A View to a Kill (1985) | Bond

Actors and Allies



As mentioned many times by many people - including the man himself - Roger Moore was too old to be playing Bond anymore. But let's not lie by saying that his age is the problem with this movie. He's still as charming as ever and his age is only an issue when he's climbing into bed with much younger women. For the most part though, those trysts make sense. The one that doesn't is Stacey Sutton, but except for a tacked-on, last minute dalliance in the shower, their relationship is mostly chaste, so even that's not distractingly creepy for most of the movie.

The problem with A View to a Kill is the story, as we looked at yesterday. Since there is no one, central mystery to solve, Bond's not able to succeed through detective work. The script forces him to rely entirely on hunches. He looks into the horse steroids on a hunch. Then, when that leads nowhere, he goes to San Francisco on a hunch. While there, he hears about problems with some missing crabs, so he investigates Zorin's oil wells on another hunch. He has to get his details about Zorin's most sinister scheme from the Soviets, and he meets Stacey - the final piece of his puzzle - quite by accident at City Hall when he goes to visit the Department of Oils and Mines for some reason. Probably a hunch.

It's sad that Bond can't do his job through honest problem-solving, because it's not for lack of trying. He goes undercover twice in the movie, which has to be hard for him, because that never works out well for Bond. I mean, one of his aliases is James Stock. I had to chuckle when he tells Sir Godfrey that "a successful cover becomes almost second nature." Like he would know.

Speaking of Sir Godrey, it's a pleasure seeing Patrick Macnee in this movie. I've never seen The Avengers (something I have plans to fix soon), so I mostly know him from View to a Kill and guest appearances on '70s TV shows like Battlestar Galactica. But even if you don't get the spy reference, he's still a fun character and a pleasant companion for Bond during the rambling horse investigation. That part of the movie is always better when he's on screen.

Once Bond gets to San Francisco, his main ally becomes Jack Lee of the CIA. Rumor has it that the screenwriters considered using Felix Leiter for that role, but opted for a Chinese American agent since Chinatown is such a well-known part of San Francisco. Good for them. The character probably wouldn't have been as memorable had he been yet another Felix.

General Gogol is back. He's sort of an adversary in that the initial microchip that got Bond involved had been stolen from the British and ended up with the Soviets. But Zorin refuses to play nice with the KGB and gets on Gogol's bad side, so there's another alliance between the KGB and MI6 as they both work against Zorin.

Speaking of MI6, everyone's very professional during Bond's briefing. Except maybe for Q, who will keep playing with that robot. Bond is attentive and serious, so M and the Minister of Defense don't have anything to get upset about. I guess that Robert Brown's M is having a positive effect on Bond in that regard. He seems neither easily riled nor willing to put up with any crap from Bond. I imagine that if Bond played the fool, this M wouldn't just gripe. Discipline would probably be swift and stern.

I wish I had a good, in-story explanation for why M sends in Q's robot to check on Bond at the end of the movie. They make a big deal of not knowing if Bond is dead or alive, but instead of sending an agent around to Stacey's house, they sneak that robot in. It makes no more sense than Stacey's wanting to take a shower with Bond.

Finally, we need to talk about Moneypenny, especially since this is Lois Maxwell's last performance in the role. She's also the last remaining cast member who'd been around since Dr. No. There's no flirting this time, just some friendly ribbing, but we're used to that by this point. I enjoyed her relationship with Bond, which wasn't nearly as one-sided (most of the time) as legend has it. That more-or-less platonic relationship with a woman is something that I miss about the rest of the series. At least until Skyfall anyway.

Best Quip



"I'm trying not to think about it," in answer to Stacey's question, "Do you know what I'm sitting on?"

Worst Quip



"There's a fly in his soup," after his dinner companion is murdered with a butterfly-shaped fishing lure.

Gadgets



The best piece of tech in the movie is the iceberg boat that extracts Bond from Siberia. I love its camouflage, I love it's Union Jack hatch cover, and I love its swanky interior.

But while Bond doesn't have anything else that cool in the movie, he certainly makes up for it in quantity. View has to hold the record for most gadgets in a film so far, especially the personal kind. He uses a bug-sweeping device disguised as an electric razor, polarizing sunglasses, a reader that makes impressions of the last check someone wrote, a camera ring, and a credit card (from Sharper Image, naturally) that opens locks electronically.

Looking at how my Top Ten list is shaping up for gadgets, I wonder if I shouldn't have made two separate lists to differentiate between vehicles and personal items, because the vehicles are definitely taking over. But nah. The vehicles are just way cooler. It's still a fair list.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Iceberg boat (A View to a Kill)
5. Glastron CV23HT speed boat (Moonraker)
6. Acrostar Mini Jet (Octopussy)
7. Crocodile submarine (Octopussy)
8. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
9. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
10. Ski pole rocket (The Spy Who Loved Me)

Bond's Best Outfit



Love a leather jacket.

