Re: Universal Exports - The James Bond Thread

[Patrick]

James Bond will return in “A View To A Kill.”

On a really minor trivia point, didn't the end of Octopussy actually promise his return in From A View To A Kill? (The title of the original Fleming story, IIRC)

It did, and I was going to make a point that the final film actually dropped the "From" from the title in the finished movie when I get to my review. Interestingly, at the end of AVTAK, all it says is "James Bond Will Return" with no movie title mentioned.

[Rich Flair]

"that should keep you in curry for a while"

Thinking I've never seen Octopussy , but I remember this line.

[barnaby morbius]

"that should keep you in curry for a while"

Thinking I've never seen Octopussy , but I remember this line.

a true classic

[Nick Barlow]

Some widely predicted Skyfall news - Ben Whishaw is the new Q.

Anyone else get the feeling that for the next twenty or so years, he, Benedict Cumberbatch and Matt Smith are all going to be competing against each other for the same roles?

[Patrick]

You know, I really liked Whishaw in "The Hour." He could turn on quirky like a light switch. Besides, it's almost like foreshadowing, as his character kept referring to Anna Chancellor's character as Moneypenny.

Stay tuned, folks. As soon as I write it up, I'll have my review of Never Say Never Again later today.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Oh blimey, NSNA!

[Patrick]

We interrupt your regular reviews of Eon Productions James Bond movies to bring you this important announcement: Sean Connery has returned as 007. And the story behind how this movie came to be made rivals the movie itself for drama, and includes a small part played by Ian Fleming, himself.

Never Say Never Again
UK Release: December 14, 1983
US Release: October 7, 1983



“Good to see you, Mr. Bond. Things’ve been awfully dull ‘round here. I do hope we’re going to see some gratuitous sex and violence in this one.”

Normally in these reviews, we start with Bond himself. This time, we start with a bit of the history behind how this movie got made, because that story stretches back almost three decades prior to the premiere of the movie itself, and is an integral component to the finished product.

It’s widely known that in 1953, veteran journalist and former intelligence office during World War II Ian Fleming sat down at his typewriter to create the character of James Bond. Through the decade of the 1950s, his novels rapidly grew in popularity around the world, even leading to a movie of the week production of “Casino Royale” on the CBS television network which, unfortunately, was so bad a translation of the novel that it was quickly forgotten. But the desire to make a movie out of a Bond novel possessed the imagination of an Irish producer named Kevin McClory, and in 1959, he approached Fleming with the idea. Fleming, as recently as two years earlier, had famously been snubbed by filmmaker Irving Allen when he was told his novels “weren’t even good enough for television,” so he was actually eager to prove Mr. Allen wrong. McClory brought in a scriptwriter named Jack Whittingham to translate Fleming’s ideas into a shooting script, and the three began a collaboration on a project with the working title “Longitude 78 West.”



Unfortunately, the collaboration was short-lived. By 1960, Fleming had become frustrated by the budgetary limitations imposed upon his story, and withdrew from the project. But, never one to leave a worthy idea sitting idle, he returned his home Goldeneye in Jamaica, and wrote the story out under the title “Thunderball.” He gave no credit to either McClory or Whittingham in the novel, and this lead to a lawsuit which reached the British high court for violation of copyright, but was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 1963.

While that particular episode was playing itself out, something Mr. Fleming never expected would happen occurred: the movie rights to his novels were purchased, by a Canadian independent filmmaker named Harry Saltzman. But it would take a partnership with Albert Broccoli to get these rights translated into actual movie productions- and it should be noted with some irony that Albert Broccoli had been in a partnership with the same Irving Allen who had snubbed Fleming at the time of their meeting in 1957. With Dr. No’s reasonable commercial success in 1962, further movies were made and by the time of Mr. Fleming’s settlement of the Thunderball lawsuit, Bond-mania was about to get launched with the release of Goldfinger.

It was decided in 1964 that the fourth Bond movie would be Thunderball, which was already something of a legal hot-potato. Saltzman and Broccoli, aware of this, decided that the best way to prevent further litigation would be to invite both McClory and Whittingham into the project- Whittingham and McClory would write it, and McClory would be credited as a producer on the project. Under the terms of their agreement, McClory would not be permitted to do any further work on Thunderball for a period of ten years after the film's release.



Slow dissolve, and cut to ten years later. Sean Connery has been replaced, first by George Lazenby, then by Roger Moore in the role of James Bond. The Second Age of Bond had begun. The Man With The Golden Gun has just appeared in theaters for the Christmas 1974 season, and DanJaq productions was eager to get underway with the tenth film in the Bond franchise. But all production worked stopped when DanJaq productions went into court against some Swiss banks over a loan default by Harry Saltzman. Out of that legal battle, Kevin McClory ended up owning the rights to the novel Thunderball, outright. And for the next six years, he attempted to get studio (read: financial) backing to remake it as a movie. In 1981, he found that studio: Warner Bros.

Another outcome of that 1975 court battle was that Harry Saltzman’s half ownership of DanJaq productions was bought out by Albert Broccoli. Now the sole Executive Producer of the company, he renamed it Eon Productions, and he proceeded to make two Bond movies he knew would perform well at the box office, even if they weren’t particularly good movies: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. One can only presume that a certain pragmatism possessed Mr. Broccoli, as these two choices seem to have been made primarily to ensure Eon Productions would be financially solvent before they could go back to doing stories with a bit more espionage substance to them.

By 1981, Mr. Broccoli, aware that a rival Bond production would soon be happening, used that as inspiration to open the film For Your Eyes Only, dropping a very Blofeld-esque character down a smokestack, as if to say “we don’t need SPECTRE to make a good Bond movie.” And with the prospect of two Bond movies being released in the same year, one of them featuring Bond veteran Sean Connery, there was no way Mr. Broccoli was going to do his Bond entry without his own veteran, Roger Moore. His entry came out first, in the summer of 1983. Never Say Never Again, a title inspired by a comment Mr. Connery had made after finishing production on Diamonds Are Forever, opened in the fall. So how was it? Let’s find out.


