Re: Universal Exports - The James Bond Thread

[Zoltar]

There are no US Space Marines.

Another 6/5 movie.

They'll keep fighting... and they'll win!

[The Co=Ordinator]

[barnaby morbius]

i'm a bit surprised by the strong feelings - i'd give golden gun, spy who loved me and moonraker a pretty good rating each- i don't watch bond films(or dr who for that matter) worrying about plot holes. i'm more interested in being entertained, some good stunts and some cheesy gags. for me the really bad bond films are yet to come...

[Zoltar]

i'm a bit surprised by the strong feelings - i'd give golden gun, spy who loved me and moonraker a pretty good rating each- i don't watch bond films(or dr who for that matter) worrying about plot holes. i'm more interested in being entertained, some good stunts and some cheesy gags. for me the really bad bond films are yet to come...

I tend to do the same actually. While I don't count Moonraker as a fave, I've seen it more than a few times and don't really get hung up on the details.

[Patrick]

i'm a bit surprised by the strong feelings - i'd give golden gun, spy who loved me and moonraker a pretty good rating each- i don't watch bond films(or dr who for that matter) worrying about plot holes. i'm more interested in being entertained, some good stunts and some cheesy gags. for me the really bad bond films are yet to come...

Barnaby,
That the Bond movies, taken as a whole, are entertaining, is a given. My goal in my reviews is to deconstruct each film, character/actor, plot, theme, action/stunts, and design, and discern if the finished product has held up well as a film. Yes, plot holes bother me, because it means someone didn't see them in the script, but that's not the only criteria I use to evaluate the finished product. For me, I can accept a few plot holes up to a point, and that point is generally when those plot holes subsume the story, or stack up together so that I feel like I'm having my intelligence insulted. Moonraker did both, and whole lot worse.

[barnaby morbius]

i'm a bit surprised by the strong feelings - i'd give golden gun, spy who loved me and moonraker a pretty good rating each- i don't watch bond films(or dr who for that matter) worrying about plot holes. i'm more interested in being entertained, some good stunts and some cheesy gags. for me the really bad bond films are yet to come...

Barnaby,
That the Bond movies, taken as a whole, are entertaining, is a given. My goal in my reviews is to deconstruct each film, character/actor, plot, theme, action/stunts, and design, and discern if the finished product has held up well as a film. Yes, plot holes bother me, because it means someone didn't see them in the script, but that's not the only criteria I use to evaluate the finished product. For me, I can accept a few plot holes up to a point, and that point is generally when those plot holes subsume the story, or stack up together so that I feel like I'm having my intelligence insulted. Moonraker did both, and whole lot worse.

fair enough. moonraker, for me, is good entertainment. the sort of thing that families groove to on a bank holiday monday...

some of the upcoming bond films in this thread i didn't find very entertaining i'm afraid-i'll be interested to see what you make of them...

[Patrick]

Welcome to the 1980s – the decade that brought you the Rubik’s Cube, tight fitting jeans, the compact disc and the personal computer. And for the James Bond franchise, it was a decade that would see our favorite gentlemen spy become a bit more grounded (literally) in his adventures.

You see, at certain point in the aftermath of Moonraker, the penny dropped for everyone concerned with making Bond movies that you could not continue to have a character who was originally crafted as a cold war spy go down the path of outrageous science fiction. You also couldn’t continue to have him face one hyper-rich asexual megalomaniac in a Nehru jacket intent to destroy the world after another. If you’re going to have a more realistic Bond, it’s going to require more realistic villains and more credible stories that didn’t routinely have all of creation at stake.

So with that decision made, Bond was about to go a bit smaller in scale, and get back to basics. Don’t worry, this is a good thing.

For Your Eyes Only
UK Release: June 24, 1981
US Release: June 26, 1981



“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned”
“That’s putting it mildly, 007.”



Roger Moore’s original contract was for three films, which was fulfilled with The Spy Who Loved Me. After that, his contracts were negotiated on a film by film basis (make of note of that, it will become an issue in the next couple of films), and he apparently had to be coaxed back to the role after Moonraker. Well, who can blame him for that, really? But I’m glad he did, because this is easily his finest performance as Bond in any of his seven movies in the role.

Bond is much more the sportsman this time around. He skis with Bibi, he rides a ski jump to elude his pursuers and then skis for his life on a bobsled course, plays three-on-one ice hockey, scuba dives, rock climbs and manages to climb around the outside of a helicopter in flight. His resourcefulness is also tapped into, here, as he has to save himself and Melina from being keel-hauled and dragged over coral. His military skills are again called upon, as he leads an assault on Kristatos’ Albanian dock.