Bond's Worst Outfit



Still don't like brown suits.

A View to a Kill (1985) | Story

Plot Summary

Christopher Walken watches Goldfinger; thinks, "Hey! I should do that, but with computers!"

Influences

After the relatively down-to-earth Cold War stories of For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy, Cubby Broccoli and step-son Michael G Wilson (now listed as a full co-producer on the series) decided to go back to an over-the-top villainous plot. They also talked Roger Moore into one last movie, which confused me, because I was under the impression that everyone knew Moore was getting to be too old even for Octopussy, but they brought him back for that movie specifically to compete with Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again.

But it's the NSNA threat that best explains Moore's presence in View to a Kill too. The day before NSNA's release, Broccoli attempted to steal some of its wind by announcing that Moore would return for one last film. Without the benefit of hindsight, it must have seemed like a smart move. Everyone loved Roger Moore as Bond and no one really wanted to see him go. But if he was at his expiration date for Octopussy, he was long past it for View.

I wish I knew the thinking behind the movie's title. It was announced at the end of Octopussy as From a View to a Kill in keeping with the short story, but at some point it was shortened to the more wieldy version. The shorter version is better, but neither has anything to do with the movie. Even The Spy Who Loved Me at least has a plot suggested by its title. View just tries to force a reference with an extremely clumsy line of dialogue. It's true that they were running low on cool Fleming titles, but that's not even trying. What a cool challenge it would have been to improve on Fleming by creating a story that actually fits that title. Sadly, View isn't interested in doing anything challenging.

How Is the Book Different?

The one thing that the Fleming story has in common with the movie is Bond in Paris, but the circumstances are totally different and there's not a shred of Fleming's plot left. "From a View to a Kill" is one of the weaker Fleming stories, but it still has some set pieces that could have been put to good use. Instead, Wilson and veteran Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum drew inspiration from the microchip boom and just laid that over the plot from Goldfinger.

Moment That's Most Like Fleming



Max Zorin is a mediocre villain because of his goals. With something else to do, he could have been great. Walken is pretty awesome in the role, but also, Zorin's origins feel very Fleming-esque. Like many of Fleming's bad guys, Zorin has his roots in WWII. And the evil program that created him is totally something that Fleming would have been interested in.

Moment That's Least Like Fleming



Sloppy diversionary tactics. The main problem with View is that it doesn't have enough plot to sustain a movie. Instead, it introduces a couple of extraneous plots to try to fool us into thinking there's more story than there actually is.

It starts the same way Moonraker did, with some technology going missing and Britain's only clue being the tech's manufacturer. In View's case, it's a special microchip that Zorin Industries was developing for Britain, but has now turned up in the Soviet Union. Because Zorin's organization has an obvious leak that needs looking into, MI6's lead is stronger in View than in Moonraker, but beyond that, the only thing Bond has to go on is an unsupported hunch that Zorin himself might be involved.

For some reason, this leads everyone to investigate Zorin's horse-breeding operation. The Minister of Defense urges caution because of Zorin's spotless record, but it's not even Bond who suggests the horses as a first line of inquiry. Moneypenny is all dressed for the races before Bond even shows up for his briefing, so this is apparently the approach to the case that M wants to take.

And it has nothing to do with the mysterious microchip that's supposed to be the purpose of the investigation. Man does it ever take a lot of time to look into though. Worse than that, despite the horse plot's including a microchip element and introducing Bond to the big players in Zorin's organization, uncovering Zorin's cheating in that area turns into a big, fat dead-end. All it does is confirm that Zorin is a bad guy, which - contrary to his reputation - everyone already suspected anyway.

Bond's second tactic then is to go to San Francisco where Zorin has other operations, and it's there that he uncovers Zorin's plan to profit from the deaths of millions of people. That's enough engine to drive the rest of the movie, but notice that it still has nothing to do with the initial microchip that started this whole thing off. What we have are three, different schemes of Zorin's that all involve microchips, but are otherwise unrelated.

Cold Open



I do like that the cold open at least appears to have something to do with the main movie this time. It takes place in Siberia where Bond finds 003 frozen with a locket containing a microchip. This is the second movie in a row where Bond picks up an investigation from a less-successful Double-O. The series never treats the rest of Bond's department very well and that won't end with this movie.

Once Bond has the microchip, he's chased by Soviets in another exciting ski chase (I honestly never get tired of these) until someone shoots his ski off and he has to steal a snowmobile from one of his pursuers. But than that gets blown up, so he turns the front ski into a snowboard and the chase becomes even more awesome.

Well, almost. As happens too often in Bond movies, the fantastic stunt-work is ruined by the soundtrack. This time it's the Beach Boys' "California Girls" playing, because snowboarding kind of looks like surfing, I guess?

After an otherwise thrilling chase, Bond escapes via a boat shaped like an iceberg, which is also pretty great. Without the Beach Boys, it would have made one of the best of the cold opens. Heck. It still does.

