Sue's Revues: Bond, James Bond

All right gang, here is the first post of the "blog".  It's pretty lengthy but I took on a big task...one of each Bond.  I have to say, it was pretty fun.  Hope you enjoy (with a cocktail!).

Sean Connery

Goldfinger - released in 1964

For my Connery film, I submit Goldfinger not only because I love this movie but because I remember it from when I was really little.  I don't remember when I actually saw it, but family legend says I sang the song around the house when i was about 3 years old.  I also remember the gold woman who simultaneously fascinated and scared me.  

I'm imagining as my Bond journey continues, production values will get better, but this film was full of "Backdropolous".  That is a term I got from an unnamed ex who would say, when you can clearly tell the actors are filmed in a studio and are comped onto a background, that they are filming in the land of Backdropolous. 

But really, who's looking at the background when you have Sean Connery staring you in the face?  OMG!  He's so handsome.  He seriously had a perfect ass.  And those lips.  Whoa.  Okay, sorry.  I'm back now.

So I'm sure most of you know the plot of this film (or maybe you know it from Austin Powers Goldmember?) but essentially there is a super villain who wants to have all the gold in the world.  He lives all over the place but much of the film takes place in Kentucky (because, you know, he's German), where Goldfinger owns horses and has a huge complex called Auric Stud (heh).  There is one shot that is in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken (not Backdropolous).   I'm wondering if that is literally where the Colonel started his business?  That would be pretty cool!

Anyway, James starts his journey by boinking Jill Masterson, who works for Gfinger.   She fucked up by sleeping with a Double O, so Gfinger painted her gold.  Then James meets her sister, Tilly, who is hell bent on getting revenge.  This doesn't go well, so soon there are no Masterson girls left (unless they have a wimpy sister that we never meet named Milly).

So James gets flown to Kentucky as Gfinger's prisoner.  He's flown by the amazing pilot, none other than Pussy Galore!!  (The way Sean Connery says Pussy is seriously worth the price of admission).  Pussy has a business where she trains pilots.  They are all busty blondes who really look like they aren't smart enough to know how to spell airplane, let alone fly one and the company is called Pussy Galore's Flying Circus.  Ah, Bond films.  I love you.

Gfinger has a band of Asian henchmen that not only dress like they should be in a rice paddy but they all run like girls.  Gfinger at one point is going to kill James by strapping him to a table and pointing the SLOWEST MOVING laser beam ever at his junk.  Gfinger goes into another room, has a conversation with his scientists, I had time to make a cup of tea...all before the beam gets anywhere near his jewels.  Naturally, he escapes.  Phew.  Bit of trivia:  apparently this is the first time a laser beam ever appears in a film.  Frickin' laser beam!

One funny thing I noticed about James is (at least in this film) he asks all the women he sleeps with if they've slept with the bad guy   I guess he has some morals after all!

I read that this is the first Bond film to include Q and his gadgets.  It's also the first Bond film to have the song over the opening credits (others were on the closing credits).  Apparently Shirley Bassey nearly fainted when singing that final note because it had to go for so long.

(My pairing suggestion for this film is a Mint Julep, which is what Goldfinger offers James in Kentucky.  And he drinks it, which is rather surprising.)

George Lazenby 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service - released in 1969

This was the 6th Bond film, after Sean Connery decided he'd had enough of James Bond.  The first thing that struck me as strange was that there was no theme song!  I mean, I guess "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" is kind of a mouthful and maybe not a lot rhymes with Service, but it was still kind of jarring.

I had never seen this film before, so I was only going in with the "George Lazenby isn't a good Bond" preconceived opinion.  Honestly, he wasn't terrible.  I mean, we all know that Bond films are heavy on the action and rather light on the acting, so no worries there.  He's handsome (apparently he was a former model).  He has a good ass. He wears a kilt in this film.  These seemed to indicate a promising start.

Like most Bond films, he meets a woman because he's speeding down a windy, one lane road and she blows past him.  I'm guessing this is a metaphor for something, but I haven't worked that out yet (this is how James meets Tilly in Gfinger).  This is where James meets his future wife (that's right!) played by the always wonderful Diana Rigg.  She is gorgeous!  And a really good actress.  In this film she's playing a spoiled socialite that her father feels needs a good man to straighten her out.  There are some weird moments in this film for her where she gets slapped by James and later punched by her dad so she will stop protesting.  I had some issues with this, obviously.  Anyway, when they meet, James has to beat up a bunch of henchmen and then she runs off.  He says to the camera "This never happened to the other fella", which I'm assuming means Sean.  Kinda threw me out of the film, so it bugged.

