On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Posted on December 11, 2013 at 10:10 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

“Merry Christmas, 007,” says Telly Savalas, holding a cigarette to his wolfish grin. He’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld reincarnate – a more robust, athletic, and considerably less scarred Blofeld than when we last saw him, when he was played by Donald Pleasence. This is his big moment: he’s successfully blown James Bond’s cover. It certainly took long enough – we’re about ninety minutes into the film – but perhaps it’s understandable, because Bond has a new face too. For the first time in the series’ history, the role of 007 has passed from one actor to another: the irreplaceable Sean Connery has been replaced, and Australian George Lazenby – a former car salesman who had turned to modeling and starring in TV commercials – won the desperately-sought role by simply having the right look. Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, and director Peter Hunt – promoted from supervising editor on prior Bond pictures to his own role-of-a-lifetime – were nervous about the change. The first half hour of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) makes every sweaty effort to convince you that even though Lazenby’s new, he’s your James Bond. We first see him in fragments: the back of his head, a hand drawing a cigarette, his chin and mouth as it comes to his lips. We only see him in full when he emerges from his car to save a woman who’s attempting to drown herself in the ocean, but even then it’s only a brief glimpse. Hunt edits ferociously, never letting the eyes settle for too long. He delivers his big line to the camera, “I’m Bond, James Bond.” Then Hunt lets a fistfight break out between Bond and some stock thugs. The girl gets away, and Lazenby says to the camera – candidly – “This never happened to the other fellow.” A cute joke, though it makes zero sense outside of our knowledge that there used to be this guy named Sean Connery. But even then, the overeager reassurances don’t stop. The opening credits show clips from each of the previous Bond adventures. Then Bond goes to play baccarat in a scene reminiscent of Dr. No (and the novel Casino Royale). Later, after he attempts to resign from the British Secret Service, he empties his desk of props from Dr. No (Honey Ryder’s knife belt), From Russia with Love (the watch with retractable piano wire), and Thunderball (the rebreather). A janitor whistles a few bars from Goldfinger. It’s not until he begins to fall in love with Diana Rigg’s Theresa “Tracy” Draco DiVincenzo, with an uncharacteristically romantic love song (Louis Armstrong) on the soundtrack, that we begin to realize that this is a very different Bond, and a very different Bond film. No apologies are necessary.

Tracy (Diana Rigg) keeps seducer James Bond (George Lazenby) at a safe distance.

There’s an earlier hint that this will be something special, and it’s not Lazenby’s comment about “the other fellow.” It’s in those Maurice Binder credits. For the first time since From Russia with Love, the theme plays without lyrics: no brassy Shirley Bassey, no swaggering Tom Jones. John Barry, who was previously trying to foist his own Bond theme song (called “007”) upon us when we were already pleased as punch with the Monty Norman one, now provides a substitute which is downright terrific. Lyrics would ruin it, and the filmmakers know it. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” is a thrilling instrumental, a driving piece to match the film’s downhill skiing action, but which also captures the feel of a doomsday clock ticking down, which is why Binder’s hourglass imagery is so perfectly matched to the piece. The credits tell us that yes, this is the same Bond as before, but it also tells us that time is running out for 007. This time, it’s not just the world that’s at stake – someone close to Bond is going to die. (Also, there are silhouettes of naked women. Binder’s brand of eroticism is strictly rooted in sleazy pulp paperbacks.)

Piz Gloria, Blofeld's isolated lair in the Swiss Alps.