Top 10 Cold Opens

1. The Spy Who Loved Me
2. Moonraker
3. Thunderball
4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
5. A View to a Kill
6. Goldfinger
7. The Man with the Golden Gun
8. For Your Eyes Only
9. Octopussy
10. Never Say Never Again

Movie Series Continuity



I already mentioned the presence of the Minister of Defense. He's outworn his welcome for me by this point. I'm ready to be done with his micro-managing and get back to M's running the show on his own.

Bond is sort of a show-off about wine during dinner at the Eiffel Tower, but he's eating with a French guy who appreciates Bond's knowledge, so it's not obnoxious.

The hat rack gag makes another appearance. This time, Bond is about to toss his hat, but notices a fancy, flowered hat already on the rack. That distracts Bond, so he just places his hat on the rack instead. It turns out that the flowery hat is Moneypenny's race-wear and he almost tosses it on the rack at the end of the scene, but Moneypenny stops him.

Proving once and for all that Bond's in-world fame can be used or discarded as the story demands, no one recognizes Bond in either of his aliases, even though he's wearing no disguise. He's in Zorin's database though, so Zorin's able to find Bond out when he needs to.

For Your Eyes Only (1981) | Women

I started talking about Melina Havelock some yesterday, because I love her and I love how real her relationship with Bond feels.

Carole Bouquet can't do big emotions very well, which is a problem when the moment calls for her to be seething with rage, but she's great at the little stuff. I love the fun she's having during the car chase. I love her conflicting emotions about whether to let Bond help her or just do things on her own. That's a complicated decision and I can see her struggling with it the entire movie. She also does "sad" extremely well.

She never turns stupid and she's a vital part of the film right up until the end. She storms the monastery right alongside the men and is crucial in taking it. My one regret is that we don't get to see whether or not she would have killed Kristatos. The movie does a lot of work to get her to that point and then chickens out at the last minute. That's too bad.

I usually try not to talk much about the attractiveness of the women in the series, because I don't want this to be about that, but I'm making an exception for Bouquet. She's so beautiful, I can't even stand it. I'm not going to pretend that's not a huge part of why I love her and this movie, but it makes me so happy that the rest of the film is also awesome.





Okay. Moving on...



Bibi Dahl isn't really a Bond Girl. Not if you only count women whom Bond actually makes out with. But she so very much wants to be and it's great to see Bond show some restraint for once in his horndog life. His relationship with her is perfectly summed up in the line, "You get your clothes on and I'll buy you an ice cream cone."

Here's the hilarious thing though. Actress Lynn-Holly Johnson is only one year younger than Carole Bouquet.



I've always had a problem with Lisl von Schlaf, but I've warmed to her the last couple of times I've seen FYEO. Mostly, I think my problem is that by this point in the movie I'm fully invested in Bond and Melina as a couple. This whole interaction feels like it belongs in another movie.

But there's a really lovely part when she lets her accent slip. Moore is so wonderfully real and casual with her when he asks if it's from Manchester; then she drops her guard and admits that she's from Liverpool. It's just this sweet, human moment between two people who are supposed to be playing each other, but find a genuine connection in the process. Bravo, For Your Eyes Only.

My Favorite Bond Women

1. Tracy Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
2. Melina Havelock (For Your Eyes Only)
3. Paula Caplan (Thunderball)
4. Tatiana Romanova (From Russia With Love)
5. Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
6. Domino Derval (Thunderball)
7. Holly Goodhead (Moonraker)
8. Mary Goodnight (The Man with the Golden Gun)
9. Andrea Anders (The Man with the Golden Gun)
10. Honey Rider (Dr. No)

For Your Eyes Only (1981) | Bond

Actors and Allies



I've read that Roger Moore didn't enjoy making this movie and I believe it. It's not the kind of Bond flick he's known for and I expect that he liked making those kind better. But he's great in it. It works really well that he's getting a little older, even though Carole Bouquet (Melina) is 30 years younger than he is. He's still super active (that ski chase is amazing!), a handsome man, and I buy that she's temporarily attracted him as an anchor point in the chaos her life has become. Especially as a surrogate father figure after the death of her dad.

Bond isn't just a potential lover to her, he's a mentor. In fact, he's that first, offering her counsel on the price of revenge; something he knows a lot about. And I absolutely love that at the very end, he's going to let her make the decision about whether or not to murder Kristatos. It's taken out of both of their hands by circumstance, but it's important to me that Bond isn't the one to step in and deny her what she's spent the whole movie looking for. He obviously cares a great deal about her; enough to let her make her own choices.

More than just about any other Bond movie, his romantic relationship with Melina builds naturally (The Living Daylights and Casino Royale are other exceptions). There's even a really lovely montage of Bond's tagging along as Melina shops the Grecian markets for supplies for her crew. It's not a love to last the ages or anything, but it's believable and I appreciate the work that went into them as a couple.