So James woos Tracey (Diana Rigg) for a while and decides that he doesn't want to be 007 because M pisses him off.  He's SUCH a diva.   He (natch) gets caught back up in spying and wants to go after arch-villain Blomfeld.  He ends up impersonating a geneologist because Blomfeld is interested in discovering (and by discovering we mean having someone authenticate something he made up) his ancestry.  We find out here that the Bond family motto on their crest is "the world is not enough".  It was many years before they made that film. 

Blomfeld runs an allergy clinic in the Swiss Alps or somewhere like that.  He has this awesome woman who works for him that reminded me of Frau Blucher from Young Frankenstein.  She is telling James (posing as Sir Hilary the geneologist) about the clinic and says they treat "ze hayfever, ze inability to eat ze oyster" because you know, oyster allergies are the next most common allergy after hayfever, right?  I mean, the itchy eyes and sneezing make them super hard to shuck!!

We finally meet Blofeld here, who is played by Telly Savalas!!  I had no idea!  Complete with fluffy white Persian cat (which apparently isn't high on the allergy list, like oysters).   My aunt knew Telly when she lived in Greece, so it was kind of awesome to see him in a film.  And I realized that he might be the 70's version of Vin Diesel!

So I looked this film up on Wikipedia and interestingly, they say that time has been kind to this film.  People realize the GL wasn't absolutely terrible as Bond and that the film is really well directed.  I'm thinking not so much.  This movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes long.  Holy cow, that's a long movie!  And after James falls for Tracey, he leaves her to go to the clinic and it's like a whole separate movie.  We never hear about her, he fucks two other women (in one night) because they're there, and it's this really convoluted way that Tracey comes back into the story.  Which, as far as a Bond film goes might not be so odd, but she ends up being the love of his life (I mean, he's giving up bachelorhood, for crying out loud!) so I'd have liked her to have more screen time.  Plus - and this might be because GL really wasn't an actor - I could never figure out when they fell in love.  GL is sort of a one expression kind of actor.

Another interesting thing I read was that GL got WAY too big for his britches.  This was, essentially, his first acting gig.  He won over producer Albert Broccoli by sort of dressing the part, etc.  Again, he's not terrible, but apparently they had to overdub the actor who plays the original Sir Hilary when he was impersonating him because he just couldn't do a voice.  And his ego got totally out of hand.  Even Diana Rigg had enough of it (although she does seem like a gal with little patience for blowhards) and was like "dude needs to pay his fucking dues" (I'm paraphrasing).   I love Diana Rigg.

(My pairing for this film is what James orders from the St Bernard who comes to rescue him:  5 Star Hennessy)

Roger Moore

Octopussy - released in 1983

I chose Octopussy for my Roger Moore Bond installment for the sole reason that when I was in India I was in the city of Udaipur, where they filmed some of the exteriors.  My guide in Udaipur told me this and I've been wanting to see it ever since.

I'm going to come right out and say that I'm not a huge fan of Roger Moore's Bond.  He's so...quippy.  Like all the time.  I don't mind the occasional pun or goofy joke, but honestly there were points when I wanted to just slap him and say "James, take this shit seriously for Chrissake!!"  No wonder Q is always so annoyed with him.  I don't blame him. Plus he just looks so stuffy British.  Apparently Moore was voted "Best Bond" by the Academy so clearly I don't conform to popular opinion.  He had the longest Bond career at 12 years and was the oldest guy to take the role.

There was no song by the name Octopussy (I guess none of us should be surprised by this).  Instead the theme song is All Time High sung by Rita Coolidge, lyrics by Tim Rice (his full name, I just discovered is Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice....So. Fantastically. British.).   This song is honestly a bit dull and SO nothing like anything in Lion King.  I think Tim Rice needs Elton.