Ian Fleming’s novel was one of his best, and screamed for an adaptation. Broccoli and Saltzman’s EON Productions had been trying to get this film made for years, but the stars never aligned. The resolution of the lawsuit from Kevin McClory led to a hasty alliance and Thunderball, scuppering OHMSS. After Thunderball was complete, attention turned once more to the property, but Switzerland was having an unseasonably warm winter that year, and You Only Live Twice (1967) was made instead. The choice was unfortunate because that novel takes place after OHMSS, and chronicles Bond’s vendetta against Blofeld following the events in that book. By filming the climax of the Blofeld saga first, the plot to OHMSS effectively makes no sense. Why doesn’t Blofeld recognize undercover agent Bond? They just fought each other in a volcano! It was memorable! The answer seems to be that this is a reboot – new actors, new relaunch to the series – which makes all the desperate connections to previous films not just unnecessary, but extra-confusing. (Something just occurred to me. Bond never takes a prop from You Only Live Twice out of his desk. Maybe this is a prequel to that film? No. No it is not.) Peter Hunt, whose white-knuckle editing made the Orient Express battle between Bond and Red Grant in From Russia with Love one of the most exciting duels in cinema history, decided with his first director’s gig that he’d return to Fleming. This ebb and flow periodically occurs over the decades: the films get more extravagant and spectacle-driven, then make a conscientious return to the taut espionage work of the novels. (Incidentally, anyone who’s read the books knows that Fleming wasn’t all Timothy Dalton grim all the time. He was quite capable of over-the-top pulp too. The film of You Only Live Twice, with its volcano HQ and spaceships eating other spaceships, may be nothing like the book, but the source material – featuring a climax in a Japanese castle surrounded by the world’s most lethal plants, and Blofeld strutting about in a suit of armor – is plenty weird and campy on its own.) Hunt’s OHMSS is almost scrupulously faithful. Dialogue is frequently taken straight out of the novel. It has a From Russia with Love feel. It’s undoubtedly Fleming.

Two of the film's many Bond girls: Jenny Hanley as "the Irish girl" poses at Piz Gloria; Diana Rigg as Tracy prepares to shoot close-ups during the skiing/avalanche sequence.

The first quarter of the film sets up a deal between Bond and Tracy’s father,  Marc-Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti, Once Upon a Time in the West), the charming head of a crime syndicate who might remind the audience of the late great Pedro Armendáriz in From Russia with Love. Draco has watched Bond have a therapeutic effect upon the depressed Tracy, and suggests that if Bond marries his daughter, he will provide a critical lead on the case of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond has barely entertained the idea when Tracy catches wind of the proposal and shoots it down. She urges her father to give Bond the information he needs, and he does – but the tough, cynical Tracy falls for Bond anyway. We’re about forty minutes into the film and Bond finally begins his investigation; one can be forgiven for forgetting this is a Bond picture. After discovering that the vain Blofeld is trying to prove he is a descendant of the de Bleuchamp line of earlobe-free nobles (he’s even had his earlobes removed), Bond goes undercover as Sir Hilary Bray, a representative of the London College of Arms, and under this pretense gains admittance to Blofeld’s remote Alpine hideaway, Piz Gloria, located on a mountain peak, and whose only access points are by cable car or helicopter. A bobsled run snakes down the steep slope, and armed gunmen lurk everywhere. Occasionally, beautiful women come out and do some curling. Piz Gloria – designed by Syd Cain (Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, Ken Russell’s Billion Dollar Brain) in the absence of Ken Adam – is a fantastic location, one that was actually constructed by the Bond team, and which you can still visit today. There’s something unique about seeing the actors performing in front of windows that look out over the mountains; Hunt is able to maintain a high-altitude verisimilitude throughout the film. For some reason or another, the decision was made to set the film at Christmastime: references are made throughout, and a Christmas tree decorates the Piz Gloria interior. This is the one Bond film that’s ideal as holiday programming, and perfect to watch while snowed-in.

Telly Savalas as Blofeld.

The international collection of young women are part of an experimental allergy therapy run by Blofeld, and their ranks include Angela Scoular (1967’s Casino Royale), Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous, The Satanic Rites of Dracula), Catherine Schell (Moon Zero Two), Julie Ege (Creatures the World Forgot), Anouska Hempel (Scars of Dracula, Black Snake), Jenny Hanley (Scars of Dracula), Sally “Dani” Sheridan (The Sorcerers), and others. It’s implied that Bond sleeps with a great many of them. All goes swimmingly until one of his seductions is interrupted by a literally-undercover Irma Blunt (German actress Ilse Steppat, who sadly died the year this was released), Blofeld’s henchwoman. A downhill ski chase shortly follows, one so exciting that it formed the template for every similar stunt sequence in later Bond films. At one point, Bond is reduced to skiing on one ski. He also sends an enemy plummeting off a cliff, and Hunt brutally holds the camera until we can see the body meet its shadow at the distant, snowy bottom. The chase continues as he reunites with Tracy, ice skating with other tourists, and she takes the wheel for a car chase that includes a few laps in a demolition derby. Her bravery (and ace winter driving skills) proves she’s the woman for Bond, and before the night is out he’s proposing marriage.

