The Viewpoint Blog's Ranking of the James Bond films. 21: Never Say Never Again.

So we're just outside the top 20, and we've just hot the second and final entry from the unofficial films, the 1983 Thunderball remake starring Sean Connery, Never Say Never Again.  The title is a reference to the fact that Connery said he'd never again play Bond, nor even talk about him in interviews.



The first thing to note here is that the screenplay is written by Lorenzo Semple Jr.  That name will be very familiar to fans of the Batman TV series from the 1960s, where he was the script editor, and also wrote the pilot storyline, Hey Diddle Riddle/Smack In The Middle, and the 1966 Batman movie.  He also did the screenplay for the 1980 Flash Gordon movie.  With pedigree like that, you know what is coming, it's going to be high camp, and probably part parody too.

The second notable thing is that the film is directed by Irvin Kirshner, who directed The Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars saga.  He also directed The Eyes Of Laura Mars and Robocop 2.  So, we have some really talented people in the creative angle here, who could turn this into a really good film.  So, why is it at number 21 in my list?  Time to find out.

THE TITLES/OPENING SEQUENCE.

There's no pre-title sequence, as the titles are done over the first sequence of the movie.  A mission that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of the film, but hey, a lot of Bond pre-title sequences had nothing to do with the rest of the film either, so that doesn't exactly mean anything.  However, I do think this mini-mission would have worked better as a pre-title sequence.  But it does do the job, it pulls you into the movie pretty quickly, and not have you thrown right out.  The title music, is okay, but it's just not that special.  It's also very much at odds with the action in the sequence.

One thing to note here is that the singer of that song, Lani Hall, is the wife of the man who did the theme to the other unofficial Bond theme, Herb Alpert.



Anyway, onto the plot proper...

THE PLOT.

That mission was actually a training exercise, and M, played here by Edward Fox, who references the fact he is new as M, chastises Bond for his diet and orders him to detox at a health spa.  Kinda interesting to hear the "too much red meat" line considering that nowadays, the idea that cutting on red meat was a good thing has been long since disproved, but that was the scientific thinking of the time.

There's a quick moment here with Bond and Moneypenny, played here by Pamela Salem, which is really out of character.  Moneypenny should never be like this.  Lorenzo goofed that one.

Bond is sent to Shrublands, a health spa, and we see him roll up in what I think is an old Bentley.  It's a nice car, but really?  Why is it here?  This is 1983, you could give him something else.

Anyway, Bond is checked out by a doctor, and the nurse asks him for a urine sample.  This will play in later, but it could have been done a lot better.  I'm not really sure this scene needs to be here.

We cut to a pair of legs in high heels, walking with purpose, and the owner of those legs tells someone at a desk to open Box 274.  As the two people arrive in an area of safety deposit boxes, we get our first shot of the owner of those legs, Fatima Blush, aka Number 12, played here by Barbara Carrera.  She is the Fiona Volpe of this movie, and surprisingly, is not a creation of Lorenzo Semple Jr's but is actually original from the book, Thunderball.  I always wondered why Saltzman and Broccoli changed Fatima Blush to Fiona Volpe.  Were they a bit sensitive after Pussy Galore in Goldfinger?

It turns out that this is a secret entrance to SPECTRE Headquarters, and we are introduced to SPECTRE's leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played here by Max von Sydow.  He is leading a SPECTRE  meeting, in a room that looks nothing like the room from Thunderball, and in fact just looks like they shot this is in a conference room in some fancy hotel.

Anyway, we are told the basics of the plot here, called for this film "The Tears Of Allah", the same basic plot from Thunderball, mostly done by Maximillian Largo on a video link, played here by Klaus Maria Brandauer.  Hmm, the casting here is a little suspect.  I'm okay with Max von Sydow as Blofeld, because he has form as evil leader, having played Ming The Merciless in Flash Gordon, but here, he looks more like a kindly grandfather, I almost wish we didn't see his face, it would work much better here.  But Largo is a very poor piece of casting.  I know that some people have a problem with Thunderball, having Domino actually be in love with Largo, considering Largo there looks almost old enough to be her father, but that never bothered me.  So I guess the producers here wanted to cast someone a bit younger, to make that angle a little more believable and it does that, but at too high a cost on other angles.

The next shot is Fatima Blush wheeling Captain Jack Petachi through Shrublands.  Captain Jack Petachi is the equivalent of Commandant Major Francois Derval in Thunderball, but instead of being a pilot, he's part of the operations ground crew.  He's played here by Gavan O'Herlihy, who was known at the time for playing bullies, small time bad guys, side characters who had questionable ethics.  This is the same kind of role, but not as good.

We get introduced here to Patricia Fearing, played here by Prunella Gee, the same role as the Molly Peters one in Thunderball.  But again, not as good.

Is it just me or does Fatima Blush come off in these Shrublands scenes as somewhat of a dominatrix?

Bond spots the fight going on in an opposing window.  How convenient.  So he goes across to check it out, but gives himself away, and has to hide.  Fatima uses a light intensifying pair of binoculars to spot him.

Later, Bond is doing some weight training, and we get a fight sequence between Bond and Lippe, played here by "Bomber" Pat Roach.  This is not Count Lippe from Thunderball, this is just a standard SPECTRE heavy, but Pat was always good at this kind of thing.  The fight sequence is beautifully choreographed and is definitely a highlight of the film.  My one complaint is maybe it is about 30 seconds too long, but it's a good sequence, and Bond eventually defeats Lippe by... throwing a beaker of liquid in his face, which turns out to be the urine sample from earlier on..

Unfortunately the next scene after it feels kinda bad.  It's M chastising Bond for destroying the clinic. I really don't like this scene at all.  It feels like they are just writing scenes where M & Bond are antagonists, even though they are on the same side.

We see the moment where Jack Petachi gets the dummy warheads replaced by actual nuclear warheads.  I know some people, like Calvin Dyson, are critical of showing the plot unfolding, and having us know more than the characters do, but in both Thunderball and this film, the buy required to believe the story without it being shown, would be just far too big to actually buy.  You wouldn't believe it, unless you saw it, so I don't really have a problem with that.

