On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: In which Blofeld plans to hold the world to ransom with an infertility virus via pretty girls, while Bond proves he’s a Time Lord, breaks the fourth wall, pretends to be a gay genealogist, and gets married.
And widowed.
Alex: Let me deal with each of the points above in order.
Once again we’re back to SPECTRE doing evil things, but this time Bond deals exclusively with Blofeld. In the course of trying to bring Blofeld down in the interests of “of course I would”, Bond discovers that Blofeld is running a not-for-profit centre dealing with severe allergies. Which sounds surprisingly philanthropic until it’s revealed (partly via a very acid-trip/hypnotism colour sequence) that the patients have all been tasked with spreading a nasty virus that will render anything it comes near – including humans – infertile somehow. Exactly how? No idea. But it will, honest! Unless the UN grants him… immunity!! (Wha-?)
All of the patients are very pretty young girls. This allows for some gratuitous shots of women in crazy/skimpy clothing, lounging around. It reminded me a lot of Castle Anthrax.
Bond, however, is not Bond. Or rather, he is Bond but his face has changed, not that anyone notices. Connery hung up the Walther PPK after five films and Broccoli et al went with George Lazenby instead: an Australian who, before this, had only ever done chocolate commercials. And the first sight I got of him this time, all I could think was: Look at that chin! You could hurt someone with that chin. The prologue introduces both main protagonists, as Bond gets into a high-speed car-flirtation with a woman who then tries to walk into the ocean. He rescues her, ends up getting decked by thugs, and then – after defeating them – she’s gone. At which point Bond picks up her shoes, comments “This never happened to the other fellow” and looks straight at the camera. I’m honestly not sure what I think of this level of meta in my Bond. It’s a bit weird, frankly, and is matched by the “all the girls I’ve loved before (and the villains who’ve failed to stop me)” montage in the credits immediately after – and the souvenirs, matched with appropriate musical stings, that Bond finds in his desk when he’s back in London. (Bond has a desk! Who knew?)
Lazenby often gets panned in the “who’s your favourite Bond” discussions and look, this is not the greatest Bond film. But I don’t think that’s entirely Lazenby’s fault. In fact, when Bond is facing off against Blofeld – now played 
by Telly Savalas – I think Lazenby is excellent. Despite being in a kilt (another thing that never happened to the other fellow. Also, I don’t think Connery would have been shown flicking through a Playboy and nicking the centrefold). It’s not Lazenby’s fault that the script is a bit weak; the montage of riding horses through dappled light is utterly eye-rolling, despite the presence of Diana Rigg, and would not have been improved by Connery (or, dare I say, Daniel Craig). Plus, I’m not sure whether it’s because of Lazenby or changing expectations of film-making, but I think the fight scenes were slightly more realistic and definitely more aggressive than in most of the previous five films.
I’d like to point out right here that Bond and Blofeld met in the last film, so the idea that Bond could try to fool him by posing as someone else – even a gay genealogist with the College of Heraldry – is ludicrous, unless we accept that You Only Live Twice is retconned out of continuity?
Anyway, Blofeld wants his position as the real count de Bleuville accepted, which is how Bond gets into his clinic, by posing as the genealogist who will investigate his claim. (He has his own coat of arms investigated to brush up on heraldry. His family’s motto? “The world is not enough.”) This leads to ‘amusing’ scenes of boring pretty young ladies absolutely stupid with discussion of lions couchant and bezants. Did I mention that one of these young ladies is Joanna Lumley?
Speaking of ladies, so far I’ve only hinted at the primary Bond Girl in this film, and she’s the most famous of these first six: Diana Rigg. She also has a sensible name! – Tracy. And Tracy is a match for Bond – ruthless, somewhat careless about sex (by traditional standards – she sleeps with him partly because she thinks she ‘owes’ him after he stumps for her at the card table), stubborn and independent… well, that’s what she’d be like today. She doesn’t entirely get to be that here, not least because her father – second only to Blofeld in European crime but still very much a frustrated and concerned father – decides to bribe Bond to woo her, because “what she needs is a man to dominate her.” To his credit, Bond protests that what she actually needs is therapy… but in return for Blofeld’s location, he will indeed get more involved with her. Of course it all ends up gooey and sentimental and they fall in love, and they get married at the end of the movie. There are royalty present, apparently. Moneypenny cries.
And then, as they leave on honeymoon, Blofeld – who should be dead – drives past, and his 2IC shoots at the car, and Tracy dies. Tracy, the Bond girl least involved in Bond’s machinations to this point, is killed not in a fight or as a hostage or a statement of ruthlessness, but because the villain can’t aim properly. I hate this ending so much.