Tracy and James have a chilly meet-cute in a casino.

The last third of the film is about as perfect as anything that’s ever emerged from the Bond series. When Tracy is kidnapped by Blofeld, and M (Bernard Lee, as great as usual) gives Bond a cold shoulder, Bond is forced to turn to Draco and his syndicate for an armed raid on Piz Gloria. Helicopters approach through the Alps while Barry’s theme ticks down the clock. Rigg and Savalas recite poetry while circling each other, plotting their moves. Lazenby throws himself down the icy path from the heliport, sliding across his belly while firing his machine gun, and Barry finally gives the audience Monty Norman’s Bond theme. (For the last couple of films, the theme is reserved for a “big moment.” It’s geared toward getting the audience to applaud, but not overused.) Following the destruction of Piz Gloria, we witness the impossible: James Bond’s wedding. Bond throws Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) his hat one last time, and the newlyweds drive off. If only they didn’t stop to pull the flowers off the car… For all the gripes about Lazenby over the years, he sells the final scene. He was a novice actor, but he proves he could have been a substantial Bond if given the chance. The final moment of the film is heartbreaking, and we don’t see anything like it again in the series until Bond meets Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale (2006). Last month Steven Soderbergh wrote about his love of OHMSS, arguing that it’s the best film in the series. About Lazenby, he wrote:

I actually like him—a lot—and think he could have made a terrific Bond had he continued…What seems obvious to me, though, is no one was helping him during the shoot or the edit (they won’t even let him finish a fucking sentence onscreen). It feels like everyone was so focused on what he wasn’t (Sean Connery) that they didn’t take the time to figure out what he was (a cool-looking dude with genuine presence and great physicality). For instance, they should have known that a lot of the one-liners that would have worked with Connery don’t work with Lazenby. This isn’t because he’s bad, it’s because his entire affect is different, less glib. This, to me, is a lack of sensitivity and understanding on the part of the filmmakers and not a shortcoming of the lead actor, because Lazenby has one thing you can’t fake, which is a certain kind of gravitas. Despite this, there is no attempt to bring it out or amplify it, which is a huge missed opportunity. Also, Lazenby has a vulnerability that Connery never had—there are scenes in which he looks legitimately terrified and others in which he convinces us that he is in love with Tracy (particularly in the final scene).

It’s an interesting observation, coming as it does from a director who, in Haywire (2011), also worked with an actor with “great physicality” and limited acting experience (Gina Carano); I don’t think I’ve heard anyone make his particular argument before – that Lazenby simply wasn’t used as well as he could have been. In the documentary “Inside On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” Lazenby regrets his early departure from the series; he claims that at the time he didn’t think the character would stick around past the 60’s. If he hadn’t quit, it’s not certain he would have returned anyway: although the same documentary acknowledges that many of the stories of discontent on the set were exaggerated by the press, there were genuine, unfortunate incidents instigated by Lazenby too, the result, perhaps, of youthful arrogance. But most damningly, the film underperformed compared to previous Bond pictures. This would lead to another overture from EON to Connery to help put the series back on track, and Diamonds are Forever (1971) was the result.

The wedding of Mr. and Mrs. James Bond.

Paradoxically, OHMSS is nonetheless one of the high water-marks of the series. Fans will forever wonder what the film would have been like with Connery attending Bond’s wedding, but on this most recent viewing I realized that it is this particular film, flaws and all, that I love. The Christmas theme and the snowy locations, which capture a real sense of slippery roads, drifting snow, freezing cold, and perilous winter elements; the contrast with the crackling fireplace inside Piz Gloria, the Christmas tree, the buxom girls unwrapping their deadly presents from Blofeld or stroking Bond’s thigh while asking him what bezants are; the downhill chases in all their permutations; John Barry’s music and how it suits Diana Rigg’s porcelain face and Mona Lisa smile. I just can’t extract Lazenby from the scenario anymore. Even a remake with Daniel Craig – which I hope happens, whether or not anyone’s discussing it – will somehow disappoint me because it’s not this 1969 film. This Bond “flop” is a classic.