Octopussy is essentially the story of a woman jewel thief who is betrayed by some people who work with her.  Maud Adams plays Octopussy.  Oddly, she also runs a circus.  The Double O that dies in this film is 009.  He has infiltrated the circus and escapes dressed as a clown with a balloon.  He is smuggling out a Fabrege egg.  He gets stabbed by these knife throwing twins and even though they have names in the movie, their credit is Twin One and Twin Two.  Very Seuss.  Anyway, what struck me is this clown-man is running through a dense forest in Germany, gets stabbed and eventually lands in a river sluice kind of thing and that fucking balloon NEVER pops.  Come on.  My suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

Anyway, one of our bad guys (the one who betrays OctoP) is played by Louis Jordan (Gigi!  Thank Heaven for Little Girls!).  He is very handsome and debonair with his French accent and good manners.  Another bad guy, the Russian general (there is always a Russian general...Ian Fleming clearly had issues with Russians and generals) is played by the bad guy from Beverly Hills Cop.  He is kind of hamming it up in this film, walking around with stiff arms - he looks like he's a little kid pretending to be a military guy.

Much of this film takes place in India.  They take some liberties with geography, saying they are going to Delhi.  They actually fly by the Taj Mahal which is in Agra and then end up in Udaipur which is in Rajasthan.  Kemal Khan (Louis Jordan) lives in the Monsoon Palace (I learned the reason this palace is named thus and on a hill from my tour guide in Udaipur. It was built there so the royals would be above water in a monsoon.) and OctoP lives in the Lake Palace (obvi on a lake...the lake is man-made as it's in the center of a desert - also tour guide info).  Both of these palaces are gorgeous...I didn't tour either of them (I toured City Palace) because I was only in Udaipur for a day.

One of my favorite moments is Kemal Khan playing high stakes backgammon, betting HUGE amounts like 20,000 rupees.  This is probably like $3.50 so it made me laugh.

I was a bit shocked that it took 45 minutes before James bedded anyone.  What??  He notices that the woman has a tattoo (it looked exactly like a kid's temporary tattoo down to the clear edging that they always have) shaped like an octopus.  He asks her what it is and she replies "it's my little octopussy".  Go James!

Anyway, there are a ton of chase scenes (mostly with a stunt double, I'd guess...we almost never see James' face and Roger Moore moves like an old man, quite honestly) and James finally sleeps with Octopussy, then he gets the bad guy.  There is one alarming moment when James is sliding down a banister that has a finial.  He realizes he's gonna hit it crotch-first so he shoots it off.  The alarming part is that it still looked jagged so I was worried about his nethers. James ends the film in a clown outfit to chase the bad guys so it all comes full circle.

(My pairing for this film is a nice, refreshing lassi.  Your choice of flavor.)

Timothy Dalton

The Living Daylights - released in 1987

The Living Daylights is the first Dalton film, although the producers had been courting him since the late 60's.  He actually felt he was too young when they approached him to take over for Connery.  He'd have been about 25, so I have to agree.  I'm gonna own it right now - Timothy Dalton is a sexy, sexy man.  He has this smoldering expression and has a great voice.  He's actually aging very well; he's in Penny Dreadful - which if you haven't watched yet, I highly recommend.

Okay, so in a moment of true bliss I discovered that the title song (called The Living Daylights!) is sung by A-HA!!!!  I was a bit sad that the title credits weren't done in scratchy 2D animation, but a girl can't have everything.  The Pretenders also performed a song (the end song) and Chryssie Hynde wrote the lyrics.  So very 80's, this one.

I don't really remember this movie very much, but it's not bad.  Basically, James is helping a KGB general defect but things get very squirrely.  Maryam D'Abo is the woman in this film.  She initially appears to be a cello playing sniper (as you are) but then we realize she's the defector's girlfriend.  The defector is trying to pin a bunch of American and British Intelligence agent's deaths on another Russian general (played by Salah from Raiders of the Lost Ark!!  I love Salah, he has the best voice!).  Well, naturally nothing is as it seems and the defector is, in fact, the bad guy (it's okay, he's still a Russian general!).  He's in cahoots with a crazy American general, so clearly Ian Fleming upped his game on this one.  The US dude has a room full of war hero wax figures from the ages.  Creepy.

This film makes full use of Bond's Astin Martin.  There's a laser beam that cuts off the bottom of a jeep and a rocket launcher among many others devices.  Apparently after On Her Majesty's Secret Service they retired the Astin Martin, so this is the first film that it reappeared in.  It's an awesome fucking car.