“Have you got a mission, James?”
“Yes, Miss Moneypenny. I’m to eliminate all free radicals.”

It is never a disappointment to see Sean Connery in the role of James Bond. His portrayal of the character is always engaging, even on those occasions when he doesn’t have a particularly strong script to work with. With Mr. Connery back, we again see the hard edges of the character, we again see unapologetic masculinity, we again get a presentation of a womanizing brawler dressed in sophisticated gentleman veneer. His keen awareness of the moment and his resourcefulness in any situation are once again on display, as is his all around unflappability. And because it’s Mr. Connery, not Mr. Moore, we get a wider range of depth in emotion. But having said that, we also get an honest portrayal of the fact that Mr. Connery’s Bond was now in his fifties.

Unlike Mr. Moore, who is some six years Mr. Connery’s senior, Mr. Connery’s 52 years of age is dealt with as an element in the story. When he’s greeted at Shrublands driving his old Bentley, the bellman greets him with “my, they don’t make them like this anymore,” a line as much about the car as it is about Bond. From some dialogue with M, it’s clear that Bond’s usefulness has become about teaching, rather than doing. Indeed, the whole war games scene we are initially convinced is real at the start of the movie is revealed to be merely a test to see how much of his edge Bond may have lost. And this is all before we get to the fact that at the film’s conclusion, it appears Bond has retired to a life of martinis and Kim Bassinger at 5:00.



Give Mr. McClory credit: his casting choice for the part could have included any number of actors in their mid-30s at the time in order to be faithful to the character Fleming created, but he wanted a Bond veteran who was well loved by fans, and who had not been featured in a Bond movie for some twelve years. And given that choice, he decided to allow Mr. Connery to draw yet another line of distinction between himself and his 1983 rival for the part: even James Bond gets older, a fact Mr. Broccoli wouldn’t cotton onto for another four years.

In the years of the first age of Bond, one thing Mr. Connery would never have been accused of was being a comedian. He would deliver some darkly comic line after helping a villain to shed his mortal coil (“Shocking. Positively shocking”) by simply throwing the line away as some ironic note. This film is replete with comic moments, and Connery not only delivers some one-liners himself, but gets to react to some of the comedic elements as well. I’m not generally a fan of heavy influxes of comedy into a spy-genre story, and it has to be said that the laugh out loud elements in this film are only partially successful, but it does give us a chance to see Mr. Connery layer on another element to his portrayal- annoyance at some of the idiocy that surrounds him. His ability to appear to be rolling his eyes at Rowan Atkinson’s Nigel Small-Fawcett, when he does not, in fact, actually roll his eyes is quite well done.



In short, for his final appearance as James Bond, Sean Connery is a real gem in the role. But then, that shouldn’t really come as a surprise, should it?


“Oh, how reckless of me! I’ve made you all wet.”
“Yes, but my martini’s still dry.”



NSNA is, obviously, a remake of Thunderball, and that’s where any analysis of the plot and theme has to start. Let’s recall that I gave Thunderball a 2 out of a possible 5 score, and that had mainly to do with the convoluted mess that was the plot. A wonderful set up and first act is all but ruined by a second act that bogged down the story, and in which nothing of any significance to the story actually happened. The underwater climax of the movie, while it may have been brilliant cinematography for 1965, was over long and repetitious. And it was littered with characters who were entirely two dimensional and unconvincing.

With NSNA, we have a re-boot of the plot. The essential tale is still there- two nuclear missiles are hijacked by SPECTRE, who proceed to hold the world hostage for some outrageous sum of money. While at a health spa, Bond’s suspicions that something is afoot are aroused by convalescing patient and his over-protective private nurse. The trail of clues leads him to Nassau, where his suspicions are confirmed by two attempts on his life. And the action culminates in an underwater battle between Bond and Largo over the last missile.



But this time, what those essentials to the story leave out is that the premise has apparently undergone several iterations of re-write over the last 17 years to polish it up a bit. In this version, the story is more character driven, and those characters all have more depth to them. NSNA has also solved the problem of a weak second act strewn with significant plot holes by deliberately delaying Bond’s meeting with Largo until much later in the film. We, the audience, meet him, and realize quite early on that Largo is a paranoid sociopath this close to cracking, a revelation which makes the audience want to have the meeting between him and Bond happen quickly. But we’re left to make do with the equally interesting character of Fatima Blush (this film’s version of Fiona Volpe.) And that isn’t exactly settling for something sub-standard, either.

NSNA also solves the problem of the overlong climax of Thunderball by simplifying it: rather than scores of both good guy and bad guy frogmen underwater, you simply have Bond and Largo, fighting over a live nuke, as the armed nuke spirals around ominously in the water just to add tension to the scene. It’s touches like these that make me think Mr. McClory took an honest look at what went wrong with the making of Thunderball, and learned some valuable lessons from it.



What you don’t have with this movie, right off the bat, are two things which are part and parcel of a Bond movie: the gunbarrel view to open it, and the highly stylized opening credits. Instead, you jump right into the action as we watch Bond go through a very convincing raid of a terrorist strong hold to rescue a kidnap victim, as the opening credits and song play over the scene, until Bond appears to get stabbed, until it’s revealed this was a war games exercise. Well, Mr. McClory certainly couldn’t use a trademark Eon production opening, but it leaves you with the initial impression you’re watching half a Bond movie. Fortunately, this impression doesn’t last long. It takes only a few minutes to be introduced to Fatima Blush, and that entrance disabuses you of the notion that this won’t be an entertaining film quite quickly.

I’ve already mentioned that Mr. Connery’s age is openly dealt with in this movie. But more than being a mere plot point, it actually provides a bit of theme to the story, as well. The double-oh section has been sidelined and given teaching responsibilities. M has become something of a bureaucrat, more worried about his ‘meager budget’ than in the once great reputation of MI-6. Algernon, this film’s Q, operates his special ordinance branch in a freezing basement wearing gloves and scarf while staving off apparently frequent colds. And his inventions have a certain unpredictability to them. M’s foreign secretary contact in Nassau, Nigel Small-Fawcett, is a hopelessly incompetent twit. All of these various facts lead us to one conclusion: in this version of the second age of Bond, the value of MI-6 has not aged well, and so with it, has its effectiveness as an organization.