I also like the line from the base's computer when the change is made.  The computer explains that the dummy warheads will be replaced by W-80 thermonuclear devices, and then says "Have a nice day."  Now that is classic Lorenzo Semple Jr, and a nice touch.  I like that.

The mission by the way is a training mission, in case it were to ever have to be done for real.  Hmm, training missions is a recurring theme here...

We see the missiles being dropped, and some wonderful effects shots of the missiles flying, intercut with Fatima Blush killing Jack Petachi by causing him to crash his car by throwing her pet snake into the car.  One thing bugs me about this.  How does she know that Jack did his job for her?  It's a rather gaping plot hole, that just can't be missed.

I do like the fact though that the car doesn't explode on crashing and that Fatima plants an explosive in the crashed car to blow it up.  That's a nice touch of realism, that helps sell the film.

The missiles are brought down over water using a jamming system of some kind, and we get some early computer graphics showing the missiles incoming on a screen in the boat where the operation is taking place.  It kinda looks like either a Sinclair Spectrum or a Commodore 64 was used to create these images.  It's kind of interesting.

The missiles do not explode on contact with the water.  Huh?  Anyway, we see enough to know that SPECTRE have taken the missiles, and we get a classic bad guy ultimatum moment, in a NATO meeting chaired by M(?!?), and the UK Foreign Secretary.  Representatives from various world governments start rounding on the Americans, and there's a lot of cynicism being fired around.  Only those present, British Intelligence and the CIA know about it, but an American representative says "Wonderful! That means by now it's all over the Kremlin!"  This is again very much Lorenzo Semple Jr's handiwork, but it just feels a little too over the top here.  The Foreign Secretary tells M that he has no choice and must re-activate the Double-0 section.  Oh, so James Bond has not really been 007 here?  He's just been Commander James Bond of the British Secret Service?

Moneypenny tells Bond that M wants to see him immediately, and she thinks he's back in business.  We then cut back to Largo's super yacht. Huh?  Why are we seeing this scene, where Largo says Good Morning to everybody, and not seeing Bond's briefing with M?  Some of this feels a little suspect, and I'm not sure where to put the blame on this.  I know Irvin Kirshner, really likes character angles, but I don't see the character angle here, so I'm not really certain on blaming him.  It could be Lorenzo's writing, but again, I'm not sure that some of these scenes were meant to be intercut like this.  And I can't totally dog on the editor either, because he'll be following the instructions from his director.  This could be an ensemble issue, or it could reside in one of those areas I've previously mentioned, but I just don't feel that it totally resides in any of them.

Anyway, in the next cut, we see Largo in some kind of control room, and we're introduced to Domino Petachi, played here by Kim Basinger, via one wall of his room suddenly moving out of the way.  Okay, this is a super yacht, but some of this feels a little over the top.  Largo gives Domino an old pendant, the Tears Of Allah.  Hang on a minute, that rings a bell...

There's quite a good Q Branch scene that follows with "Algernon" and Bond talking, and going through some gadgets, and whilst this Q is nothing like the real thing, actually the scene plays pretty well, and with more than a touch of realism about it.  Algernon complaining about budget cuts is really kinda funny, and feels quite in keeping with the time.  Q/Algernon is played here by Alec McCowen, and is quite a good Q, even if it's nothing like Desmond Llewelyn.

Bond goes to the Bahamas, and it's in the sequence that we see Lorenzo Semple Jr's writing talent come into play.  Bond starts flirting with the first woman he meets, and it is kinda funny that during the Sean Connery era of official James Bond films, Bond was always flirting with women, and Lorenzo plays that well here.

We also get introduced to Nigel Small-Fawcett, from the British Embassy in Nassau, played here by Rowan Atkinson.  The name is brilliant.  Small-Fawcett.  Think about it, it's a hilarious send up of British double barrel names.  Rowan Atkinson is brilliant too, playing what is really an early version of Richard Latham from the Barclaycard ads, which later would become Johnny English in two movies.  A bit incompetent, and very English.  It's wonderful to see this early version, which came about 5 or so years before the Barclaycard ads, but you can see where they got the idea from.

We get our first scene between Bond and Blush in this film, and again Bond is flirting with her.  The two team up tho go diving, which I find strange.  I can't imagine Fiona Volpe doing the same, but Fatima does get it on with Bond, which is something that Bond has done before, bedded the femme fatale.  She plants a homing device on his scuba gear and Bond is soon attacked by sharks who are somehow being attracted to the homing device.  I don't understand this part and it really doesn't help the sequence at all.

Bond manages to discover the homing device and escapes by finding the fishing line of the other woman who he was flirting with earlier.  After discovering that her first attempt to kill Bond failed, Fatima tries again, by bombing Bond's room.  Unluckily for her, he goes to his companion's room, and so avoids the explosion that Fatima sets off.

Bond then travels to Nice in France, where he is met by his contact Nicole, also known as 326.  She is played by Saskia Cohen Tanugi, and is basically this film's Paula.  You'll see what I mean later.  It's also here that we are introduced to Felix Leiter, played here by Bernie Casey.  Bernie actually here plays Felix rather well, better than many of the actors in the official movies.  I'd put on Jack Lord and David Hedison ahead of Bernie in the list of the best Felix's.

One thing the film has gotten right up to this point has been the pacing.  Not too slow, not too fast, not perfect pacing, but pretty good.  Apart from a couple of scenes that didn't need to be here, I don't feel we've had any real issues with the pace.  In fact so far, we've had a good fight sequence, a good scene with Q, the early Johnny English, and a lot of material that hasn't felt bad, but hasn't felt really good either.  It feels like it could have been really good, if they'd just changed a few small elements, but also it could have been really bad if they had changed them in the wrong way.  Up to this point, the film has been walking a tightrope, and could have fallen off a few times, but somehow is still on the tightrope.