But what makes his performance so memorable this time around is that he’s also put into situations where can’t rely on a gadget to the save the day, or discovers that he’s in over his head. Bibi’s school-girl crush on Bond puts him in a truly awkward situation, and forces him to play the bemused gentlemen. When his Lotus Esprit Turbo is blown up (not really the point of a car alarm), he has to escape with Melina in a Citroën 2CV. I’ve operated lawn mowers with more power than that car, and Bond and Melina are being chased by bad guys driving big, powerful Mercedes.

Yes, you still get Mr. Moore’s trademark charm on display, only this time, because the film is so well scripted, it’s more convincingly ground within the story and doesn’t feel like a mere affectation. Case in point: his relationship with Melina. Bond is protective of her, and she responds with an obvious mutual attraction. Because of the chemistry between them, this is easily the most romantic relationship Bond has had with his female lead in any of the Roger Moore stories. And you can feel that dynamic between them.



But by far the most interesting scene for Mr. Moore this time around is the scene where he confronts Locke, trapped in his car as it dangles precariously on a cliff edge, over the death of Ferrara. One of the things I learned from the DVD extras was that this was a scene Mr. Moore was actually very reluctant to do, as he felt kicking the car and sending Locke to his death was something more appropriate for Sean Connery’s Bond, than his. He had a lot of discussion about the scene with director John Glen and they ultimately did it the way it was scripted, and I’m pleased they did. Movie viewers need to occasionally be reminded that Bond can be ruthless and cold-blooded when the situation calls for it.

In short, this is a very satisfying outing for Mr. Moore, as he gets the chance to play a full range of emotions. The fact that he’s not Sean Connery just means that this range isn’t quite as large.

“You have shot your last bolt, Miss Havelock.”


I want to jump right into an assessment of characters this time around, as this film is so well casted, and more than that, so well acted. The characters that populate this movie have perfectly understandable motivations, and because of that, they behave exactly as they ought to behave. So we start with Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock. And I’m going to reveal a personal bias here- I’m partial to brunettes (hence my unrequited crush on Sandra Bullock). Carole Bouquet is not merely beautiful, she’s stunning. Her character’s main motivation is to avenge her parents’ death, which, given her half-Greek heritage and her referencing of Elektra from classic Greek mythology, makes her a convincing character. And, after a string of Bond leading ladies who really couldn’t act, the fact that Ms. Bouquet is a talented actress makes her one of the best Bond girls since Diana Rigg. With those eyes that portray her emotions so vividly, and that long silky hair, what’s not to like about her? Add to this that she’s a dead shot with a crossbow and you have a truly memorable character.



Her relationship with Bond, indeed their fondness for each other, feels entirely genuine and generated by the fact that she’s decided to cast her lot with Bond in her quest to not only finish her father’s work but put a bolt in Kristatos’ back. There is a clear sense of romance between Melina and Bond. But she’s a formidable presence when she teams up with Columbo and his team to storm St. Cyril’s, and her character never misses a beat. By the film’s conclusion, you feel like you know more about her than just about any other Bond leading lady.

“The odds favor standing pat”
“If you play the odds”

What you want in any good villain is someone who, through character moments revealed a little bit at a time throughout the story, turns out to be a completely unsympathetic bastard. Julian Glover, as Kristatos, does not disappoint. He is initially introduced to us as an ally of MI-6, having been part of the Greek resistance during the War. Little by little, that façade is stripped away to reveal that not only is he not an ally, he’s actively working to find the ATAC computer and sell it to the Russians, but he also possesses a nasty streak of barbarity as he attempts to scrape Bond and Melina over the coral during the keel-hauling scene. He’s taken on Bibi as his protégé, likely for two reasons: first, to feed his ego in the event she wins an Olympic gold medal, and second (revealed in a bit of throwaway dialogue) to hopefully bed her. Unlike the secretly insecure villains Goldfinger and Scaramanga, Kristatos is a confident man whose background as a successful smuggler makes him a worthy adversary for Bond. And that its Julian Glover playing him means you’re going to get a very good performance into the bargain.

“I am a good judge of man. You have what the Greeks call ‘thrausos!’ Guts!”

One of the things the original Ian Fleming novels did frequently was have Bond interact with some amiable rogues as allies, such as Kerim Bay or Marc Ange Draco. Topol, as Columbo, is cut from the same cloth as these characters. Given that we are initially led to believe that Kristatos is Bond’s ally, we are introduced to Columbo as Kristatos’ nemesis. When the reveal that Kristatos is not to be trusted occurs, it’s a nice turn of events to have this charismatic smuggler team up with Bond to raid Kristatos’ shipyard. Columbo is motivated by the same sort of revenge that afflicts Melina’s character, but in this case, it’s more of a mano-a-mano competition with a once fellow smuggler and Greek resistance member who betrayed him, and it is a decades old enmity. And his pistachio fixation is a nice trait that actually helps the plot.