Racial issues: there’s only two non-white characters, by my reckoning; an Asian woman who only appears briefly, and a black man working for Tracy’s father, who fights well but only gets to grunt, never speak.
Louis’ version is lovely, but having only known Iggy from his Stooges days and then doing insurance ads… well, this is a revelation.
James: The credit girls have improbably pointy boobs in this film. The cast seem to be wearing too much foundation, but perhaps that’s just the high-res scans and retouching of the original films. I enjoyed the ski scenes and everyone loves a mountain top fortress. The plot and script is the weakest of all the film so far. Lazenby isn’t good, but I’m not sure he’s as bad as he gets portrayed either. Not a gadget to mention in this film. 2 Martinis.
You only Live Twice
This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: in which Bond dies, resurrects, and foils SPECTRE’s attempts to start a war between the US and USSR by eating their spacecraft. Also, he becomes a Japanese man. And gets married.
Alex: I love this theme song.
Once again, this movie sees James Bond become a science fictional film. The opening sequence is of Gemini 16, an American spacecraft, with its astronauts preparing for EVA. And then oh no! it gets swallowed by another spacecraft which appeared from nowhere! The USSR is, of course, blamed; the UK politely dissents with this assessment, but the US ignore their Anglo cousins.
Cut to credits. (And the revelation that the screenplay was written by Roald Dahl!)
I’ve made the point before about so much of Bond being set outside of England, and it’s only today that I realised that of course Bond is part of MI6 – the international arm of the British secret service. So of course he’s in exotic locales. This time, it’s Japan, and when Moneypenny throws Bond a book of Instant Japanese, he primly reminds her that he took Oriental Languages at Cambridge… which is, I think, one of the first time we get any information about Bond’s background. It’s interesting to think that after five films we know so little about our hero: no knowledge of his family background, his interests (aside from drinking and womanising)… nada. Apparently the Mystery Man was genuinely thought to be intriguing enough that it wasn’t necessary.
For an ambiguously SFnal film, Japan of the 1960s is an intriguing setting. Tokyo as a city is shown to be a place of, on the one hand, neon lights, while on the other traditional sumo wrestling. This dichotomy of future/past is repeated throughout. There are more security cameras than in the previous four films together, I think, and the head of Japanese security – “Tiger” – has cool round screens for showing scenes. He also has a private train and is disappointed that M doesn’t. The head of Osato Chemicals – the ostensible villain – has electric shutters and an X-ray machine in his desk.
On the other hand, there’s sumo wrestling and ninjas. In fact, there’s a remarkable amount of (Anglo-mediated) Japanese culture in this film, including a fake marriage ceremony that was both irrelevant to the plot and slowed the pace to a dead stop. I wonder whether this was because the opportunity of showcasing Japanese rituals was deemed worth it – and, indeed, exotic enough that it would work for 60s viewers? Screening “the Other” often has cachet, I know. From a gender perspective traditional Japan is suggested to be deeply sexist: Tiger gravely tells Bond that in Japan, “men always come first. Women always come second”… while four women in their underwear are washing them (“never do for yourself what someone else can,” or words to that effect). So that’s a thing.
There’s nothing really new about the gender politics here. The two Japanese women with whom Bond works are highly competent, but/and both fall in love with him. On reflection this makes Bond remarkably cold, since he’s making movies on the second – Kissy – just a week or so after Aki, for whom he seemed quite affectionate, has been killed. There’s also a female villain (number 11), whom he maybe sleeps with but certainly appears to have used his magical powers on, but then she does actually try to kill him. She’s a distinctly confused character, actually, and I was quite disappointed that they didn’t make her entirely straightforward (like Rosa in From Russia with Love). Also, Bond comments that Japanese girls “taste different” from their English counterparts. Er… wha??
The race element is present here, also. The absolutely worst moment is that Bond “becomes Japanese” in order to… I’m not sure what. He proceeds to train as a ninja, so maybe the appearance is really important? Basically he gets a bad haircut, has it dyed black, and gets some prosthetics on his eyes. It’s unconvincing. It is also, happily, the only case of yellow-face, so that’s positive. In terms of deaths, of the main characters only Aki – non-white and female – dies. I really expected Tiger to die, too, but happily he survives. And in looking up the cast I discovered that Tetsuro Tamba started acting in 1953, and had his last role in 2006. In that time, he was had 265 roles! By comparison, Connery’s credits go from 1954 to 2012, and come to 93.