Bond spies on Largo's yacht using a telescope at the villa they are staying at, and Bond and Felix make plans to get some scuba gear so they can check the yacht out.  Meanwhile Domino comes ashore, and is followed by Bond to a health spa.  This sequence is very uncomfortable.  It's nothing more than an excuse to have Sean Connery around a lot of sexy females, and that is not something this film needs.  It is at this point that the film goes way downhill for me.  The sequence at the health spa, and the casino sequence later on are times when the film is at its weakest point.  The moment with the bouncer is meant to be funny, but just falls flat.  The "bomb with the tiny gyroscope" is just bad, as we will talk more about that in a moment.

And then we get a typical piece of Lorenzo Semple Jr camp as Domino goes to some mirrored doors and opens them to reveal... a video arcade room.  No, Calvin Dyson, casinos were not like this in the 80s, this is a piece of Lorenzo Semple Jr camp, and doesn't play badly, but honestly, the joke is a little weak.  And it doesn't get any better as Bond talks to Domino, and then meets Largo.  A lot of this "casino" sequence is just an excuse to have Bond in a tuxedo.  The Domination game between Largo and Bond is poor too, it's just a piece of foreshadowing and doesn't really do anything. You could have lost the health spa sequence and this casino sequence, including the tango between Domino and Bond and you would lose nothing plot wise, at all.  That's how bad these sequences are, they do absolutely nothing for the film.  The only moment in that whole sequence that plays even slightly well, is a brief conversation between Largo and Fatima, where there is obviously a little bit of flirting going on between the two.  Do they have a bit of a past together?  That angle would have been quite interesting and would have allowed us a little bit of insight into these two characters.  I don't know if it would have helped the film at this point, but I would be more interested in that, than watching Bond face Largo in a video game.

I must mention the Tango part of the sequence, because once again, in an unofficial Bond film, we have a dance sequence that is well shot and edited, and in a wonderful set, but really, it has no purpose in the film, it doesn't advance the plot at all, and unlike the dance sequence in Casino Royale 1967, it isn't introducing a character.  We do get a nice payoff though to the "bomb" gag from earlier, where Bond takes the 'bomb' right out of the guy's hand, says thanks, leaves him in the closet and the guy feints, and Bond opens it to reveal it's a cigar case for long thin cigars.  Sorry, no, not cigars, not for Bond.

Bond returns to the villa where he finds Nicole dead from drowning in some sort of water feature, not sure what it's meant to be.  And we begin a chase sequence where Bond is chasing Fatima.  Did Fatima kill Nicole herself?  We don't know, but that is clearly what is suggested here.

Bond unpacks the bike that Q sent for him, and he sets off in pursuit... wait a minute.  He's riding a motorcycle in a tuxedo?  That's just a little too silly.

The chase between Bond and Fatima is a good one, especially the bit where they try to load Bond, bike and all into the back of a lorry, only for Bond to escape when he uses the back ramp being lifted up as a ramp to escape.  Bond chases Fatima into an old dockside warehouse, where Bond is captured, and we get an interesting conversation between the two, that allows Bond to bring into play the Pen rocket we saw earlier on, and Fatima gets blown up.  I have to be honest here and say that Fatima Blush is a highlight of this movie, and her demise whilst somewhat exaggerated, does work.

The explosion causes a commotion outside the warehouse and Felix helps Bond escape.  Later, they are checking out the underside of Largo's yacht, but somehow, Bond ends up inside the yacht, separated from Felix, and then when Bond tries to make an un-noticed exit, a butler appears and says "Monsieur Largo is waiting for you, Sir."  Really?  This bit feels very weak, and gets no better as Largo shows Bond round his yacht.  This whole part of the film is a poor excuse to get us to our next major action sequence, and also to set up the change for Domino from Largo's girlfriend to Bond's ally.  But again, these are pretty weakly done, and really don't help the film at all.

It's a shame really that after a pretty good start, this middle bit is where the film falls very flat, very hard.  And the film really doesn't get much better.  Bond manages to send a message back to London, and we arrive in Palmyra in North Africa to get a horrible scene where Domino is to be auctioned to locals , and Bond is locked away in a tower in chains and shackles.  Bond manages to escape confinement thanks to a laser watch, and effects a rescue on Domino.  The chase that follows is really poor, and is just a bad sequence.  This particular sequence is also responsible for the blurb about no animals were harmed during the course of making this movie.  A rocket firing sub manages to dispatch of Bond's pursuers.  Okay, the gratuitous explosion count just started again.  What is it with unofficial Bond films and gratuitous explosions?  Casino Royale 1967 was bad for this but this is pretty gratuitous too.

Anyway, we're into the climactic final reel of the film, and hopefully we get a decent ending.  On the sub, Bond manages to use Domino's pendant to deduce where the bomb is going to be placed.  The sub detects underwater activity and Bond orders a check for underwater caves.  We then get an interesting payoff from the earlier Kremlin comment.  "Commander Peterson, are you equipped with the new XT-7Bs?"  The sub commander looks nervous.  "That's Top Secret.  How do you know about them?" to which Bond apologetically replies "From a Russian translation of one of your service manuals.  Sorry about that."  Nice payoff that one, but it did take a long time to get there.

The XT-7Bs are flying platforms that Bond and Felix stand on, and land after spotting a well.  They then are seen in scuba gear, getting into the water.  No offence, but where did that scuba gear come from?

Largo emerges from the water in an underground cavern.  Bond and Felix are in pursuit.  I have to say that the set for this is incredible.  The production designer obviously pulled out all the stops for this one, and it's large and detailed, and beautifully executed.  I really can't fault the designer here, the ruins that we see here are incredible.  To think this was a set at Elstree, is amazing, it looks real.  Bond tries to get inside, but is basically unable to get too far, and Leiter has to provide a distraction.  He is then joined by US marines and a bullet laden battle begins.  Largo escapes with the bomb and detonates the tunnel behind him, preventing Bond from following.  Bond gets back to Leiter and the marines, and they unleash the heavy artillery on the SPECTRE agents there.