I also like the way Bond's age factors into his reactions to Bibi. And he's back to flirting with Moneypenny, but it's mellowed out a lot. There's no danger in it, which is kind of sad, but it also makes sense that at some point these two would move past the flirting and just be friends. However, there's also something sad in the way Moneypenny starts putting on makeup when she notices that it's time for Bond's appointment. I can willfully re-interpret that as something else, but it's clearly supposed to be her holding a torch for Bond. Really, their whole scene together has an air of melancholy about it that I don't care for.

Moving on to Bond's other allies, this is the first movie in the series without Bernard Lee. He died of cancer, sadly, before they got around to shooting his scenes, but the script was already written and filming had already begun on other parts of the film. To work around his absence, they rewrote the story to explain that M is "on leave" and that Bill Tanner, M's Chief of Staff, is filling in. In the novels, Tanner is Bond's best friend in the Service and there's some of that camaraderie here, too. Tanner is more relaxed than M ever was and when he tells Bond to "try not to muck it up again," he's probably teasing, although it's a little hard to read that line.

The reason Tanner might be serious is because the Minister of Defense is also involved. The only "again" Tanner can be referring to is Melina's killing the Cuban assassin before Bond could question him, but that seems unfair to put on Bond. Except that the Minister already doesn't care for Bond thanks to the all times that Bond's embarrassed him one way or another. In FYEO, the Minister seems to know that Bond's a good agent, but he's still chilly towards him. And that's probably not going to change after the situation between Margaret Thatcher and the parrot.

Q's got a new assistant named Smithers who shows up again in Octopussy. There's not much to him here other than Bond knows his name and - more importantly - he's played by Jeremy "Boba Fett" Bulloch.

In the field, Bond's first ally is a fellow spy named Luigi Ferrara. He's competent, but mostly inconsequential and only there for exposition and to provide some pathos when he's killed. I like him though. He's a nerdy little guy and physically, he kind of reminds me of Roman Polanski.

Bond's biggest ally turns out to be Columbo, aka The Dove. Like in "Risico," we start off thinking he's the bad guy, but he turns into one of Bond's most memorable friends. He's one of those Fleming characters like Kerim Bey or Marc-Ange Draco who are not only Bond's pals, but sort of mentor/father figures to him. What's interesting in FYEO though is that the actor who plays Columbo (Topol from Fiddler on the Roof) is eight years younger than Roger Moore. He's letting his gray hair show though, so the age difference seems less and he and Bond treat each other as peers. It's a cool relationship and another reason I like older Moore in this movie. He's playing his age and it's great.

Another cool thing about Colombo is his obsession with pistachios. He uses them once as sort of an impromptu warning system, but they aren't in the movie as a plot device. They're just a character quirk and it's stuff like that that makes me love FYEO so much.

One last sort-of ally is Bibi's trainer, Brink. She's just a background character for most of the film, but when things get tough at the end, she turns out to be loyal and great. I like her a lot.

Best Quip



"That'll come in handy," regarding Smithers' fake-cast weapon.

Worst Quip



"He had no head for heights," after Locque goes over a cliff.

Gadgets



True to it's scaled-back tone, FYEO doesn't do much with gadgets. In fact, it comments on this by having Bond's white, "burglar protected" Lotus blow up right before a chase, forcing Bond and Melina to escape in a tiny and cute, but unglamorous Citroën 2CV. Q's able to repair and repaint it, but Bond never uses any of its gadgets. The only field gadget he ever uses in the movie is a pager watch with a two-way radio transmitter.

The biggest gadget of the film is the Indentigraph (inspired by the slightly lower-tech Identicast system in the novel Goldfinger) that Bond and Q use to identify Locque. I like how Bond walks into the Identigraph room with Q and immediately grabs a tape reel to load up. He's clearly used the system numerous times.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Glastron CV23HT (Moonraker)
5. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
6. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
7. Ski pole rocket (The Spy Who Loved Me)
8. Magnetic buzzsaw watch (Live and Let Die)
9. Attaché case (From Russia with Love)
10. Propeller SCUBA tank with built-in spearguns (Thunderball)

Bond's Best Outfit



I really like Bond's mountain climbing outfit from the end of the movie, too, but he's too dapper in this blue, double-breasted number with brass buttons. Reminds me of his Naval uniform.

Bond's Worst Outfit



Sunny yellow short-sleeves with high-waisted pants. Hi, Dad! (That's a joke. My dad never wore anything that dorky.)

Moonraker (1979) | Bond

Actors and Allies



Roger Moore is doing a fine job as Bond (or at least as his version of Bond). Connery didn't really settle into the role until his fourth film, Thunderball, and would never be that comfortable with it again. Moonraker is Moore's fourth and he's felt good in the role from the beginning.