The villains all seem to know Bond by reputation, but you get the feeling that this reputation is now decades old. How good could Bond still be after all those years behind a desk? How seriously should he, and his guttering MI-6, be taken as a threat? This is great stuff because it knocks Bond off his super-hero perch, and forces him to reclaim it. What this film is doing, then, is acknowledging the fact that it is a remake of an eighteen year old movie, and using those eightteen years to tell their own story in the background as theme. Again, a very nice touch.


“Now write this: ‘The greatest rapture in my life was afforded me in a boat in Nassau by Fatima Blush,’ and sign it ‘James Bond.”
“I’ve just remembered- it’s against Service policy to give endorsements.”



From the moment we meet Barbara Carrera’s Fatima Blush, revealed to us slowly as she hurries through a French bank, wearing leather trousers and a feather wrap, you immediately know this is a woman you under-estimate at your own peril. She delights in her villainy, as she drops a snake in Jack Petachi’s car after he’s substituted live warheads for the standard dummy warheads used on the missiles, and then lovingly retrieves her pet snake before cremating Jack’s body. She effortlessly transitions from genial care-giver to ruthless bitch, slapping Jack around in the health spa (and garnering Bond’s attention in the process.) When Largo gives her orders to kill Bond, she’s so giddy at the prospect, that she’s dancing a tango with herself on the way out.

But she has a significant character flaw, too: she’s transferred any potential love for a man into a love of herself, and it’s given her an outrageous ego. Apparently, the world of international espionage and crime within SPECTRE is a world dominated by men, so Fatima has had to make a name for herself within this organization by being even better at what she does than the men around her. And she’s let her success at it go right to her head. She doesn’t have that tryst with Bond in Nassau because she’s attracted to him, she does it because Bond is a career trophy for her to seduce and then kill. So she does seduce him, and becomes increasingly unhinged as he survives her every effort to kill him. Sharks don’t work. A bomb in his hotel room doesn’t work. Corralling him into the back of a truck doesn’t work. So why not shoot him between the legs when she finally forces him to crash his motorcycle? And just to put icing on how sweet it will be to kill her most impressive target ever, why not get him to admit she’s the best woman he’s ever slept with? That’s either an ego big enough to form its own country, or the most profound case of penis envy on record.



But in making this character, they took careful aim to humanize her at some points, such as in how she flinches every time she detonates a bomb, or how she can’t resist the temptation to dance when music is being played. And it has to be said that with Ms. Carrera’s expressive face and graceful movements, she is a very memorable addition to this cast, and does a fine job in this role.

“Crazy? Yeah… maybe. I’m crazy.”



Interestingly, the only other movie I’ve seen which features Klaus Maria Brandauer was also a spy-genre movie, and also featured Sean Connery: The Russia House. In this film, Brandauer’s Maximillian Largo didn’t come across as ruthless or blood-thirsty. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking initially he was something of a nerd. But the moment we find out his office on his yacht contains a one-way mirror so he can spy on Domino, you get your first clue as to his delusion: he’s paranoid. He’s paranoid he’s going to lose Domino, he’s paranoid his plan might have flaws, he’s paranoid he might be defeated in anything by someone like Bond. In short, he has pretty significant inferiority complex, and Bond’s arrival precipitates it.

Moments after the one-way mirror is revealed, you get your second clue as to his delusion, as he’s joking with Domino after giving her the Tears Of Allah stone, and admitting if she ever left him, he’d kill her: he’s a sociopath, and his breaking point is disturbingly close to the surface.



So why, then, did this possessive, paranoid attempt to sell Domino to some desert nomads? Remember that he was led to believe Domino had cheated on him with Bond- after all, he saw them kiss through his one-way mirror. Once that tipping point was reached, Domino’s apparent betrayal triggered his delusion- she was now damaged goods and had to go. His brief dance with Domino just before handing her over to the auction was a demonstration of just how fragile his control was. By jettisoning her, he was attempting to reclaim some of that control.

The only real inconsistency with his character is this: if the stone he gave Domino, the “Tears Of Allah”, was indeed so important, why did he let her keep it? I mean, it ultimately showed Bond the location of the second missile. That was a bit uncharacteristically sloppy of him. On balance, though, Mr. Brandauer gave a pretty convincing performance as Largo, and you certainly felt by the film’s end that you knew him better than you did Aldofo Celi’s Largo.


“But, in fact, I did lose 4 lbs and God knows how many free radicals.”
“That is the KIND of attitude that tempts me to suspend you, 007!”



We meet three people affiliated with MI-6 who deserve some analysis. The first is Edward Fox, playing an apparently new M. Unlike Bernard Lee, who’s credibility in the role was without question, Mr. Fox portrays M as everybody’s worst type of boss: a budget obsessed, penny pinching bureaucrat. He sidelines the Double-ohs because he doesn’t want the scandal of them actually being out in the field, killing people to potentially effect his budget appropriation. When Bond shows some out of the box thinking about how live warheads could have been put on the missiles, he’s disparaging of it. When the first missile is located in Washington, DC, he contacts Bond to offer him, by way of thanks, lunch at his club. And at the end of the movie, he doesn’t even have the courage, himself, to go visit Bond and plead for his return to the service. He even has to be cajoled by Lord Ambrose into re-activating the Double-oh section after the missiles are stolen. In this film, M is the main reason for the guttering reputation of MI-6, and the tragedy is he simply doesn’t know it.



Another character is Alex McCowen as Algernon, or just Algy, this film’s stand in for Desmond Llewelyn’s Q. He is another aspect of the bureaucracy that plagues MI-6 in this film. Instead of a state of the art R&D facility, he operates out of what looks like an under-heated warehouse, and apparently with a minimal staff. He has dozens of projects scattered around the room in various states of completion, and his gadget for Bond this time around is pen gun that isn’t entirely reliable. He muses about his hopes of a job offer with the CIA, while expressing jealousy that Bond is bound for Nassau. That it’s come to Q having to wear a scarf and gloves with the tips of the fingers cut off is shocking- you’d almost expect to see an oil drum with fire in it so he has a place to warm his hands.