It's kind of sad that we have to cut away there, but cut away we do, to Bond dropping into the well he saw earlier, and catching up to Largo and the bomb.  We get an underwater fight between Largo and Bond, which is a little underwhelming actually.  The sub with the bomb just carries on, and Bond has to fight off Largo once again.  Somehow the sub turns around and manages to pin Largo against a rock wall.  Bond works to deactivate the bomb, but Largo pulls a harpoon gun out that was concealed on the sub, and aims it at Bond.  Before he can shoot, another harpoon shoots and hits him.  Bond looks up to see Domino, and some other divers.  Where did they come from?  How did they get there?  I know some reviewers, especially Calvin Dyson, thought the final fight in Thunderball was bad, but this is worse.  At least in Thunderball we see Domino being rescued, and then when Largo is shot in the back by a harpoon there, the reveal that it was Domino that shot him, was not totally out of left field.  This is so far out of left field that we cannot tell how Domino and the divers got there, or even how long they were there.  Some people would use the term dues ex machina, but I don't think this qualifies.  We know Domino is a good diver, and we know that she has bad feelings about Largo after Largo left her to be sold into slavery, but how they suddenly turn up, just at the right moment, that is just left completely unexplained.

Bond deactivates the bomb, Largo dies, and that's it.

We then get a weird little sequence, where Bond and Domino are relaxing somewhere, a villa I believe and the gate is opened by a mysterious man in a suit.  Bond investigates and throws the man into the pool, only to discover that the mystery stalker is in fact, Nigel Small-Fawcett.  Yep, Rowan Atkinson has one last bit in the movie, pleading with James Bond to return to the service under M.  To which Bond replies, "Never again."  and Domino adds "Never?", and then the end theme begins as Bond winks at the camera.

Jeez, as far as final reels go, that was totally underwhelming, it had all the excitement of a damp squib and all the enthusiasm of a wet lettuce.  If the first part of the film was pretty good, the second part was dire.  It doesn't even have the modest excitement of Thunderball's final fight, and that wasn't particularly great either, but this was worse.

THE VILLAINS

I have to say that the villains crew here is somewhat of a mixed bag.  Blofeld, as portrayed by Max von Sydow, is okay, but nothing special.  Von Sydow was much better as Ming The Merciless in Flash Gordon.  Here, he's kinda going through the motions a bit, but the quality of the actor himself helps it along.

Largo on the other hand, is completely characterless here, and Klaus Maria Brandauer isn't even as good as Adolfo Celi was.

Dr Kovacs is this film's version of Latislav Kutze, but unlike in Thurderball, Kovacs doesn't turn on Largo, leaving him really as somewhat of a cipher character, without anything other than exposition.

Pat Roach as Lippe is a wonderful henchman, and despite only appearing in the fight at Shurblands, is actually a wonderful little character.  He has some little character moments that help elevate that fight sequence.

The best of the villains by far, is Fatima Blush.  Fatima's wardrobe is as outlandish as her accent, and her acting, but Barbara Carrera plus it off beautifully, giving us a well rounded character, with enough distinctiveness about her, that she actually compares favourably to Fiona Volpe, who whilst obviously from a similar mould, was much more cold and calculating.  And whilst Fatima also has that, she also has a certain flair about her that just takes her character to another level.

All in all, a mixed bag that doesn't really help the film overall.

THE HEROES AND ALLIES

Okay, let's start this bit with Bond himself.  Sean Connery, even in this film, is still very definitely James Bond.  Yeah, his performance is nowhere near his best in Goldfinger.  In fact, it's more on a par with his You Only Live Twice performance.  But even in his early fifties, just 2 years younger than Roger Moore, who was the official 007 at the time, He still comes across as Bond.  The apology to the submarine commander, is reminiscent of a similar apology to a rat in Diamonds Are Forever, in the way that he delivered that line.

Felix Leiter is played quite memorably here by Bernie Casey and as I've already stated, is only bettered by Jack Lord and David Hedison as Felix.  Felix gets a little more of the action here and is allowed to run with it too.  It's almost a shame we don't see him in the last 9 minutes or so, as it would have been quite nice to have him there at the end of the mission, but I can't complain too much.

Okay, now to the allies.  Nicole, Bond's french contact, is in my view, the most underdeveloped character of the bunch.  She is this film's Paula, both in her underdevelopment and in the fact that she exists in this film purely to die.  Also, like Paula, she has one moment of characterisation in the film, and that's it.  It's a shame, cos the ally who dies angle was being done to death around this time by John Glen in the official Bond series.

Edward Fox's M is really lame.  Unlike Bernard Lee's M in the official series, who may have disliked Bond's personality but still respected him, Edward Fox's M has no respect for 007, at least until the end of the film.  I never liked this version of M.

Alec McCowan's Algernon/Q is a real mixed bag.  Whilst nowhere near as good as Desmond Llewelyn, this Q is a distinctive character in himself, and really quite appropriate for the time that the film was made in.  The Thatcher government of the time was cutting back on what they viewed as extravagant public sector spending, so the interpretation of Q was really spot on with what would have been really happening.

Pamela Salem's Moneypenny is in fact the worst Moneypenny in all the films, even worse than Caroline Bliss.  She doesn't even have that much to do in the film, not really.

One character I haven't mentioned is Elliott, played by Ronald Pickup.  Now, Ronald is a wonderful actor, and I've seen him act wonderfully in many great roles, but here, his character is reduced to a pure cipher, giving out exposition only, nothing more.  I guess he's meant to be this film's version of Bill Tanner, but there was no need for this character to even exist.  There was nothing he said in the film that couldn't have been given to Moneypenny or M.

OTHER NOTES

The casino we see in the film, is called Casino Royale, a reference to the other unofficial film from 1967.  I previously mentioned that Lani Hall, who sang the title song here, is the wife of Herb Alpert, who recorded the title music for the other unofficial Bond film, Casino Royale 1967.

There are also connections between this film and Thunderball, other than Sean Connery himself.  Ricou Browning, who had directed the underwater sequences in Thunderball, did the same again for Never Say Never Again.

