Grant has murdered the real Nash and taken his place…

“Well, from this angle, things are shaping up nicely.”

From Russia with Love plays throughout as one of Bond’s most dangerous (and hence suspenseful) cinematic adventures. To wit, Bond struggles to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together and make good his escape from Istanbul along with the object of his quest, the code-deciphering Lektor device.

An ominous sense of menace haunts From Russia with Love thanks to several scenes -- from pre-title sequence to gypsy camp to denouement on the train -- that visually suggest a presence both literally and metaphorically hovering right over Bond’s shoulder…like a vulture. 

First, we see Grant hunt and kill a Bond lookalike in the pre-title sequence, a harrowing sequence until we see the 007 impostor unmasked.

Similarly, the final shots of this opener reveal the truth behind Red Grant’s hunt. At SPECTRE headquarters, spotlights suddenly activate, revealing that Bond and Grant were being watched all along by hidden masters.

Later in the film, Grant saves Bond at the Gypsy Camp, shooting down an attacker, and leaving Bond bewildered.  Bond writes it off as a lucky shot from an ally, but only we know the truth.  He is being kept alive by his enemies.

The most impressive of the visuals showcasing the “hidden” menace tracking Bond, however, arrives at a train station, late in the film. Bond is off the train, seeking to make contact with another agent. He walks among a crowd of travelers, and in a careful tracking shot, we see Grant on the train, moving with him, observing his every movement and word.  Bond is not aware of the danger.  We are.  And the film’s sense of suspense goes right through the roof.

All these visuals contextualize Bond as being in danger “on the ground” while sinister forces “above” watch him and contend with him as though he is but a chess piece on a board. 

In a sense, that’s an outstanding metaphor for the secret agent business, and the Cold War context itself. Accordingly, one of Bond’s nemeses, Kronsteen, is actually depicted in the film as a chess master. He moves pieces for a living, but the rub, of course, is that Bond doesn’t move predictably, like chess pieces do.  

The visual compositions depicting Bond in danger (but not knowing it…) contribute to the film’s overall suspense and sense of danger.  We worry for him, because he doesn’t know he is being taped, for instance, tracked (by Grant), or duped (by Grant as Nash).

The point seems to be that on the field, Bond doesn’t know, at any given moment which people in his life are actually going to prove trustworthy and so must therefore depend on his gut instincts. 

He should trust Tatiana, but doesn’t…at least at first.

And he shouldn’t trust Nash/Grant, but at first he does.

The question becomes why is he wrong in both cases? 

Is it because Tatiana appears Russian (hence an enemy), whereas Nash appears to be a fellow countrymen? 

Bond only begins to get suspicious when Grant betrays his lack of breeding, his lower-class origins.  In the dinner car, Grant orders “red wine with fish,” for example.

Bond uses Grant’s lack of “breeding” to help defeat him, offering to pay him an exorbitant amount of money to let him live.  In truth, he’s tricking Grant, hoping he will open the case and trip the explosive device, thus giving Bond the opening he needs. And Grant, for his part, clearly despises everything Bond stands for.  “You may know the right wine,” he barks, “but you’re the one on your knees.”

Importantly, the prominence in the film’s action of Tatiana’s choker/Red’s garrote points out that to Bond Tatiana and Grant are alike, in some sense, and therefore must be treated alike in some crucial ways.  They are “x” factors, or unknowns that must be quantified.  The choker/garrote is a symbol of this fact. One item is but a decoration, an affectation.  The other is a murder weapon.  But Bond doesn’t always know which he’s going to be faced with (an idea always expressed in Klebb’s final weapon: a shoe with a poison knife).

One also might look at the choker/garotte symbolism in another fashion.  Bond gives a choker to those he interacts with, expressing his nature as a good guy.  Grant offers strangulation to those he interacts with, expressing his nature as a monster.

From Russia with Love’s sense of danger reaches its zenith in the moments leading up to the train car fight between Grant and Bond. Theirs is battle between two men whose capacities for lethality the audience knows quite well. We’ve seen Bond in action several times by now, and know he can handle himself in a fight.  But we’ve seen Grant in action too with his watch-garrote…killing a Bond double and other victims. 

So this fight is as much about the characters and their capabilities as it is about thrills. We’ve waited for the whole movie to see who emerges triumphant.  Will it be the elite, urbane Bond, who has been successfully manipulated to the point of death? Or the thuggish but thus-far-successful Red Grant: a killer with a chip on his shoulder?