“He had no head for heights.”

You’ll remember that Thunderball featured a silent assassin as a character who, apparently, did not drink, did not smoke, and did not have sex. The problem with Vargas is his character was so poorly realized in the script, that you saw none of these qualities actually portrayed. In the character of Locke, we do see this realized, and it’s a clear case of showing, not telling. He never says a word during movie, but his menace is keenly felt throughout, and as Bond dispatches him by kicking his car over a cliff, you, sitting in the audience, feel a nice victory has been achieved. The actor who portrayed him, Michael Gouthard, is not well known, but his rigid stare and businesslike demeanor make this character serve the film well.

“Now, put your clothes on, and I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

On paper, the character of Bibi had every potential to become nothing more than a bit of pointless comedy in the film. But Lynn Holly Johnson’s vivacious, bundle of energy performance prevents this from happening. It actually comes across as endearing as she flirts with Erich Kriegler while he’s competing in the biathlon, and ratchets up her school-girl crush on Bond by showing up in his hotel room au naturel. It forces Bond to be put in the unusual position of having to play bemused gentlemen in his attempts to gently deflect her interests, and that dynamic plays well.

“ATAC to St. Cyril’s! ATAC to St. Cyril’s!”

After the unmitigated mess that was Moonraker, Richard Maibaum returns to script-writing duties, joined by Michael G. Wilson (son of Dana Broccoli, and step-son of Cubby Broccoli.) But that isn’t the only change that happened in the interval between Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only. Given the creative decision to ground the story and reduce the scale, Lewis Gilbert, who was always fond of the big set action piece to climax the movie, would never have worked as the director of this film. Instead, John Glen starts a five film run as director, and some exposition of his background is called for. Mr. Glen had been second unit director in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, Superman, Shout at the Devil, Murphy’s War and about a dozen other films. The second unit director is typically the one who handles all the stunt and action scenes. In addition to this, he served as editor on all the aforementioned films as well as some twenty others. In other words, Mr. Glen is a serious film maker who brought a lot of experience with him.

And this experience shows in how he’s organized each shot, giving the viewer exactly the information they need to follow the action. There’s nothing extraneous or un-necessary to the visual presentation, and he’s choreographed the actor’s movements to achieve the optimum effect. I’ve gone on about what a great story we have in FYEO, but it has to be said that this was one of the best directed Bond films. And, like Hitchcock, Glen was keen to put a signature on his films. In every one of the Bond movies he directed, you’ll come across a scene where a startled pigeon flies off making a lot noise. That’s the Glen touch.



So about that story: here we have a classic cold war espionage tale. A British naval vessel, disguised to look like a fishing boat, contains an important computer, the ATAC, a vital piece of equipment that can coordinate the movements of British submarines world-wide. The ship is struck by an old World War II era mine and sinks somewhere in the Aegean Sea, an act we are led to believe was an accident until we see similar mines in Kristatos’ shipyard.

What follows is a race between British intelligence and a Greek smuggler secretly working for the Russians to find the ATAC. Melina is brought into the story when her parents are killed by a pilot hired by Locke. It turns out Melina’s father is on secret detachment to the British navy, searching for the wrecked ship that held the ATAC. It ultimately leads to Bond having to destroy the ATAC in order to prevent it from being handed over to General Gogol.



The story does away with gadgets and a plot where the fate of everyone on Earth is in danger, and instead goes with a relatively simple, straightforward spy yarn. Because of this, the writers were forced to have everything grounded within the story itself, which they accomplished quite well. It’s a believable plot that dates from an era of heightened tensions with the Soviet Union, which gave it a kernel of credibility to audiences at the time it was released.

It ultimately isn’t held together with a unifying theme, but that doesn’t bother me, because the film itself is actually quite replete with references to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This is, to some degree, a love story although not at the same level as OHMSS. Much of the second act of the movie takes place at a winter resort in the mountains, and features a number of outstanding ski and winter sports scenes. Bond is outnumbered on the ski lift, in much the same way as he was on the mountain and in the Swiss village in OHMSS, and has to make a run for it on skis. Part of this takes place on a bob-sled run, a direct OHMSS reference. Bond wears a blue ski suit (the same color George Lazenby wore). Bond even has a similar expression of surprise when he spots Melina in Cortina D’Ampezo, although he’s not nearly as happy to find Melina as he was to find Traci.