The deal that Sean Connery is reported to have had, included casting and scripting approval.

OVERALL

As a whole, the film is actually surprisingly weak, considering the talents involved.  Lorenzo Semple Jr's writing here is surprisingly hit and miss.  I wonder if that's because he was adapting an original screenplay, rather than writing one of his own.  Some things are clearly his touch and are really excellent, such as Nigel Small-Fawcett, and the arcade games in the hidden room of the casino, but other parts, like the way Moneypenny is written, and the antagonism between M & Bond, are poor attempts to parody the official films, or maybe poor attempts to copy the official films.

There are some enjoyable moments, especially involving Fatima Blush, but after a good start, the film just goes downhill so quickly, so badly, that it leaves you feeling distinctly underwhelmed by the whole experience.

If the writing had been up to Lorenzo's usual standard, it would have improved the whole movie.  Also, some of the casting was suspect.  I wonder if Sean Connery's involvement in script and casting approval had anything to do with that.

But yeah, this was a poor film really, but at least there were enjoyable parts of it.

Next time, we hit the top 20, and the weirdest film with the oldest Bond, a strange villain combination and some cringeworthy moments...

The Viewpoint Blog's Ranking of the best James Bond Films. 25: Moonraker

Welcome to something that I'm going to do in the run up to the next James Bond film due for release in late October, Spectre.  The next 25 posts are going to be individual reviews of each of the James Bond films, including the 2 unofficial ones, but not the 1954 production of Casino Royale, which was made for television.

In these reviews I will give my reasons for where I place these movies in the list, and give reviews of the films themselves.

I will do this in reverse order, so starting at the bottom of the list and working my way up to the number one spot, and so, I start the list at number 25, with what I consider to be the worst James Bond film of them all.  Moonraker.

Yes, Moonraker, is in my view, the worst Bond film of them all, worse than even the unofficial ones.  But why?

First off, it wasn't even intended to be the next film after The Spy Who Loved Me.  The intention had been to film For Your Eyes Only.  But the success of Star Wars led the producers to look for a Bond novel they hadn't filmed, with a space theme applicable to it.  All they had was Moonraker, the third book in the original series of Ian Fleming novels, but the story had to be extensively re-written to make it palatable to a late 1970s audience, as making Hugo Drax a former Nazi, as in the book, would not help the movie sell in Germany, or in other parts of Europe at the time.

Christopher Wood, who had written the very successful plot for The Spy Who Loved Me film, would be commissioned again to write the story and script, only borrowing the name Hugo Drax from the book.

So how did this script hold up?

PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE

After the gunbarrel sequence, we see a space shuttle being transported on the back of a 747, as the US is loaning the Moonraker space shuttle to the UK.  But two stowaways aboard the shuttle steal it from right off the back of the jumbo jet, torching it and causing it to explode.

M gets informed by telephone and immediately asks Moneypenny where 007 is, and being told he is on his last leg of the return journey from Africa.  Cut to Bond, with his hand on a woman's leg.  Yep, definitely on his "last leg"...

However the woman turns out to be a baddie as does the pilot and as they make to leave the plane, a fight breaks out between Bond and the pilot.  The pilot falls out with his parachute on, but Bond turns to look out on him, whereupon he is promptly pushed out himself, without a parachute, by Jaws.

Yes, Jaws has returned after surviving The Spy Who Loved Me.  Boy I hope they keep him just as menacing in this film, as he was in TSWLM.

There follows one of the most amazing stunt sequences, performed by BJ Worth and Jake Lombard, where Bond catches up to the pilot, in free fall, and steals the parachute pack right off his back and attaches the pack to himself.  It's an amazing stunt, not quite on the same level as skiing off the mountain and opening his parachute as happened in TSWLM, but an amazing stunt none the less.

Hey, just a minute.  This sequence has felt somewhat similar to the one from TSWLM.  Submarine stolen instead of shuttle, phone call to M, talking to Moneypenny, Bond getting it on with a female, female turns out to be a baddie, and sequence culminating in an amazing stunt.

And, there were some similarities to the pre-title sequence from You Only Live Twice, minus the action and the amazing stunt.  It won't surprise you to learn that all 3 films were directed by the same man, Lewis Gilbert.  I guess he had a set idea about how to start a Bond film in the pre-title sequence, but for all that, they aren't bad sequences, don't get me wrong, they are wonderful excellent sequences all of them, just notable that he had a particular formula for this.

The one slight difference this time, is we get an extra little bit where once Bond has secured the parachute pack to himself, Jaws suddenly comes into view, chasing after Bond, catching up to him, and trying to bite his calf.

Bond pulls his ripcord and escapes, but Jaws discovers he has no parachute upon pulling his ripcord, and falls into a circus big top.

TITLE SEQUENCE / TITLE SONG.

The title sequence itself isn't bad, but the song, Moonraker by Shirley Bassey, is awful.  Hal David wrote the lyrics for the title song, and admittedly, trying to fit the word "Moonraker" into a song lyric is a difficult task, and props to Hal for trying, but I'm afraid the end result is awful.  I give you Exhibit A.

Where are you? Why do you hide?
Where is that moonlight trail that leads to your side?
Just like the Moonraker goes in search of his dream of gold,
I search for love, for someone to have and hold,
I've seen your smile in a thousand dreams,
Felt your touch and it always seems,
You love me,
You love me.

Where are you? When will we meet?
Take my unfinished life and make it complete.
Just like the Moonraker knows his dream will come true someday,
I know that you are only a kiss away.
I've seen your smile in a thousand dreams,
Felt your touch and it always seems,
You love me,You love me....

These are the lyrics to the song, Moonraker by Shirley Bassey. What is a Moonraker, why does it go in search of its dream of gold? These lyrics are complete non-sequitirs, they make no sense at all, and have no relevance to the film itself, other than the use of the film's name.

I've often thought that the theme should have been an instrumental, just like they did with On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I think that would have been better than the poor effort we have, sung rather poorly by Shirley Bassey. Her voice is not given free reign to be powerful as it was in Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever, and without that, there is nothing really special about her performance. If it had to be a title song, maybe somebody else should have sung this. Karen Carpenter would have been ideal, she had the voice to be able to do this song justice.