And finally, Rowan Atkinson as Nigel Small-Fawcett, the foreign secretary in Nassau assigned to assist Bond. Given that its Rowan Atkinson, he was the overt comedic element in this film. His incompetence is on display from the moment we see him, as he loudly shouts Bond’s name across the harbor, and then makes a fool of himself as he hides behind columns attempting to ensure he’s not being followed back to his office. Seriously, is this the best the foreign office can do? Bond’s exasperation with Small-Fawcett is immediately evident, and it does give Connery a chance to play that well. But by this point, how far down the ranks of the international spy game MI-6 had sunk had been hammered home and was in danger of becoming overkill for the film.


“I’m going to kiss you now for two reasons. One, because I’m hoping to provoke a reaction.”
“And the other?”
“Because I always wanted to.”



Kim Bassinger, as Domino Petachi, the sister of our doomed Air Force Officer turned traitor, is certainly beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, that’s about where it ends for this reviewer. The hard truth is that Ms. Bassinger is simply not a good actress, and she is easily the weakest part of this film. Here, she plays basically the same character she’ll play in Batman, some six years forward in time, and she plays both characters with the sort of tired forgetful performance she always brings to a role. She is a complete victim. She either hasn’t figured out that Largo is a barely contained sociopath (which is hard to figure, given that the clues are everywhere), or she’s chosen to ignore them. She either doesn’t become suspicious when her repeated enquiries about when she’ll see her brother again are met with prevarications, or she’s not really motivated to see him anyway. Even in her on-screen romantic scenes with Bond, you get the feeling she’s only half-heartedly going through the motions- it’s Mr. Connery who’s carrying the scene.



The character of Domino Petachi is actually something of a throwback- the “damsel in distress” trope. Now, even though we are in the second age of Bond, and we’ve see Bond go up against some pretty formidable women, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the damsel in distress character for Bond to rescue. The problem here is that she really doesn’t contribute much to the plot, other than to be the object over which Bond and Largo are competing. Couple that with a mailed-in performance, and her character really is something of a wet blanket to this story.


“You know that making love to Fatima was the greatest pleasure of your life!”
“Well, to be perfectly honest, there was this girl in Philadelphia…”



Never Say Never Again was a one-off treat. It had some great location shooting in Nassau, the south of France and North Africa. And as a re-boot of a not particularly good Bond movie, its expectations weren’t particularly high. This is a good thing, because it blew away anyone’s expectations of the film quite easily. There were rumors for a time, through the mid-80s, that Kevin McClory was going to try and finance another Bond movie project, but none of that ever panned out.

So what we got with NSNA was a James Bond, slightly aged, and surrounded by convincing villains and cloying bureaucracy. And a pretty good tale that avoided the pitfalls into which Thunderball sank. Even though I’m not a huge fan of them, the comedic elements were all fairly well grounded within the film. And save for a bad performance by Kim Bassinger, the film actually holds up rather well. I have to also express my fondness for the music, which not only includes some wonderful vocals by Lani Hall, but some musical collaboration by two musicians I grew up listening to on a regular basis, as my parents were big fans: Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendez.



So in the final analysis, this would prove to be Mr. Connery’s final turn in the role. And if we officially count NSNA as a Bond film, it means he also made seven, as did his contemporary rival Roger Moore. The fact is, however, in the only year to feature a duel of the Bonds, Mr. Connery won. Never Say Never Again gets four lunch invitations to M’s club out of a possible five.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Eon production films. James Bond will return in “A View To A Kill.”

[Aspadistra]

Thoroughly enjoyed that analysis. Thank you.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Wow, is that the most detailed yet Col. Pickering? I agree that NSNA is superior to the *original*. I've long thought that Goldeneye took some of it's set piece concepts from this movie. As it's non-canon I feel comfy giving it 3.5/5.

[Zoltar]

Interesting review, Fast Liver. I'd probably rate NSNA about the same.

[barnaby morbius]

3/5 very tongue in cheek which saves it from being an average 80s action/spy film.

like the urine sample joke.

[Patrick]

Wow, is that the most detailed yet Col. Pickering? I agree that NSNA is superior to the *original*. I've long thought that Goldeneye took some of it's set piece concepts from this movie. As it's non-canon I feel comfy giving it 3.5/5.

Yes, I must confess, I did get a bit detailed, mainly because I felt the backstory behind this rival production deserved a fair airing. That came at the expense of discussing Max Von Sydow's Blofeld. How bizarre that we get a Blofeld who resembles someone's grandfather.

[Zoltar]

How bizarre that we get a Blofeld who resembles someone's grandfather.

It's Max Von Sydow. He can resemble anyone he wants, he'll always be made of awesome in my book.

[The Co=Ordinator]

For me he resembles Ming the Merciless.

[Zoltar]

For me he resembles Ming the Merciless.

Klytus! Are your men on the right pills? Maybe you should execute their trainer...

[Patrick]

For me he resembles Ming the Merciless.

For me he resembles Ming the Merciless.

Klytus! Are your men on the right pills? Maybe you should execute their trainer...

I would point out we did James Bond as Flash Gordon in 1979, and IMHO, it was awful.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Whereas IMHO it was brilliant.

[Patrick]

Whereas IMHO it was brilliant.

You could say that, but you'd be wrong.

[Patrick]

We have now reached the mid-point of the decade of Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John II, and their alliance against the Soviet Union. Yes, this very much means that the Soviets continued to be viewed as the main nemesis in the Bond franchise, and why not? The renewed tensions between the west and the Soviet Block were churning off works chronicling the espionage game from writers as diverse as Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy, with characters which would inevitably get compared to Ian Fleming’s world famous spy.

