The Spy Who Loved Me

 

An underwater adventure again

10th movie and by many seen as the best Roger Moore Bond-movie. And yeah, it works. A British and a Soviet nuclear sub disappears so KGB sends their best, female agent XXX... bad code word today with the internet and all. Secret Service of course sends 007 who on his way kills another KGB that is the lover of XXX. They search for some microfilm in Cairo that contains the plan for a submarine tracking device that KGB and Secret Service believes are the one that made it possible to take the subs. As they search everyone getting in contact with the film is killed, most of them by the recognisable Jaws, the tall man with the silver teeth. He was scary in this I remember as a child and still is. 

007 and XXX is fighting over the microfilm until they meet up with their bosses, who finds a clue to a man named Stromberg who has a marine laboratory outside the coast of Italy. They meet him and get a lead to a gigantic tanker, They land on an American sub that is tracking Strombergs tanker, but they are taken in like the other subs by being swallowed by the tanker, reminiscent of You Only Live Twice and the shuttle rockets. Apparently Stromberg have taken the submarines in order to use their nuclear weapons to launch at New York and Moscow, kickstarting World War III and the total destruction of mankind. This is the MAD-doctrine, Mutual Assured Destruction. The terror balance of the world is that both sides of the iron curtain knows that if you fire a nuclear rocket, you will get the same in kind, so if one side fires it, you gotta answer. That was what the Star Wars program under the Reagan era tried to bypass. If you had Strategic Defence Initiative in place it would destroy any incoming nuclear missiles and give the US nuclear supremacy. Of course it never worked, but that's the idea.

Stromberg himself would survive in his underwater city Atlantis with the future of mankind, the übermenchen apparently. The übermenchen idea is a nazi idea that the aryan race was superior to everyone else and therefore you needed to commit genocide against all other. So he's pretty much a nazi. XXX is taken to Atlantis because... why do it? Still, Bond breaks out, releases the 3 kidnapped submarine crews (I think, I recognise the British crew from the start of the film and the American one, but I can't hear the Russian one) and we get the first mass action scene from Moore. There's guns, grenades and explosions. Awesome! They get control of the command centre and gives the submarines instruction to fire the missiles at each other. They escape on the American sub as the tanker explodes and then given orders to destroy Atlantis. Bond sets out alone to infiltrate and rescue XXX. Killing Stromberg and fighting off Jaws before escaping in the escape pod as the Americans fires their torpedos.

Yeah, it's probably the best movie since Thunderball. A great threat, awesome car that turns into a submarine, spectacular stunt in the alps, a competent Bond-girl and the music is good throughout the movie (although I'm not that into the title theme). Didn't get any gadget explanation from Q though, and that was to keep the submarine part of the Lotus Esprit part secret... although XXX looked surprised, yet she stole the schematics for the car 2 years ago? Ah, nit picks. And the Swedish translation was akin to The Loved Spy  or maybe The Beloved Spy

Man With The Golden Gun

 

A bullet with your name on it

9th movie and this time we have Cristopher Lee as Scaramanga, the assassin that seems to be after 007 and trying to get his hand on some solar device (a Solex) that will make solar energy the most efficient energy source in the world and combat the energy crisis. The energy crisis which they never mentions is the founding of OPEC, the oil cartel, that after the Yom Kippur war between the Arab countries and Israel stopped the flow of oil to the west since US and UK supported Israel. The price hike that followed pretty much destroyed the cheap energy boom that probably helped the upward spiral of the economies of the west after World War II. It showed how reliant the western economies was on oil and therefore most countries tried to try to get out of that. So much of the alternative energy resources was spearheaded just for that reason. So here is one of the most forward looking plots of the Bond-movies so far. Sadly we don't explore that avenue but instead looks on Bonds dark shadow, Scaramanga.

Cause it's more a Scaramanga movie than a Bond movie. Who gets the awesome flying car? Scaramanga. Who gets the gadgets? Scaramanga. Who gets at least a competent Bond-girl (until she betrays him at least)? Scaramanga. So the plot kicks off a golden bullet being sent to MI6 where it pretty much points toward 007 as the next target of Scaramanga. Bond goes to Beirut to get the bullet that killed 002... why not use the bullet they got in the mail? Is it since they don't know what caliber gun was used? They still figured out where the bullet was from with the amount of nickel and gold so why not just use the bullet they got? It leads to Macao where 007 is able to tail Scaramangas girlfriend and get the info that Scaramanga is staking out this club. Before entering Scaramanga shoots a person leaving which turns out to be the solar specialist Bond was originally working to find, but was discharged from due to the Scaramanga situation. 

007 looks into the scientists boss who hired Scaramanga, but Scaramanga takes the solar device and kills the boss. His girlfriends betrays him, since she was the one arranging Bond to look for Scaramanga so that 007 could kill Scaramanga. Scaramanga kills her and after some complications kidnaps 007's assistant that happened to have the device on her. So Bond has to go to Scaramanga's secret island hideout, duel Scaramagna, get the Solex and escape after the assistant by mistake puts the whole island on a countdown to explosion. As well as almost frying Bond with the solar laser when she accidentally pushes a switch. I can't stand that girl. She caused more troubles and pushed the movie 30 more minutes.

Still, great music and there is an interesting conflict on the world stage behind the movie so I give it at least that. Best things about the Roger Moore movies is the rock music titles and the Lulu song is no exception. The biggest problem though with the Solex plot is that, it should have had some effects on the real world. All other we can believe that Bond stopped World War III before it began or something, upholding status quo and all that, but here he actually gets the one thing that would end the energy crisis and therefore put the Bond-universe to another trajectory than our own world. Where are the solar farms, why are there still oil being drilled for and whatnot?