THE PLOT:

So, the pre-title sequence gave us our starting point for the plot. The Moonraker Space Shuttle has been stolen, the plane carrying it destroyed and 007 is on the case.  We get a brief moment with Moneypenny and Bond, and some quick exposition from M, Q & The Minister of Defence, Frederick Gray.  Also, Q introduces us and Bond to the gadget that would get a fair amount of use in this film, the dart gun.

It's one of the few gadgets that I wish hadn't been used in one film and disappeared.  A bit like the briefcase from From Russia With Love.  Versions of that briefcase should have appeared always in the films.  Same for the dart gun.  This should always have been on Bond.  Moonraker should only have been its first appearance, not its only appearance.

Anyway, Bond is sent out to California, the location of the headquarters of Drax Industries, who built the shuttle.  There Bond is met by pilot Corrine Dufour played by Corrine Clery.  There's some nice interplay here between the two, and gives us a brief moment of light heartedness before we get into the serious nitty gritty.

Upon arriving at the Drax residence, a mansion transferred brick by brick from France, Bond meets Hugo Drax, the head of Drax Industries, played by Michael Lonsdale.  Everything seems quite cordial, although with a serious undertone of concern from Hugo Drax, and understandably so, after all, the space shuttle he built for the US space programme has gone missing, and he's understandably not happy about this.  

But, after Bond leaves to begin his tour of Drax Industries, Drax turns to Chang, the man who bought in tea, and says one line of dialogue that spoils all the great work that had been done up to that point.  

"Look after Mr. Bond.  See that some harm comes to him."

Up until that point we had a nice little mystery building.  Nothing too fancy, but an interesting mystery that could have sustained the first half of the movie at least.  Instead, before the first reel of the movie is over, we have had the mystery spoiled and have no doubt that Drax is the villain of the piece.  

I'll talk more about Drax later, but back to the plot.

We are quickly introduced to Dr Holly Goodhead, played here by Lois Chiles.  

Dr Goodhead.  Now that's definitely a name from the Pussy Galore school of Female names.  I find Bond's reaction here very objectionable too, even when I saw this for the first time back in the 1980s, I thought the reaction was unnecessarily sexist, and made me feel very sorry for Lois Chiles, having to deal with that uncomfortable piece of scripting.

Bond and Goodhead have a very uncomfortable conversation as she shows him around, and we get a scene that is reminiscent of the scene in Thunderball where Patricia Fearing straps Bond into a motorised traction table.  However here, Holly straps Bond into a centrifuge chamber, which will spin him around the chamber at increasing speed, increasing the G Force on his body.

The scene is very suspenseful, and it is one of the rare occasions that we see Roger Moore's Bond look worried, even scared.  However, a well placed dart from the dartgun hidden under Bond's blazer, manages to stop the mechanism, and allows the centrifuge to slow down to a stop.  Roger Moore plays this part brilliantly, refusing Dr Goodhead's help, and doing his best to look cool, but failing.  It really helped to sell that sequence very well indeed.

Much later, Bond seduces Corrine Dufour and persuades her to help him in finding out more about Hugo Drax, which she does slightly unwittingly, including showing Bond where the safe is.  The next day, Drax tries again to kill Bond, in the midst of a grouse shoot, with a sniper, however Bond foils the attempt, and Drax has Corrine killed for helping Bond.  

Bond travels to Venice and discovers Dr Goodhead there too, as well as a secret lab, which is making some kind of liquid in special hexagonal glass vials.  An accidental breakage of one of these vials, leads to the death of two scientists working in the lab, but animals in the same room are unharmed, leading Bond to deduce that the phials contain a nerve gas that is deadly to humans, but not to animals.

It is also during this part of the film that be if the worst sequences in Bond history happens.  At around the 38 minute mark, we see the beginnings of the infamous Bondola sequence, as a man in a coffin on top of another water vehicle, suddenly opens the coffin and fires knives at Bond's gondola, killing the gondolier, but just missing Bond, who throws the knife back and finds his target.

The whole Bondola sequence lasts about 3 minutes, and is the most painful piece of cinema to watch, as it degenerates from a corny start, through a boat chase between a speedboat and the Bondola, which has a motor of its own and doesn't need the gondolier, through to the piece-de-no-resistance, a hovercraft style float inflating underneath and the Bondola going up on land, into St Mark's Square, and causing a commotion, including our second look at drunk man from the beach from TSWLM, a noble dog looking on, and a double-taking pigeon.

I'm not joking.  They played around with some stock footage in the moviola, to make a pigeon, double-take.  As sequences go, this one just went from badly corny, to inanely stupid, in about 3 minutes flat.  Any goodwill that was left after the badly handled reveal of Drax being the main villain, was completely spent here, by the end of reel 2, and we still have 4 more reels of this film to go.

If you wanna see the sequence, and I would suggest against watching, but I admit, I might not believe it from description alone, so if you do want to inflict one of the worst sequences in Bond history on yourself, you will find the scene below.

Okay, having got that monstrosity out of the way, does the film improve at all?  Back to the plot...

It's also during the Venice part of this story that we get the fight between Bond and Chang in the glassworks.  Much glass is destroyed during this fight, and of course Chang dies, before Bond does a very lame one liner, referencing Casablanca.  Most fight sequences are quite enjoyable, but this one leaves me cold.  It seems they designed that sequence to break as much glass as possible, but with the whole sequence making little real sense again.  The only thing it truly does is allow Bond to see that Drax is moving stuff to Rio De Janeiro.  

We also get a weird scene with Bond giving Holly Goodhead a jump scare, and the reveal of all her gadgets, and of her being a CIA agent.  Again, the scene makes only minor sense, as it doesn't really do the job well, it just does it and again, leaves me rather cold all told.

Anyway, after an embarrassing scene involving M, Drax, Frederic Gray and Bond, and I don't just mean embarrasing in the story, I mean, really embarrassing, badly done, badly acted, just another poor scene, we move the story on to Rio De Janeiro, and we're re-introduced to Jaws.