For the fourteenth Bond entry, as they did with two previous films, the writers adapted an Ian Fleming short story, changing the title by removing the word “From” at the start of the original source material’s name. Again, the goal was have a spy-genre story ground in reality, but this time, elements of Goldfinger were sprinkled into the plot. And again, location shooting was to include two of the most iconic cities in the world in terms of having recognizable architecture: Paris and San Francisco. Which causes me a particular problem: you see, my father’s family is from San Francisco, I’ve visited the city on many occasions, and it was frankly wonderful to see it featured so prominently in Bond film. So it’s entirely possible that my objectivity may be a bit compromised.

So I’ll deal with that compromised objectivity right off the bat: while all of this is well and good, this movie still has one major flaw about it. And that flaw would cause a significant change in casting after the film’s release.

A View To A Kill
UK Release: June 12, 1985
US Release: May 2, 1985



“May I remind you, Bond, that this operation was to be conducted discreetly. All it took was six million Francs in damages and penalties for violating most of the Napoleonic Code!”

With every entry in the Bond franchise, the appropriate place to start an analysis is with the main character. In this movie, Roger Moore makes his seventh and final appearance as MI-6’s gentleman spy. I’ve made the point before that since The Spy Who Loved Me, Mr. Moore’s portrayal of the character had reached a note of attenuation and dramatic range that it would have through the remainder of his time in the role. Thus, the dynamic element to any new Bond flick tended to be the leading lady he was cast with. Carole Bouquet was amazing. Maude Adams did a serviceable job, but alas, her character was more of an appendage to the plot. And Lois Chiles was dreadful. This is why For Your Eyes Only was such a memorable movie, Octopussy was watchable, but not much beyond that, and Moonraker was such a dud (well, in fairness, there were other issues plaguing Moonraker, too.) The point is that Mr. Moore’s performance seems to be directly linked to the quality of actress with which he’s paired. (Put a bookmark on that thought, we’ll return to it in a moment.)



We’re again getting all the trademark qualities we’ve seen in Roger Moore’s Bond: he is consummately suave, even as he’s transitioning between being James St. John Smythe, wealthy dilettante, to James Stock, nosy business reporter with the London Financial Times. Because he’s playing aliases, it provides Mr. Moore with a chance to expand his range, and you get one last chance to see why he landed the role- after all, Simon Templar (The Saint) did this sort of thing all the time.

Bond has occasionally had the “amiable rogue” as something of a sidekick (Kerim Bay, Marc-Ange Draco, Columbo), but in AVTAK, instead of a rogue, Bond is given a mate, Sir Geoffrey Tibbitt, the horse expert played by Patrick Macnee. It should be mentioned that when Mr. Moore was busy making “The Saint,” in the very next soundstage, Mr. Macnee was busy making “The Avengers,” so the two are obviously old friends, and that camaraderie shows itself in the scenes were Macnee is playing the overworked, under-appreciated valet/chauffeur/butler “Tibbett” to Moore’s overbearing, bombastic St. John-Smythe. There is an authenticity to their deliberate comedy act that actually works quite well on the screen, and it gives Moore a chance to work in a “buddy” genre one last time.

Bond’s athletic abilities are again put to use this time around. He has to stay mounted on a horse that’s gone wild due to a surprise stimulant injection; he invents snowboarding in the pre-credits sequence, as he attempts to evade the Russians on a Siberian beach; he goes scuba diving to get a closer look at Zorin’s pipeline; and he does a rope climb at a high altitude over San Francisco, culminating in a bit of gymnastics atop the Golden Gate Bridge. Most interestingly, however, he has to survive a night with Grace Jones’ May Day- a competition that, from the brief glimpse of it we get, Bond appeared to be in over his head.



That scene with May Day was the first point in this movie where Mr. Moore’s age really got in the way of the story. You see, by 1985, Mr. Moore was 59 years old, playing a character described routinely in Ian Fleming’s novels to be in his mid-thirties. You can pass as a 35-year old if you’re in your 40s. You might be able to pass for 35 for a while after you turn 50. But when you’re only a year away from your 60th birthday, playing someone half your age becomes something of a stretch. And that stretch was brought right to the front of our awareness in this movie by the two principal female characters Bond interacted with in this story: Grace Jones’s physically fit body looked perfectly capable of wearing Roger Moore’s Bond out in that bedroom scene. And Tonya Roberts looked like she could have been playing Mr. Moore’s daughter. How can have a credible romance with such an obvious age difference between the two actors?

That fact hurt this movie, and I suspect it probably woke Cubby Broccoli up to the realization that the part of Bond was going to have to be recast going forward.



“By the way, my names James St. John Smythe. I’m English.”
“I never would have guessed.”

For anyone who wasn’t already convinced of this fact after watching her brief stint on Charlie’s Angels during its final season on the air (1981), or her performance opposite Marc Singer in Beastmaster (1983), let me clear up this misunderstanding immediately: Tanya Roberts was not cast for her acting skills. Tall and busty, with long flowing blond hair, and a convincing ability to scream are the credentials she brought to the part in this film, and sadly, it wasn’t enough to make Stacy Sutton a memorable character.



From the moment we are introduced to her as a helicopter delivers her to Zorin’s party at the castle in Chantilly, she appears gracious and even slightly flattered by the attention Zorin is showing her. In hindsight, this is all wrong- Ms. Sutton has just arrived to conclude an oil well proxy fight and receive a payment of $5 Million for her shares of her father’s oil company (by her own admission, ten times what they were actually worth). Zorin is a man she’s been fighting in court for years, a man who has caused her to sell all her furniture and take a job as a bureaucrat- a State Geologist- merely to hold onto her family’s old house. So by going to France to collect a check from Zorin, she was conceding defeat. I ask you, did she look dejected at any point during that scene? Did she appear to find meeting with Zorin distasteful, as though he was the enemy? Certainly not.

So, right from the start, we get a character whose reactions seem all wrong. Worse, Ms. Roberts’ sub-par acting abilities stack up consistently throughout the film as she overplays most scenes and does a thoroughly unconvincing job trying to make you think she knows anything about geology. And this is what poses a significant problem for Mr. Moore- not only is her acting woeful, at the time of the making of this movie, she was roughly half the age of her leading man, making their pairing in this film bizarre.