I don't always give him credit for being as active as he is. He has a reputation for just joking and smooching his way through missions, but Moore's actually very good at the physical stuff whether he's being choked by Jaws or recovering from a bad spin in the spaceflight simulator. Even in a movie as silly as Moonraker, Moore is doing great work.

My only problem with Bond in this story is a script problem and even then it's not really Bond's issue. When he's given the assignment of figuring out what happened to the space shuttle, he has no clues whatsoever. He decides to begin his investigation not at the crash site or even talking to the people who inspected it, but at the facility where the shuttle was made? Why? What logical reason is there for starting there? Of course his "instincts" prove correct, but there's no believable rationale for his trip to visit Hugo Drax. What happens when Bond gets there is a subject for the Villains post, but it really irritates me that the movie kickstarts the investigation in such a horrible, obvious way.

Once Bond knows that he's on the right trail though, his detective work isn't half bad. Drax makes it easy for Bond to know who did it, but Bond has to work pretty hard to stop the scheme and that's fun to watch.

M seems unnecessarily irritated at Bond when the movie opens, but maybe he's just stressed about the missing shuttle. When Bond shows up in M's office, the boss is highly impatient and chastises Bond even though Bond was returning from another mission when he got the call to come in. I suppose though that there have been a lot of times when Bond's taken his time coming back. We don't really know how long it's been since the teaser sequence, so maybe M has reason to be cranky. How many times have we seen M check in with Bond at the end of a mission only to be embarrassed by catching Bond in a compromising position.

That's what happened at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me, which might explain the souring of Bond's relationship with the Minister of Defense. In Spy, Bond calls him "Freddie" and the Minister seems to truly value Bond's skills. In Moonraker, the minister dismissively refers to Bond as "your man" when he's talking to M. That's after a huge embarrassment that he thinks is Bond's fault, but it's still a long way down from the relationship they appeared to enjoy in Spy. I'm wondering if catching Bond in bed with Major Amasova in front of General Gogol had something to do with that.

Speaking of Gogol, he also shows up briefly in Moonraker. It's almost a cameo appearance where he appears just long enough to deny that the Soviets had anything to do with Drax's satellite, but it's an important role. Of course the US and Britain would wonder if that mysterious, hidden satellite was Russian. And they wouldn't have much reason to believe Soviet denials about it, except that it's Gogol. Viewers trust him because we saw him being so chill in Spy, so we believe that the US and Britain trust him too.

Back to Bond's bosses though. They have reason to be ticked at him, but M does show some conspiratorial camaraderie with Bond after they're both chewed out by the MoD. Instead of following the MoD's suggestion about taking Bond off the case, M gives Bond even more freedom by letting him have a two week leave of absence to keep after Drax. That's the third time something like that's happened (On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Man with the Golden Gun being the other two), but I always like how it reminds me of the wonderful relationship between Bond and M in the books.

This is also the third time that Bond hasn't flirted with Moneypenny. There was a little of it in The Man with the Golden Gun, but their relationship is purely professional (though friendly) in Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker. I don't remember how it goes for the rest of the Moore films, so I'm curious to see if we're done with that. If so, it may suggest not very nice things. Lois Maxwell was exactly eight months older than Roger Moore. Was she considered too old for him to flirt with? Lois Chiles (Holly Goodhead) was 20 years younger than Bond, but that's okay? I don't mean to sound surprised. This is an old, old story in Hollywood and Bond movies were never known for their awesome treatment of women. But I also need to be careful about getting too upset, because for all I know, we'll see Bond and Moneypenny affectionately teasing each other again in For Your Eyes Only. I'm expressing some preemptive indignation and that's not really fair.

Best Quip



"He had to fly," after blowing Drax out an airlock.

That's Bond's best quip. Top honors actually go to Q though for "I think he's attempting reentry, sir."

Worst Quip



"Play it again, Sam," after dropping Chang into a piano.

Gadgets



There are a bunch of cool ones in Moonraker. M's apparently got a mirror that turns into a briefing monitor in his office. I bet he hates it and never uses it.

The big, personal gadget of the movie is the wrist dartgun. It has blue-tipped armor piercing darts and red-tipped cyanide darts. Either of which would've been great against Jaws or that anaconda if Bond had remembered to use them. That's keeping this one out of the Top Ten for me. I hate weapons and powers that only get used when it's favorable for the plot and don't exist the rest of the time (see: The Force in Star Wars: The Clone Wars).

A similar case is Bond's watch with a built-in explosive and detonator. I can't decide if I like or hate the way he pulls that out of his butt. It's not like the wrist gun, because I don't know of an earlier instance where it would have come in handy, but it does seem very convenient for him to suddenly have it. Then again, why wouldn't he have something like that? I don't necessarily need it to have it explained.

Q's safe-cracking technology has improved since You Only Live Twice. I like the x-ray device in a cigarette case. I question the need for "007" monogrammed on his microfilm camera though. Seems a little ostentatious, but then again, Bond is world-famous and I bet it helps him hook up in bars.