Who has the edge?  The killer instinct? Grant has prepared for this fight for some time. Bond, on the other hand, must rely on his wits and instinct.  He doesn’t know his enemy the way Grant knows him. The actual fight is not only fast-paced, and brilliantly-edited, but buttressed by the fact that there appear to be no stunt doubles involved (though, of course, there were…)  It really looks like Connery and Shaw are slugging it out, and vying for superiority, and the sense of authenticity is incredibly powerful. The fight feels frighteningly and painfully real.  

When it is over, Bond emerges with bloody knuckles, and looks quite disheveled.  In From Russia with Love he is not yet the suave superman he would become, but rather a very human man trying to stay alive in a dangerous business.

The performances in From Russia with Love are superb, and Shaw is particularly strong as the cold-blooded but not uninventive Grant.  Yet it is Sean Connery who holds the attention.  Here, his Bond is jocular, fresh-faced, and always lining up (or eyeing up) his next lay.

Connery’s Bond is charming and funny, and yet this Bond is also at the whim of fate, unlike some of successors.  He is badly outmaneuvered on the train by Grant and survives not because he is stronger, not because he is better equipped, but because he thinks on his feet, and gets lucky.

Watching Connery in action here, it is easy to understand why so many fans still retain such loyalty to his portrayal of 007.  He is thoroughly disarming, and yet also thoroughly relatable, right down to his sense of humor, appetite for sex, and obvious desperation when he realizes the cards are stacked against him.

When I write that From Russia with Love is the best film of the Bond series, it is largely because Bond is so relatable here, and because he faces such abundant danger.  It is a danger established not just by the narrative, but by the clever visuals.  The form represents the nature of the content, and for me, that’s what the film-going experience should be all about.

But I also reserve such high praise for this Bond film because From Russia with Love has the good sense not to over-gird itself with unnecessary or bloating elements. The story is, simply, that Bond must walk into a trap to get a McGuffin, and then survive the trap. The film hits every point it needs to hit in service of that story.  It doesn’t hinge on slapstick humor or spectacular action scenes set over global landmarks like the Eiffel Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge to be interpreted as successful.  Instead, From Russia with Love is the meanest and best-shot Bond film, though I also boast great affection for Roger Moore, because I grew up with him, and believe that Timothy Dalton’s efforts are vastly underrated.

And so I agree with James Bond’s assessment in From Russia with Love.  Looking back, one can see things “shaping up” nicely in the franchise. 

James Bond Friday: Movie Trailer, From Russia with Love (1963)

James Bond Friday: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Although not precisely a good James Bond film, 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun is not as overtly or consistently unlikable as Diamonds Are Forever (1971), A View to a Kill (1985) or Die Another Day (2002), the three worst franchise outings in 007 history.

Instead, The Man with the Golden Gun showcases the film series’ continuing growing pains as producers attempt to accommodate a new era, a new pop culture, and a new actor, Roger Moore, in the iconic role of British agent 007.

The Man with the Golden Gun is Moore’s second outing, and the formula is clearly not yet perfected. 

For example, the humor (which has been developing and growing as a substantial factor since Diamonds…) is further highlighted here, but there are also remnants of Connery’s tough guy or “brute” image, and they don’t fit the dapper, suave Moore at all.

In terms of the pop culture, The Man with the Golden Gun --  like its predecessor Live and Let Die – also seems intent on aping other successful film forms, rather than innovating within the pre-existing confines of the enduring spy series. 

Live and Let Die’s energy and life-blood emerged from the Blaxploitation film movement of the early 1970s, and similarly, The Man with the Golden Gun is an “Eastern” Bond film arriving in theaters just in time to capitalize on the global box-office’s love affair with Bruce Lee and Kung-Fu films such as Enter the Dragon (1973).

Although it would be easy to scoff at The Man with the Golden Gun’s “energy crisis” plot-line, one can see that the film is veritably loaded with pop culture references of a similar stripe that attempt to keep Bond relevant.  These references include the mention of Evel Knievel, and the sinking of the Queen Elizabeth in 1973. Such touches, actually, help to ground the film, especially when The Man with the Golden Gun threatens to descend into slapstick.  The allusions remind us that the real world is still relevant to Bond’s increasingly fantastic adventures.

Still, there are a number of grievous creative missteps one must contend with in The Man with the Golden Gun, most notably the re-appearance of a stock Southern sheriff, J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) from Live and Let Die. 

And yet, as noted above, the film is not as painful to watch as many of the worst Bonds are. For example, the photography, particularly at Scaramanga’s island paradise, is frequently stunning.

Furthermore, some visual compositions nicely (and covertly…) suggest a unique subtext; a sexual undertone to the action.  Indeed, much the drama in the film emerges, one might conclude, because of the acts of a sexually dissatisfied mistress seeking liberation.