Finally, it’s important to note that it turns out to be SPECTRE behind the eating-spacecraft thing; they’ve done it to a Russian craft, too, and their express purpose is to instigate a war between the US and USSR. Quite why… I’m not sure. Hoping to be
the phoenix rising from the ashes and taking over the world? Because mayhem is its own reward? But that’s almost beside the point when we actually get the great reveal: Number 1 is Ernst Stavro Blofeld (played by Donald Pleasance), and he introduces himself to James Bond. So we see his face. And, as almost always with a Bond villain, he is disfigured: his right hand is damaged somehow (and is thus literally sinister), and he also has scarring around one eye. Nothing like making an obvious play on the whole physical/moral connection, is there? I can’t help but be a bit sad that the mystery has gone out from Number 1. Being faceless is far more intriguing than being scarred, in an Ultimate Villain. (I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out that a Supervillain Organisation that relies on its ultimate boss for such instructions as “lower the shutters” when the rocket is about to take off has some serious management issues.)
James: It was a little incongruous when the ninja had to use explosives to break through the obviously chicken wire and plastic roof over the volcano lair, but otherwise quite an enjoyable film. Also, what’s not to love about Little Nellie, the helicopter with rockets, flame thrower, machine guns and aerial land mines which can fit in 4 stylish Louis Vuitton suitcases and be brought in at a moments notice by Q. For the movie nerds, I’m not sure the blu-ray transfer was quite as magical as some of the earlier films, but perhaps the novelty has worn off. 3 Martinis.
Thunderball
This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: in which James Bond is back to fighting SPECTRE, often underwater. We’re back to being worried about atomic weapons, and the problematic nature of plastic surgery. Also, Nassau means bikinis, baby. Yeh.
Alex: This Bond moves firmly back into the SF zone with James Bond escaping from some villains at the start of the movie with the help of a jetpack. Seriously, the thing is straight out of the Jetsons. But because he is with A Girl, the jetpack is only useful to get him over a wall to the waiting car; then it’s into the DB5 and up with the bullet-proof screen. The prologue is a classic whack-a-villain sequence; in this instance the only immediate indication we have that the villain is such is that he is cross-dressing in an awesome blonde wig.
I love Tom Jones. This theme song is up there with my very favourites.
This movie sees Bond back to battling SPECTRE – and just like before, if you missed the one and only explanation for what SPECTRE stood for, tough cookies. Once again, Number 1 has no face, but he does have a ruthless streak as wide as the electric chair he utilises on someone who appears to be skimming proceeds. We’ve got a new Number 2: Largo, who proves to be a key player in this film. He has an eye patch. He is therefore, by default, evil.
Most of this film is again set in foreign locations – it opens in France and moves to Nassau – but there is a fairly long stretch in a sanitarium, where Bond is recovering from his last adventure. This involves canoodling his physical therapist. At least, he wants it to; she protests in rather strong terms, which nearly made me cheer. Then he is nearly killed while on a torture-rack-cum-massage-contraption, and in return for him not reporting her… well. Pretty sure that qualifies as blackmail, sir. You are a cad. The sanitarium also sees Bond just happen to come across a man who has been killed, who turns out to be someone else’s doppelgänger… which ends up being the key to the entire mystery. But I get ahead of myself.
While Bond is having massages, a NATO team is out flying a training sortie that involves two real live atomic bombs. Our doppelgänger has killed the real pilot and taken his place, then gasses the rest of the crew while they’re flying around. So he helps SPECTRE steal the bombs. But SPECTRE don’t really want the bombs for themselves – although they’ll probably detonate them anyway; it’s all about blackmailing the British government. For ONE HUNDRED MILLION pounds. (I can’t help but be reminded of Austen Powers.) And the way the government will signal that they agree to the plan? By making Big Ben strike 7 times, at 6pm.
I love the British.
Anyway, off to Nassau; Bond meets the dead pilot’s sister, who is Largo’s mistress and called Domino because she’s always in black and white; he eventually solves it all and they all live happily ever after. But there are some interesting things to comment on along the way… like the fact that Largo keeps sharks, which means I get to reference another XKCD comic! Also that he does not utilise the sharks that well, because Largo falls into that classic Bond pattern of the Gentlemanly Villain. There were so many opportunities for Largo to kill Bond, but when he’s come for lunch it would be soooo rude to push him into the shark pool, don’t you know.
Also in the Bond pattern: a new Felix Leiter! This time a fella who looks like the poor man’s Clint Eastwood, in sunglasses. Q turns up, in a Hawaiian shirt that hurts my eyeballs, and he and Bond go way beyond sparring into evincing quite withering dislike of each other. This hurt my heart a little. Bond’s main assistant in Nassau in female, and black. Naturally, she dies.