Live And Let Die

 

The Beginning of a new era

8th film, first with Roger Moore. Begins with showing the death of 3 British agents in different locals in America and the West Indies, all three tracking the affair of Katanga, an island dictator. Title track and a much better title song, now with Beatle Paul McCartney doing the writing and singing. And then we are just introduced to this new Bond. Give Lazenby that, he got an introduction. First the silhouette, then the lighting of the cigarette and then full view at the beach. Here we are just shown Bond in bed with an Italian Spy. No build up, no suspense. But we got the Bond-watch with the magnetic field and rotor-blade. Then off to America. First New York where 007 instantly gets harassed by the local gangster Mr. Big who seems to own the whole of Harlem.

Off to the Caribbeans and I gotta admit, feels like a retake of Dr No. I like all the talk of voodoo and stuff, reminds me of Gabriel Knight. Turns out that it's really all about opium smuggling.  Katanga, who's also Mr Big intends to flood the market with free heroin, destroy all competition and then have a monopoly to wring all the new drug addicts out of their money. I gotta say... not the most interesting threat against world order. We get a chase scene with boats in New Orleans and a bus driving scene in the Caribbean. Final fight ends with Katanga being forced feed a bullet for a shark gun that inflates him and then he explodes. 007 and the movies Bond girl travels by train which feels rather reminiscent of From Russia With Love and the fight against Tee-Hee, Katanga's second in command with the claw hand. You can clearly see that he hold the hand from the arm due to the whole arm being longer than the other arm and the weird angle where the real hand is.

Overall a good movie, maybe missing the high stakes of earlier films, but it feels rather more fast paced. Better than the last two at least.

Diamonds Are Forever

A girls best friend

7th movie, Connery is back and the Swedish localisation team named it Diamond Fever. Missed opportunity back in Goldfinger not to name it Gold Fever. Probably one of the old Bond-movies I watched the ending for the most since, as we had it on VHS, there was the animated movie Elfie of the Blue Sea afterwards that was a bit more interesting to watch. Begins with 007 looking for Blofeld to avenge Tracy and then finding Blofelds secret plastic surgeon clinic where he prepares to make clones of himself. Of course Bond puts a stop to that. And then we start the diamond smuggling plot. Most fun is that the one giving the assignment is the judge from The Persuaders with Roger Moore.

So yet another movie where the threat really isn't up to the standards of the earlier movies I would say. Would have been better if they focused on blood diamonds instead. And we are taken to Las Vegas for the most of the movies which is run by some Willard Whyte who no-one seen for 5 years. Turns out everything is run by Blofeld who has assembled diamonds to create a laser satellite and holding the world hostage as he uses it to blow up nuclear bases in USA, Soviet and China. Finally, a threat, but it's at the end of the movie. Before that you pretty much believes that its only shady smuggling activities behind the facade of this major company. At least the plot moves faster than the last movie and the death count is much higher. 

Although this is the first movie that I think looks ugly. Maybe because I don't like Las Vegas, but it's not enticing or exotic. And there's really no cool gadgets and the biggest action scene seems to be the car chase scene and it doesn't do it for me. At least OHMSS had interesting locals and some nifty gadgets. Best thing I read somewhere was the fan theory that every Bond was separate and that Connery-Bond retired in You Only Live Twice, Lazenby took over and due to the end of OHMSS disappeared, followed by Connery-Bond returning to avenge the other Bond, he is still the best after all. Doesn't explain all things Lazenby had from Connery's movies or the fact that he did another mission after the Blofeld pre-credit mission.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

 

Really miss the posters on the blu ray cases

6th film, first without Sean Connery and instead George Lazenby's one and only Bond-movie. And... you know what. It's the most boring of the Bond-movies yet. I mean, first part of the movie is 007 meeting this girl Tracy, meeting her father that turns out to be the head of one of the biggest mafia families in Europe that want's Bond to... (in his own words I might add) dominate her. And 007 agrees if he can get a lead on Blofeld. Then get into a lawyer firm to get connections to a count Bluchamp that lives in Switzerland. Where Bond infiltrates as a heraldic specialist. And now we get to a normal Bond-movie. This is by far the longest Bond-movie ever at the time. There's not really a threat to the world at the moment. 007 just does it as a continuation of the last movie. 

Well, this institute in the mountains is actually brainwashing women to become SPECTRE agents that at a given order will use a toxin that can eradicate a strain of plant or animal making it infertile, causing famine and world chaos. And Blofeld does all this for the chance to get acknowledge as the count of Bluchamp and amnesty for his crimes... somehow we went from a world spanning organisation that lived on committing crimes to a personal vendetta to get off scot free. The action is not bad though, first skiing sequence in a Bond-movie and the attack on Blofelds compound is a thrill. I like the title song and I noticed that they put in some electronic sound in the Bond theme that wasn't there before. 

I have no problem with Lazenby, maybe the fact that they try to hard to push that 007 is the same character as in all adventures with the scene at MI6 where he packs his things and we get musical bits from the older movies (which is a nice touch I might add), but then you can't have his first line being  "this would  never happen to the other guy". But overall you could cut 10-20 minutes cause it drags. Really, this is the longest Bond movie until Craigs run. And you don't need it here. Maybe it's the love story I can't stand.