007 fans all over the world cheered when Sean Connery returned to the role that made him famous in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, the 6th James Bond screen outing. Connery left the series in 1967 (YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE), and was replaced by George Lazenby for 1969’s ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. Lazenby was actually pretty good, if a bit boring, but he was one-and-done, choosing not to be typecast as cinema’s most famous spy (how’d that work out, George?). Producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman offered Connery an unprecedented $1.25 million dollars to come back, which the smart Scotsman snapped up in a heartbeat… who wouldn’t? Well, except for George Lazenby.
The opening sequence has Bond searching the globe to fins Ernst Stavro Blofeld, SPECTRE’s megalomanical leader who ordered the death of Bond’s wife in the previous movie. 007 hunts down his arch nemesis and ends his villainous career in…
Sherlock Holmes has long been a favorite literary character of mine. As a youth, I devoured the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, marveling at the sleuth’s powers of observation and deduction. I reveled in the classic Universal film series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson, and still enjoy them today. I read Nicholas Meyer’s 1974 novel “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” as a teen, where a coked-out Holmes is lured by Watson to Vienna to have the famed Sigmund Freud cure the detective of his addiction, getting enmeshed in mystery along the way. I’d never viewed the film version until recently, and while Meyer’s screenplay isn’t completely faithful to his book, THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION is one of those rare instances where the movie is better than the novel.
This is due in large part to a pitch-perfect cast, led by Nicol Williamson’s superb performance as Sherlock. We see Holmes at his worst…
Satan worship was all over the big screen back in 1968. There was ROSEMARY’S BABY of course, that Oscar-winning fright fest from Roman Polanski and William Castle. WITCHFINDER GENERAL found Vincent Price on the hunt for daughters of the devil, while CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR boasted an all-star horror cast of Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, and Michael Gough. Lee starred in a Hammer tale of satanism that year titled THE DEVIL’S BRIDE, as an occult expert pitted against a cult led by Charles Gray. That’s right- it’s Dracula vs Blofeld in a battle for souls!
Sir Christopher’s on the side of the angels for a change as the Duc de Richleau, who along with army buddy Rex Van Ryn, find their late chum’s son Simon Aron. Simon’s been “meddling with black magic” in a coven of devil worshippers led by Mocata, an adept Satanist. They manage to spirit Simon away…
For today’s horror on the lens, we have The Beast Must Die. In this 1974 film, millionaire Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) invites a group of people to spend the weekend at his mansion. Tom explains that one of them is a werewolf and therefore “must die.”
But who is the werewolf? Tom has come up with several werewolf tests but, actually, it turns out that the easiest way to discover the identity of the werewolf is to just let the werewolf kill everyone who isn’t a werewolf. Or, at least, that’s the way it seems to me.
The best thing about The Beast Must Die is that it features a 30-second werewolf break where the audience is encouraged to announce who they think the werewolf is before the actual solution is revealed!
Seriously, many movies would be greatly improved with a werewolf break.
I think it’s a well-known fact that the Austin Powers series was spoofing the spy film of the 60’s and 70’s with it’s main target for laughs being the iconic James Bond character and his international adventures of action and intrigue. The James Bond films with each successive entry became more and more fantastic as the megalomania of each new villain became more and more cartoonish and over-the-top and the gadgets themselves started entering the realm of science-fiction (for that time and era, at least) and back-of-the-comic-book ingenuity. I think the tipping point for the series that took James Bond from action thriller to spoofing it’s own past was with Sean Connery’s last official film as James Bond with Diamonds Are Forever.
To say that Sean Connery was truly getting tired and bored with playing the character James Bond on the big screen would be an understatement. His previous Bond entry with You Only Live Twiceshowed him pretty much disinterested with the role and one would almost think he was phoning in his performance. After that film Connery had announced his retirement from playing Bond, but after George Lazenby also retired from the role after just one film Connery was soon back for one more ride on the James Bond train.
