Live and Let Die

Pimpmobiles. Alligators. A trip through Harlem. Voodoo. Cigars. Blaxploitation. George Martin. Bourbon and water. Tarot Cards. Snakes. The City of New Orleans. Paul McCartney and Wings.

“That’s just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.” – 007 in Goldfinger

Somebody’s out to prove Roger Moore ain’t your daddy’s James Bond.

On the calendar, 007 entered the ‘70s with Sean Connery’s last official entry, Diamonds are Forever, but it wasn’t until two years later in 1973 that the shift of the decade really affected cinema’s most popular secret agent.

The Plot: Three MI6 agents are killed – one each in New York, New Orleans, and the fictitious Caribbean island of San Monique. M (Bernard Lee) assigns Bond (Moore) to the case. He follows the trail of bodies, only to discover an elaborate heroin producing, smuggling and selling operation, masterminded by the ruthless San Monique dictator Kananga (Yaphet Kotto), who operates under heavy makeup stateside as Mr. Big, where the goods are dispersed through a chain of soul food restaurant/bars called Fillet of Soul. But faux voodoo and mysticism surround Bond from the word go, as does the hypnotic spell cast over him by Kananga’s delicately beautiful reader of cards and seer of visions, Solitaire (Jane Seymour).

The Girls: Nabbing the role of lead Bond girl must seem exciting for an unknown actress, but as has been proven repeatedly, it rarely leads to a big time career. Seymour is one of a handful of actresses to buck that trend and with good reason: Solitaire ranks high on the list of Bond’s classiest ladies, and her story is arguably the heart of the picture. The character isn’t necessarily written with a huge amount of depth, yet that very simplicity makes her complex. In a movie full of charlatanistic voodoo, she stands out as the lone figure possessing the psychic ability to see into the future. Additionally, she differs from the Bond girl flock by sporting ornate, body-covering costumes that contrast with the oft-expected “Bond girl in a bikini” mold. And she’s a virgin, until James enters her, um, life.

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Binder's Full of Women: The Evolving Art of the Classic James Bond Title Sequence

Over the years James Bonds came and went. Directors and writers shifted and changed. Vocalists were routinely swapped out. Though not the only constant in the Bond franchise, Maurice Binder, as the primary designer of the instantly recognizable title sequence, was certainly one of the most noticeable ones. For the bulk of Bond’s first 27 years, Binder brought us a cavalcade of swirling colors and curvaceous ladies, typically set to the tune of a current pop sensation. His job was to help set the tone for the film to come by presenting elements and themes from the movie in an abstract, artistic fashion. For many, these title sequences became an important, even necessary part of the Bond movie-going experience, and remain so today, over 20 years after Binder’s passing. Here we take an entirely subjective look at his ongoing contributions to cinema’s longest-running movie franchise.

The first thing ever seen in a Bond movie is the opening gun barrel sequence, and no amount of praise can be too effusive for Maurice Binder’s creation of it. James Bond emerges in profile from the right, caught in the movie viewer’s cross hairs. He then spins around, shoots, and the gun sight fills with, presumably, the viewer’s blood.

It’s become part and parcel of the Bond films ever since, though only in Dr. No is it part of the title sequence proper; afterwards, it would be separated from the titles by the now also iconic pre-credits sequence. Coupled with the infamous Monty Norman-composed Bond theme song, the gun barrel sequence is that instantaneous moment when everyone simultaneously acknowledges they’re watching a Bond film.

After the gun barrel sequence, flashing colored lights set to the Bond theme reveal the title “Dr. No” as well as the cast, followed by the silhouettes of people dancing a sort of Jamaican mambo, and, finally, a calypso version of “Three Blind Mice” dovetails nicely into the movie itself. The Dr. No titles are a lot fun and unique in the Bond film series; the only real element of them that would come to feature heavily in the future is Binder’s inventive, energetic use of silhouette.

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Never Say Never Again: Collector's Edition

Often viewed as the ugly stepchild of the James Bond movies, Never Say Never Again may be the most polarizing movie to feature the martini-swilling superspy (unless, of course, one counts the ‘67 spoof Casino Royale – but really, who would?). But can a Bond movie starring Sean Connery ever really be that bad? It depends who you ask. While this re-release isn’t exactly brimming with extras, there’s just enough on here to give some insight into a production about which most people (myself included) are largely ignorant.

The movie is usually described as “a remake of Thunderball,” which isn’t quite the truth. As it turns out, the one thing producer Jack Schwartzman (the late husband of Talia Shire, as well as father of Jason the actor and John the cinematographer) was basically forbidden to do was remake Thunderball. Due to legalities too complex to elaborate on here, the producers were instead allowed only to work from Ian Fleming’s original text to create their version of this story. Pretty much anything created for the previous movie that wasn’t in the book was off limits.