The two major gadgets are both watercraft, but they couldn't be more different. First, there's the totally ridiculous motorboat/hovercraft gondola. The motorboat part is actually kind of cool, but the hovercraft is bonkers. It's there as a joke and nothing more. I know a lot of people like that kind of thing about Moore's Bond, but it's too excessive for me.

The other boat though is amazing. It's a Glastron CV23HT outfitted with mines, a torpedo, and roof that converts into a hang glider. All of that stuff is cool, but not as cool as the look of the boat itself. That chase sequence on the Amazon River is my favorite part of the whole movie.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Glastron CV23HT (Moonraker)
5. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
6. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
7. Ski pole rocket (The Spy Who Loved Me)
8. Magnetic buzzsaw watch (Live and Let Die)
9. Attaché case (From Russia with Love)
10. Propeller SCUBA tank with built-in spearguns (Thunderball)

Bond's Best Outfit



I continue to be surprised by how much I like Bond's '70s fashions. I especially dig this all-black outfit, even with its giant-size collar. Very dangerous and romantic. Bond actually wears it twice in the movie. I would too.

Bond's Worst Outfit



The yellow space jumpsuit is bad enough, but what the heck's going on with that "helmet"? Goodhead makes both work, but as long as we're ripping off Star Wars, Bond should trade his in for a black vest and a blaster.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) | Bond

Actors and Allies



The script for The Spy Who Loves Me gives Roger Moore a lot more to do than the previous films did and he's totally up for it. I mentioned yesterday that there are a couple of great moments for him. One is when Anya Amasova (Agent XXX) brings up the death of Tracy Bond and he suddenly turns hurt and serious, dropping the banter and ending that line of conversation.

The second is towards the end of the movie when she realizes that he may be the one who killed her boyfriend. She questions him about it and he gravely reminds her about the hazards of their job. He could have been flippant about it, but as he talks about the kill-or-be-killed nature of espionage, he makes me feel it. I replay that exciting teaser sequence in my mind and I realize that it wouldn't be all that fun for Bond. Roger Moore always plays it like it is fun, but this brief conversation reveals that that his self-confidence in those moments is at least partly an act.

Back to the fun though, Moore is never funnier than he is in The Spy Who Loved Me. It's not even the quips; it's the way he acts around Amasova. People give Barbara Bach's performance a hard time and it's true that she's not a great actress, but I do think she's serviceable as Amasova and her amused reactions to Moore do help build some chemistry between them. I don't know if that's what I'm noticing or if it's the fact that she and Bond begin as adversarial colleagues so he's not actively hitting on her in every scene. Instead, he's able to just relax and joke and it's a pleasure to see.

Moore really does have great comic timing. One of my favorite moments is one that I screen-captured at the top of yesterday's post when they're in the back of Jaws' van and Amasova falls asleep on Bond's shoulder. He puts his arm around her, but the van jolts and she wakes up, looking at him like, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" His faked innocence as he pulls back his arm his hilarious. Another fantastic moment is when she tries to take the van and abandon him, but he shows her that he has the keys. It's all about his expression.

Moore's facial expressions are what makes a lot of his quips so funny too. Connery got a lot of humor out of grimacing at his own jokes. Moore delivers them perfectly deadpan, but sometimes with a look at the end to see if anyone got it. Both ways work great.

On to Bond's allies, M is a lot more relaxed about Bond this time. Instead of being constantly annoyed by him, M refers to Bond as his "best man" and (like I said yesterday) even enjoys Bond's know-it-all behavior when it looks like Bond's showing up the Soviets.

M is on a first name basis with General Gogol who's introduced in this movie. I don't think this is the first time M's been called Miles in the series, but I'm not remembering the circumstances where it happened before. Maybe it is the first time? Fleming revealed M's full name - Vice Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG - in the novel The Man with the Golden Gun. (Similarly, Amasova calls Q, "Major Boothroyd," cementing him as the same character who gave Bond his Walther PPK in Dr. No.)

Gogol is a great character and it's easy to see why they kept bringing him back. He's the head of the Soviet secret service, so he's not strictly an ally, but he's also not a villain. It would have been so easy to make him a cliché; a repeat of Rosa Klebb, for instance. But he's humanized right away. After the credits, the movie opens on him in a dramatic, somber pose in his office. He's preparing himself to brief Amasova, but he also has bad news about her boyfriend and he's sympathetic towards her. This is cool, bold stuff for an action movie made in the middle of the Cold War.

I don't know what this is about, but there's no flirting with Moneypenny this time. She and Bond are all business. I don't think I like that. I don't want her to be hopelessly smitten with him, but I do enjoy their friendly relationship and I miss it in Spy.

Best Quip



"Bring tears to your eyes?" To Amasova as they're touring Q-Branch's Cairo facility, looking at Q's weird stuff. Makes me laugh out loud every single time. I'm laughing now just remembering it.

