Bond #24: SPECTRE

have meant to rewatch Octopussy since Louis Jourdan died. Delighted with it at original release.

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View to a Kill is almost completely nonsensical. cf: crazy Eiffel Tower butterfly show - seriously I have watched this movie many times and I *still* dont know what that was

Thunderball is boring & mostly stupid, not even bizarrely enjoyable like VTAK

it's been a very long time since i've sat thru all of Live and Let Die but i seem to recall it making very little sense

Thunderball clearly redeemed by the afternoon we liveblogged it on here

i don't really rate the Brosnan Bonds because I just can't with those movies. I can't

Feel like if Living Daylights were tightened up a bit (we get to Afghanistan right around the time it feels like the movie has to be ending soon), if they'd figured out more precisely what they wanted to do with Bond's relationship with the cellist, and they'd cast someone better than Joe Don Baker for the main villain, it'd basically be top five. Dalton's great, the Gibraltar open is great, the ski/cello case is great, the assassin milk-delivery dude is great, the airplane/net thing at the very end is great... I mean it's very much going for a Casino Royale franchise reset, shooting for grittier, tougher, more "now" than the fuddy-duddy Moore films that preceded it, and I think it mostly pulls it off. (BTW it's kind of amazing to me the same guy directed everything from For Your Eyes Only through License to Kill.)

I found For Your Eyes Only totally nonsensical but usually at the 'local' level, where just everything that was happening within a scene didn't add up whatsoever, like the big rock-climbing set piece for example. Why did Bond waste undisclosed amounts of precious time arranging an elaborate meeting with Q just to be informed that there is more than one St. Cyril's church in Greece, when he has already enlisted "The Dove" (only good character in the movie) as a guide? Why doesn't the bad guy just shoot him? If Bond can see his friends down the way, why can't the bad guys? Why does Bond give the go-ahead to let everybody up after taking out that one guy, even though it's not the same guy their binocular surveillance told them was also patrolling up there? How does Roger Moore fall seemingly a hundred feet and then climb right back to where he was in the space of seemingly a minute? Or say, the big submersible scene where they finally get the gizmo: if they're deep enough that they have to use this special breathing apparatus, why are they diving bare-skinned, and why does the 8-minute time limit never actually come into play? Why do the bad guys even bother sneaking up on them down there when clearly their plan was to let Bond figure out where the thing was and let him do the work of bringing it up for them? How did the bad guys get their ship and deep-sea diver guy into place without Bond and Melina noticing? How is it that all this is back adjacent to the "underwater temple" location, for the coral/shark scene, when clearly Bond and Melina left there after learning the correct location from the parrot (so stupid)? Why do the bad guys fuck around with the coral torture thing, when lead guy is just kind of a black market dealer of gizmos to the Russians with no personal master plan or vendetta against Bond? Some of that sounds like nitpicking I know but seriously like every two minutes watching that movie you're like "why the fuck are they doing THAT?"

Live and Let Die I enjoy, but that may be just bcz I have a soft spot for yaphet koto

Living Daylights holds up pretty well

john glen was a bond series MVP. Though I think as far as directors go martin campbell's work on goldeneye and especially casino royale is so good, mctiernan good.

it's been a long time since i've seen license to kill but iirc it's really mean and unpleasant in a way that doesn't feel very "bond." casino royale is in a lot of ways the right way to make license to kill

I want to dress like this
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but Joe Don Baker played a villain named Whittaker!

I feel like the current Bond series has a very short window to get a Joe Don Baker cameo in, but they should try

license to kill is fun as a canon pictures bond flick

i'm just going to pretend i didn't see you fuckers dissing thunderball

Live and Let Die I enjoy, but that may be just bcz I have a soft spot for yaphet koto

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl)

Live and Let Die is fun in a batshit ignore-the-racism way, and it's the only Moore entry in which you can see why they cast him - he possesses a suavity in it which he seemed to abandon him completely in later entries.

Feel like if Living Daylights were tightened up a bit (we get to Afghanistan right around the time it feels like the movie has to be ending soon), if they'd figured out more precisely what they wanted to do with Bond's relationship with the cellist, and they'd cast someone better than Joe Don Baker for the main villain, it'd basically be top five. Dalton's great, the Gibraltar open is great, the ski/cello case is great, the assassin milk-delivery dude is great, the airplane/net thing at the very end is great... I mean it's very much going for a Casino Royale franchise reset, shooting for grittier, tougher, more "now" than the fuddy-duddy Moore films that preceded it, and I think it mostly pulls it off. (BTW it's kind of amazing to me the same guy directed everything from For Your Eyes Only through License to Kill.)

Kinda my take all around, and echoing comments above, John Glen was a pretty solid yeoman's director who worked twenty-plus years in the entire franchise. I don't think he ever directed a totally great film but Living and Eyes Only are the closest.