This in and of itself makes the movie a curiosity piece, as it’s the only time in Bond film history that we’ve gotten two different versions of the same Fleming story (again, let’s not bring the Casino spoof into the equation). The final product really doesn’t bear much resemblance to the ‘65 outing. It features some of the iconography and many character names are the same or similar, but otherwise it might as well just be another James Bond movie (especially when one considers how similar all the movies in the franchise are to one another.) Further, Thunderball is actually a pretty boring movie, and while many a criticism may be launched at Never Say Never Again, boring probably wouldn’t be the first word used to describe it.

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007 in '007: Dr. No

World domination. The same old dream. Our asylums are full of people who think they're Napoleon. Or God.

--James Bond

To go back and watch the first Bond film is fascinating because so much of the formula is already intact. Aside from a few notable absences, which will be addressed below, most everything is in place, not just the unmistakable theme music, but the stylish set designs and frantic editing…all the technical stuff that is unforgettable. The megalomaniac villain – grand in ego, singular in purpose, is alive and well right out of the gate. The women and their names – the stuff of legend. Hot. With the first Bond film comes Ursula Andress right out of the surf to become the most recognizable Bond girl. And then there’s Connery – James Bond fully formed with his postmortem sarcasm, particular tastes and cold animal sex drive in full gear. As much as I enjoyed watching Daniel Craig reboot the character and start the developmental process from getting his double 0, honing his taste for inebriants, learning the place of love in the workplace, etc…I couldn’t help but think that as the end credits for Casino Royale rolled, the Bond character was ready to emerge again as the final product that is Sean Connery in Dr. No. And yet, with so much of the formula and style in place, the film manages to be exotic and thrilling to anyone flirting with becoming a Bond aficionado. It was clear that producers Broccoli and Saltzman wanted to make a series of pictures and it’s as if their first experiment was such a home-run that almost everything stuck. The only thing that wasn’t there was the budget, but with such expert filmmaking, you never miss it. And gadgets would come later.


Tuneage – The Dr. No soundtrack is somewhat of an anomaly, based primarily on Monty Norman’s theme and the work of the hottest Jamaican band at the time, Byron Lee & the Dragoneers. John Barry was involved, too, but he was un-credited. It is a livelier soundtrack, with more pop sounds than orchestral sounds, included catchy Carribean dance tunes such as “Jump Up,” and the reoccurring “Underneath the Mango Tree.” The highlight, though, is Norman’s James Bond theme, which has enjoyed a multitude of variants over the last forty-five years, but is most indelibly rendered in Dr. No.

Monsieur Binder – The two spheres and the gun barrel are there and so is a black and white Bond wearing a hat, but where are the opening horn blasts introducing the theme? Instead we hear psychedelic radio beams, the types of beams that might topple a guided rocket or missile. The most striking anomaly of Dr. No is the lack of a pre-credit sequence. Instead, the film launched directly into the inspired graphic design credits of Maurice Binder. It is his crudest effort in the series, but one that is nevertheless striking with its bold dots and vibrantly colored dancing silhouettes. (I had a crush on the one with tassels on her dress. The first one, not the second). They are simple images, but stylistically potent. There are three segments to the credit sequence: the dots and cubes digitally dancing to Monty Norman’s classic theme, then young people dancing to Caribbean music and finally, the blackened silhouettes of three old Jamaicans with walking canes bouncing to a calypso version of “Three Blind Mice.” The lyrics are brutal, much like the film that lies ahead.

Monsieur Hunt – What lies immediately ahead in the picture is the jarring assassination of Mr. Strangways, the British agent stationed in Kingston. The sequences that cover the killing of Strangways and then the killing of his secretary have curious jumps and cuts that give the scenes a staccato momentum. The result is a hastened sequence that would set the pacing for this film and the series beyond. According to editor Peter Hunt, director Terence Young left out shots that would traditionally be thought essential for the coherence of a scene, but Hunt managed to mix it up enough to convey the momentum of the action, defying certain established rules by cutting into a panning shot or violating aspects of continuity. The end effect is a uniquely stylized technique that is forever attached to the series. Peter Hunt is not afraid to speed up a motion or cut it off prematurely to get the timing right and the result is high impact fight sequences.



Monsieur Adam – Ken Adam loves circles in the ceiling almost as much as he loves grates in the ceiling. And he’s happiest when he can combine the two, as in the scene where the treacherous Professor Dent visits with the voice of Dr. No. Adam would go on to do a variety of variations around that circle in the ceiling in countless Bond films. He also likes staircases without hand rails (it’s about comfort, not safety), the combination of natural rock with steel and open fire pits in lavish living areas below the earth’s surface. All present in Dr. No. The villain’s lair contains all the combinations of classical and modern that defines the tastes of Bond villains: copper doors and elevators, wood floors, Victorian and contemporary furnishings, carefully mixed. The villain doctor’s criminal bona-fides are confirmed with the careful placement of a recently stolen Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington.