Diamonds Are Forever once again pits James Bond against his arch-nemesis, the leader of SPECTRE and feline connoisseur, Ernst Blofeld. This time around the role of Blofeld was played by the actor Charles Gray and the film does a good job in explaining why the character has been played by so many different actors in each entry he appeared in. It is in this early sequence in the film that we begin to see that this latest James Bond entry had jumped the shark when it came to trying to keep things even remotely believable. It’s the film’s biggest flaw an, at the same time, what made it such an interesting, fun ride.
Even the plot of the film owes more to the spoofs of the Blofeld character by way of the Austin Powers films as Bond must try to stop SPECTRE from using smuggled South African diamonds from being used to create weaponized satellite with a massive “laser” that SPECTRE will use to destroy the nuclear arsenal of every superpower then auction off the rights to be the only nuclear power to the highest bidding country. It’s pretty much the the basic foundation of what would be the plot for the first Austin Powers, but with this film filmmaker Guy Hamilton still tried to treat the script as something that was of the serious Bond when it was more 60’s camp through and through.
Diamonds Are Forever may be the weakest of all the Connery Bond films, but it’s groovy sensibilities that celebrated the 60’s (despite the film having been made in 1971) psychedelic, swinging lifestyle poked fun at Bond’s predilection as a suave and charismatic womanizer that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a 60’s love-in. Even the action sequences was something that looked more humorous than thrilling whether it was Bond escaping SPECTRE henchmen on a moon buggy to the inept duo assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd looked more at home in an action comedy than a series that was known for serious action.
I would be remiss to not mention that this was the only time the Bond series had a redhead as a Bond Girl in the vivacious form of Jill St. John as Tiffany Case. I would also like to think that the other Bond Girl in the film, played by Lana Wood (Natalie Wood’s younger sister), was also a redhead but I’m not entirely sure since most audiences probably didn’t pay too close attention to Plenty O’Toole’s hair color. Either way this would be the only Bond film that would cast what fellow writer Lisa Marie calls the 2%.
Diamonds Are Forever might not have been the sort of return Sean Connery envisioned for himself when he agreed to return as James Bond after taking a film off, but then again this wouldn’t be the first time he would retire from the role only to come back again. Yet, despite all it’s flaws (there were many of them) the film does entertain though probably not in the way it’s filmmakers hoped it would. I do believe that it was this film that finally brought in Roger Moore as the next Bond, but also convinced the film’s producers to tailor the Bond films using some of the humorous aspect of Diamonds Are Forever but tempered to accompany the action in the story.
In the days leading up to the American release of Skyfall, the Shattered Lens has been taking a look at the previous films in the James Bond franchise. Today, we take a look at the 5th official James Bond film, 1967’s You Only Live Twice.
Released two years after the critically derided but financially succesful Thunderball, You Only Live Twice was a step in a new direction for the Bond series. As Sinclair McKay explains in his brilliant book on the Bond films, The Man With The Golden Touch, both the world and the movies changed a lot between 1965 and 1967 and You Only Live Twice reflected that change. Director Lewis Gilbert and screenwriter Roald Dahl were newcomers to the Bond series and the film they created would serve as a prototype for the flamboyant, big budget espionage fantasies that would come to epitomize many of the later entries in the franchise.
You Only Live Twice begins with one the Bond franchise’s more elaborate precredit sequences. During these first few minutes, the film rather boldly announces that You Only Live Twice is going to be a bit of a departure from the previous Bond films. The film begins not with Bond but with two anonymous American astronauts orbiting the Earth in a small capsule. The two astronauts are blandly chatting with mission control on Earth when, suddenly, another spacecraft approaches and literally swallows the American capsule whole. One of the astronauts is hurled into space as a result and, as his body spins away, it’s obvious that Bond’s not going to be dealing with something bigger than just another guy looking to hold up Fort Knox.
The Americans blame the Russians while the Russians claim that they’re being framed by Americans and the entire world appears to be on the verge of war. But as always happens in the Bond films, the British are there to keep everyone from overreacting. A British diplomat is seen calming down the belligerent super powers and assuring them that MI6’s “best man” is already on the case.
(One of the undeniably charming things about the Connery and Roger Moore Bond films is the way that the United Kingdom is portrayed as being the world’s unofficial third superpower.)