The ski sequences are really the centerpiece of this film, and the same backward-skiing cameraman from OHMSS was brought back to film those scenes. It is a magnificent piece of film making, and it has to be said that I can’t think of any other movie franchise that so excels at filming action scenes on skis as Bond has done. When you couple that with the location shooting in Greece, the film has a visual distinctiveness to it that’s great to watch.

“Mr Bond! We can do a deal! I'll buy you a delicatessen! In stainless steel!”

Now, a word about that pre-credit sequence. The man in the wheelchair remotely piloting Bond’s helicopter looks like Blofeld with that bald head. He has a white cat. He clearly seems to know Bond, and Bond’s helicopter picks him up as he’s visiting the grave of his late wife (another OHMSS reference.) But that character is not named in the end credits for the film. Here’s the back-story behind that scene: you will recall I mentioned that in the run-up to filming The Spy Who Loved Me, Danjaq productions went into a protracted legal dispute as Harry Saltzman had staked his ownership in Danjaq as collateral for a loan he had made through some Swiss banks. A fallout of that litigation is that EON productions lost the rights to the novel Thunderball. You may well ask, what’s the big deal? Thunderball was made into a movie some sixteen years earlier. Ah, but Thunderball was the novel that first introduced the character Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and he who holds the rights to that novel, holds the rights to that character. And the man who had acquired the rights to Thunderball had announced his intention to remake it as an original Bond movie, starring Sean Connery. Dumping this obviously Blofeld-esque character down a smokestack was Cubby Broccoli’s way of saying he didn’t need Blofeld to make a Bond movie.

My only comment on the pre-credit sequence is that I would have liked to have seen Mr. Moore show a bit of emotion as he lay flowers down at Traci’s grave.

“I’m afraid we’re being out horse-powered.”

Now, while I’m a big fan of this movie, there are two things about it which annoy me. The first is the scene where Bond has to take on three hockey players. No one is a bigger fan of hockey than I, but as soon as the three players emerged on the rink, I knew this was not some innocent practice scrimmage we were about to witness. Hockey players have numerous weapons they can use- those sticks are pretty imposing, and what other sport do you play wearing knives on your feet? Try being on hard soled shoes on a nearly frictionless surface when a 200 lbs man flying around at 30 miles per hour slams into you and see what happens. What bothers me about this scene is the notion that we apparently had someone up in the press box keeping score. Really? And when Bond finished off all three hockey players, why didn’t this scorekeeper simply shoot Bond? He was standing alone in the middle of an ice rink, for heaven’s sake.



The second is the music. John Barry was not available for this film, so the duties to craft the musical score went to Bill Conti, who had originally done the music for Rocky. The use of the synthesizers just felt a bit cheap, and really dated this as an early 80s production. I don’t think it’s held up well over time.

“That’s détente, comrade. You don’t have it, I don’t have it.”

A couple of points of trivia to bring up in conclusion. This film also featured the late Cassandra Harris as Countess Lisl Von Schraff in a brief love tryst with Bond before she’s taken out by Locke. Ms. Harris, of course, was married to Pierce Brosnan at the time, and he actually visited the set while production was taking place. He immediately impressed Cubby Broccoli, but it would be fourteen years before he landed the role of Bond (a story I shall cover in more detail during a later, more appropriate review.)

FYEO is the first Bond movie since Dr. No not to feature Bernard Lee as M. Mr. Lee passed away just as principal photography was getting started, but before any of his scenes could be shot. I think the Bond franchise really lost something without a defined M as a character.


Finally, less commonly known is that Ms. Bouquet suffered from a sinus condition which made it impossible for her do any underwater filming. To compensate for this, John Glen came up with the idea of shooting her underwater scenes using slow motion photography with filters to thicken the image, and edited in some special effects bubbles to make it appear they were underwater. I think the effect actually worked, as I had no idea they had done this until I learned it watching the DVD extras.



So in the final analysis, the Bond franchise entered the 80s with something of a triumph. For whatever nick-picking I can do, it is more than offset by a fantastic, realistic story, a talented and engaging cast, one of the most romantic relationships between Bond and his leading lady, and some superb direction. This is clearly the best performance Roger Moore offered as James Bond, and if possible, it has even better ski scenes than did OHMSS. For Your Eyes Only gets five ATAC location-confessing parrots out of a possible five, and if you haven’t watched it recently, it really is worth your time to give it a viewing again.

James Bond will return in “Octopussy.”

[Zoltar]

Interesting review, Patrick. For Your Eyes Only is easily my favorite of the Moore films.

[Rich Flair]

I think I'd given up by this point. I don't recall watching this, but weirdly I had the comic strip adaption. Nice Chaykin art.

[barnaby morbius]

i find this one a little bland-julian glover lacks menace, we have seen better ski, car and underwater chases and i still don't understand what a delicatessen in stainless steel is!

still it's not a bad one-what did you think of the theme song? suprised you didn't mention it.