Zee Villain –Even without the kicking pad, Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) would still be the total embodiment of the Bond villain. He’s a recluse with huge ambition. While he is cold and diabolical, he is also refined, and when he meets a worthy adversary, such as Bond, he is civilized enough to treat him and his lady to a nice meal. I’ve never heard of a Bond villain that did not offer Bond a drink. No self-respecting SPECTRE agent goes through life without knowing the libation habits of 007 – so when Bond finally meets the evil villain, Dr. No already has Bond’s drink prepared.


Dr. No – [as the drink is handed to Bond] Medium dry martini. Lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred.

Bond – Vodka?

Dr. No – Of course.

And he calls himself a terrorist?


Like a good villain, Dr. No is always calm and collected. He never shares in the blame when something goes wrong, as when Bond luckily escapes an assassin’s bullet. The man in charge of the mission was the nervous Professor Dent, an agent of Dr. No’s who no doubt had a hand in hiring the killers to kill Strangways as well. When Dr. No asks the professor why Bond is still alive, Dent explains: “Our attempts failed.”


The soft voice of Dr. No (that’s all the audience is getting at this point) says: “Your attempts failed. I do not like failure.”

With Dr. No, the buck stops at the lower echelons. And fear is his motivator. Still, it’s hard not to blame Dr. No for the next failure, since it was his concoction. It is one of the weakest, most absurd sequences which has Dent placing a tarantula into Bond’s hotel room – something that might make a man shit the bed, but not kill him.

Still, Dr. No remains somewhat daunting if only for the fact that he hasn’t been shown yet. He only appears in the last quarter of the picture, but his presence is obviously felt through a total of four and a half murder attempts (the driver in the beginning did not actually try to kill Bond, but he might have if given the chance and therefore counts for the half). And the visit to his base island, Crab Key, is filled with things to terrorize visitors – high-powered boats with machine guns, the dogs, and, not least, a dragon. All are part of Dr. No’s efforts to keep people off the island. It would take a special kind of man willing to look death in the face in order to confront the villainous doctor.



Les Girls – Besides the introduction of the durably charming Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), Dr. No also introduced another character intended to continue in the series, Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson). Trench is the type of girl that, through sheer sex appeal, could make a man’s departure change from “immediately” to “almost immediately.” She represents Bond’s off-duty time in Dr. No and From Russia With Love, and is more than suitably hot in that role. The shot of her in Bond’s bottomless night shirt, Porky Pig style, playing put-put in Bond’s room while her smackwarm gams steal the show is the first iconic Bond girl image. When Bond throws open the door and squats down low to shoot the intruder dead, she huffs: “There, now you made me miss.”

“You don’t miss a thing,” Bond replies. And he’s right. It’s impossible to look at Sylvia Trench and not take note of the sex appeal that emanates from her like a fine perfume animated by Tex Avery. If the average Bond girl sends a man’s eyes about a foot away from his socket, then Eunice Gayson sends them 10 foot away with a good dozen smaller tracer eyeballs in between.


But the sexy girls don’t stop there. The lovely Marguerite LeWars (former Miss Jamaica) tries twice to snag Bond’s picture for Dr. No before getting her arm twisted and being sent away. Granted, she’s always in duress and therefore has little opportunity to turn on the sex appeal, but she does get to pout like a hellcat, and act like one, too, when she claws Quarrel’s right cheek with a broken light-bulb. The producers managed to get a lot of talent from the local resources of Jamaica, and LeWars was no exception, as she was found working as a flight attendant for Pan Am.

The femme fatale, Miss Taro (Zena Marshall), looks slightly awkward in makeup designed to give her a Chinese look, but nevertheless serves well as the bait to lead Bond into a harrowing, if artificial looking, chase sequence that sends the first flaming car off a cliff in a Bond movie. Taro’s main job is to look worried and suspicious…and sexy.


Finally, there is Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder emerging from the surf (with a wounded hind leg according to the commentary track to the film, though you’d never know it). It is a scene that is the most closely identified to the idea of the Bond girl. Her character is remarkably close to Ian Fleming’s Honey Ryder – tough, smart and goddess-like in beauty, but wholly uneducated and a sort of child of nature. Fleming would create several female characters with these types of traits, but Andress comes closest to putting that on film. Fleming was so smitten with Andress during the shooting of the film that he gave her a cameo spot in the ski-lodge of the novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, written in 1963, directly after the film. Although Andress did not get the chance to kick some butt, as Ryder did in the novel, she certainly manages to come across as self-reliant in the extreme. Her planned execution in the novel, as laid out by Dr. No, is to be bound to the ground as the tide changes so that black crabs will crawl over her and eat her flesh. The plan comes to naught because Ryder knows the crabs are harmless if she doesn’t resist – another failure that Dr. No would have blamed on others, had he lived to do so. In the film Terrence Young had intended a similar scene, but when the flesh eating crabs arrived to the set frozen and half dead, they had to resort to a simple flooding effect. One can only imagine that this impromptu change was for the best.