Also -- and this is entirely a personal conclusion -- I enjoy Moore’s performance as Bond here (when he isn’t strong-arming women, anyway…) as a bit of a cad, and a poor sportsman.

It’s pretty clear that his Bond is a hedonist, and one who won’t expend valuable energy if he can gain an advantage without doing so.  

The later Moore films downplayed this aesthetic, so that Bond was more of a traditional “good guy” but The Man with the Golden Gun certainly showcases the secret agent’s naughty side.  Bond dispatches a martial-arts opponent in sneaky, bad-sportsman-style, and I love it.  After all, 007 isn’t playing for the title of world’s nicest secret agent…he’s fighting for his life.  Who cares if he bends the rules a bit?

“He must have found me quite titillating.”

Agent 007, James Bond (Roger Moore) receives a golden bullet with his number engraved on it, a sign that he is the intended target of a high-priced assassin named Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). 

This grave situation precludes Bond from continuing his hunt for the missing Solex Agitator, a miraculous device that harnesses the energy of the sun, and could be the solution to the ongoing Energy Crisis. 

Instead, Bond tracks down the golden bullet’s origin, and cuts a path from Beirut to Macau, to a Hong Kong casino. 

Bond soon learns that Scaramanga’s mistress, Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) sent him the golden bullet in hopes that 007 would rid her of a man she loathes and despises. 

Bond also learns that Scaramanga is after the critical Solex Agitator and 007 masquerades as the assassin in Bangkok, attempting to learn more from the wealthy industrialist Hi-Fat, a ruse which fails. 

After Bond escapes from a karate school where he is used as a real life training dummy by the students Scaramanga captures Bond’s assistant, lovely Mary Goodnight (Ekland) and takes her, via a flying car, to his private island. 

There, Bond must recover the Agitator, which Scaramanga intends to sell for a huge profit. But the man with the golden gun is more interested in a duel with his greatest rival than the energy crisis…

“You’re the only man in the world that can kill him.”

Rather uniquely for the male-driven Bond series, most of the action in the Man with the Golden Gun is driven by the actions of a woman, Andrea Anders (Maud Adams).  She is Scaramanga’s mistress, and an unsatisfied one at that.

Trapped in her unhappy life with Scaramanga, Anders executes a strategy to rid herself of the assassin and her oppressor.  She sends one of his gold bullets to the only man in the world who can kill him: James Bond. 

Although Scaramanga possesses three nipples -- and men with three nipples are legendarily supposed to possess remarkablesexual prowess -- it is clear that this is a myth in terms of Scaramanga...not a reality.  

As the film opens, we see Andrea bend down on her knees to towel him off after a swim. She kneels before his crotch…and the film cuts immediately to Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize) popping a champagne cork.  

The one-two punch of this edit suggests, quite simply, that Scaramanga can’t hold his wad. He’s a poor lover. Andrea not only hates Scaramanga, she feel s he is a rotten lover.

On at least two other occasions, the camera registers sympathetic close-ups of Andrea Anders during foreplay and love-making, as she practically blanches at Scaramanga’s closeness and touch.  

At one point he fondles her aggressively with his gun, and she turns away in displeasure.  Again, the concept here is one of dissatisfaction, and Bond is the antidote in two ways.  First, he will provide sexual excitement, and second, he will actually kill Scaramanga.

We know Bond is a better lover, in part, because the film shows us that fact.  For example, we witness 007's foreplay with a belly-dancer in Beirut.  He kisses her belly, attempting to extract a golden bullet from her navel.  But what does it look like he's really doing?

It’s clear that Bond is not a stranger then, to using his mouth.  By contrast -- as we have seen -- Scaramanga always leads with his “golden” gun. And he pops his cork too soon!

Given Andrea’s crucial role in the film and the fact that she  literally brings Bond into the action, it’s a shame that the remainder of the film doesn’t score too highly in terms of its treatment of female characters. 

Mary Goodnight, while absolutely gorgeous, is a dumb blond.  One minute she refuses to be another of Bond’s “passing fancies,” and literally the next moment she has undressed for him in his hotel room and is ready to bed him.  She also ends up trapped in a car's trunk for much of the film's last act.

Similarly, the scene in which Bond questions Andrea and threatens to break her arm is literally cringe-inducing.  Roger Moore absolutely has his talents and skills as 007, but he just looks mean -- and horrible -- slapping Andrea and twisting her arm. These moments play as horribly anachronistic today, and they are wrong, tonally, for a Moore picture.  This Bond shouldn't be violent towards women.

Moore is much better, I feel, when his Bond cleverly pinpoints an easy advantage, and plays it out. 