This film also introduced the new Moneypenny.  Actress Lois Maxwell played her from the first film to this one (14 films).  They traded her in for a younger model.  They did not, however, trade in either M or Q for younger models.  Q is seriously so old in this one that he runs up some stairs and immediately took a pill for his heart.

Much of this film takes place in Czechoslovakia.  I learned that in Czechoslovakia in the 80's, everything is being swept.  There's a dude sweeping in a bathroom, then another on the street.  Who knew Czech's were so worried about dirt!

A bit about our Bond girl.  Maryam D'Abo really knows how to toss her hair.  It's impressive.  What is NOT impressive is her character, Kara.  She's a fucking dope - there's no other way to put it.  She is the only woman James sleeps with in this film.  Mind you, she's the defector's girlfriend but she really doesn't care about that at all because she hops into bed with James at a moment's notice.  So once she's gotten a taste of Bond, she becomes like a lovesick puppy.  She jeopardizes all his missions because she wants to be near him.  She nearly flies them into a mountain at one point (James was busy killing off a bad guy PLUS diffusing a bomb...he was a bit busy) and then screams when James is like "what the fuck??"  This is precisely why James needs to sleep around.  Don't let these girls get attached.

(My pairing for this film is two fingers of Jim Beam, which CIA Felix offers James at one point.)

Pierce Brosnan

Tomorrow Never Dies - released in 1997

I actually wanted my Brosnan entry to be GoldenEye (his first) but I couldn't find it on any of my free channels.  In fact, I couldn't even rent it on Vudu.  Weird. So Tomorrow Never Dies it is!

This is the 18th Bond film and the first one after legendary producer Albert Broccoli died.  I believe his daughter took over.  I wonder what business the family was in before they produced films?  I also discovered that this film was released the same day as Titanic, so it opened at number two at the box office.  Sheryl Crow does the opening song, Tomorrow Never Dies.

I think my favorite thing about this movie is that Judi Dench is M!  It's the second film that she plays M.  I love Judi Dench.

I'm gonna say that I didn't really love this film. I think I was just a bit underwhelmed.  The basic plot is that there is an evil media baron played by Jonathan Pryce (of Brazil fame!) who wants to control the world.  He is doing this by starting shit between the UK and China using his media conglomerate to broadcast sensationalist news immediately.  He's actually writing the headlines beforehand and then making it all happen, like sinking ships and stuff.  Jonathan Pryce's trophy wife (played by Teri Hatcher who was 3 months pregnant at the time of filming!) is clearly only with him for his money and is also an ex-girlfriend of James.  She gets offed because she can't resist James' charms (code for: she slept with him).  I found it interesting that Teri Hatcher chose this role because apparently her husband always wanted to be with a Bond girl. Then she complained because she thought the role was shallow.  Um, have you SEEN a Bond film, Teri?

This is apparently the only Bond film where he actually beds a married woman.  Again, morals! I discovered that Brosnan's Bond is a shoulder biter.  I have to say, kind of sexy.

Jonathan Pryce is really hammy in this movie, which kind of bugged.  Also, many of his scenes are filmed at an up angle which resulted in his back teeth being visible and really distracting.  At least to me.  

There is a lot of computer work in this film (hello 90's) and there's even a shlubby computer hacker bad guy in this film.  I believe this type of film is called a "techno-thriller".

The Bond girl for this film is Michelle Yeoh.  She's been in a bunch of Chinese costume dramas (which I love!), most notably Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  She is seriously a bad ass in real life.  Apparently Brosnan loved working with her.  She wanted to do all her own stunts but they wouldn't let her.  She did do all her own fighting, however.  She and Brosnan have one great chase scene over the rooftops of Bangkok on a motorcycle.  They are handcuffed together so much of the time she's facing him and they both are steering.  Nice equality.

Brosnan is not a bad Bond. He's very handsome.  I always have a hard time separating him from Remington Steele, but it's not a far stretch to Bond so it works.  

(My pairing for this film is a martini, shaken not stirred.  Finally!)

My takeaways:

#1 - I had good musical taste when I was 3!

#2 - If the Erokans had a crest it would probably have a guitar and an old fashioned movie projector on it and our motto would be "We're funny...to us!.

#3 - It's interesting to me that none of the actors are actually from England except Roger Moore (SC - Scotland, GL - Australian (!), TD - Wales, PB - Ireland).  Huh.

xoxo...hashtagSue'slife