The porter in the Rio hotel is camp, and not in a good way, and we are introduced here to Manuela, who is from Station VH.  She has a small role in the movie, and is okay, but feels kinda weak as a character.

Bond checks out the importer in Rio whilst Manuela keeps and eye out for anything suspicious.  However, it is carnival time, so everybody is in fancy dress.  Jaws tries to kill Manuela but is foiled by the sudden appearance of party goers the first time, and then tries again, only for Bond to intervene and more party goers whisk Jaws away.

As a re-introduction to Jaws as a professional killer, this sequence once again leaves me cold, and not in the way it should.  Jaws should be menacing and here, the menace is completely undercut by the party atmosphere and the costume that Jaws wears to blend in.   It's not a bad sequence, but like so much else in this film, it feels weak and not very well done.

By this point, we're about halfway through the film, and you wonder if the production team actually took enough care with this film, as it doesn't feel well done.

In fact, there are some rather interesting similarities developing between this film and the previous one, The Spy Who Loved Me.  The pre-title sequence was very similar, the idea of humanity being killed is being developed here, even though by this point in TSWLM, it was already full blown in our minds what Stromberg was up to.  And of course, there's Jaws.  I'm beginning to sense a pattern...

Anyway, Bond arrives at a cable car station where he runs into Holly Goodhead once again, as he is spying on the airport through a telescope.  Then we have what I must apologise for saying is the worst fight sequence in Bond history.  It's not a bad sequence, it's just awkward.  

Jaws traps Bond and Goodhead in a cable car and snaps the steel cable with his teeth.  Jaws then rises on another cable car to meet the first one, and Jaws leaps across the gap to engage in a fight with Bond and Goodhead on top of the cable car.  

It's very difficult to co-ordinate a fight sequence on top of a cable car, and I have to say they don't do a bad job of it, but compared to so many other fights in other Bond films, it just doesn't meet the usual high standards of Bond fight sequences.  I cannot place any blame on the stuntmen, they did what they could, and they did it well, but... well, it just doesn't stand up compared to so many others.  It's the way it goes sometimes.  You do great work on a sequence, and no matter how well you do it, sometimes the sequence just doesn't work as well as it should.  This is just one of those times.

Bond and Goodhead manage to push Jaws down into the cable car and lock the hatch from the outside.  Then Bond uses a chain to slide both him and Holly down the cable to safety.  However, Jaws' accomplice starts up the cable car again, putting Jaws in hot pursuit of our heroes.  They make their escape by dropping down to the ground, whilst the cable car crashes into the station at the bottom, and another infamous sequence begins, as we, and Jaws, meet Dolly for the first time, and Jaws falls in love, as the famous music from Romeo and Juliet plays over the scene.

I feel really bad for Jaws here.  He is meant to be a menacing killer, and he ends up being just a joke in this film, completely misused, and really doesn't help the film at all.

We then have a weird sequence, where stretcher bearers come to rescue Bond and Holly, but they're really Drax employees who capture them, and transport them in an ambulance, to who knows where. There is a fight between Bond and one of the ambulance men which ends up with Bond and the guy on a wheeled stretcher exiting the ambulance and Bond leaving him to run into a British Airways billboard.

Oh yeah, there is also a lot of signs and billboards for 7Up in this film too.  A lot of fairly blatant product placement.

We then get another weird sequence with Bond arriving at some monastery looking like a poor man's Clint Eastwood, before it's revealed as a secret MI6 base, and Q is once again shown perfecting equipment in the field, some of which will get used later on.  And we get a second briefing scene between M, Bond and Q.

This then transitions into a sequence with Bond in a speedboat in a river, being chased by a boat firing mortars, but Bond disposes of them with some mines, only for 2 more boats to come after him, one of them lead by Jaws.  We get a slower rendition of John Barry's 007 track from From Russia With Love here, which is in rather sharp contrast to the editing in this part, which is fairly quick, not slow at all.

Bond uses a torpedo to dispose of one of his pursuers, but Jaws will not be put off, and we are faced with a cliffhanger moment.  A huge waterfall is ahead of them, and Jaws is in pursuit of Bond.  How is he going to get out of this one?

Bond escapes by transforming the roof of his speedboat into a hand glider, and takes off just before the boat goes over the falls, and I love Jaws' expression here as that happens, as if to say, that is just so unfair.

As Jaws and the pursuing boat go over the falls, we see Bond looking incredibly smug and self satisfied, and I have to say that is one of the worst character defining moments in Bond history.  Bond should never, ever, be smug.  No ifs, buts or maybes.  A smug Bond just doesn't ring true with the character established in the books, or indeed in the films.  That one shot made me cringe.

Bond lands in the rainforest, and just happens to encounter a beautiful woman.  Really???  The lack of imagination here is just numbing.  Like a siren, she leads him to Drax's secret base here in something that resembles an old Incan or Mayan temple.  This leads into Bond being surrounded by gorgeous women, and then being ejected into a pool to face a deadly python.

This sequence feels particularly weak, in a film that so far has come across as weak.  It's here that we meet Drax again, and get the full view of what Drax is doing.  Launching shuttles into space for some reason.  Bond is taken to join Dr Goodhead in a strange looking room, which slowly reveals itself to be underneath the exhaust of another shuttle.  Bond and Holly make their escape, barely, and manage to sneak aboard the last of the shuttles, and discover that they are headed to a space station that somehow nobody knows about.

How did Drax get this space station constructed without anybody else knowing?  This last piece breaks all bounds of believability.  I've had to "buy" so many things during this film and this last "buy" was just one too many.  