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You Only Live Twice (1967)

Posted on December 8, 2013 at 11:25 am by Jeff Kuykendall

The fifth in the James Bond series produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, You Only Live Twice (1967) took 007 to Japan to finally confront Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the shadowy “Number 1” in prior outings, face-to-face. Blofeld appeared in a trilogy of Fleming novels, Thunderball (1961), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963), and You Only Live Twice (1964). I’ve previously expressed my regret that OHMSS – one of the most important passages in the life of James Bond – wasn’t adapted sooner (it was originally scheduled to be the next film after Goldfinger), but forgoing the middle chapter of the Blofeld trilogy for its climax only rubs salt in the wound. Admittedly, Bond’s film continuity has always been problematic. So has the films’ fidelity to the source material, and YOLT continues the series’ gradual departure from Fleming with the most egregious changes yet. Screenwriter Roald Dahl – yes, that Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and an old friend of Fleming’s dating back to their work for British Intelligence during the war years – largely ignores the original novel save the broad outline that Bond is now headed to Japan to confront Blofeld. This may have been the most appealing aspect of the novel for EON Productions. Bond, nicknamed “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” in Japan, was a phenomenon there and ripe for further exploitation. The new film would be produced with the assistance of storied Toho Studios, and two of their contract starlets, Mie Hama and Akiko Wakabayashi, were loaned to EON to be authentically Japanese Bond girls.

Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki, Sean Connery as James Bond.

Their casting points to one of the film’s main pleasures: if it’s not a complete immersion into Japanese culture, at least it’s an open-armed, slightly naive embrace that’s endearing. Consider that in Dr. No (1962), French/Irish actress Zena Marshall donned makeup to appear Asian. So YOLT was progress – even though we are treated to a ridiculous scene in which Bond is given his own Japanese makeover to go undercover as a fisherman, a sequence that unintentionally emphasizes that it takes more than eye-makeup and a haircut to make a Caucasian look Asian (in the end, Sean Connery still looks like Sean Connery). We get glimpses of Tokyo streets quite different from those we know today, sumo wrestling, a Japanese wedding ceremony in a small fishing village, and – yes – lots of ninja action, foreshadowing all the ninja movies of years to come. But it does seem at times that 007 might be enjoying the culture for the wrong reasons. Memorably, Bond and his contact with the Japanese secret service, “Tiger” Tanaka (the appealing Tetsurô Tamba, Harakiri), are treated to a bath and massage courtesy a number of beautiful Japanese women clad only in underwear. “In Japan,” says Tanaka, “men come first, women come second.” “I just might retire here,” says sexist dinosaur James Bond. Regardless, there’s plenty here to appeal to Japanese audiences, as surely Broccoli and Saltzman intended. The cocktail of quasi-futuristic technology, style, cool, violence, and sex, were all guaranteed to win at the Japanese box office, especially for a market that was already producing their own Bond knock-offs.

Publicity stills: Karin Dor as Helga Brandt, and Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki.

Fleming loved Japan, and it comes through in the novel, though Dahl found it to be little more than a travelogue and greatly lacking as an exciting adventure. He wrote his screenplay quickly, applying a space-race theme not present in the original novel. Blofeld has built a rocket which can open up and swallow spacecraft whole, for the purpose of escalating Cold War tensions among nations that suspect each other of the act. The plot has an antecedent in the missile “toppling” performed by Dr. No in both the novel and film adaptation. In fact, Dahl’s approach to writing a Bond adventure was simply to decipher the formula from viewing previous 007 outings, which explains the story’s resemblance to that of Dr. No and, to a certain extent, Thunderball (1965). Originality and logic were not primary concerns. He told journalist Tom Soter, “Bond has three women through the film: If I remember rightly, the first gets killed, the second gets killed and the third gets a fond embrace during the closing sequence. And that’s the formula. They found it’s cast-iron. So, you have to kill two of them off after he has screwed them a few times. And there is great emphasis on funny gadgets and love-making.” So to fulfill the sex quotient we are given Hama, Wakabayashi – who inexplicably falls head-over-heels in love with Bond – and red-headed femme fatale Helga Brandt (German actress Karin Dor, star of various Edgar Wallace krimis), essentially a carbon-copy of Fiona Volpe from Thunderball, but given less to do and who subsequently has less of an impact. Brandt has an opportunity to interrogate, torture, and kill 007. Instead, she unties him, makes love to him, takes him on a ride in a plane, then sets it on fire and ejects, because that is how a SPECTRE agent does things. No wonder that Blofeld keeps feeding them to his piranhas. Oh, I forgot to mention: Blofeld has a piranha tank in this one, and a bridge crossing them, with no railing and a trap door that he can trigger with the press of a button. The fish are kept well fed.