I do highly recommend Glen's book from a few years back, BTW -- I don't think it's gotten as much attention as it should, but as a story of both his filmmaking life in general and the Bond work in particular, it's really enjoyable, and a particular portrait of time/place as a franchise that had established itself as a particular high level affair had to figure out how to keep adjusting.

http://www.amazon.com/For-Eyes-Only-John-Glen/dp/1422358135

Great anecdote in there about the time Roger Moore demonstrated to him how to fold your suit and pants in luggage to prevent wrinkles. Moore WOULD know how to do that, and I want to know what his method is!

LTK is great imo. enjoyed the fact that the villains were strictly b-movie dudes (except benicio del toro, who was quite memorable) and how it feels like an extended episode of Miami vice refitted for Bond. Also iirc the original title was "licence revoked" but they thought "revoked" was too big a word for american audiences. quantum of solace of course goes does easy title wise.

IIRC they were originally thinking (since practically all the original story titles from Fleming were used up at that point, though "Quantum" obv slipped through later) that they might go ahead and start looking at John Gardner's 1980s official book franchise contributions as sources for further films. The first one of those was License Renewed; License Revoked is a pretty obvious nod to that, at least.

I struggled with the Miami-Vice-episode quality as a lot of people I think do, but I think eventually it got larger-than-life enough to feel Bond-ish. Thought Davi's villain was really good, first credible threat in a while, and a great case of 'spy stuff' with Bond posing as an assassin-for-hire and infiltrating his confidences (a bit abruptly-handled but cool). Del Toro as henchman was sadly underused but fun. Big chase at the end was a blast, lots of "aahahahahah they went for it!" moments. Also Anthony Zerbe gets inflated til he pops. The love interests are both lame though IIRC. Maybe the one thing it needs is a little more change of scenery; the plot and the scope of Davi's scheme don't really allow for him to hop between continents, but maybe this is why people think it feels less Bond-ish? (Bond generally is obviously a surrogate agent of the bygone British Empire; his freedom of movement throughout the global Anglosphere and near neighbors, the magic power of the British passport blown up into the License to Kill, is his means of protecting old dowdy colonials and their iced drinks from the Threats Of The Liberated Other etc etc etc. So having him stuck the entire time in the Caribbean - Dr. No notwithstanding - just isn't "Bond" maybe.)

People have the impression that it was this underperforming dud and that Dalton was let go for it, but my understanding is that the rights fell into some kind of limbo, and it was taking so long to work it out that Dalton exercised an option to bail in his contract and they thus went back to Brosnan who they had wanted in the first place (but for Remington Steele tying him up). LTK didn't do great in the US but according to Wiki it was, worldwide, "the twelfth-biggest box office draw of the year."

Stepping back a bit to your earlier point, DC: The Living Daylights as very self-conscious reboot is a bit missed now, but it was definitely the case -- it was also the 25th anniversary of the franchise and that fact was played up as much as the 50th was for Skyfall. It's interesting to see the changes they did and didn't do -- Dalton as darker/cynical Bond is the most obvious one (him talking about having read the books directly was much mentioned), a new Moneypenny for the first time since the start, a certain sense in the air that the feel of the Cold War is juuust starting to go a bit (which four years after Octopussy is a pretty notable change -- and I think the whole nuclear bomb sequence towards the end is a bit underrated, thinking of moments like Berkoff's death scene and how Moore, playing Bond in a clown costume no less, is actually able to convey not merely urgency but angry, honest fear that it's all about to go to unavoidable hell). Then in contrast, M remains the same, Q is Q, lots of overt jokes, etc. etc.

Dalton was amazing and License.. has one of THE best theme songs.

Robert Davi was cast following a suggestion by Broccoli's daughter Tina,[4] and screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who had seen Davi in the television film Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami.[18] To portray Sanchez, Davi researched on the Colombian drug cartels and how to do a Colombian accent,[8] and since he was method acting, he would stay in character off-set. After Davi read Casino Royale for preparation, he decided to turn Sanchez into a "mirror image" of James Bond, based on Ian Fleming's descriptions of Le Chiffre.[4] The actor also learned scuba diving for the scene where Sanchez is rescued from the sunken armoured car.[8]

Davi later helped out on the casting of Sanchez's mistress Lupe Lamora, by playing Bond in the audition,[6] with Talisa Soto being picked from twelve candidates because Davi expressed he "would kill for her".[4]

I feel like TLD and LTK would have worked better if there had been a film in between them. As it stands, we don't really get a handle on Dalton's version of Bond before suddenly he's quitting the secret service and going off on a revenge tear. In TLD there's the development of the relationship between Bond and Saunders, which goes from them trying to outdo each other to them eventually reaching an understanding right before Saunders gets killed. There's also Koskov using his friendship with Bond as part of his scheme. In a hypothetical 'middle' movie, Bond might have more of his allies either be killed by enemies or betray him, so that in LTK when Leiter gets maimed and his wife is murdered, Bond has no more reason to play by the rules. But movies back then weren't often written with that kind of multi film story arc built into them. CR/QOS/SF does, and for me it's one of the main draws of that trilogy of movies.