The whole of the last 30 minutes is set in orbit around this space station, and aboard Drax's shuttle, as we enter the usual climatic big battle in the villain's lair.  But before that battle, we get a speech from Drax, and I'm sorry to say that the speech is boring as hell, even though it's only about a minute long. This is in part due to the fact that the actor, Michael Lonsdale, has a flat, almost monotone voice, which he has used throughout the whole movie.  I get what they were trying to do, was have Drax be an understated villain, not over the top, not silly, but unstated, coldly menacing.  This is exactly what they did with Stromberg in TSWLM, only there there was enough inflection in the voice of actor Curt Jurgens, to give the words the required menace, but he certainly wasn't played in an over the top way, and they tried to do it again here, but this time, it falls as flat as Michael Lonsdale's voice tone.  

Bond and Holly disable a radar jamming system that Drax had built into the space station, and we get a cameo from General Gogol, and that's not even required.  Nice to see Gogol again, but it does feel shoehorned in.  

Bond and Holly are captured and taken to Drax, as he launches the globes that will release the nerve gas to kill the human race, and Bond persuades Jaws that his love Dolly will be killed by Drax, and Jaws turns on Drax, and just before Drax can laser an approaching American space shuttle, Bond stops the rotation of the space station causing everyone to become weightless.  Then we get the big space battle with laser guns that we saw being tested earlier.  

This sequence has echoes of the sequence in the volcano lair from You Only Live Twice.  Meanwhile we get a final confrontation between Bond and Drax, and to be honest, whilst the dialogue is quite good, the whole sequence feels like an anti-climax, as Drax is poison-darted by Bond and takes a "giant step for mankind' out of an airlock.

We have a gratuitous sequence featuring Jaws and Dolly, which feels really out of place as the space station is destroying itself, and Jaws helps release Bond and Holly's shuttle from the station as they go off to destroy the globes, which they manage to do, and then we have the worst double-entendre from Q, as Bond and Holly get it on in space as M, Q and the Minister of Defence make contact.

Overall, the plot feels like a thin thread, holding together a number of sequences that are actually quite weak all told and not that good.  Plots aren't necessarily the most important thing in a Bond film but they have to work, well enough, to be at least buyable, but there was so many things I had to "buy" here, that the bounds of believability were stretched beyond breaking point.

THE VILLAIN

Hugo Drax is a poor villain really.  They attempt to make him understated and menacing, and he just comes off as boring, flat and monotonal, which isn't good.  There is little emotion in Michael Lonsdale's performance and when he says...

"At least I will have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery."

...you're left wondering how he expresses pleasure as he sounds exactly the same as he has done all the way through the film.

STUNTS AND ACTION SEQUENCES.

Once again the stuntwork is excellently produced and performed, especially the parachute stealing moment, but the Bondola sequence felt really bad to watch, and the cable car fight, whilst excellently done, felt weaker than everything else.  As I said earlier, I can't place the blame with the stunt people, they did their work exceedingly well, but the problems of a fight on a cable car are rather easy to see.

THE BOND GIRL/WOMAN

Lois Chiles does okay here as Dr Holly Goodhead, though that name, like Pussy Galore's earns a full 10 exclamations on the weirdness scale.  !!!!!!!!!!

Dr Goodhead is not a Bond equal like Anya, but she's hardly a damsel in distress like Solitaire or Mary Goodnight.  She's tough and capable, and very intelligent, but she looked very weak in the cable car fight.  Much better in the space station though.

I can't say there was anything special about her, it was pretty obvious that she was this film's equivalent of Anya, and though she does a better job here than Barbara Bach did in TSWLM, she doesn't quite come off quite as well.

THE HENCHMEN

Chang is kinda disappointing.  He's mostly silent, except in the final fight in Venice where he goes all Kendo Nagasaki on us and has a smashing time...

The character I really feel sorry for is Jaws.  In TSWLM, he was this menacing, not unfunny, but not played for major laughs, character who you really felt could kill Bond quite easily.  Here, he's played mostly for laughs, and all of his menace is missing and undercut by the sillyness.  It's a waste of a great character, and I feel sorry for Richard Kiel having to put up with this.

OTHER NOTES

The one thing that strikes me most from watching the film, is how much they copied The Spy Who Loved Me in this film.  Christopher Wood obviously only had one plot idea, and whilst it worked the first time, the second time was just painful.  Drax is a space version of Stromberg, Jaws is here, the first of the villain's henchmen dies from a large fall, Dr Goodhead is Major Amasova-lite here, We had a shuttle stolen in this film, compared to the submarines being stolen in TSWLM, armageddon was the villain's scheme, with a new civilisation coming from under the sea, or in this case space.  The parallels are many fold, and Moonraker really demonstrates how trying to copy the previous film, never works, no matter how well established the hero is.  

Lewis Gilbert is an excellent director, but here he feels like he's hamstrung by the sequences he's trying to link together.

John Glen does a great job of editing the piece, but as the old saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and this was always gonna be a sow's ear, from the moment they copied the formula from TSWLM.  

Ken Adam's designs are marvellous as always, and to me it is a shame that this is his last Bond film as Production Designer, as his sets were always marvellous.

The cinematography from Jean Tournier was excellent as well, and the special effects crew, led by Derek Meddings did such an excellent job in creating the effects, that they were nominated in the Academy Awards Best Special Effects category.  John Barry's score is excellent, though some of the music they use for other sequences that they borrowed from other sources leaves a lot to be desired.

Roger Moore gives a good performance as Bond, and is obviously comfortable in the role here, after all, this was his 4th film, but there does seem to be something weird about 4th Bond films.  Each of the three previous actors to get to 4 films, the fourth one had been the weakest of the bunch.  I hope that doesn't afflict Daniel Craig in Spectre.

OVERALL

For me, what marks this film down significantly is the plot, how Jaws is utilised, and Hugo Drax himself.  These elements are key parts of the film, and seriously hurt it.  It doesn't even reach 001, on the double 0 scale where 000 is unbearable and 007 is perfection.  It's barely watchable, but there's little satisfying here.

It was a poor attempt to capitalise on the success of Star Wars, but capitalise on it it did, making over $210,000,000 worldwide.  This was Bond at its worst, and they needed to return Bond back to Earth, literally and metaphorically in the next film, For Your Eyes Only.

Next time: Number 24... with a story just too big for one James Bond...