“Intuitive improvisation is the secret of genius.”
“Herr Doktor Mortner would be proud of his creation.”

Max Zorin is a product of genetic engineering, a Nazi experiment during the war that was subsumed by the Soviets when the Iron Curtain descended upon Eastern Europe. He was a KGB agent released into the west to do one principal thing: provide the Soviets with access to western advances in computer chip manufacturing. There’s only one problem- he’s psychotic, a side-effect of his genetic engineering.

On paper, that sounds like a fascinating character. To bring this to life, you need a capable actor, and in this case, we get one: Academy Award winning actor Christopher Walken, who allows his idiosyncratic quirks and mannerisms to punctuate this film at every turn. From his hot-and-cold running feelings for May Day, to his odd bark of a laugh delivered at inappropriate moments, he is both captivating and disturbing to watch. Even the way he meets his demise, clinging franticly to the pipe at the top of one of the towers on the Golden Gate Bridge, as he again delivers that chilling laugh before falling, is simply menacing.



But as was the case in Goldfinger, the character flaw we see on display is what is driving the plot of the story. In his insanity, he’s crafted a plan to give himself an absolute monopoly on the manufacture and distribution of computer chips, and this plan requires the complete destruction of Silicon Valley, source (at the time) of roughly 80% of the world’s computer chip supply. Whereas in the case of Auric Goldfinger, who was an insecure, petty man, in Max Zorin, we have someone who suffers from a high degree of egomania. He is supremely confident his plan will work, doesn’t think of Bond as anything more than an amusing gadfly, has no compunction about killing a KGB operative sent to spy on him, cheats at horse-racing but doesn’t consider it cheating because, well, that was how he was created in the first place, and doesn’t even feel the need to be loyal to May Day. As different as he is to Goldfinger, then, it’s interesting how similar his plan is. Operation Mainstrike, as opposed to operation Grand Slam, is revealed just as Goldfinger did, with a huge model that rises up out of the conference table. When one of the business tycoons aboard his zeppelin indicates his unwillingness to be a part of the plan, just as Goldfinger did with the mobster, Zorin has him killed in a pretty dramatic way. And this plan is no less ambitious than detonating a nuclear bomb inside Fort Knox- Zorin plans to deliberately trigger a “double” earthquake that will flood Silicon Valley. Even his description of silicon chips, made from common sand, has a vague resemblance to Goldfinger’s recitation of why he’s so enamored with gold.

Setting aside the scientific plausibility of being able to trigger a “double” earthquake, it has to be said that Mr. Walken’s performance is certainly one of the saving graces of this movie. But then, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Christopher Walken in any role where I didn’t think his performance was great.



“And I thought that creep loved me!”
A word here about Grace Jones, nee Grace Mendoza in Spanish Town, Jamaica: she is as bizarre and unsettling as Christopher Walken, which makes their pairing in this movie so captivating. When we learn that Herr Doktor Mortner not only engaged in genetic engineering during World War II, he also “doctored” East German athletes with regular injections of hormones, May Day’s physical strength and almost masculine physique make complete sense. She is every bit the freak Max Zorin is, but whereas his abnormality resulted in insanity, hers made her physically huge, with a penchant for strangling people from the backseat of a car. It would be interesting to see who would win in a contest between herself and Jaws.



All of this is, of course, down to the very androgynous Ms. Jones herself. If Christopher Walken’s performance could be described as unhinged, Ms. Jones’ performance could best be described as untamed. Witness how she immediately wrestles with Bond under the covers after she discovers him in her bed, or how she attempts to bite at Zorin once he’s pinned her and attempts to solicit a kiss (a scene deliberately reminiscent of Sean Connery doing the same thing to Honor Blackman in Goldfinger.) Even her last, vindictive stare at Zorin, as she rides the hand-car with the bomb, just as it detonates, is a memorable moment in this film. She’s certainly the best actress in this film, seems quite good with a fly-fishing rod, and has absolutely no fear of anyone (the KGB agent she lifts over her head) or anything (parachute jumping off the Eiffel Tower.) As iconic physical villains go, she’s right up there with the best of them.

“Another wealthy owner?"
"Who knows? But she certainly bares closer inspection."
"We're on a mission."
"Sir Godfrey, on a mission, I am expected to sacrifice myself."



Unlike his two The Avengers co-stars, Patrick Macnee isn’t given a large part in this movie. In playing Sir Godfrey, he is most definitely not John Steed- Steed would have had the presence of mind to check the backseat of the Rolls after May Day seemed to disappear when he went to open the gates. I’ve already spoken about the friendly camaraderie he shares with Mr. Moore, and that counts for a lot here, as it grounds the humor in some of their scenes a bit organically within the story. His untimely death in the automatic car wash was genuinely suspenseful to behold, as just as May Day’s killing stroke is about to hit him, a big rotating brush obscures the view through the windshield- in the audio commentary, Mr. Macnee admits that scene has put him off to using automatic car washes ever again. But his death after such a short stint in the film did two things: it revealed another layer of Zorin’s insanity, and provided Bond with a jolt of vengeance. Given how short his tenure was during AVTAK, Mr. Macnee was delighted and surprised by the fact that he received “star billing” in the opening credits. His name appears just before Patrick Bauchau, who plays Scarpine.



“For centuries alchemists tried to make gold from base metals. Today, we make microchips from silicon, which is common sand, but far better than gold. Now, for several years, we had a profitable partnership, you as manufacturers, while I acquired and passed on to you industrial information that made you competitive, successful. We are now on the unique position to form an international cartel to control not only production, but distribution of these microchips. There is one obstacle - Silicon Valley in San Francisco.”

For this fourteenth Bond film, the plot is a relatively straight-forward one, even if it uses a rather implausible device for the climax: in the pre-credit sequence, Bond has to find the body of slain MI-6 agent 003, buried in snow on a beach in Siberia. He does, and finds 003 is clutching a locket containing a single silicon chip. The chip, it turns out, is identical to the one commissioned my MI-6 to be made impervious to the effect of a electromagnetic pulse- the flash point of nuclear weapon that renders anything electrical, and built based on solid-state technology (as opposed to the old vacuum tube method) inoperable. The implications of finding this on a beach in Siberia is disturbing- it means someone has a pipeline into the company that makes these silicon chips, and the leak started after French industrialist Max Zorin acquired the company, making him a person of interest.