For instance, I love how he turns a bullet-maker’s gun around on him.  Bond then tells him to spill his guts or “forever hold his piece/peace,” meaning his genitalia…which the rifle is aimed at.   

Similarly, I like how Bond stuffs Goodnight into a hotel room closet and makes her listen there while he beds Andrea.  Such caddish, wicked, and rotten behavior...and yet this seems like the perfect Bond aesthetic for the 1970s.  This Bond is on the side of right, yet isn’t going to go out of his way to reach the moral high-ground.  He's sort of...sleazy.

The moment in which Bond head-butts an opponent during a bow of respect is classic in that regard.  Indeed, this is how I would have liked to see the less-than-physically-intimidating Moore interpret Bond in all his pictures.  As a guy who seeks the advantage, whether it is noble or not.

While we’re discussing performances, some mention should be made of Christopher Lee.  He’s a great actor, but he doesn’t seem to project much menace, or much character in Man with the Golden Gun.  

His Scaramanga is unfailingly polite and charming, the “anti-Bond”/Bond, but he’s sort of a big black hole at the center of the movie.  Some blame must go to the writers, I suspect.  Why is a laid-back, happy-go-lucky, well-paid assassin even bothering with the Solex when he is living in paradise?  

And why do his confrontations with Bond seem so casual and off-handed, if he is so obsessed with beating 007 in a duel?  

The screenplay never manages to bridge this contradiction.  Again, I love Lee.  He’s a great actor.  But his Scaramanga doesn’t rank as a great Bond villain, or even a particularly good one.

The Man with the Golden Gun possesses a negative reputation with Bond film lovers, in part, because it possesses few memorable stunts or set-pieces. 

The pre-title sequence -- usually a brilliant, self-contained action show-stopper -- is instead but a trip through Scaramanga’s hokey, low-scale fun-house/shooting gallery.  We get a very clichéd looking gangster exploring the attraction, and even making a joke about Al Capone.  One might wonder what all this is about until one remembers that The Man with the Golden Gun came out just two years after The Godfather’s blockbuster success.  

And if The Man with the Golden Gun can be said to concern anything, it is exploiting pop culture trends.

In terms of action, the film’s big stunt is a car jump featuring a rather unromantic automobile: an AMC Hornet.  While incredibly impressive, the stunt is over very quickly, and is accompanied by the ludicrous sound of a slide whistle, a “note” which totally undercuts any sense of shock and awe regarding the spectacular flip. 

Similarly, Scaramanga oversees a huge island fortress and a giant complex that operates an impressive solar laser. And he has precisely one henchman (other than Nick-Nack) to control all that machinery. 

Budget cuts?

The greatest problem with The Man with Golden Gun is not its largely forgettable action, however, it is the return of an unnecessary and distasteful character.  Sheriff  J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) is a Louisiana policeman, a raging racist and Southern by the grace of God. And he shows up in The Man with the Golden Gun…shopping for a new with his wife while on vacation in Thailand.

So, first of all, why shop for a car while on your vacation in a foreign country? 

And secondly, who believes for one second that a bigoted, ignorant character like Pepper would leave the confines of ‘Murica and visit a country in the Far East? (Especially during the Vietnam War...).

It makes no sense, and Pepper’s presence in the film’s big action scene is a pandering move to bring the inexplicably popular Archie Bunker-type character back for an encore performance. 

Despite these myriad flaws, what The Man with the Golden Gun does possess in spades is a sense of timeliness.  The film’s McGuffin is the Solex Agitator, a device that can adapt the power of the sun, and the ongoing Energy Crisis is name-dropped in the film on at least one occasion.

The film’s action plays in a world that had just endured the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, with all its repercussions and frissons.  M (Bernard Lee) makes a speech about peak oil, and the need for an alternative energy source if the West is to survive.  In the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps this felt like a relic from a different time.  Today it seems relevant again.

The Solex Agitator thus represents one of the most focused attempts by the Bond franchise to be overtly topical in presentation, though The Living Daylights (1987) involves an Iran-Contra-type arms deal, and Quantum of Solace (2008) carries an environmental message. 

Although it is widely considered one of the worst films in the Bond franchise, The Man with the Golden Gun moves with relative agility and pace, and is more often than not entertaining.  

In fact, The Man with the Golden Gun is a whole lot more seamless than the bloated Diamonds are Forever.   This one is close in tone and shape to Moonraker (1979), perhaps, a Bond film that is sort of funny and sharp, even while at the same time it is hopelessly silly.

James Bond Friday: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) Movie Trailer

James Bond Friday: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

Variety commented succinctly on Diamonds are Forever (1971) -- the last “canon” 007 movie to star Sean Connery-- when a reviewer for the periodical wrote that the entry didn’t “carry the same quality or flair as its many predecessors.”