Bond gets around quite a few laydees in this film. One of them is with SPECTRE – Fiona – and I quite liked her. I particularly liked her when, after having sex with Bond and then the goons turn up to capture him, she totally calls Bond on that trope that I’m not allowed to name. Bond is snide and says he did it for King and Country, and she is contemptuous of the idea that sleeping with him would make her switch allegiance. Of all the unexpected things, Bond got meta on itself! I nearly cracked up when that happened! And then she died. Because Bond moved her into a bullet (again. This is a habit).
The one thing that really spoiled this film for me was the underwater fight scene at the end just going on toooo long. I’m guessing it was all new and exciting technology, but… it got a bit wearing. I was hoping for some fun when the sharks turned up, but even they were a bit boring.
Hey James, that underwater grenade scene. Would that actually have been as bad as Bond makes out?
James: Yes, water is incompressible so explosive underwater = very unpleasant and direct impact. Also … The nuclear bomb labelled “Handle like Eggs”? love it. I have to say, as a young man I enjoyed the underwater fight very much (which I have seen very many times), but on the re-watch it did rather drag on – 2.5 Martinis.
Goldfinger
This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: the greatest threat to the world is a gold-dealer who wants to irradiate the US’s stockpile of gold. Also, Pussy Galore has a Flying Circus. And Shirley Bassey manages to rhyme Midas with spider.
Alex: after two Cold War movies, we get one that’s entirely focussed on stopping a British citizen with a weird accent from destroying Britain and America’s ability to shore up the pound and dollar with their gold reserves. That’s an exceptionally weird premise for a movie made in 1964, and does not seem like the sort of thing that should lead to an exciting spy film of the sort surely already expected from the franchise.
Speaking of the franchise, this movie contains some of the most icon parts of the Bond oeuvre. It is in this film – in the opening sequence – that Bond zips out of a wetsuit to reveal a white tuxedo (after previously taking a fake duck off his head; it was his disguise). Felix Leiter is played by a different actor from the one that appeared in Dr No, hinting at the possibility that James Bond and his cohorts are not necessarily stable characters (… or that they’re Time Lords). Bond visits Q in his lair, and we get some snark and the admonition that the gear be returned in working order please, Bond. And Goldfinger and Bond share that immortal conversation:
Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Goldfinger: No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.
(Thank you, Randall, for this marvellous geeky take on the line). Bond also utters the phrase “heroin-flavoured bananas,” which for some reason hasn’t been as memorable.
There are several ladies featured in this film – more than in the previous two films together. Incidentally, Bond is making out with a nameless woman in the prologue when there’s an attempt at assassination (he sees the assailant reflected in her eyes, promptly turning her to take the
brunt of the blow); he’s being massaged by “Dink” when he encounters Leiter for the first time (he dismisses her with a smack on the butt because they’re dealing with “men’s business). More seriously, Bond seduces Jill Masterson when spying on Goldfinger (for whom she works) – she’s the one that ends up dead from being painted all in gold. He encounters her sister Tilly; they don’t have time to get it on before she’s dead, trying to kill Goldfinger in revenge. And then there’s… ahem… Pussy Galore. Played by
Honor Blackman, who by my reckoning might be the first appearance of someone who’s done the James Bond/Doctor Who double. Galore is a pilot, working for Goldfinger, and perfectly comfortable with his ostensible plan of making a very large amount of money by stealing it. Until she is wooed by Bond, that is, and SOMETHING MAGIC HAPPENS when they have sex but I’m not allowed to mention the trope that this is part of (even though James himself pointed it out during our viewing). What’s really 
awesome about Galore, though, is that she is entirely competent and self-assured (except when Bond is tripping her over and forcing himself onto her… which was way too close to that “she said no but she didn’t really mean it” thing… actually, it’s not CLOSE to it, it IS it.) And she runs a Flying Circus made up entirely of lady pilots, who are all also perfectly competent pilots, even in spite of having to wear black jumpsuits with serious Madonna cone bras underneath.
Yet again, this is not an entirely white film, which I still find intriguing. Of course, the roles for non-whites aren’t awesome… The best of them is Oddjob, Goldfinger’s manservant. Oddjob never really speaks; he grins a lot, and occasionally gestures while saying “Ah” – I’m not sure whether we’re meant to think this is Korean or what. Anyway, he has the coolest hat in the world, with a steel brim: he decapitates a statue with it, and knocks out Tilly Masterson (or possibly kills her. It’s not clear). There are also a lot of apparently-Korean servants running around to do Goldfinger’s bidding, none of whom speak, and a “Red Chinese” agent who has provided the dirty atomic bomb with which Goldfinger plans to irradiate Fort Knox.