Bond, James Bond - The search for an actor to play Bond led Broccoli and Saltzman to consider a number of choices, including Cary Grant (Broccoli decided against him because he wanted an actor that would become part of the series and Grant would have likely been a one time deal) as well as Roger Moore, who was tied up at the time with The Saint. Sean Connery was an up and comer, having worked with Terence Young in Action of the Tiger (1957). Broccoli was impressed with him in Disney’s Darby O’Gill (1959) and he landed the part. It is hard to think of an actor, including Moore, who could have more firmly established the character as quickly and fully as Connery did. Sean Connery in 1962 was, quite simply, a perfect specimen of a man – athletic as hell (he was a Mr. Universe) and equally refined. Although his performance comes across as effortless onscreen, Connery went through an intense Bond indoctrination under the tutelage of director Terence Young. From the style of Bond’s suit to all the particulars of his taste, Connery was a rough cut stone that Young chiseled into the pure dazzling diamond. Bond’s panache is an extension of Young’s panache, something that would endure beyond Dr. No and even beyond Connery. From the very beginning of the series, Sean Connery is a perfect mixture of roughness and sophistication, brute and gentleman. He is at his most ruthless in Dr. No, particularly when he shoots a man in cold blood. Bond explains to the soon-to-be-dead Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson) after the hapless professor has emptied his revolver into the pillow likeness of 007: “That’s a Smith and Wesson and you’ve had your six,” and then pumps three silent slugs into the disarmed doctor. There’s no doubt that Bond is the hero and that his foes are the villains, but rarely does an audience see a hero employing his license to kill in as nonchalant and calculating a way as Connery in Dr. No. In future films, he would make a habit of using femme fatales as body armor, but the cold caste is set in Dr. No. with his murder of Professor Dent.

His humor, too, must have been something new to audiences. This particular hallmark of Bond’s character was the result of impromptu changes by Connery and Young. When he pulls up to Government House with the imposter chauffeur dead in the back seat, he quips to the entrance guard, “Make sure he doesn’t get away,” and hands the guard the keys, walking calmly into Government House without further explanation. Perhaps his death jokes are a subconscious way of dealing with the guilty pain his license to kill forces him to endure. If so, then it apparently turns his skin into a veritable shield of Teflon where guilt slides off of him faster than a fried egg. I think he just likes a good joke. It should be noted that as quippy as he got, Connery never quite reached the sarcastic levels of Roger Moore, but his comments, especially in Dr. No, do tend to be darker.

Connery’s Bond is not only graceful, brutish and athletic, but he’s a scrapper, too. When he’s completely at the mercy of Dr. No, eating his fine cuisine, he still manages to do everything in his cordial way to needle the villain. When Bond picks up a bottle to use as a weapon, the doctor points out that it is a Dom Perignon ’55 and, thus, a pity to waste, in which Bond replies (setting the bottle down): “I prefer the ‘53, myself.” He asks, off-handedly, to his threatening host whether the “toppling of American missiles really compensates for having no hands?” Even though he’s powerless, Bond continually looks for that one thing that might jolt the doctor or change the circumstances. When the doctor boasts about the greatest minds that make up SPECTRE, Bond corrects him by interjecting “criminal brains.” Of course, the doctor has his reply: “The criminal brain is always superior, it has to be.”

I’m of the mindset that there really have been no bad Bonds, just unlucky ones. Connery was fortunate enough to enjoy the longest run of Bond masterpieces with the first three films, but it was, in part, due to his immediate ownership of the role.

The Novel – Although the first film in the series, Dr. No was the sixth novel. It brought up the tail end of Flemings early stories (the collection of short stories in For Your Eyes Only being the center point in the series). The film is more or less faithful to the novel with a few notable exceptions. The character of Miss Taro is crooked in the book, but even more crooked in the film. Felix Leiter was a return character in the novel, with a significant handicap he obtained in the second novel, Live and Let Die. The film does not mention the Audubon Society, which, in the novel, is responsible for shedding light on Dr. No’s activities as well as affording Bond’s superior, M, with a chance to share his worldview. Fleming spends a chapter on Bond, Quarrel and Ryder trekking through the mangroves in thrilling detail. The tarantula in the film is a centepede in the book, and it drinks the sweat off Bond's forhead (or so he senses). Also, Bond’s passage through the pipes of Dr. No’s fortress is part of the doctor’s obstacle course of death – planned out by the doctor with a finale confrontation with a giant squid. Finally (and if you plan on reading the book beware of the spoiler that follows), Dr. No meets his fate at the business end of a pile of guano. Oh yeah, and the dragon serves as an escape vehicle for Bond and Ryder. Virtually all of the deviations from the novel were wise moves on the part of the filmmakers.

The hidden hand in the creation of the first James Bond film is Terrence Young. He would go on to make two more Bond films: what many consider the best, From Russia with Love, and the lesser, though grander in scope, Thunderball. But Young’s influence went well beyond the films he directed. He, more than any other, brought the Fleming Effect to the screen. He provided the stylistic essence in the series and molded the character of Bond.