Christopher Bray, author of a Connery biography, was even more direct when he called the film “as big a bunch of junk as the Bond producers ever threw together…

In short, this 7^th Bond film is tedious and overlong, its narrative is confusing, and the underwhelming American settings -- in Las Vegas -- give the film the appearance of a bad, cheesy TV series of the era. 

On top of these problems, Connery looks terrible -- overweight and under-groomed -- and seems bored with the proceedings.  Diamonds are Forever also lapses into high-camp with the presence of two hired killers who *might* be gay: Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd.

The Roger Moore Era that followed Diamonds are Forever had its own issues to contend with, of course, but Connery’s last outing is undeniably a low-point in the franchise, one equaled only by two other dreadful “last” acts: Moore’s A View to A Kill (1985) and Brosnan’s Die Another Day (2002).

James Bond (Connery), Agent 007, scours the globe for his arch-enemy, S.P.E.C.T.R.E.’s Blofeld (Charles Gray), and when he finds him, kills him with glee.  Or so he believes.

Sometime later Bond is assigned to a case by his superior at the secret service, M (Lee) that involves a diamond smuggling ring.  The investigation takes Bond to Amsterdam, where he meets a beautiful smuggler Tiffany Case (St. John).  Bond impersonates another smuggler, Peter Franks, to get close to her.

Through an elaborate series of connections, however, Bond soon learns that the diamonds are actually connected to the reclusive American millionaire Willard Whyte (Dean), who lives in a penthouse in Las Vegas. 

Bond then discovers that the real Willard Whyte is being held captive, and that Blofeld -- having created multiple decoy duplicates of himself including the one Bond killed -- is impersonating the tycoon so as to misuse his fortune. 

Blofeld’s new plan is to utilize a diamond-ringed, laser-equipped satellite to blackmail the world.  Bond pursues Blofeld to his new headquarters, on an oil rig at sea, and with Tiffany’s bumbling help, attempts to stop Blofeld once and for all.

Bloated, overlong, and edited with a feeling of lassitude and resignation, Diamonds Are Forever marks James Bond uninspiring entrance into the 1970s, and Sean Connery’s last turn in the iconic role until 1983’s Never Say Never Again.  

Meandering and labyrinthine, the film suffers from its steadfast refusal to clarify some important points about James Bond’s mission this time around.

Specifically, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) starring George Lazenby as James Bond, Blofeld (Telly Savalas at that point…) killed Bond’s new wife, Tracy (Diana Rigg) in cold blood. He did it on Bond’s wedding night.

Accordingly, Diamonds Are Forever commences with Bond searching the world for Blofeld, attempting to murder him.

Yet Bond never makes any explicit connection -- or any mention whatsoever -- of the events of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.   In other words, the film’s writers expect the audience to make the connection, without making the connection themselves.  This way, economically, the film works both for those who did and did not see the Connery-less previous film in the franchise.

For example, Bond never says anything here like “this is for Tracy” or something like that.  He could be pursuing Blofeld so assiduously for any reason whatsoever. Perhaps he’s just tired of pursuing the super-villain.

To sum up the matter briefly: Diamonds are Forever gives us a different actor playing Bond, pursuing a different actor playing Blofeld, and the context of this pursuit is totally unclear. 

Is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service being ignored and treated as non-canon? 

Are audiences indeed just supposed “to know” why Bond is angry? 

Certainly, one would think that in one of Bond’s multiple confrontations with Blofeld in this film, he might mention Tracy by name, or exhibit some kind of personal hatred for Blofeld over the killing of his wife, but it doesn’t really happen. 

In fact, Bond kills Blofeld (he thinks…) in a mud-bath in the film’s pre-title sequence and then just quips merrily like its old times as the opening song begins.

He certainly doesn’t seem driven by personal rage.

Additionally, Sean Connery looks unkempt, overweight, and bored as hell as James Bond in Diamonds are Forever, and is barely able to muster interest in the convoluted, over-complicated plot-line about stolen diamonds being used as components in a deadly satellite. 

On top of that, the climactic battle, set atop a real life oil rig, is a debacle from a visual and narrative standpoint. 

The rig doesn’t crash down into the sea, or explode into shrapnel in the end.  Instead plumes of fire shoot up into the air obligingly, in pre-selected spots.  Had a miniature been used instead of a real-life rig, the whole thing could have been brought down into the sea with a bit more aplomb.  As it stands, this is one of the most uninspiring final battles in all the Bond series.

As for Blofeld, Bond shakes him around in his submersible by a crane – an ignominious situation for the villain -- but there is no discernible sense of Blofeld being killed or defeated, or Bond’s revenge quest coming to a meaningful end. 