Finally, in case we didn’t already know it, Bond is a snob. While having dinner with M and the head of the Bank of England, the latter deplores the brandy while the former doesn’t understand. Bond articulates its inferiority like he’s reading from a wine directory. But he’s also not above cheating, “playing games” with Goldfinger by switching his golf ball during their game of golf. Interestingly, he’s also shown as indecisive when faced with a ticking bomb. Obviously this was done to raise the tension – omg will Bond survive?!?!? – but the result is to make him dither over which wire to pull. And in the end, he’s not the one that disarms it. So he’s not all-knowing after all.
James:
As a young fella growing up watching James Bond I have to confess to being much more interested in the Bond Gadgets than the Bond Girls so I enjoyed seeing the genesis of Q Branch and the start of a long interplay between Bond and Q himself. Also, hello DB5 … perhaps my favourite of all the bond cars – the very car used in the movie was sold recently. Goldfinger introduces another recurring Bond theme, the apparently accidental ‘car race’ vs a girl down a mountain road; another childhood favourite. 2.5 Martinis.
From Russia with Love
This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: Bond is lured to Istanbul to help SPECTRE steal a Russian encryption machine. Also, there is bellydancing. And stroking of a cat.
Alex: I’ll start by talking about the gender stuff, because the representation of women’s sexuality is quite interesting in this movie. Two women throw themselves at Bond – which is not exceptional in the canon, but in Dr No Honey Rider was quite reticent and Sylvia wasn’t immediately ripping his pants off, so in 1963 there’s no precedent. Additionally, Kerim Bey – Our Man in Istanbul, and not an especially handsome one – has women dragging him off to bed, and two women in the gypsy camp have a fist-fight over who gets to marry the chief’s son (who as far as I can tell, is never seen). So women are sexual creatures, mostly; the only other woman we really see is Rosa Klebb, but she’s old so clearly she doesn’t count (sarcasm!), because she sure doesn’t do sexy. The young women 
are passionate; in fact, they can barely contain themselves. Bond is generally happy to go along with it; while he doesn’t really initiate anything he does take over when he goes along with it. Bey seems to see pleasing his women as a chore (he actually sighs and says “back to the salt mine” when he agrees to canoodle with one), but has an endless number of sons and extols the virtues of big families. From this I guess we learn that women are ruled by their passions and men are ruled by cool intellect? Or something to that effect. Also, of course, in Bond we have an example of the Magical Penis trope (I really wanted to find a link to explain that, but it wasn’t obvious on TVTropes and NO WAY was I going to google it) – he turns Tatiana into a Good Woman through sex.
The mechanics: we get a prologue! In which Bond appears to be hunted and killed, but it all turns out to be a training exercise for Scary People. From which we learn that Bond is already a force to be reckoned with. There is also clear continuity with past movies: Bond is canoodling with Sylvia, the woman from the opening of Dr No, in his first scene here; and SPECTRE are very keen for Bond to be the agent they lure to Istanbul not least to take revenge for his killing of Dr No. Also, SPECTRE! Whose name is not explained in this film so if you weren’t paying attention the one time the acronym was explained in Dr No, sucks be to you.
I was intrigued by SPECTRE, actually. I had forgotten that the face of Number 1 is never shown: just his hand, stroking the white cat, thus spawning ever so many copycats (Baron von Greenback in Danger Mouse, Claw in Inspector Gadget, the villain in Austin Powers… who have I forgotten?). We don’t know his name, and it’s not given in the credits. SPECTRE as an organisation is clearly well-organised (they have a secret training base! Number 5 is a chess champion! They use live targets in training!), and the movie wants us to be aware of their power: it devotes the prologue and then the first maybe 10 minutes to them, showing them as focussed and driven. Conversely, when we finally do get to Bond, he’s relaxing on the banks of a river with a woman. Where Tatiana has just said she is willing to use Feminine Wiles to serve Mother Russia (she’s an unwitting agent of SPECTRE), Bond is using Masculine Wiles just to enjoy himself. A nice dichotomy is set up, which is somewhat undercut by Bond’s willingness to jump at M/Moneypenny’s orders… until Sylvia persuades him to stay just a little longer.