Cut to Hong Kong, where James Bond is lying in bed and asking his latest conquest, “Why do Chinese girls taste different?” And, at this point, I think it’s fair to say that Bond is really lucky that he looks like a young Sean Connery. Suddenly, gunmen storm the bedroom and open fire, apparently killing 007.
Oh no! I guess the world is doomed, right? We’re left to consider this sad reality as we watch the opening credits and listen to Nancy Sinatra sing the film’s excellent theme song.
Well, of course, James Bond isn’t really dead. He faked his death so that he can safely go to Tokyo and investigate who was behind the attack on the space craft. You Only Live Twice was filmed almost entirely on location in Japan and a good deal of the film’s first half is devoted to scenes of Bond simply observing Japanese culture. It’s a bit like Lost In Translation with an espionage subplot.
After fighting a few random henchmen, Bond meets Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba), the head of the Japanese secret service. Tanaka seems to spend the majority of his time getting massages from the dozen or so young women who wait on him hand-and-foot. “In Japan,” he tells Bond, “men come first, women come second.” “I might just retire here,” Bond replies. Uhmmm…okay. Thank you, 1967.
In order to continue the ruse that Bond’s dead, Tanaka arranges for Bond to take on an assumed identity. After being trained on all aspects of Japanese culture and on how to fight like a ninja, Bond is heavily disguised to look like a Japanese fisherman. Tanaka arranges for Bond to fake marry a local girl named Kissy (Mie Hama). Kissy is probably one of the least interesting Bond girls in the history of the franchise. Beyond walking around in a bikini while wearing high heels, Kissy just doesn’t have much of a personality.
Bond and Tanaka’s investigation lead them to a shady industrialist named Osato and his secretary Helga Brandt (Karin Dor). Helga is about as close as You Only Live Twice comes to featuring a strong female character. Not only is she an assassin who has no problem with killing a man who she’s just had sex with but she’s also a redhead, just like me!
Anyway, it’s not until very late in the film that we finally meet Helga’s boss. If for no other reason, You Only Live Twice will always be remembered for featuring one of the great Bond villains. After being seen in the previous Bond films as just a hand stroking a white cat, Ernest Stavros Blofeld makes his first on-screen appearance here and fortunately, he’s played by Donald Pleasence.
Looking at Pleasence’s performance today, the natural tendency is to compare his Blofeld to the iconic character that he inspired, Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil. However, one reason that Dr. Evil became such a popular character is because Donald Pleasence’s Blofeld is one of the great film bad guys. As delivered by Pleasence in his casually off-center way, every line of Blofeld’s dialogue drips with the promise of perversion and hints of the neurosis that fuels his every action. Blofeld spends most of the movie hiding out in a secret base that’s hidden inside a hollow volcano. He strokes that ever-present white cat and uses a pool of piranhas to punish failure. It is a credit to Pleasence’s performance that you never, for a second, doubt that Blofeld could very well be living in a hollow volcano.
I have to admit that You Only Live Twice is not my favorite James Bond film, though there are plenty of things that I do like about it. Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, and Desmond Llewelyn all make welcome appearances and there is a genuinely exciting scene where Bond flies around in a toy helicopter. Working on his first and only Bond film, Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Young captured some beautiful images of Japan and Blofeld’s volcano lair is one of the franchise’s best locations.
That said, You Only Live Twice often moves a bit too slowly for its own good and, with the exception of Blofeld and occasionally Helga Brandt, none of the film’s supporting characters are all that interesting. Charles Gray, who later took over the role of Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, has a nice cameo as a decadent retired intelligence agent but he’s killed off before he can make too much of an impression. Perhaps worst of all, Connery spends most of this film looking like he’d rather be doing anything other than play James Bond for the fifth time. By his own account, Connery eventually grew bored with the role and that’s certainly obvious in You Only Live Twice.
Connery’s boredom can perhaps explain why, during the shooting of You Only Live Twice, it was announced that he would not be returning to play the role in the 6th Bond film. The Bond franchise would continue with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but it appeared that Connery would no longer be a part of it.
Through the Shattered Lens 