Dr. No remains one of the best loved Bond films. I rate it as my favorite, with From Russia With Love and Goldfinger as close seconds. It, along with From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, is one of the closest to the novels. It is also one of the simplest.

This entry in the 007 in '007 series was written by Jeffrey of Liverputty fame. Be sure to stop in at Liverputty and check out his ongoing collection of Ian Fleming Bond novel excerpts titled The Fleming Lumber Room. -RR

007 in '007: Moonraker

Is there an installment of the James Bond series with a less flattering reputation than 1979’s Moonraker? Frequently labeled the worst of the worst, it’s time for another look at the popcorn bonanza that launched Bond into outer space and Roger Moore into camp infamy.

Any talk of Moonraker must begin with the pre-credits sequence, which features the most magnificently jaw(s)-dropping stunt ever performed in a 007 outing: Aboard a private jet, Bond’s busy puttin’ the moves on some babe who quickly reveals herself to be less than charmed by pulling a gun on him. The pilot emerges from the cockpit decked out in skydiving gear. Taking the gun from the girl, he hands her a parachute and proceeds to blast the navigation equipment to pieces.

Evil Pilot: “This is where we leave you, Mr. Bond.”

Bond: “A little premature, isn't it?”

Bond and Evil Pilot scuffle, the door opens…and Bond pushes Evil Pilot out of the plane. 007’s victory is short-lived, however, as he too is pushed out the door by the previously unseen Evil Co-Pilot -- Jaws (Richard Kiel)! And that’s when the sequence really begins…

Bond navigates his way sans ‘chute towards Evil Pilot. The pair scuffle for considerably longer this time, in mid-air, as Bond relentlessly fights to remove Evil Pilot’s parachute. (Does the bizarre shot of Bond’s nose nestled in Evil Pilot’s crotch tell us more about James than we ever wanted to know?) This entire fight is a beauty to behold and the jewel in the Bond stunt crown.




Once Bond snags the chute, Evil Pilot trails away into the atmosphere to meet his maker (clenching his fists at 007 all the way), Round Two begins. Jaws shows up behind James and attempts to sink his tinfoil teeth into Bond's leg, but not before James activates his chute, pulling him to safety. Jaws discovers his chute doesn’t work and crashes to safety through a circus tent on the ground below. (Despite the fact she was seen being given a parachute, we never really find out what happened to the girl.)




While this skydiving sequence has a few problems (i.e. the obvious stuntmen and the goggles Bond is magically wearing), the sheer thrill and spectacle make up for any minor shortcomings. It’s the kind of stuff that cemented Moore’s era as its own.

Tuneage and Credits Sequence: Maurice Binder’s work on the various ‘70s Moore movies is collectively my favorite. He was getting away with showcasing loads of sexy, silhouetted flesh – often dancing with R-rated imagery - and Moonraker is no different (though it does seem a mild attempt to duplicate the perfection of The Spy Who Loved Me’s credits). There’s a bit of dated animation in the mix, but the plethora of bouncing babes makes up for it.

Given the film’s sci-fi premise, the title tune feels too retro due to the recognizable presence of Shirley Bassey’s vocals. Her style is much more at home with her two Connery numbers and this feels like a case of “trying to go home”. The song was apparently offered to Kate Bush before Bassey and she supposedly turned it down (argh!). Kate’s vocal style would have been an inspired match for John Barry’s songwriting and Hal David's lyrics and as a Kate fanatic, I’m incapable of hearing "Moonraker" without dreaming of what might have been. The disco spin on the tune that plays over the end credits seems totally out of place with the rest of Barry’s score, which is pleasingly lush, accentuating the scope of Moonraker’s locations and the vastness of its premise. Interesting to note the movies that bookend Moonraker were not scored by Barry. (It bears worth repeating The Rued Morgue Disclaimer #1: Ross is lousy at writing about music.)

Zee Villain: French actor Michael Lonsdale’s Sir Hugo Drax is unengagingly realized, lifelessly stock and blandly cut from the most common slab of cardboard. The sum total of Drax is his villainy, his technology and his plans. With its focus on spectacle, the Moore era featured some of the least interesting villains and Drax is the weakest of the weak. He's a forgettable bad guy brought to non-life by a phoned-in performance....yet it doesn’t really hurt the film; Moonraker isn't about characterization nor does it even aspire to be.

While Drax the man may be a minus for Moonraker, his scheme – which seems inspired by one too many viewings of 2001 and the maddening thinking that might occur from the inability to figure it all out -- is a big plus. Drax is Hitler without the appreciation for art & history: Wipe out the flawed human race and start over in space. It’s through this comic book conceit that Moonraker scales memorable heights, both thematically and literally.