"Tiger" Tanaka (Tetsurô Tamba) shows Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) and Bond the latest weapons and gadgets of the Japanese secret service.

Though I find Dahl’s screenplay condescending, there’s quite a lot to enjoy here. In addition to all the beautiful location shooting in Japan, there’s a fun cameo from Q (Desmond Llewelyn), dropping by in knee-high socks to deliver “Little Nellie,” a gyrocopter that can be assembled from suitcases. This leads to an aerial combat sequence that attempts to top the Aston Martin car chase in Goldfinger. (It doesn’t quite succeed, but that’s OK.) The film also boasts a pre-credits sequence that’s the best the film had given us to date. After some big-budget FX depicting Blofeld’s spacecraft capturing an American vessel in orbit, Bond is introduced in bed, locking lips with a Chinese girl and pondering why Chinese women taste different from other women, “like Peking duck is different from Russian caviar.” “Darling, I give you very best duck,” promises the unsubtle girl, before flipping a switch that causes Bond’s bed to fold against the wall. Chinese gunmen storm the room and open fire. When the bed is pulled back down, Bond appears to be dead, the sheets beneath his body stained with blood. (It’s all been faked, of course, but it’s a great cliffhanger.) This is followed by another dazzling Maurice Binder credits sequence – all volcanoes and nude geisha girls – and one of the best theme songs of the entire series, sung by Nancy Sinatra of “These Boots are Made for Walkin'” fame. This song, with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, was composed by John Barry. In attempting to apply an Oriental flavor to the theme, Barry stumbles across a romantic, luxuriant sound that would come to define his later scores, such as Out of Africa (1985) and Dances with Wolves (1990). The emphasis on romance is crucial to this film’s success, combating Dahl’s smirking double entendres and adding the necessary weight to Bond’s quick-fire relationships with Wakabayashi’s Aki and Hama’s Kissy. As with all his Bond scores, he takes the title song and twists it into different shapes as an instrumental backdrop for on-screen action. A slightly more up-tempo version plays during the most innovative of the film’s action scenes. As Bond races across a rooftop at a Japanese wharf, baddies emerge from every corner, and he pauses only to trade a few punches while hardly checking his gauntlet-run. Quite contrary to editor Peter Hunt’s typical up-close-and-personal brawls, this is all accomplished in a single helicopter shot that pulls back and back, a counter-intuitive move – as much so as Barry’s overtly romantic orchestration – that somehow increases the excitement. It’s the film’s best moment because it flips formula on its ear.

One of production designer Ken Adam's crowning achievements: Blofeld's volcano lair.

Ken Adam, having designed prior Bond outings as well as Dr. Strangelove (1964), tops himself yet again. It is the very definition of the series’ excess: Dahl wrote a volcano base into his script, Adam designed it and asked that it be built to his specifications, and Broccoli, Saltzman, and director Lewis Gilbert saw that it was. What you see on-screen seems impossible, but it really existed: a vast, 148-foot-tall interior, big enough to house a helicopter and helipad, a rocket, and a working monorail. This attention to spectacle ensured that the ubiquitous Bond copycats would remain just that – no one else could afford to pull this off without relying upon less convincing matte paintings or optical effects. (There are optical effects, of course, to help merge the Pinewood Studios set with the mountain exteriors. But when you see a swarm of ninjas rappelling down the interior of the volcano, the reality of the set’s scale is apparent.) As king of this castle – in Fleming’s novel, that’s literally what his headquarters was – Donald Pleasence makes an ideal Blofeld, granted some disfiguring makeup over one eye to make his final reveal more satisfying, Phantom of the Opera-style. It’s disappointing that Pleasence didn’t return in the role, though, as we shall see, the next film is almost a reboot of the series, with Bond and Blofeld (now Telly Savalas) meeting again for the first time. To further confuse matters, Diamonds are Forever (1971) gives us a Blofeld played by Charles Gray, a very recognizable actor who in You Only Live Twice plays Bond’s contact Henderson. The head spins to make sense of it all – so best not try. You Only Live Twice works best when viewed as Connery’s exit from the series, a finale to the first string of Bond pictures. It gives audiences what they’d come to expect from the series, only more of it and on a larger scale. Blofeld finally takes center stage, and is defeated by the hero. Once again Bond meets the ending credits in a raft on open water, a girl in a swimsuit in his arms. JAMES BOND WILL RETURN, the words still promised. Just not with Sean Connery. He’d grown tired of the character and he’d had enough…for now.