It should of course also be mentioned that this movie sees the introduction, albeit all too briefly, of Q – the eQuipment Officer. Who gives Bond some gadgets, but they are disappointingly low tech and there is a tragic lack of snark from him.
Other things confirmed by this film: being Bond’s associate is a dangerous business, as Kerim Bey ends up dead. Hmmm… given Quarrel in the previous film, perhaps it’s only dangerous if you’re not white? OK, maybe two films isn’t quite enough to make this generalisation.
Things I did not know until I went to IMDB: Daniela Bianchi, who played Tatiana, was dubbed for this role because her English was so poor! But she was 1960’s Miss Rome so I guess that makes… no, it doesn’t make sense at all.
James: First a note to the editor, if the phrase ‘Magical Penis’ is used in another review my subscript notes will cease.
Alex: it’s a real trope! Happens all the time!!
James: Another tip of the hat to the negative restoration and transfer quality for the Blu Ray nerds. So much of this film has been filmed on location in Istanbul and it really shows, much less blue screen etc. Compared to future Bond the majority of the film centres around one city and few locations, the two embassies and some tourist highlights in Istanbul (The Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sophia and the Bazaar). One thing that doesn’t really make sense is that all film the good guys know the bad guys are lurking and yet they are so casual about security … For example on the train Bond tells Tatiana ‘Lock the door, I’ll knock three times’ as the bad guys walk up and down the corridor and occupy the cabin at the end of their carriage. I did enjoy that Bond marks the major villain who’s been stalking him all film by his choice of red wine with fish, and not a million other more obvious things he’s done. 2.5 Martinis (which curiously don’t feature in this film at all).
Doctor No
This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: Bond is sent to Jamaica after the MI6 agent there (Strangways) is killed. It turns out that he was investigating Crab Key and its mysterious inhabitant, Dr No, as possibly being the source of interference that has Cape Canaveral and NASA all het up. Bond continues this investigation, ending up on the island and eventually foiling Dr No’s dastardly plan. Which involves an atomic reactor. Along the way Bond sleeps with a few ladies, gets one ally killed, and kills several people himself. And he has a shower.
Alex: It was interesting to see how many of the elements that define Bond in the cultural mind are present from the outset. The opening scene has Bond gambling with a beautiful woman, whom he ends up sleeping with (this is a mutual seduction); he drinks a martini that’s been shaken; he flirts outrageously with Moneypenny (and throws his hat on the hatstand), and M is also present; there are car chases galore, and even Felix Leiter and SPECTRE. The one aspect missing is Q, and any sort of technogadgetr (Geiger counters don’t count). The other thing that’s really different is the opening credits: there’s no prologue before them! But there are some dancing-lady silhouettes, so that foreshadows later developments, as does the man-in-gun-barrel shot. Also the theme music; I love this original score. Interestingly, there is no mention of “James Bond”; there are some “007”s plastered on the screen, but that’s it – the movie is “Ian Fleming’s Dr No”.
The introduction of Bond as a character says a lot. As mentioned, Bond is first seen gambling in a club. Someone is looking for him, so we already know his name (that would never happen in a film today), but when the camera gets to the card table we don’t see his face for ages. We see the back of his head… then his (well-manicured) fingernails… then his face, as he lights a cigarette and gives his name as “Bond. James Bond” in reply to the woman asking. I have no idea how popular Connery already was by this stage, but he can’t have been an unknown – not to get that sort of treatment. Bond’s character is relatively nuanced throughout the film. He goes from gambling and flirting with a stranger, to flirting with Moneypenny, to being deadly serious with his boss (and being petulant when told his Beretta is a sissy gun). In Jamaica he Gets Things Done: turns the tables on would-be murderers, orders people around, deals with a nasty spider, and kills with (apparently) absolutely no qualms. He’s cold and hard when it’s required, but warm and flirty when he can; he’s calm while the spider crawls all the way up him (if he’d been a woman this would have happened with the sheet off, rather than wrapped around him) – but then jumps out of the bed, clearly panicky. This characterisation surprised and pleased me.
The supporting cast left a lot to be desired, although there were some good bits.
Quarrel, the local Jamaican boatie who was helping Strangways has some good moments: suspicious of Bond, he manages (briefly) to have him at a disadvantage; his local knowledge and boating skills are clearly valued by Bond and Leiter. At the start he clearly
sees himself as Bond’s equal, although this seems to disappear over the course of their partnership. Annoyingly, when they get to Crab Key Quarrel is depicted as superstitious and needing to drink rum to bolster his confidence – the former I could cope with because Honey Ryder also believes in the dragon, but the latter is totally unnecessary. Also, he dies an unnecessary death and is then forgotten. Boo.