The Living Daylights was the first Bond I saw in the theater, and I dug the Aryan killer and using the cello as a sled. Saw it again three years ago and it's by far the best '80s Bond (with LTK second) but I still don't think Dalton was right for the part? He should've played a villain – as he would (and nicely) in The Rocketeer a few years later.

the a-ha theme is all time.

and when the chick in TLD asks if he likes his martini, Dalton gives the world's least convincing "Perfect" as a response.

my problem with the arc in the last three is it's not like the arc is anything but hints at a greater conspiracy, without any actual concrete narrative connective tissue beyond mr white I guess. And skyfall seemed to drop the arc completely for something more standalone.

The Living Daylights was the first Bond I saw in the theater, and I dug the Aryan killer and using the cello as a sled.

Me too and me too.

I recently rewatched For Your Eyes Only & liked it quite a bit. I'm a sucker for alpine shenanigans, what can i say

but that bobsled chase scene is fucking cool, i dont care what you say

it's a lot less corny & there are no pigeon doubletakes

wonder if oberhauser will have a cat

i hope he has a hamster

FYEO alpine chase was okay but I kept comparing it to TLD alpine chase which was just more exciting and again better at convincing you that Dalton was on that cello case dodging those guys. Whereas the things they have Moore's stuntman doing are just so clashingly different from the way Moore (then 54 but feeling ten or fifteen years older) walks and moves... it just didn't work. I was also really struggling to keep track of who was even chasing him and why at that point. Or why he didn't just call the cops on the guy trying to kill him, who is a recognized star triathlete presumably recognizable by everybody in town and visibly sniping people in broad daylight by a heavily-populated ski jump.

fyeo easily one of the top roger moore bonds imo, plus the theme obv a classic

FYEO has one of the most amazing OTT Bill Conti scores ever. I got the OST album just for the chase tracks - do we still say "that shit is ridic?"

the piano octave hits during the ski jump bits - I wish my whole life sounded like that

"Ski... Shoot... Jump."
Good work with the titles there Mr. Conti!
It's like you were given a really terrible set of storyboards and a note that said "tension + excitement" and just decided to include all the ethnic percussion from the old steamer trunk, as a means to try and knit together 4 or 5 half-baked ideas you've had for other scores but never ended up using. And then the guys were like what do we put on top of the sheet music? And you said "Make something up!" and threw the storyboards at them, and they did what you said.

score is rad, it is true

am v happy that FYEO has fellow admirers! <3

I still don't think Dalton was right for the part? He should've played a villain

that was kinda what i liked about dalton in the role - he always comes across an immensely charming shithead which makes him a great villain but is also a totally valid take on bond

btw Clifton James, who played the 'southern sheriff,' is a solid Actors Studio guy and still alive at 94. I saw him off-Broadway in American Buffalo with Pacino in '81.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_James

still a chance for him to reprise the key 'southern sheriff' role, then :D

amazingly, there's been no speculation about how SPECTRE might be rebooting the southern sheriff, but it'd be great if they could have clifton james appear as his moonshine-peddling pappy or something. a similar idea worked out great in maverick!

and yeah, the undercurrent of diesel-scented menace from dalton is the best part of his bond. if it means the soft, gentle romance bits don't quite work, it does also mean you 100% buy it while he's faking a romance to try and get information out of the cellist.

meanwhile, we started watching never say never again last night. i'm stoked to pick it back up - - - connery seems to have a MUCH stronger take than moore on hwo a 50+-year-old action spy might act, and he actually does his own falls and punches and stuff. plus, count on irvin kershner to at least think about where he's putting the camera and the lights and shit, it never looks like i'm watching the Tea-Time Proggrame on the BBC which all the non-action scenes in most Moore flicks really feel like. and that's with mister bean showing up! also -- so far at least -- it feels far less flabby than thunderball. a few confusing things have happened but my only real gripe is that they're just slightly overplaying all the wink-wink stuff in the script about bond being old but still good, and M being turned into this sniffy health food junkie who doesn't listen to any of 007's ideas, cuz it's the 80s. also the ridiiiiiculous video game omg.

They're doing a Southern Sheriff origin trilogy before they integrate him back into the main series. The tone will be gritty.

*spits chaw all over desk*

Trivia

* Clifton James played a similar, loud mouthed sheriff, reminiscent of J.W. Pepper in the 1980 film Superman II. All three films were partly written by Tom Mankiewicz

* There is a sheet music company named J.W. Pepper

Clifton James specialized in Southern lawmen. He is from Spokane.

Clifton James played a similar, loud mouthed sheriff, reminiscent of J.W. Pepper in the 1980 film Superman II. All three films were partly written by Tom Mankiewicz

"Wayne. Ya gotta learn to kick ass if you wanna be a peacemaker."