[Patrick]

i find this one a little bland-julian glover lacks menace, we have seen better ski, car and underwater chases and i still don't understand what a delicatessen in stainless steel is!

still it's not a bad one-what did you think of the theme song? suprised you didn't mention it.

I assume stainless steel in a deli would refer to the counter tops.

As for the theme song, I found it kind of average to be honest. FYEO has the distinction of being the only Bond movie were the performer actually appears in the opening credits, and I'm not sure that worked. It made the song more about Sheena Easton than Bond. Note how it hasn't been repeated since, and we certainly had better theme songs come along after this.

[Patrick]

I think I'd given up by this point. I don't recall watching this, but weirdly I had the comic strip adaption. Nice Chaykin art.

You mean you missed Margaret Thatcher's cameo, Rich? I'm shocked.

[Patrick]

We interrupt this review and comment on FYEO to provide an update on casting for Bond 23.

REPORTED THIS MORNING is news that Albert Finney has been brought in to play the role of a Foriegn Office Minister who's powers oversee MI-6. This makes him, de facto, M's boss, although in the script, she apparently doesn't see it that way.

The cast already includes Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem and Ralph Fiennes. Rory Kinnear will reprise his role as Bill Tanner, M's Chief of Staff. And we will get to see Naomie Harris as Miss Moneypenny. Rounding out the cast will be Bernice Marlohe as the requisite Bond girl.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Bond review...

[Rich Flair]

You mean you missed Margaret Thatcher's cameo, Rich? I'm shocked.

I remeber that, so maybe I have seen it.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Will post my thoughts about FYEO in the next day or two - it's been a hectic weekend!

However, in the way that life can sometimes bring you nice surprises, we had a last minute guest at Time 5 yesterday. I post about it here because of the relevance. And also because the Ninja was genuinely thrilled to meet a real hero of his.

[The Co=Ordinator]

As ever, a thorough and fascinating review Patrick. However I can't work out how you ended up giving it 5/5, even based on what you posted.

There's nothing wrong with FYEO, but for me it was a comedown after the epic Moonraker. So I think 3/5 is a fair score.

[The Co=Ordinator]

"Skyfall" confirmed.

[Rich Flair]

Haven't seen the last one yet. Must catch up!

[Nick Barlow]

Decent cast for Skyfall anyway - Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw amongst others. And if Bardem's the main bad guy, I'm guessing that Whishaw's playing Q and Fiennes is the new Blofeld, based on no evidence other than it sounds vaguely plausible.

[Patrick]

In contrast to the years of détente which characterized the 1970s, the 80s were a period of when the tensions between the Soviet Union and the west were at an all time high (apologies to Rita Coolidge, there). No incident perhaps portrayed how serious the tensions were, at the time, then the downing of a commercial passenger airliner, en route from Anchorage to Seoul at the hands of Soviet Interceptor pilots, killing all 269 people on board. It is with some grim irony that the designation of the flight should be noted: Korean Airlines Flight 007.

The Bond franchise needed bad guys, and without the legal permission to use SPECTRE or Ernst Stavro Blofeld anymore, the most convenient villains to present themselves to the challenge in an era where the cold war was beginning to become decidedly hot were the Soviets themselves. It would be theme EON productions would examine for the next three movie installments, and why not? James Bond had originally been crafted as a cold-war spy, and before SPECTRE came along, his written adventures routinely involved the Russians.

In the interests of historical accuracy, however, it should be mentioned that the incident involving Korean Airlines Flight 007 actually happened some three months after the thirteenth Bond movie hit theaters. So is this a case of life, imitating art?

Octopussy
UK Release: June 6, 1983
US Release: June 10, 1983



“Are you with our group?”
“No ma’am, I’m with the economy tour.”



As we always do, we begin with James Bond himself. For his sixth turn in the part, Roger Moore again brings the sort of suave sophisticate British gentlemen we’ve seen consistently since The Spy Who Loved Me. I’ve mentioned previously that Mr. Moore’s delivery of a throwaway line of dialogue, often with conviction, is a hallmark of his portrayal, and in this film, it’s very much prevalent again. His physicality is again called upon, as he scales the walls outside Khan’s castle, flees through the jungles of India, and clings to the exterior of plane in flight or a train in motion. His charm is again on display, as he either seduces, or is seduced by, Octopussy. But there is a problem that was beginning to manifest itself in this story, and would continue to plague him in the next film as well. And there is no polite way to say this- Mr. Moore’s age is conspiring against him

When he started his career as Bond a decade earlier, Mr. Moore was 47 years old. By 1983, he was rapidly approaching the big Six-Oh, still playing a character originally crafted to be in his mid-thirties. And this has begun to show in certain details of his looks- his hair is now a bit thinner and looks like it’s been a bit more tenderly treated. He appears to need to spend a little extra time in the make-up chair to address the creases in the corners of his eyes. And when not using a stunt double during close up scenes where Mr. Moore has to engage in fisticuffs, his expressions seem a bit more forced than they have in previous films.