Zee Henchman: While Moore’s era may not have fared well in the Villain Department, it created some pretty memorable henchmen. Richard Kiel’s Jaws was the only villainous lackey who lived to see another movie (having hounded 007 in the previous film, The Spy Who Loved Me). Here, Jaws is played more for laughs than in the previous outing, but given the comic book feel of the proceedings, its never obtrusive and his continual hounding of Bond from one scene to the next is one of the film’s most successful aspects (the cable car fight is undeniably a highlight). In the finale, Jaws realizes Drax’s master plan wouldn’t include the freakish ilk of either he or his new love, Dolly (Blanche Ravalec), so he turns and helps James win the day. In his last scene, he pops open a champagne bottle with his teeth, toasts the future with Dolly, and speaks his only line of dialogue in either movie: “Well, here’s to us.”

Les Girls: Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) is the central Bond babe, but the producers cast Corinne Clery in the smaller part of Drax’s assistant Corinne Dufour. As one of the truly sexy babes of erotic cinema -- due mostly to The Story of O -- Clery’s mere presence overshadows Chiles, despite having a fraction of the screentime and a dubbed performance. If only the actresses’ roles had been reversed! (Granted, that's a wholly subjective observation and subsequent wish.)

Before Moonraker, Chiles was supposedly considered for Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me, but was otherwise engaged. Lucky for the actress she got a second chance. Although Goodhead is something of a cold fish with a bland demeanor it doesn't feel out of place due to her being a scientist and a CIA agent. Chiles is quite striking and from a looks standpoint it's easy to see why she was cast, yet every time she speaks Holly becomes a little less captivating.

Bond, James Bond: One of the most refreshing aspects of Roger Moore’s commentary tracks on the Ultimate Edition DVDs is his self-deprecating approach. He never stands on ceremony and doesn’t pretend to be some great actor. Moonraker is the outing in which Moore has the least to do from a character standpoint, and James spends the movie hopping from one outlandish situation to the next. (At one point he even ends up improbably disguised as Eastwood’s Man With No Name with the theme from The Magnificent Seven offering accompaniment.)

While writing this piece, it began to feel like a rehash of the Tomorrow Never Dies overview, yet a major difference between the films is the two leads: Brosnan is a great actor capable of heights he was rarely allowed to scale; Moore was the opposite – an actor of limitations, ideally suited to take on even the most shallow of scripts (where Moonraker easily lands). His double takes, line delivery and attitude make it work. Whatever misgivings people may have about Roger Moore, Moonraker proves he was the right Bond for his time and why he lasted so long in the part.

The Bond series has over the years learned to compete in a marketplace that’s learned how to successfully rip off Bond. Spurred on by the success of 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, Albert Broccoli seemingly decided to do some shameless ripping of his own with Moonraker (including the structure of Spy's script). The industry was changing. Star Wars and Close Encounters were all the rage and The Empire Strikes Back was only a year away. Merchandising had become a major component of blockbuster filmmaking. Although the end of Spy announced “James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only”, a decision was made to put Eyes on the backburner and have 007 engage in a star war of his own. Moonraker’s budget was astronomical for 1979 -- $34,000,000! By comparison Spy was only $14,000,000, Empire’s was a paltry $18,000,000 and in ‘83 Jedi was still only $32,000,000.

Moonraker’s goal was to take Bond into space, which it more than delivers. The space finale is Star Wars meets 2001 – an epic battle replete with ships, astronauts, laser guns and just about every single cliché imaginable thrown into such a scenario, including having Drax dispatched via an airlock. As my blogger bud Jeffrey pointed out, Moonraker’s really a parody – it parodies the previous Bond films and the finale parodies sci-fi. But any parody worth doing also loves and respects the material it exploits, and Moonraker's third act is drunk on popcorn science fiction. There’s a majestic beauty on display in between the laser beams and it somehow manages to echo the Lucas and Kubrick epics without ever even aspiring to those films' heights.





It isn’t hard to see why Moonraker is so often ridiculed; if the previous Moore movies had already hammered in a few nails, this one sealed the coffin on Connery’s golden age. By the time it reaches its finale, you’ve either submitted to its charms or lost all interest. The key to “getting” the movie is the same as appreciating any comic book -- basking in the pictures…and Moonraker overflows with sumptuous imagery. If one were deprived of the film's dialogue & plot mechanics and only listened to its score and wallowed in the photography, effects and locations, one might wonder exactly why so much derision surrounds the piece.

Sir Frederick Gray: “My God, what's Bond doing?”

Q: “I think he's attempting re-entry, sir.”

Some interesting trivia:

* Moonraker was filmed on three continents, in four studios, and across seven countries.

* To build the gigantic three level Space Station set interiors at France's Epinay Studios, the production utilized two tons of nails, one hundred tons of metal, two hundred and twenty technicians and ten thousand feet of set construction woodwork.