Indeed Blofeld -- unnamed as such -- shows up alive in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, but at least that film has the decency to name-check Tracy (on her tombstone) on the anniversary of her death.  At least there, we understand why Bond is after revenge.

Finally, one last note involving Blofeld: Charles Gray plays the least satisfactory, least-menacing version of the character ever seen.  Donald Pleasence remains the best, in my opinion, though I also like Savalas’s more brutish rendition of the villain.

The science fiction aspects of Diamonds are Forever involve the aforementioned satellite and its death ray capability.  Accordingly, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the film finds Bond infiltrating Willard Whyte’s subterranean space program facility, wandering onto a recreation of the lunar surface, and then stealing a lunar buggy for an extended chase across the desert. The chase scene is undeniably fun, if not exactly exciting, but even in this enjoyable sequence there are questions to be asked. 

Like: why do men in space suits move around in slow motion on the mock lunar surface, even though it is just a training exercise?

Just a silly joke?

Still, I must give Diamonds are Forever its due. Outside of the space age plot, this Bond film also features one of the best fight sequences in the entire Bond cycle. 

Specifically, 007 goes up against jewel smuggler Peter Franks (Joe Robinson) in an extremely tight setting: a cramped elevator compartment.  The setting is so tight, actually, that almost each time a character pulls back to deliver a punch, an elbow shatters glass on the windows or hits a button, accidentally making the doors open and close, and the elevator rise and fall. 

This unpredictable fight scene features broken light bulbs and shattered glass panes, and at one point Franks picks up a shard of jagged glass and attempts to stab Bond with it.  There isn’t a lot of quick cutting during this scene or much change in camera position or angle, just two men --  Connery and Robinson (and their stunt-men no doubt) -- slugging it out brutally, sometimes for long stretches.

This is one of the meanest, most down-and-dirty hand-to-hand grudge matches in the long-lived franchise, and one of the best.  I wish it had come to the screen in a better film.

A fight like this belongs in a much better Bond film, and is an out-of-step high-point in what seems a listless and life-less entry.

James Bond Friday Movie Trailer: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

James Bond Friday: The Living Daylights (1987)

In the year 1987, Timothy Dalton replaced Roger Moore as Agent 007 -- James Bond -- in the 16^th official Bond film, The Living Daylights. 

Love him or hate him, Moore had successfully defined and embodied the beloved silver screen character for fifteen years, since his debut in Live and Let Die in 1972, and for the Star Wars generation as well. 

Moore’s last film, A View to a Kill (1985) was not particularly well-received, however, and that effort was also the only one, perhaps, in which the suave Moore really showed his age. He was nearly sixty years old when he left the iconic role.

For the (ultimately abbreviated…) Timothy Dalton Era of the Bond film, therefore, an opportunity arose to re-imagine Bond for the first time in a decade-and-a-half, and to infuse the aging film franchise with a few key qualities including youth, vigor, and not unimportantly, a stronger sense of reality or grounding.

When gazing back at The Living Daylights today, one can see all these virtues right up there on the screen.

The impressive pre-title action sequence stresses Dalton’s youthful physicality and deadpan demeanor.  At the same time, the series’ familiar sense of tongue-in-cheek humor is greatly reduced. And finally, this new iteration of Bond seems edgier than his predecessors and perhaps he even qualifies as self-destructive on some psychological level. 

On top of all those qualities, the film’s troika of villains is grounded in a reality-based plan to get rich rather than far-fetched, fantasy scenarios about conquering the world, or sinking American cities during artificial earthquakes.

The re-grounding of James Bond -- a phenomenon which occurs approximately once a decade or so, by my reckoning (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), For Your Eyes Only (1981), The Living Daylights (1987), and Casino Royale [2006]) -- had begun in earnest…again.

Although there are some aspects of The Living Daylights that don’t necessarily hold up very well today, including Kara Milovy’s (Maryam D’Abo) ditsy or airhead nature, the film nonetheless remains impressive due in large part to Dalton’s commanding screen presence.

As Bond, he is characterized by an almost wolf-like demeanor and a coiled sense of…uncomfortable energy.  There’s a dark, self-hating, almost rage-fueled Bond boiling under the surface here, and Dalton’s approach is a welcome, serious, and original reading of the character for the screen.

Also, as I’ve noted before, Dalton’s focus on a more realistic, fallible Bond certainly pioneered the path later tread by (the excellent) Daniel Craig. The follow-up Bond, Licence to Kill (1989) is a more complete and thorough excavation of Dalton’s Bond and his particular demons, but The Living Daylights remains a strong debut, and certainly one of the stronger Bond films of the 1980s and 1990s.