Further suspicions are aroused at Ascot, where a Stallion born of an inferior blood line wins a race in a pretty impressive fashion. The horse is owned by Zorin, and Bond is sent to meet with a French horse racing investigator to see if Zorin has somehow been cheating. Enter May Day, and her personal body count begins with a poison-tipped butterfly that stabs Bond’s contact. The only thing of substance Bond learns from his French contact before the “fly in the soup” incident is that Zorin is holding an auction at his castle in Chantilly, and Bond is determined to go there to further his investigation. With Sir Godfrey in tow, Bond immediately begins attempting to both discover how Zorin’s horses are winning races, who the young lady that received a $5 Million payment is, and how the two incidents are connected. He gets an answer to the first part, when Bond and Sir Godfrey discover surgery being done to horses to implant an automatic needle that will inject a dose of hormones intended to ward off fatigue, and leave the mount a bit frisky into the bargain. Barely escaping detection in their snooping, they have aroused the attention of Zorin, who sets a trap for Bond over the purchase of a horse, while May Day claims her second victim- Sir Godfrey.



Allowing Zorin to think he has also dispatched Bond, the action moves to San Francisco, where Project Mainstrike is revealed as a plan to destroy Silicon Valley, and thus establish Zorin’s monopoly on the trade of silicon chips. The young lady with the big check re-enters the scene, revealed to be State of California Geologist Stacy Sutton, and her grudge with Zorin is what he did to the oil company her father ran. From there, it’s a race to the finish to balk Zorin’s plans to permanently convert Silicon Valley into a southern extension of San Francisco bay, and finish off Zorin.

In terms of theme, this movie isn’t structured with one, mainly because it’s so replete with references to, and ideas from, Goldfinger. We all know how highly I thought of Goldfinger, so I have no objection to a Bond film deliberately referencing one of its predecessors- FYEO did this, too. My problem is the climax to the plot. In Goldfinger, you had a nuclear bomb- an object the audience can not only visually see, but can immediately wrap their minds around the consequences of its detonation. And the tension at the conclusion to Goldfinger came about as the countdown on the bomb was relentlessly ticking down to zero, despite Bond’s best efforts to defuse it. In A View To A Kill, we have an earthquake, no, correction, a “double earthquake” (whatever that is), as the medium of destruction replacing the nuke. While an audience can understand what an earthquake is and does, and while science certainly knows an awful lot about what causes earthquakes, the idea of actually triggering an earthquake is a bit of pseudo-science. It’s a concept, not an object, which is essentially asking audiences to accept this grand plan on faith. This is particularly true when you get to the notion that Zorin’s method of accomplishing this map-changing natural disaster involves something as seemingly innocuous as seawater pumped into sections of both the Hayward and San Andreas faults, while simultaneously detonating a bomb that will destroy “the key geological lock that keeps both faults from moving at once.” Really? All it takes is a bomb to trigger an earthquake? The geology class I took in college failed to mention that.



The other problem that manifests itself with AVTAK is that since the big race to the finish, with all the big reveals about Zorin’s plan, doesn’t occur until the action shifts to San Francisco, you get a sense that the movie is deliberately trying to hurry up getting us there. Case in point: Bond’s day in Paris comprises roughly 10 minutes in screen time. Sir Godfrey’s entire adventure with Bond, at Chantilly, is also similarly brief. And all we’ve established by the time May Day pushes the Rolls into the lake is that Zorin does to horses the same thing Nazi scientists did to him- what about the micro-chips? That was the whole reason Bond started an investigation of Zorin in the first place. And alas, to answer that question, the film has quickly wrap-up this equine sub-plot, do away with Bond’s valet, and get us to the streets of San Francisco.



“Captain to all units: Intercept murder suspect in a stolen fire truck. He MAY be armed... and he's SURE dangerous!.”



In terms of location shooting, once again, director John Glen does a marvelous job. Although the street-side view of Paris, as Bond drives through it with half a car, goes by quite quickly, as it’s interspersed with aerial shots of Paris as we follow May Day’s descent from the Eiffel Tower, you get a real postcard feel for the city. More impressive is the castle at Chantilly- a truly beautiful building, and those lavish stables depicted in the film are, indeed stables. The story told in the movie is nearly true- the duke who built that castle (in the 18th Century, not the 16th) really did believe he was going to be reincarnated as a donkey, and so wanted as lavish a stable as he could build.



What this film is really keeping up its sleeve is its use of San Francisco as a filming location. From a panorama view on board Zorin’s zeppelin, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the foreground and the city skyline beyond it, to setting City Hall on fire, great care was taken to make the city look marvelous. The resultant car chase, with Bond clinging to a ladder swinging wildly on a fire truck, as they proceed up and down the city’s famously steep hills, destroying lots of things in the progress, has a certain Diamonds Are Forever vibe to it, given how many police cars get destroyed. And then there’s Bond, holding onto the mooring rope on Zorin’s get-away blimp, as they fly over downtown San Francisco, with Bond’s gentleman area having a rude collision with an antenna on top of the Trans-America building, before the final climax on top of the Golden Gate Bridge itself. It looks pretty seamless how they accomplished that, as the action shots of Bond, Zorin and Stacy were actually filmed on a life-size model at Pinewood studios, and the background traffic and ocean were inserted behind them from second unit footage taken on top of the bridge itself- something which took some very delicate negotiations with Bridge authority at the time.

The stunt work in this movie is also worth noting. The ski sequences in the pre-credit scene were filmed in Iceland, and the crew was in constant danger of being inundated should one of the icebergs flip over from cavitation. The parachute jump off the Eiffel Tower involved another bit of delicate negotiations with the French, and was almost not permitted. It seems that two days before fliming of Bond’s and May Day’s chase on the Eiffel Tower was to be filmed, a couple jumped off the Tower, parachuted to safety and were arrested upon landing. Everyone was sure the French authorities were going to deny the request for the second unit to film the stunt after that incident.