* Vehicles featured included NASA / Rockwell International Shuttle Spacecraft designs as the six Moonraker Space Shuttles; a Venezian Gondola that can turn into a hovercraft known as the Hovercraft Gondola or 'Bondola'; Q's Hydrofoil Boat, a Glastron speedboat with attached hang-glider; a white MP Roadster; a Rio de Janeiro Ambulance; a blue Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith II which takes Bond to his Rio hotel; a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter; a Hispano-Suiza; and a Handley Page Jetstream Turboprop plane in the opening sequence.

* The film had the largest number of actors in weightlessness (on wires) ever filmed.

* For the fight between James Bond and Chang, the film had the largest amount of break-away sugar glass used in a single scene.

* The film utilized the largest set ever built in France.

* The final Bond film to feature Bernard Lee as M. He’d played the part in every entry since Dr. No.

Major kudos to fellow Bondphile Jeffrey of Liverputty and House Next Door fame for helping me out with all the great screen captures for this piece.

007 in '007: Tomorrow Never Dies

My first viewing of Tomorrow Never Dies was at the Screen on Baker Street Cinema in London. The film premiered in the UK a week before the U.S. and I was lucky enough to be there that week. Being an American, these circumstances were ideal for viewing a Bond flick, and as a result my view’s slightly colored: Dies has always been my favorite Brosnan flick…which isn’t saying much since I’m not wild about the quadrilogy in the first place. Having not seen the movie for several years, I was curious as to whether or not it would hold up.

One aspect of Brosnan’s tenure that’s more noticeable with hindsight is how different each entry is in tone and execution. Tomorrow Never Dies smacks of a good old-fashioned Roger Moore-era outing. It’s the least complicated of Pierce’s movies and moves along with a brisk pace. It’s got some great action scenes, an over-the-top villain and a surprising number of witticisms that don’t fall entirely flat:

Bond: (In bed with a language tutor) “I always enjoyed learning a new tongue.”

Back at MI6, M walks up behind Moneypenny, who’s talking to Bond.

Moneypenny: “You always were a cunning linguist, James.” (To M) “Don't ask.”

M: “Don't tell.”

Yet the wit is about all there is to praise in Bruce Feirstein’s script, because there’s barely any plot and character motivation must have been thrown out the window during what was apparently a very messy writing process. The first half attempts to rectify this with a “GPS encoder”, serving as a handy MacGuffin to distract us from the realization that satirizing the media isn’t enough of a mission to keep a Bond film afloat.

Zee Villain: Jonathan Pryce’s media mogul Elliot Carver is an insane megalomaniac drawn in the old-school Bond tradition; William Randolph Hearst were he alive today with Rupert Murdoch’s power & technology at his disposal. Carver lives by his catchphrase, “Tomorrow’s News Today”, and the idea drives the meager plot. He creates political disasters for the sole purpose of being the first to put them in the headlines. His current scheme involves inciting war between China and the UK, which will in turn give him some kind of media stranglehold -- um, yeah…I don’t really get it either, but since the entire affair harkens back to flicks like You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me, perhaps we’re expected to care less than we are to bask in a form of nostalgia.

Back to Pryce…you know, it’s Jonathan Goddamn Pryce. Need this man’s stellar resume even be listed? The guy’s just class and surely has never given a bad performance. He’s played good guys and bad blokes and chaps somewhere in between. He’s been the lead as often as he’s been the supporting player. He plays notes of comedy and drama to perfection, regardless of whether they’re set in past, present or future. He makes us laugh, he makes us cry, and he’s even scared the crap out of us. Jonathan Pryce is one of the most flexible, underrated actors in the business and the fact Carver stands out given how piss poorly he’s drawn is further proof of Pryce’s talent (not that further proof was required). Without Pryce’s antics and line delivery, this film would have no dramatic center.

Les Girls: Before she was a bed-hopping desperate housewife, Teri Hatcher, as the inanely named Paris Carver, soiled the linens of both James Bond and Elliot Carver. It seems Paris has some kind of history with James – something that’s supposed to elevate her above the Bond girl pack. But given what’s shown on-screen, we’d never know it if we weren’t told it. Her limited screentime amounts to wagging eyelashes, a push-up bra and smacking James across the face before falling back into bed with him.

You know what would have worked here? A character/actress from an older Bond movie. Maybe Maryam d’Abo’s Kara Milovy from The Living Daylights? As a concert cellist, she was something of a celebrity and it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for her to fall for Elliot’s charms and vice versa. If we’re to believe Bond’s got a history with a girl, why not give us a history we already know? At least the script never offers up a dreadful spin on “We’ll always have Paris”.

The primary Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies is Michelle Yeoh’s (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Wai Lin, an agent who’s essentially the Chinese government’s version of Bond (again, reminiscent of The Spy Who Loved Me). Michelle Yeoh is a kick ass babe, and it’s a credit to the script that she never falls into bed with Bond (well, not until the final seconds anyway, which in turn gives us the perfect Roger Moore ending). Unfortunately, like the rest of this film, Wai Lin’s got virtually no character and pretty much amounts to her martial arts skills, which is obviously why Yeoh was hired, despite being nearly as good an actress.