Worst Quip



"Egyptian builders..." After some ruins come crashing down on top of Jaws. I'm not even sure what this means. Is he implying that Egyptians don't know how to build? Because they're kind of known for exactly the opposite of that.

Gadgets



Broccoli got over whatever gadgetphobia he had in The Man with the Golden Gun and lets Bond get fully outfitted in Spy. In the teaser, he receives instructions to leave Switzerland via label-maker watch, then uses a ski pole rocket to kill Amasova's boyfriend.

After he and Amasova recover the microfilm from Jaws, Bond reads it with a contraption made by assembling a cigarette case and lighter in a particular way. And of course there's the WetBike prototype that he uses to rescue Amasova at the end, but I don't tend to count real-life tech as gadgets.

The jewel of the movie is the Lotus Esprit outfitted with oil spray, rockets, mines, and - most importantly - turns into a submarine. Because of the underwater factor and the car's sleek lines, I like it even more than the Aston Martin DB5. I know that's heresy in some Bond circles, but there you go.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
5. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
6. Ski pole rocket (The Spy Who Loved Me)
7. Magnetic buzzsaw watch (Live and Let Die)
8. Attaché case (From Russia with Love)
9. Propeller SCUBA tank with built-in spearguns (Thunderball)
10. Rebreather (Thunderball)

Bond's Best Outfit



Love a man in uniform.

Bond's Worst Outfit



Nothing too horrid, but I'm not a fan of brown in general (unless you're Indiana Jones) and that's too many stripes for my taste.

Live and Let Die (1973) | Bond

Actors and Allies



Surprisingly, Live and Let Die makes no fuss over the introduction of Roger Moore as Bond. On Her Majesty's Secret Service teased out George Lazenby's first appearance and Diamonds Are Forever delayed the reveal of Sean Connery's face, but you'd never know that Live and Let Die is Moore's first Bond movie.

I didn't talk about Moore's hiring yesterday, but it's a weird, remarkable story. Even though Connery clearly didn't want to play Bond anymore and had done a horrible job of it the last two times, Saltzman and Broccoli tried to get him back. Sleep-acting or not, audiences wanted him. Diamonds Are Forever was it for him though. "Never again."

To replace him, United Artists really wanted an American. They considered John Gavin again and names like Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford were also tossed around. But Saltzman and Broccoli insisted on a British actor. They seriously considered Michael Billington from the TV show UFO, but ultimately went back to Roger Moore, one of the people they'd looked at for Dr. No (Moore is actually three years older than Connery). In the ten years since Dr. No, Moore had been busy on TV, most notably playing Simon Templar on The Saint.

Moore's TV characters were dashing heroes who relied on charm and wit more than their fists. Because of that, Live and Let Die screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz adjusted Bond to play to Moore's strengths. Moore looks entirely comfortable in the role. He's as irreverent about his job as Connery's version was, but it works even better for him. He's less rugged and macho; more cultured. He feels like a man who's led a privileged life and has never really had to take anything seriously. I think that makes Connery's the more interesting version, but there's no denying that Moore is cool and suave. At least for the most part.

There are times in Live and Let Die when Bond is decidedly not cool. He's very serious and square when compared to '70s Black culture, for instance. That's not a complaint. The movie wins points with me for letting Bond not be the coolest guy in the room.

Another uncool thing about Moore's Bond though is an issue and that's how he treats women. Bond's never been a feminist, but his attitude towards CIA agent Rosie Caver and then Solitaire is shameful. He creepily hits on Carver while she's freaked out about a snake and later, when she's been revealed as a double agent, he threatens to kill her and then mocks her for letting him screw her first. As for Solitaire, he famously tricks her into sleeping with him, negating her value to Kananga and essentially forcing her to become an ally.

With Moore as a less violent Bond, Live and Let Die drops the brutal fights that Connery's Bond was known for and turns instead to stunts. A friend pointed out to me on Google+ that we got the first car stunt in Diamonds Are Forever when Bond puts a car on two wheels to get it down a narrow alley. Live and Let Die continues that trend with four vehicle set pieces. Right after arriving in New York, Bond has to drive from the backseat when his chauffeur is killed, then there are extended chases featuring a double-decker bus, an airplane that never leaves the ground, and of course the famous speedboats. And outside of the vehicles, Bond escapes a tiny island surrounded by alligators by running across their backs to dry land. That alligator stunt is my favorite part of the whole movie. The scene builds the tension well and Bond tries using a gadget to escape before resorting to the more complicated route. I'm not happy with a lot of things about Moore's Bond, but adding a lot of stunts to the series is an undeniable benefit of his run.

As for Bond's allies, M is still grumpy with him as he has been in the last few movies. Q doesn't even appear in Live and Let Die (though he is mentioned) and I wonder if that's because he and M are essentially sharing a personality at this point. As much as I like Q, it's refreshing not to have him and M double-team Bond in their disdain for his flippant attitude.