And a word about set design, as well. The great Ken Adams made his last sets with Moonraker, so by now, his assistant, Peter Lamont was doing the work for this. The entirety of the cave system where Zorin is implanting explosives was designed and built within the 007 sound stage at Pinewood studios. And that it was accomplished at all is something of a miracle- shortly before AVTAK was to begin principal photography, while the Tom Cruise movie “Legend” was using the studio, it burned down, and had to be rebuilt. Location shooting was advanced to the forefront in order for the site be cleared and re-built. And it was rebuilt in record time- only three months once the site was cleared, compared with the nearly one year construction process back in 1976. And it has to be said that cave interior was absolutely convincing as a set.

“That's rather neat, Don't you think?”
“Brilliant. I'm almost speechless with admiration.”



So, before I give this a rating, let’s tie up a few loose ends. First, AVTAK is the only Bond movie that features a disclaimer before the famous gun-barrel opening. That came about because of fear of being sued. Apparently, in the mid 1980s, there was a semiconductor plant in Silicon Valley with a name that sounded very similar to Zorin. And, at the time, there was a fashion designer named Max Zoran. You can see why they’d be a bit concerned with the name.

Now, the theme song: “A View To A Kill” was written and performed by 80s boy band Duran Duran. It’s fast paced tempo and clear line of distinction to Rita Coolidge’s “All Time High”, coupled with the band’s huge popularity in the early 80s, ensured this theme song went right to the top of pop charts in the summer of 1985. Apparently, shortly after filming the related music video for the song, the band broke up, but reformed after a brief hiatus to release the 1987 album “Notorious.”



And finally, the casting change. All told, during its theatrical release worldwide, AVTAK made more than $154 Million, something like five times the budget to make it. So it would be fair to say it was a commercial success. But sometime after the big premiere parties and popularity of the theme song died down, a very sober Roger Moore looked in the mirror, realized he would be 61 at the time the next movie came about, and informed Cubby Broccoli that it was time for him to depart the role. Cubby accepted the decision, perhaps with equal parts sadness and relief. Sadness because Mr. Moore had been his Bond through a rather turbulent period in the late 70s, and had been quite a commercial successful actor in the role, making DanJaq and Eon Productions quite a lot of money. And relief because it meant he, Cubby, wouldn’t have to be the one to break the news to Mr. Moore that it was, really, time for him to go.

Final word on the matter: Roger Moore’s seventh and final turn in the role was a valiant effort that fell a bit short of the mark it could have had. It had Christopher Walken and Grace Jones, doing a wonderful job in their villainy. It had a great buddy for Bond in Patrick Macnee. And it had loads of references to Goldfinger, even borrowing a bit of its plot. Sadly, it also had Tonya Roberts, and her performance was a real deal breaker for me, as was the jarringly odd pairing of her with Mr. Moore, given the age difference. Even Christopher Walken can’t save the movie from that. A View To A Kill gets two deadly trips to the car wash out of a possible five, and I’m being generous simply because of the San Francisco location shooting.

James Bond will return in “The Living Daylights.”

[Zoltar]

Interesting review, Patrick, as always.

Final word on the matter: Roger Moore’s seventh and final turn in the role was a valiant effort that fell a bit short of the mark it could have had. It had Christopher Walken and Grace Jones, doing a wonderful job in their villainy. It had a great buddy for Bond in Patrick Macnee. And it had loads of references to Goldfinger, even borrowing a bit of its plot. Sadly, it also had Tonya Roberts, and her performance was a real deal breaker for me, as was the jarringly odd pairing of her with Mr. Moore, given the age difference. Even Christopher Walken can’t save the movie from that. A View To A Kill gets two deadly trips to the car wash out of a possible five, and I’m being generous simply because of the San Francisco location shooting.

As for myself, I found Moore entertaining as usual. I've willingly suspended my disbelief on worse than a man's age in this film series. I thought Walken, Jones, Macnee, the San Fran setting and the plot callbacks to Goldfinger more than outweighed the presence of a weak Bond girl. Zorin is one of my all-time favorite Bond villains, so I'd probably overly generously desire to award it a 4/5. My actual score is more likely a 3/5.

[barnaby morbius]

the wine drinking taxi driver is pretty much the most racist thing in any Bond film...

[The Co=Ordinator]

I think you grossly under rate this film Patrick. I agree that Tanya Roberts is naff, but apart from that I love all the principals. Moore's age has never been a problem for me, and there are some superb set pieces. So I'll give A View to a Kill a solid 4/5.

It was to prove to be the end of a Golden Era, and Bond was never quite such fun again.

[Patrick]

C=O and Zoltar,
You both think I under-rated this story. Here's the truth of what it's like to be a reviewer: a certain Eocene of our mutual acquantaince was sent a copy of this review. His reaction? He thought the points I made were excellent, but criticized me for cutting the film too much slack! He thought a 2 was far too generous!

This confirms for me that I'm doing my job of generating honest reactions and appraisals.

Now, small announcement to make. Based on my every-other-week timetable for reviews, my assessment of "The Living Daylights" is scheduled to happen on December 24th. Sorry, but I'm going to be a bit busy that day, so I'm going to postpone the premiere of Timothy Dalton to January 7th. I promise to make the review worth the additional two week wait.

[Zoltar]

C=O and Zoltar,
You both think I under-rated this story.

Nah, I just offered my own view on it. That doesn't mean I think you under-rated the story, everyone's welcome to their own opinion. I rarely think in terms of under or over rating, people like what they like. Or don't like it, as the case may be.

[Patrick]

According to THIS ARTICLE, Daniel Craig is in negotiations to play James Bond for a further five movies after "Skyfall." This would make a total of 8 movies if it actually comes to pass, and that would break Roger Moore's record of seven.

Just a reminder, as my next review, if we follow the schedule, would occur on Christmas Eve, I'm putting my review of The Living Daylights off until January 7th. Happy Holidays, everyone!

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