Zee Henchmen: A wasteland of nothingness! In a movie where the main characters are underwritten, it should come as no surprise that the henchman suffer even more horrible fates. Carver’s two primary employees are Stamper (German actor Götz Otto) and Mr. Gupta (illusionist Ricky Jay; why does he have an Indian surname?). The former is the muscle, the latter is the brains. Had the pair been combined into one character, they might’ve amounted to something memorable. Vincent Schiavelli cameos as Dr. Kaufman -- a “professor of forensic medicine” with orders to kill Bond. He makes a bigger impression than the other two guys with only a bad German accent and a few minutes of screentime:

Dr. Kaufman: “My art is in great demand, Mr. Bond. I go all over the world. I am especially good at the celebrity overdose.”

Bond, James Bond: Stop me if you’ve heard this one: The script blows. Bond’s motivation (orders from M notwithstanding) ranges from ridiculous to non-existent, and Brosnan has little to do other than jump from one set piece to the next. He shows little remorse over whatever the hell went down in the past with Hatcher’s Paris, but after her husband has her killed, Bond seems motivated to avenge her death rather than get on with his job. Soon though he forgets Paris, and becomes overprotective of Wai Lin – and with no good reason other than she’s a hot woman whom he has yet to bed (would Bond get so worked up over a male Chinese agent?). Add in the fact that Wai Lin simply doesn’t need Bond looking over her shoulder. She’s more than capable of taking care of herself, until a moment near the finale where she isn’t – a development which degrades both characters. On one occasion Brosnan’s forced to deliver a quip to no audience other than us; this was Moore territory and a gag he mastered -- it feels clunky when Brosnan attempts it. After the meaty script (by comparison) that was Goldeneye, Dies must’ve been a massive disappointment for Brosnan the actor.

Tuneage and Credits Sequence: Even though Maurice Binder’s title sequences didn’t always hit the bullseye, they’re sorely missing from Brosnan’s era and it’s almost painful to see the various stabs at aping his distinctive style. Dies’ titles are about half success, half failure: The parts featuring half-naked women brandishing weapons and marching against fields of X-Ray work pretty well; the stuff featuring computer generated nudity comes across as more creepy than erotic.

The music, however, is a success on every count. Sheryl Crow’s title song (co-written and produced by Mitchell Froom) pays sensual tribute to Carly Simon’s "Nobody Does it Better" and Sheena Easton’s "For Your Eyes Only", while simultaneously dishing up a little something original and right. Composer David Arnold’s excellent work deftly underscores the action and breathes life and mood into areas where there otherwise wouldn’t be any; indeed, it’s possible Arnold contributed more “character” to Tomorrow Never Dies than anyone else. He also wrote “Surrender” -- a bombastic riff on Shirley Bassey sung by k.d. lang over the end credits. If all this musical goodness isn’t enough, the film even crams Moby’s cool, thumping remix of the James Bond Theme into the proceedings.

Writing about its music brings me to the strengths of Tomorrow Never Dies. What the movie lacks in plot and character, it more than makes up for with the thrilling, escapist action and stuntwork that’s become a major hallmark of the franchise. There may be a bit of CGI in the movie, but its carefully hidden and the bulk of the action looks very “real”.

One improbable sequence begins with Bond and Wai Lin, handcuffed together, escaping from the top of a skyscraper by grabbing a giant banner covering the building’s exterior, and tearing it straight down the middle until about halfway down when they crash through a window and into an office full of surprised workers. The scene is humorously punctuated by Elliot’s face emblazoned on the banner! It’s the kind of thing that only Bond movies can pull off and it’s just an intro to an action centerpiece that goes on for an interminable amount of time as the still handcuffed duo steal a motorcycle and are chased by a helicopter into all manner of improbable situations.

Another showcases Bond skydiving into the ocean – replete with scuba gear – opening his chute only several hundred feet before hitting the water. The underwater photography that follows -- Bond swims through the remains of a wrecked submarine (running into Wai Lin along the way!) -- is breathtaking. Yet another fun scene details Bond’s escape from Carver’s lackeys in a parking garage -- by navigating a Q-issued BMW via remote control from the back seat. The car is in turn equipped with more gadgets than any other vehicle in 007 history.

Tomorrow Never Dies shows off some amazing cinematography courtesy of Robert Elswit, and Roger Spottiswoode’s (Stop or My Mom Will Shoot!) direction, all things considered, is pretty damn good. As many criticisms as I’ve launched, it remains my favorite Brosnan flick because it’s an easy watch that miraculously entertains from start to finish. It takes viewers back to a time when we weren’t supposed to take Bond all that seriously. Admittedly, this conflicts with my subjective feelings of where Bond should’ve been in 1997, yet it sidesteps the problem by being a fun movie whose only goal is to entertain. It’s tough to dislike an outing that accomplishes the one thing I really want from 007.