Now, not all of this is entirely Mr. Moore’s fault. You can’t really blame anyone for getting older. That happens to the best of us. From the DVD extras, it appears Mr. Moore would have been entirely happy to depart the franchise following For Your Eyes Only, and if he had, it would have been an ending on a triumphant note. But he was lured back by Cubby Broccoli for one very simple reason: Sean Connery was about to return as James Bond.

You’ll recall roughly seven years earlier, DanJaq Productions had found itself embroiled in a legal dispute when Mr. Broccoli’s partner Harry Saltzman had made some bad investments, staking his ownership in DanJaq as collateral, and then some Swiss bankers came calling to collect. One of the outcomes of the protracted litigation that ensued was that the rights to the novel Thunderball had been acquired by a film maker named Kevin McClory. And in 1982, having secured financing and studio backing, he started production on a re-make of Thunderball, and brought Sean Connery out of retirement to once again play James Bond. Faced with the prospect of a well loved veteran Bond actor returning to the big screen in the same year as his thirteenth Bond film, there was no way Cubby Broccoli was going to take a chance on re-casting the role. It would be Connery vs. Moore in a battle at the box office.

So how did he do? Mr. Moore delivered the same version of Bond we’ve seen over much of the last ten years, minus the playboy idiot he started out as. But that performance was beginning to get a bit undermined by the inescapable fact that Mr. Moore was beginning to look wrong for the part.


“I have no price on my head!”



If we set aside Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, Maud Adams holds the distinction of being the only actress to appear as a Bond girl in more than one film. (Bit of trivia: she was actually in three, but you’d be hard pressed to spot her cameo on a San Francisco cable car in A View To A Kill, as it happens so fast.) In my review of TMWTGG, I indicated that I thought she was easily the best actress in that movie, and I certainly found her better looking than Britt Ekland. The good news here is that she’s lost nothing in the way of looks in the nine intervening years since TMWTGG.



I’d like to say she also hasn’t lost any of her acting abilities, as well, but I can’t. That’s not to say that she isn’t a good actress. The problem for Ms. Adams this time around is her character. Meant to be a sort of guru who holds appeal to women looking to make themselves independent and give themselves a purpose, the real problem with Octopussy is that she actually has very little to do with the story. Her character isn’t introduced to the audience until near the end of the second act, and other than some dialogue with Bond, where we learn that she owes Bond a debt for the “honorable alternative” he allowed her father to choose, and that she’s involved with Kamal Kahn in jewelry smuggling, the only other contribution to the story she makes is when she gets captured by Kahn and kidnapped, thus upping the stakes for Bond. And that represents a major problem for me: how is it that this woman, reviver of the Octopussy cult, trainer of her own brand of female ninjas, could make such a basic mistake of going after Kahn without factoring that his henchman would need to be dealt with as well?

Having leveled that criticism, her romantic scenes with Bond do feel genuine, even if they also appear to have been tacked on to the plot for the point of creating an instant relationship.


“Englishman. Likes eggs, preferable Faberge, and dice, preferably loaded.”



Few actors can pull off appearing menacing in a scene that has no dialogue. In the first scene we meet Louis Jordan as Kamal Kahn, at the auction to purchase the Faberge egg, he has no lines of dialogue at all, and yet his stare speaks volumes. Mr. Jordan’s performance is one of the true saving graces of this movie. He is erudite, refined, perfectly unflappable, and completely about himself. Even the way he says the title character’s name, “oc-tow-poo-see,” has a layer to it that un-nerves one. But it takes more than the effective delivery of a line to make a memorable villain.



In Kamal Kahn, exiled Afghan prince, we have someone cut from the same cloth as Auric Goldfinger or Francisco Scaramanga. We have a serial cheater. He cheats the Major at Backgammon in the club at Bond’s hotel in Delhi. He attempts to cheat Gen. Orlov with the real Faberge egg, once he recovers it from Bond. And he cheats Octopussy, twice, first by sending assassins to her island, and then by switching the jewels in canon car on the train with a nuclear bomb, and departing with the hope of adding Octopussy’s circus to the list of casualties. What this habitual cheating reveals about him is that, despite his sophisticated veneer, we have an insecure man, which likely stems from the circumstances that forced him to leave his principality, and an overt desire to always win in order to continue his extravagant lifestyle. I found it interesting that when Gobinda brings news to Khan that Bond has escaped, we find Khan in his study, reading a leather-bound classic novel. Khan is clearly an educated, intelligent man, which would appear to be at odds with his compulsive need to deal duplicitously with everyone around him.