In particular, The Living Daylights explores an idea that few other Bond films really get to mine.  And that is, specifically, that Bond is a man who grievously dislikes his job, and who, when called upon to do horrible things (like assassinate someone) depends on his instincts and sense of total professionalism…a code of ethics   

This is a perspective we have not really seen so fully before, or since, The Living Daylights.

“I only kill professionals.”

After surviving a training-incident-turned assassination attempt at Gibraltar, James Bond, 007 (Dalton) is ordered to assassinate a sniper in Bratislava, one targeting an important defector, General Georgi Koskov (Joroen Krabbe). 

When Bond sees that the sniper is a civilian woman, a cellist named Kara Milovy (D’Abo), he realizes there is more going on here than he suspects. He disobeys orders and allows Kara to survive, merely shooting the rifle from her hand.

Once back in England, Koskov explain to M (Robert Brown) that he defected to the West because General Gogol’s replacement, Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies) has re-activated a Stalin Era protocol called “Smiert Spionam,” or “Death to Spies.”

What this means in practice is that KGB spies are out in the world killing British and American spies, and Bond himself is on Pushkin’s list.  Apparently, the general has gone mad…

When the Soviet Union re-captures Koskov, M. orders Bond to assassinate Pushkin.

Because he knows Pushkin, Bond is reluctant to believe Koskov’s story of Pushkin’s insane, blood-thirsty plot. Bond accepts his orders, but first seeks to investigate Kara Milovy further.  He discovers that she is Koskov’s lover, and may know what secret motives have compelled him to fashion his tale of “death to spies.”

While Bond helps Kara defect to Vienna, General Pushkin confronts an American arms dealer, Whitaker (Joe Don Baker) about a deal Koskov made with him.  Pushkin cancels the deal, which is worth half-a-billion dollars, angering Whitaker.

Koskov convinces Whitaker, however, that another assassination is necessary to convince Bond to assassinate Pushkin.  To prod Bond to act, Koskov’s right-hand man, Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) kills one of Bond’s allies, the stuffy Saunders.

Enraged over Saunders’ death, Bond heads to Tangier to assassinate General Pushkin. 

But something inside him -- an instinct -- still tells him that this action is wrong…

“If he fires me, I’ll thank him for it.”

For the first three-and-a-half minutes or so, The Living Daylights doesn’t reveal the new James Bond’s face.

Instead, we see our new 007 only from the back, as M addresses three double-o agents in the lead-up to a training game. Then, we see Bond, again -- almost anonymous in persona -- skydiving to Gibraltar for a military exercise designed to test radar installations. 

When we finally see Bond’s face for the first time, a youthful, saturnine Timothy Dalton whips his head around in a flurry, towards the camera.  Bond sees a man plummeting to his death…and he scowls. 

This scowl is not an expression of surprise or anger, significantly, but of grim acceptance.  This is Bond’s life.  Something is wrong, and he must address it. You can almost see a filter of sorts pass over Dalton’s piercing eyes as Bond seems to come to focus, as something inside Bond changes.

This moment tells one an awful lot about the “new” 007.  He is not a suave or slick operator, hovering above the action and commenting humorously on it. Instead, he is decidedly in the game, not above it.

The remainder of the pre-title action sequence stresses Bond running, vaulting (onto the top of a speeding jeep and onto the deck of a yacht…), and even head-butting.  We see Bond -- Dalton -- engaging in these dramatic actions, in wide and long establishing shots, heightening the sense that he, not a stuntman, is involved. 

The overpowering impression here is of a man with a certain heightened level of physical prowess, a level not really seen since the Sean Connery glory days. I can’t be a hundred percent certain without re-watching the films in question, but I’m relatively sure that Roger Moore’s Bond never head-butted an opponent at close quarters.

Then, the pre-title’s final punctuation is a real kicker. Dalton throws away -- without looking back – the line that audiences have been waiting -- dying -- to hear him speak.  He announces his iconic name, “Bond, James Bond,” yet does so in curt, concise fashion.  He says the words at quite a clip, and then is immediately back to business. 

The message conveyed by Dalton’s choice is simply that this Bond is not about ceremony or heightening an artificial moment that is, in the final analysis, outside of the character’s reality.  Instead, he is in the moment.

In terms of the film’s action, on a whole it plays as more suspenseful than many moments in the previous films if only because everything possible has been done to make the action feel grounded or real.  The film’s confidence is such that it even features great action when Bond isn’t present.  There’s a knock-down, drag-out fight set in the safe house kitchen between Necros and another British agent that is brutal, gory and bloody well-choreographed. It feels like something from the era of From Russia with Love, not the more recent Bonds.