I tried to keep track of the non-white characters throughout the film, expecting it to be pretty dire. They do mostly appear as murderers and servants, and often as totally under Do No’s sway… but there are a few white characters who fit this bill, too, so it’s not a racially clear-cut thing. The worst bit, race-wise, is that as far as I can tell two of the characters are in ‘yellow-face’: Miss Taro and Dr No himself are played by white actors. (I may be wrong about Miss Taro – perhaps she’s not meant to be of Asian descent – but the eye-liner and hair seem to be suggesting it…).
Dr No says that his father is German while his mother is Chinese, so I guess there’s an excuse for not using a Chinese actor, but still…. I was also reminded of Stella Young’s comments at the Splendid Chaps podcast about villains and disability. Dr No has something wrong his hands – we’re not told what, although Bond assumes his hands are fake. In the book I think he also has weird eyes. The point being, he’s not right somehow. Bond is the epitome of Manliness, and is Defending Humanity; his opponent is somehow less than/different from human (I mean all of this in the context of the movie of course), and is therefore deserving of being taken down.
Honey Ryder (in the book, she’s Honeychile) – played by Ursula Andress – is the most famous part of the movie, I think; her walking out of the ocean must be one of the more iconic moments in popular cinema. Like Quarrel, her best moments are at the start of her relationship with Bond. She’s suspicious of him, afraid that he’s going to steal her shells; she’s defiant and doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. She’s confident of her own abilities and indeed proves herself very useful – taking Bond and Quarrel somewhere to hide, showing Bond how to stop the mosquitoes from biting, and so on. Sadly, this utility and resourcefulness do not survive under the weight of James Bond. She quickly becomes fearful and a bit useless – dressed up as a doll, taken to dinner then dismissed while the men talk of great things, and then chained up so she can be rescued. Sad.
There is a good case for arguing that this is a science fiction movie. Dr No is being investigated because he is somehow interfering with the Mercury missions being launched from Cape Canaveral – Leiter says they’re about to try moon fly-bys, which by 1962 standards are absolutely SF. Additionally, Dr No’s evilness is driven by atomic power, also SF-nal for 1962. And there are automatic sliding doors.
I enjoyed this more than I had expected. The fights are cheesy, the car chases involve a lot of blue screen, and some of the dialogue is dreadful. But a lot of it was actually shot in Jamaica, which is beautiful; it’s well-paced – no extended fights or chases; and I liked that Dr No isn’t completely transparent. This was definitely a good start to Project Bond.
James: Well, what has Alex left unsaid? I enjoyed that right from the gun (see what I did there) we’re off and racing with the traditional Bond theme blaring out on trumpets… Classic and colourful lettering … Dr No, Ian Fleming and then the short credits. The quality of the blu-ray transfer is striking. Having watched these films growing up on VHS etc to see them re-scanned from the original first generation camera films is a treat. Film’s look is timeless, the colour is beautiful and of course the technology dates it but otherwise it could be any modern film.
If I had one observation it’s that the whole film somehow seems more dated and cheesy the longer it goes on. It’s still from that era when cinema seems overacted compared to more modern films. I loved how many of the key Bond elements are firmly in place, the booze, the women and the regular supporting cast and yet somehow the cliche doesn’t feel tired? How many books had Fleming written before this film was made? I rate this Bond 3 Martinis.
Project Bond
I like James Bond movies. In fact, I went through quite a phase as an 18 year old of reading all the Bond books I could get my hands on (even, gasp! non-Fleming ones).
My husband likes James Bond movies.
Together, we have seen all the Brosnan and Craig films, and a few of the classics when the opportunity has arisen. A few weeks ago we went to Melbourne Museum’s Designing 007 exhibition, and it’s incredible. Costumes (golly the women have been tiny), props, mood boards, story boards… an enormous casino room, clips from films, etc etc. Brilliant!
But.
Now, it must be said that I have a spectacularly poor memory. Yet even taking that into account… well, it turns out that I may not have seen as many classic Bonds as I thought I had. As many as I had assumed, and been assuring the husband of.
And thus is born Project Bond. Said husband dreamed it up while drunk on the glory of Aston Martins and sharp suits. We have purchased the entire suite of James Bond movies from the last 50 years (all 23 of them), and we plan to watch one a fortnight for 2014. And the only way that I was convinced to go along with this crazy idea was the tantalising suggestion that – you guessed it – I should review each one. It was briefly suggested that perhaps I would refrain from indulging in too much ranting over the gender politics… but this suggestion was quickly retracted.