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Thunderball (1965)

Posted on November 30, 2013 at 12:14 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

In a way, things had changed. Although Bond was getting bigger all the time, and Thunderball (1965) was the natural evolution, there passed a point where the films were not merely high-profile adaptations of Ian Fleming bestsellers. The series was now a brand, so appealing in the formula that copycats and parodies emerged from all sides. What those imitations could not match was the execution: the style, the quality, the sly humor, the scale. As I’ve been working my way through the films for the umpteenth time (in case you’re wondering why I skipped ahead from Dr. No, my reviews of From Russia with Love and Goldfinger were posted last year), it really strikes me that it’s Thunderball, not George Lazenby, that marked Chapter Two for the Bond series. Consider that you don’t really need more than the first three James Bond films. (Bear with me.) Dr. No (1962) established the character and the key concepts: exotic location, girls, supervillain. From Russia with Love (1963) was a classic espionage tale, improving upon its predecessor in every way, and truly bringing Ian Fleming’s writing to celluloid; it also presented the idea of a title song (never mind that it isn’t sung over the opening titles – they’d fix that). With Goldfinger (1964) introducing a new director, Guy Hamilton, the series began to take itself a little less seriously, sacrificing logic for sheer entertainment. It gave us the classic Bond theme song courtesy Shirley Bassey, Pussy Galore and her judo, and Goldfinger and his laser beam; it reveled in Q’s gadgets, including the iconic Aston Martin DB-5. All of this still felt fresh. Just as it took the recent Daniel Craig reboot a full three films to bring all of its classic elements together, this too is how it all began. With Thunderball, then, Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli faced the conundrum of what to do next. They risked repeating themselves, and, in truth, they did. That’s the trouble with a successful formula: you have to stick to it or risk losing your audience. More than that, you have to top yourself each time out. Thunderball‘s budget was three times that of its predecessor’s. Goldfinger‘s climax featured a big-scale battle at Fort Knox, so Thunderball‘s equivalent takes place entirely underwater, with the soldiers all in diving suits. The posters proudly declared this was “The Biggest Bond of All!”

On set, Luciana Paluzzi and Sean Connery pose for the cameras.

If Saltzman and Broccoli had their druthers, Thunderball would have been the first 007 film, and it’s easy to see that its prototypical story would have made a fine introduction to the character and his world: the terrorist organization SPECTRE steals two atomic bombs, hiding them in the Bahamas and holding them for ransom, with Bond racing to find the weapons before one can be detonated. It’s a fine fit for an action film because that’s what it was originally intended to be: Fleming’s 1961 novel was based upon a screenplay written years earlier, called Longitude 78 West, that he had drafted with filmmaker Kevin McClory (The Boy and the Bridge), screenwriter Jack Whittingham (who would go on to write for the Danger Man TV series), and Fleming’s friends Ivar Bryce and Ernest Cuneo. McClory was set to produce the film, but after the project fell apart, Fleming went ahead and wrote Thunderball based on the unfilmed script without McClory’s blessing and without proper credit. McClory and Whittingham sued, and with the case pending, Saltzman and Broccoli’s EON Productions – succeeding where McClory failed by finally bringing Bond to the big screen – made the wise decision to skip over the bestseller and its ugly legal entanglements, and adapt other Bond novels instead. But once the case was resolved (Fleming losing big: paying hefty damages and surrendering all future Thunderball film rights to McClory), EON was now faced with a potential rival Bond project. According to a recent article on the 007 website MI6:

Whilst Goldfinger was in production, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service would be the fourth film in the series, to be released in 1965. In September 1964, Kevin McClory approached Broccoli and Saltzman with an offer to co-produce a big screen adaptation of Thunderball (the only novel, along with Casino Royale, that EON Productions could not adapt at that time). Rather than risk a rival production hitting screens just as they were about to experience the peak of their achievements, EON decided to collaborate with McClory and make Thunderball next. They would make McClory producer and give him 20% of the film’s profits.