After Moneypenny's painful mooning in Diamonds Are Forever, she's refreshingly good-natured in Live and Let Die about Bond's having a female agent in his apartment. She even helps hide the fact from M. I know I've said this a lot, but I love it when she and Bond are mutually flirty friends instead of his being her unrequited crush.

Felix Leiter shows up again, but he doesn't have much more to do here than he did in Goldfinger or Diamonds Are Forever. He's just the face of the American government. But David Hedison is a charismatic actor, so his Felix is fun to watch anyway. I can see why they brought him back to play the same role in Licence to Kill, and it's cool that he gets to do more with it in that movie.

A fun surprise is Lon Satton as CIA agent Harold Strutter. As he tails Bond into Harlem, the movie lets you think that he's another of Mr. Big's men until he reveals his true allegiance. He doesn't have a lot to do, but he comes across as a smart, competent agent and I'm sorry not to get more of him.

Finally, there's Quarrel Jr. In the novels, Live and Let Die comes before Dr. No, so Quarrel is introduced in one and killed in the other. With the order of the movies being switched, the Quarrel of Live and Let Die has to be the son of the man who was killed in Dr. No. It's a nice bit of continuity that ties Moore's Bond into Connery's and Roy Stewart is a worthy heir to the role.

Best Quip



"No sense in going off half-cocked," in response to Solitaire's request that they delay their mission for more sex.

Worst Quip



"Butterhook," when Tee Hee has trouble removing Bond's watch.

Gadgets



The gadgets are understated in Live and Let Die. The fanciest is Bond's magnetic watch and I like that he uses it more than once during the adventure. The saw-blade function comes out of nowhere though and feels like cheating.

Other than that, Bond has a fancy shaving kit with what look like multiple gadgets. The only one he uses though is a brush with some kind of Morse code signaler built in. And then there's the gun that shoots compressed gas pellets. That's another out-of-left-field gadget that saves Bond's bacon at the end. He gives some kind of lame explanation for having it, but it and the saw are some deus ex gadgeta I could do without.

Top Ten Gadgets

1. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
2. Jet pack (Thunderball)
3. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
4. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
5. Magnetic buzzsaw watch (Live and Let Die)
6. Attaché case (From Russia With Love)
7. Propeller SCUBA tank with built-in spearguns (Thunderball)
8. Rebreather (Thunderball)
9. Camera-tape recorder; mostly because it reminds me of a camera my dad used to use (From Russia With Love)
10. Seagull SCUBA hat (Goldfinger)

Bond's Best Outfit



Black turtleneck with a shoulder holster. Classic spywear; the iconic secret agent look.

Bond's Worst Outfit



For the '70s, Bond doesn't do too badly in Live and Let Die, but I'm not sure he pulls off the skimpy, white tank top under a powder blue leisure jacket.

Dr No by Ian Fleming

When I wrote about From Russia with Love, I repeated the common myth that Ian Fleming was growing tired of the Bond series by then and wanted to kill off his main character. Turns out, that's not entirely accurate. Fleming was certainly experimenting when he wrote From Russia with Love, but not out of desperate boredom. He was simply interested in improving the series and was willing to take risks to do so.

Part of the myth of Bond's death is that Raymond Chandler is the one who talked Fleming out of making it permanent. But according to one Bond FAQ, Chandler's advice to Fleming was simply to criticize Diamonds Are Forever (I agree that it's a weak book) and suggest that Fleming could do better. Fleming took that to heart and From Russia with Love was the result. But there's other evidence - also dating back to Diamonds Are Forever - that implies Fleming always intended for Bond to live beyond From Russia with Love.

Shortly after Diamonds Are Forever was published, Fleming received a now-famous letter from a fan named Geoffrey Boothroyd who was also a gun expert. Boothroyd criticized Bond's use of the .25 Beretta as inappropriate and recommended the Walther PPK as a superior choice. Fleming also took this advice to heart, but was already too far into writing From Russia with Love to make the change for that book, so he replied to Boothroyd that he'd include that idea in the next one, which turned out to be Dr No. Apparently, the intention was never to leave Bond dead after From Russia with Love, but simply to end on a cliffhanger and get readers buzzing for the next installment. The myth could be the result of people getting Fleming confused with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who did grow tired of Sherlock Holmes and killed him off before later changing his mind.

As Dr No opens, Bond is still recuperating from Rosa Klebb's poison and M is nervous about sending 007 back into action. He discusses the agent's shelf life with the neurologist who's been watching over Bond's recovery and we get some insight to M's thoughts on pain in general and how much he expects his agents to be able to take. He doesn't want to coddle Bond and risk softening him up, but M is also aware that Bond's been through a rough time and doesn't need to be thrown up against another threat like SMERSH right away. Instead, M has a gravy assignment in mind for Bond; what M calls a "holiday in the sun."