And again, the focus on a wider tapestry enhances The Living Daylights’ sense of reality.  James Bond is a man, not a superhero, and we don’t need to see him in every single action scene.  The story moves very well, thank you, when other characters are also competently drawn and developed.

As The Living Daylights progresses, it also worth noting that see Dalton’s Bond smoking cigarettes on at least two occasions (in Q’s work area, and during Koskov’s briefing at the safe house). 

Once again, it has been a long time since we’ve seen Bond smoke on screen, and by the year 1987 smoking was certainly well-known as more than a vice…but as a dangerous addiction. The mere fact that this Bond -- in the latter-half of the 1980s -- was taking such a risk to his health and well-being seems to state something crucial about his personality, and his appetite for both: a.) danger, and b.) self-destruction. The Bond of Ian Fleming’s novels smoked all the time, of course, and it is well-known that Dalton actively sought a return to the literary aesthetic in his portrayals.  While smoking cigarettes may be dismissed as an easy affectation, trenchant visuals can make or break a movie, or a portrayal.  Dalton’s choice to play a smoking Bond (and not one operating in the 1960s, like Connery’s incarnation…) speaks volumes about the man, and is thus a great and effective short-hand.  A smoking Bond conveys immediately, something that is between-the-lines about this man.  He’s not a wholesome “good guy.” 

He’s got demons.

In fact, Dalton’s Bond also comes across as grumpy and curt at times in The Living Daylights, a demeanor we can explain by his dislike of the job -- of having to kill people, essentially, on the command of a superior.  When Saunders threatens to inform M that Bond deliberately botched the sniper mission, Bond snaps at him. He’ll thank M if he fires him.  “Stuff orders!” he growls.

The same leitmotif arises involving Pushkin. The death of Saunders enrages Bond and makes him doubt his instincts.  M, by contrast, is completely cowed, and orders Pushkin’s assassination, despite the fact that Koskov is obviously up to something. 

When Bond refuses to kill without question, M threatens to replace him with 004, an agent who obeys orders, “not instincts.”  Bond relents and agrees to assassinate the Russian, in part, it seems, because he feels he owes Pushkin a professional courtesy.  If Pushkin is to die, then it should be at the hands of an agent who already knows him…and has respected him.

The point here is merely that The Living Daylights establishes two facts about Bond very adeptly.

The first is one that is not immediately apparent from the Roger Moore Era: Bond is a hired killer. 

The second fact (also not apparent in that span), is that Bond doesn’t very much like that description, and so he erects a kind of personal code around his professional behavior.  We see it in his insistence to kill Pushkin himself.  We also see it in his assertion of morality to Saunders that he only “kills professionals.”

A Bond who hates his work (and perhaps himself for doing it) and who is self-destructive enough to smoke and actively disobey orders would not make much sense in a comic-book world, and so The Living Daylights provides him with opponents who are more grounded in reality than the Aryan superman Zorin (A View to A Kill), or the maniacal megalomaniacs of Moonraker (1979) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). 

There are many qualities of the Timothy Dalton Era that are noteworthy, but one that is not often commented upon is the fact that the villains in both his films are pulled straight from the headlines.  Licence to Kill’s Sanchez (still the second greatest villain in the entire franchise behind Goldfinger, if you ask me…) is Pablo Escobar, of course.  And the villains in The Living Daylights are running a variation of the Iran-Contra Scandal that sullied and nearly destroyed President Reagan’s second term. 

Accordingly, Whitaker is pretty clearly modeled on Colonel Oliver North, a man who paradoxically considered himself an extreme patriot even as he shredded White House documents, lied to Congress, and accepted $14,000 dollars from an Iran-Contra arms profiteer (“Oliver North, Fortunate Felon,” The New York Times, July 6, 1989).  Whitaker, like North, is a man of pretensions.  He “plays” at being a soldier and loving the military. But he’s actually a rampant narcissist, and in the game for wealth, and self-glorification.

Necros provides the physical menace in the film, whereas Whitaker and Koskov are the “general” villains, but together they pack a punch, and reflect some sense of the real world.

There are some miscues in The Living Daylights, to be certain. Milovy comes across as cheerily dimwitted at times (especially when she can’t figure out that Bond is telling her to drive a jeep into the back of the plane), and the joke about Afghani freedom fighters getting stopped at the airport is a groaner, considering everything that has happened in the world since 1989.

But overall, Timothy Dalton’s debut is a terrific entry in the Bond franchise, one that re-invigorated the movie series and pointed to a new future and a new direction for 007.  In 1987 -- and today -- this movie thrilled “the living daylights” out of a generation seeking a smart re-invention of a beloved legend.