Adolfo Celi as Emilio Largo, SPECTRE's Number Two.

One of the most frustrating aspects of this turn of events is that so many of us would have loved to have seen a Connery version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, one of Fleming’s best Bond novels. If Thunderball is the first Bond film in which the series begins to repeat itself – or, pardon the expression, starts to tread water – that would not have been an issue if Eon had made OHMSS instead: a story in which Bond suffers a great tragedy that will further define his character. (As it is, the Lazenby-led 1969 version remains one of the best-crafted films in the series.) What we get is a film made out of necessity, and not as remarkable or as significant as what came before – and that, in itself, is significant, because the series has a longevity that requires solid and “routine” Bond films. That’s what Thunderball is, and there’s no crime in it. Bond fans value the film today for a few reasons, not the least of which is that Connery only made a limited number of these, and in Thunderball he still retained some of his impish charm on-screen; he wasn’t quite exhausted of the role just yet. And we do get a handful of iconic moments that bring great pleasure on every viewing. There is, for example, that scene which introduces Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi, Von Ryan’s Express), which broadens our understanding of SPECTRE’s scope. The organization, first referenced back in Dr. No (the film, at least), seems more dangerously anarchic than before, as their plot involves not just extortion but also the detonation of nuclear weapons. In another fantastic Ken Adam set, we see their secret conference room, where Blofeld – “Number One” – can wantonly execute any of his seated subordinates with the press of a button; he hardly needs to stop petting his cat. (One thing I love about Blofeld: he sure does like killing the person standing next to you just to teach you a lesson.)

In the pre-credits scene, Bond makes his escape using a (real) jetpack.

The budget was now so large that whatever Adam drew, they built. Largo’s Nassau estate, perched attractively on the coastline, has a pool filled with sharks. His yacht, the Disco Volante, can split in two, a rocketing speedboat breaking free of a shell that can be used as a floating fortress. Largo’s men travel to and from a submerged Vulcan bomber plane using sleek submersibles. Even 007’s island hotel suite looks bigger than my house. It was necessary for all Bond copycats to pale by comparison, and they did; Thunderball was intended to be a blockbuster. The pre-titles sequence, a tradition first established in From Russia with Love, reached new heights, literally, as Bond tries on the latest from Q Branch, a jetpack, to escape from enemy agents in Paris; Bond was now a pulp hero to match the likes of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. (This particular gadget, developed by Bell Aircraft, was very real and very functional, though one wonders, even after the demonstration, why a spy would ever need one in the field.) There’s a nice sense of continuity in these early Connery films, broken only by the changing face of Felix Leiter (here, he’s played by Rik Van Nutter, the series’ third Felix): Bond squeeze Sylvia Trench appeared in both Dr. No and From Russia with Love, and the Aston Martin DB5 now makes its second appearance after Goldfinger. But Bond only gets to use a couple of its gadgets – raising a bulletproof shield, and blasting his pedestrian pursuers with streams of high-powered water. Later, he’ll pop open the car’s control panel, offering an appetizing glimpse of its many deadly weapons, but the opportunity to use them will be stolen by an equally deadly rival – the fabulous Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi).

A trio of memorable Bond girls: (L) Martine Beswick, Claudine Auger, and Luciana Paluzzi; (R) Auger poses as Domino.