“He suggests a trade. The egg for your life.”
“I’d heard the price of eggs was going up, but isn’t that a little high?”



Kristina Wayborn, as Magda, Octopussy’s protégé, and apparent favorite of Khan, actually makes more of an impression on me than Maude Adams does. Part of this stems from the fact that we first encounter her character very early on in the film, and the implication we are led to believe is that the egg, the “property of a lady,” might just be hers. In her every scene, she exudes sex appeal, with slightly pouty lips, which only serve to allow the audience to stereotype her as someone’s arm candy until she executes that brilliant gymnastic move to leave Bond’s hotel balcony with the egg. Make no mistake: this is woman who is capable of anything, and because she’s the link between Octopussy and Khan, we really are kept guessing who’s side she’s on. That is until she’s also betrayed by Khan with the swap of the jewels for the nuclear bomb at the US Air Force base. I actually found her performance engaging and one of the better aspects of this movie.


“Better than letting a handful of old men in Moscow bargain away our advantage in disarmament talks!”



My only complaint about Steven Berkoff, as General Orlov, is that he is used far too sparingly in the movie. The man is a war-obsessed general, obsessed with conquest of the west, and willing to pay any price to achieve it. From the moment we meet him at a high level polit-bureau discussion, where he introduces us to his plans to advance his forces into Western Europe, and gets told to sit down and be quiet by the Leonid Brezhnev stand-in, his character’s motivations are completely understandable, even if a bit shocking. But there’s more to Mr. Berkoff’s character than that. He possesses a sort of barely contained mania, almost to the point of derangement, in his single-mindedness. His bluster, his shouting, even his slightly over-done gestures, underscore how close to the surface this mania is. And for 1983 audiences, he was perfect villain to have in a Bond film for the sake of believability.


“Girls. Selling themselves.”



As Gobinda, Khan’s physical villain, Kabir Bedi is an obvious throwback to henchmen like Jaws, or Oddjob. His is physically large and immediately intimidating. He doesn’t speak much, but lets actions, like crushing a pair of dice in his hands, speak for him (a very Oddjob-esque moment, actually.) He is unquestionably loyal to his employer, doing all the dirty work on Khan’s behalf. And if Oddjob had his unrelenting eerie smile, Gobinda’s trademark was his intense stare with those dark, almost black pools for eyes. Unfortunately, that’s where the better aspects of this character stop. Gobinda is never seen far from Khan, which makes him seem more like a personal bodyguard than actual henchman, and unlike Oddjob, who certainly uttered no complaint when locked into the gold vault with a nuclear bomb, Gobinda initially blanches at the prospect of stepping outside the plane to deal with Bond. I’d rate Gobinda as slightly average, where physical villains are concerned.


“You seem to have this nasty habit of surviving.”
“You know what they say about the fittest.”



As they did with the plot for FYEO, the story for Octopussy borrows elements of two Ian Fleming short stories. And again, the scriptwriters crafted a story very much about the cold war of the time, and ground all the elements of the tale within the story itself. Once we get past the pre-credit sequence (which was originally a stunt considered for Moonraker,) the first act introduces the story quite effectively- a man in a clown suit, fleeing a circus near the West German border, is being pursued by two knife-throwing assassins. He ends up with a knife in the back, but owing to a lucky fall into a river, escapes and finds his way to the British Embassy, where he delivers a fake Faberge egg before dying. The dead clown is actually agent 009, and M reveals to Bond that the real version of that egg is up for auction. Bond is sent to see who might buy the real thing, driving the price of the auction up and switching the fake egg for the real thing in the process.

In the meantime, we meet General Orlov, who is just this side of insane, and it becomes clear when one of the knife-wielding assassins is also in residence at the Kremlin art repository that Orlov is somehow involved in this jewelry smuggling ring.



Once the action moves to India, the apparently disparate elements of the story begin to come together, as we get confirmation that Orlov is in league with Kahn, and somehow, Octopussy is involved in this as well. But the central mystery of why Orlov would become embroiled in a jewelry ring when what he craves is to defeat NATO forces in Western Europe is withheld until the third act, when the canon car switch occurs in a tunnel. Jewels have been changed for a nuclear bomb, and its detonation is intended to look like a tragic accident which will force NATO to withdraw its warheads from Western Europe.

