They started yesterday afternoon with Dr. No and squeezed in From Russia With Love and Goldfinger before the night was through. About 25 minutes from now as I am typing this, they will resume with Thunderball at 8 a.m. Friday and go from there.
I needn't get on board until 5 o'clock, when Roger Moore makes his Bond debut in Live and Let Die. I'll stay for The Man With the Golden Gun at 7:05 and The Spy Who Loved Me at 9:15, and then I will have seen every Eon James Bond release. (I've also seen Never Say Never Again, a non-Eon release, but have not yet seen the Casino Royale starring Woody Allen. I'll surely want to see that someday, but the canon films are the ones we're talking about here.)
I got in the position I needed to be in thanks to an 11th hour viewing last night of Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery's one-movie return to the role after George Lazenby's one movie. (Representing the only time in history where there were three different Bonds in three consecutive movies.) If I'd tried to see that as part of the marathon as well, a) I think four movies in one day might have broken me, and b) I'd have had to leave work early for a 2:40 start.
I won't go into too much detail about Diamonds Are Forever since I plan to write more Bond tomorrow, and since I need to get ready for work. But I did want to get in a few quick comments:
1) When I discussed the dour ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service last week, I wondered where they would pick up the next movie after the (SPOILER ALERT) death of Bond's wife in literally the last minute of the film. The options seemed to be to completely ignore it and start fresh with a "new" James Bond (a.k.a. the return of the old James Bond) or to follow on directly from that incident and make the next movie all about revenge.
At the very start it seemed they were doing the latter. In the cold open of Diamonds, Bond is roughing up various low-level criminals to ascertain the location of Blofeld, whose drive by shooting was responsible for the death of his new bride. In short order -- in terms of screen time if not geographical locations -- Bond locates and seems to almost immediately dispatch this arch nemesis, though more with his usual whimsical dismissiveness than with a murderous instinct driven by fury. It would appear that the whole Blofeld character is done and dusted by the opening credits, making a clean break to let Connery get back into his familiar tuxedo and not be encumbered by the story of a different Bond.
Then (SPOILER ALERT) Blofeld returns later in the narrative, meaning the clean break was maybe never what they intended. However, until that point, the narrative had nothing to do with him and Bond just seemed to be on to a brand new adventure involving a fortune in diamonds and a satellite that can shoot laser beams at the earth.
Throughout Blofeld's involvement in the film, though, no mention is made of Bond's dead wife or any specific beef Bond has against Blofeld other than him being his arch nemesis. And he's grinning out of the side of his mouth, making wisecracks and bedding new women with the same non-monogamous lust he's always had. So ultimately, more of a clean break than a direct continuation of the events in the life of Lazenby's character.
2) They in fact don't make any cheeky references to Connery returning to the role, the way they make a cheeky reference at the start of OHMSS about Lazenby starting to inhabit it. Perhaps that would be saved for the non-Eon Never Say Never Again. What's more, there's no sign of Connery returning to the role with a gun to his head or with his tail between his legs. He's just his normal James Bond out there, and damn good at it.
3) This movie has a pair of gay assassins! The movie does not make a lot out of their sexuality, but when they dispatch their first victim, they walk off holding hands. I actually had to go back because I saw it only out of the corner of my eye and wanted to confirm what I had just seen. There's only one more overt mention, when one tells the other that a particular woman is "attractive ... for a woman." I can't figure out exactly what is being said through these characters and whether I should be offended on their behalf 50 years later, but the performances are particularly fun and not because they are played in a campy way -- they are not at all. They're just sinister and good at dropping one-liners in the manner of all the best villains.
4) The whole movie is similarly fun. In fact, this might immediately become as high as my second-rated Connery film behind Goldfinger. I'd have to think about it because I was indeed a fan of From Russia With Love. But this movie is sprightly and goofy in all the right ways, with good set pieces and approaching a modern level of secret contraptions and the like. A really swell time at the movies.
I think there was one more thing I wanted to say but work calls. Especially since I will need to duck out about 15 minutes early in order to keep my date with Roger Moore.
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