2014 starts this week, and so does Project Bond. Stay tuned for our first review, as James Bond takes on the nefarious Dr No.
It’s just so wrong
So very, very wrong.
My love and I both had crap days. We both got home tonight feeling the need for utter mindlessness, so when we discovered The World is Not Enough waiting for us, it felt like fate.
It’s just such utter crap!
Denise Richards – Dr Christmas Jones – argh! What an embarrassment to the sorority of Bond girls everywhere!
Even Sophie Marceau is pretty crap. And I loved Hamish Macbeth, but Robert Carlyle is also quite average.
As for Pierce Brosnan… well, it’s reaching Roger Moore levels of stupid one-liners, in this one. The stunts aren’t quite as daft as they get in the next one – and the speed boat chase is pretty cool – but still, I feel quite impatient watching it a second (third? Can’t remember) time.
Perfect, though, for a Monday night with the need to do nothing.
James Bond and the MSO
We spent Saturday night at the Pops, with the MSO doing James Bond.
It was freaking brilliant. Absolutely overwhelming and hugely enjoyable (despite some bung notes from the main trumpeter… although I just found out yesterday that he had his face smashed in by some random punk last year, so maybe that explains it). They did all of the theme songs, except Die Another Day and A View to a Kill (and Tomorrow Never Dies as the encore, which was good).
The really good bits:
1. Sitting right in front of the double basses, and watching them do their thing – brilliant!
2. Mary Carewe singing “The Man with the Golden Gun” – so trashy, so funny.
3. Realising just how much work the tuba does in the Bond theme itself.
4. Oh look, basically everything except for…
The average bits:
I hadn’t expected there to be a singer, and I had been trying to figure out whether it would make the night better or not to have one. Mary Carewe sang maybe half the songs – a bit less I think. She did some spectacularly well – “Diamonds are Forever” and “Goldeneye” were up there. But I had three issues:
a) She was way too cabaret/musical theatre for my tastes: prancing around, hamming it up.
b) She sang “Live and Let Die” (and is no Paul McCartney, nor Axl Rose!), and “You Know my Name” (and sure isn’t Chris Cornell).
c) For me, she destroyed “The Look of Love” – one of my favourite sappy songs in the whole world. [1]
Also, my love and I had quite contradictory opinions on her costumes: I thought her first dress – a halter-neck affair – was dreadful, unflattering and quite ugly; he thought it was great. The second I thought was stunning – dark silver strapless, which I thought was very flattering, but he thought made her look frumpy! We both agreed that the third dress was lovely, though.
My laugh for the night was from the souvenir brochure. In part, it had this to say:
“With the recent success of the Die Hard, Terminator and Bourne pictures, Bond had to compete with other action heroes.”
Yup, totally with you there… although I’m not convinced that Bond is competing with Terminator for their audience. At any rate, the next sentence reads thus:
“As the Bond series has progressed, contemporary artists such as Wings, Duran Duran, Sheena Easton, A-ha, Gladys Knight and Sheryl Crow have been drafted in to keep up with the times.”
Excuse me while I hold my sides, because I’m laughing so darn hard.
And it was recorded for ABC Classic FM, so I reckon if you looked hard enough you’ll be able to find out when it’s on. In fact, I might do that too….
[1] If you’re confused: it was used in the original Casino Royale, which was a spoof with David Niven in it.
The Moneypenny Diaries
I started and finished it this morning. Apparently ‘edited’ by Kate Westbrook, Jane Moneypenny’s niece, it covers 1962: starts with Bond’s wife Tracy dying (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, I think), and ends with Bond in Japan (You Only Live Twice). Lots of stuff in between, of course, some of it about Bond – but mostly about Moneypenny, naturally enough. There’s a romance, intrigue, all the stuff you’d expect. It’s separated into months, with each month starting with a short bit from Westbrook about her search to validate the contents of the diaries.
My mum and sister told me it was great, so they loaned me their copy. I have to admit that I didn’t read it in all that much detail. I’m not really in a Cold War mood, and the writing wasn’t quite good enough to sucker me in completely. Which is why I was able to read it in a couple of hours. It was pretty good, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of Bond and the Cold War. Interestingly, it’s written with lots of footnotes, explaining exactly who various personages are in ‘real’ life. Some of them definitely are/were real, others I’m not sure about – they could be, and Westbrook has woven them into the story, or she’s just made people up conveniently. I’m actually happy with either explanation, personally.
And it’s totally up for a sequel, too, which I think I would probably read.
Randomly Yours, Alex 