The final act of the movie is the one which contains all the big stunts. From a car chase on rails to fights on the roof of a moving train, from Bond hitchhiking to Bond stealing a car and breaking onto a US Air Force base, the final act is your reward for sitting through a tacked on romance and Kamal Kahn’s manipulations to retrieve the real Faberge egg from Bond. Despite a noted lack of action for the first half of the movie, the story does move you along, you have some great location shooting in India into the bargain.



If there’s a complaint to be made about the plot, it comes after Bond has disarmed the nuclear warhead. Bond and Octopussy apparently make their way back to India to confront Khan separately. No coordination between these two, who would seem to be natural allies. Octopussy’s female ninjas attack from the ground, easily overpowering Kahn’s unsuspecting guards, while Bond and Q (yes, Bond and Q) attack from the air via hot air balloon. This was clearly a style over substance moment, and it doesn’t help the film.

If there is a unifying theme to this movie, it’s one of ‘swap-ability.” On first inspection, Bond thinks the egg M is holding is genuine, and since he was fooled by it, he wagered he could swap it for the real egg at the auction. We have not one, but two knife throwers, who happen to be identical twins, and therefore easily swappable. One of them is even briefly fooled by the fact that Bond is wearing his twin’s clothes. Magda seduces Bond and then swaps Bond for Khan by back-flipping off his balcony. Indeed, Magda then swaps her loyalties from Khan to Octopussy when she’s betrayed. Bond essentially swaps places with 009, even wearing his clown suit at the film’s climax. And then we have the biggest swap of all- two identical train cars are switched, one containing stolen jewels, the other a nuclear bomb.



Although the end product makes for a perfectly watchable film, by Bond standards, it is a bit average. That feeling of being underwhelmed comes, I think, from the fact that romance between Bond and Octopussy never feels like it fully developed within the story itself- they don’t really have any shared adventures. But we do have some engaging villains, particularly the underused General Orlov.


“Game, set and match!”



Before we conclude, there are a few loose ends to tie up. Let’s start with the title of this movie, itself. No film title has ever been market-tested as extensively as the title of Octopussy, and for obvious reasons. It’s one thing to have a character in the movie with a name that serves double-entrendre purposes, it’s quite another to have that double-entrendre in the title, itself. The producers always had a back up title ready, if it came to that, “The Property Of A Lady,” the other Fleming short story upon which the screen play was based. In the end, the studio got enough of a positive reaction to convince them to go with the riskier title.



This was the thirteenth Bond movie, and in keeping with tradition, thirteen was somewhat unlucky. During location shooting by the second unit, a stunt man doubling for Roger Moore was holding onto the side of a moving train when he struck a concrete stanchion just off the side of the tracks. He spent several months in the hospital recovering from that accident. News of this spread something of a hushed pall over the main unit, when it reached them in India.

Prior to the actual commencement of filming, an editor who was doing location scouting in India was on board a flight which was initially hijacked while it was still on the tarmac. The flight crew apparently ganged up on the hijacker, and pushed him off the plane, where he was shot by security forces.

And although it would go on to gross more in sales during its theatrical release, in its opening weekend, Octopussy did roughly $1.1 Million fewer in box office receipts than its rival picture, Never Say Never Again.



Finally, a word about the music in this film. Although John Barry returned to the duties of scoring this film, he typically created incidental music based upon the film’s opening theme song. I’m sorry, but Rita Coolidge’s “All Time High” is a slow, boring bit of music. And if that’s the queue for the incidental music themes, it logically follows that the films musical score will be equally slow and boring. Unlike the vast number of Bond theme songs in the past, “All Time High” did not do well on the music charts in 1983.



So in the final analysis, Roger Moore’s sixth turn in the role was something of a letdown after FYEO. While it may have had some engaging villains, and an intriguing character in Magda, the relationship between Bond and Octopussy just never felt as if it was a natural element in the story itself. Add to this that Mr. Moore is starting to look a bit long in the tooth for the part, and you have something that while watchable, isn’t ultimately great. Octopussy gets three stuffed goat’s head dinners out of a possible five, and I reserve the right to lower that to two.

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

[Zoltar]

Khan is clearly an educated, intelligent man, which would appear to be at odds with his compulsive need to deal duplicitously with everyone around him.

Just goes to show you can be educated and intelligent and still be a dick.

Tough one to score. I'd be tempted to give it a two, but somehow I feel like I enjoy watching it more than that score would suggest.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Unlike you Fast Liver, I prefer Octopussy to the over-rated FYEO. There's some excellent performances, a very good script, some nice humourous touches and wonderful locations.

Oh yes, and Sir Rog's age has never bothered me. A solid 4/5 from C=O Towers.

[barnaby morbius]

"that should keep you in curry for a while"

[stanmore]

it was alright

[Nick Barlow]

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)

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