Voluptuous Volpe is my favorite of the series’ many femme fatales. As one of SPECTRE’s most effective agents, she drives a motorcycle that fires rockets, and drives so fast and recklessly that even Bond, as her passenger, becomes visibly nervous. She storms Bond’s suite by kidnapping his fellow agent Paula (Martine Beswick, formerly a gypsy girl in From Russia with Love), and then slips naked into the tub to await his arrival. This leads to one of the sexiest, and funniest, seduction scenes in the series: Bond’s answer to “Would you mind giving me something to put on?” is to hand her a pair of slippers. But Fiona deliberately separates herself from Pussy Galore, to whom there’s a subtle reference when she gives Bond a post-coital dressing-down: “I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, [who] has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue. But not this one!” Paluzzi has an appealing Catwoman purr of a voice, and she gets to keep it, a rare privilege in these early Bond films. Ex-Miss France Claudine Auger, on the other hand, suffers the indignity of being dubbed with what might be called “European voice.” In other words, she sounds just like dubbed women of Bond films past. (Not surprising, since the woman who voiced her, Nikki van der Zyl, also spoke for Ursula Andress in Dr. No.) Neither is Auger, as Dominique “Domino” Derval, given as interesting a character to play: a step down from the women in Goldfinger, she’s less forthright, more the damsel-in-distress (barring the climactic moment when she finally takes her revenge). Over a long acting career, Auger would prove that she had more to offer than just good looks, though – on those latter points – it should be noted that she is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful women of the entire Bond series. Apart from Paluzzi, Auger, and Beswick (talk about a cult figure – she’d soon be a “Hammer Glamour” girl), Molly Peters, a pin-up from various men’s magazines, is given some fairly risqué material in early scenes as Bond’s physical therapist. Her appearance is only tainted by Connery-era sexism; a scene in which he blackmails her resistant character into sex is bound to leave a sour taste for the modern viewer.

Lobby card: Bond faces Fiona Volpe and her henchmen.

Terence Young, veteran of the first two Bond films, returned to direct when Guy Hamilton turned down the project. Young’s touch is unmistakable – pulp spectacle treated with cool and elegance – but the film feels oddly lethargic compared to its predecessors. As much as I enjoy Thunderball, there are parts that always seem like a chore. Key scenes just go on for too long, such as the stealing of the Vulcan bomber and nearly all of the underwater sequences. Mind you, that footage – in particular the final battle with dozens of divers in combat – is technically impressive, but it requires a merciless trim. At 130 minutes, and without enough narrative incident to justify the running time, Thunderball marks the moment when the Bond series had finally begun to bloat. The theme song is, perhaps inevitably, a step down from Shirley Bassey, with Tom Jones crooning some silliness about striking “like Thun-der-baaaaall!” At least two stabs at a title song were made before this third, adequate attempt was settled upon, but I would have preferred they retained the second, “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (a reference to what the Japanese – one of Bond’s biggest fan bases – called 007). Both Bassey and Dionne Warwick recorded takes of the song, but it survives in the finished film only in John Barry’s score, an instrumental version utilized frequently and effectively to offer some welcome, loungey swing to the occasionally slow-moving proceedings. With Thunderball, Barry also continued to push his alternate, bombastic theme to Mr. Bond, called simply “007,” but it just can’t approach the original “James Bond Theme” by Monty Norman. After a while, he’d give it up.

The Thunderball board game.

The film was the biggest Bond hit yet, breaking box office records. The film was marketed with numerous Thunderball toys, including scuba-diving action figures, a toy speedboat, a snorkel, and a Milton Bradley board game. There was no turning back, at least not for now: Fleming’s original creation would begin to recede as the phenomenon that was the James Bond brand skyrocketed. (Connery, weary of the attention, only gave one interview, and otherwise hid from the press. His relationship with the franchise would be rocky from this point forward.) Ironically, to a modern viewer, Thunderball seems less like a “blockbuster” as we know the term now; the film is casually paced, relying mainly on Connery’s charm, sexy women, and beautiful location shooting. It works best with modest expectations: enjoy it as a vicarious weekend getaway in the Bahamas with 007. Despite his temporary partnership with Saltzman & Broccoli, McClory wasn’t done with Bond, resurfacing not just with his Thunderball rights but with Connery himself in 1983’s unsatisfactory Never Say Never Again. The film would be pitted against EON’s Octopussy that year, with Roger Moore beating Connery at the box office. McClory, who passed away in 2006, would periodically threaten another Thunderball remake, and it was not until November 15th of this year that MGM announced the acquisition of McClory’s interests in all things Thunderball, finally placing all James Bond cinematic licenses under one banner. Whether this means the return of SPECTRE and/or Ernst Stavro Blofeld to the Bond series is an open question for now, but it certainly closes the chapter on one of the most problematic strains of the agent’s career on the big screen. I hope it means a remake of OHMSS – but I don’t think we need a third Thunderball.

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