Roger, Pepper And Three Nipples

Two films in sees Roger Moore settling into his role as Bond and the franchise is slowly removing itself from it's own history.  Moore's debut was a blaxploitation flick. The Man With The Golden Gun is a kung fu jolly.  Enter The Dragon this is not. It's as if the producers saw David Niven in Casino Royale, thought it was a good idea and then went zeitgeist shopping.  Playing Bond for laughs is not a good look.  Eight films ago we had the tension and suspense of Crab Key, now we have Thailand and bad white wine.


The Man With The Golden Gun is a film that could have delivered so much more but all the promise is lost under the sound of a penny whistle.  The whole thing is as crooked as M's office on the part submerged Queen Elizabeth.  

Only one thing could improve this stunt.....a comedy sound effect!

We begin with Dracula playing a game of cat and mouse with a gangster from Diamonds Are Forever in a fun house in the Far East. Yes, it's as daft as it sounds. Dracula, now reincarnated as trick shot making Fransisco Scaramanga is said to be the world's best assassin and charges $1 million a job. Dr Evil would be proud. He even has a midget as a butler/companion. The 70s were so ridiculously un-PC.  The pre credit sequence ends with Scaramanga shooting the fingers off a wax work of 007. Such attention to detail of your supposed foe borders on fetish.  To stop us dwelling on these thoughts we have Lulu caterwauling the worst Bond theme so far.  Presumably Don Black had been watching Carry On films as lyrical inspiration.

Lulu's theme sets the tone for the film as we now see Bond abandon wit and charm in favour of smut.  M summons Bond to his office and confronts him with a golden bullet with 007 etched on it. Apparently Bond is now a target for Scaramanga. The background is rife with mumbles of an energy crisis and a missing scientist who has a Solex device that will create free energy and yet Bond is dispatched to Beirut where an encounter with a stripper is his first clue on the hunt for Scaramanga. I say 'stripper' with a shudder.  Her (only) charm is the golden bullet she keeps as a memento of one of Bond's colleagues. In tawdry fashion Bond recovers the bullet and returns to Q whose analysis identifies the bullet's manufacturer. This screams the question 'why not use the bullet sent to M, why go to Beirut at all?'  Q snootily and rather brilliantly identifies Lazar as the bullet's maker and Bond is off for a snoop around Macao as he gets a step closer to Scaramanga.  The missing link is Octopussy Andrea Anders. Anders is Scaramanga's resentful bit of stuff and is the real sender of the bullet to M.  Later we find out that she wants to be rid of Scaramanga and wants Bond to facilitate this.  In the meantime she's just a courier.

The story begins to come together as we see missing solar scientist Gibson get his outside a strip club. Scaramanga, it seems, is quite a good shot.  Scaramanga has been hired by the Chinese businessman Hai Fat to remove Gibson and keep the Solex agitator off the market.  Handily Hai Fat is believed to have never clapped eyes on Scaramanga by Bond. Quite how this logic works is beyond me. If I was splashing out a million I'd want to meet the bloke doing my dirty work.  The twisted logic allows Bond to attempt to impersonate Scaramanga in a meeting with Hai Fat. He just needs Q Branch to rustle him up a fake third nipple. Don't ask.

It turns out that Hai Fat has, in fact, met Scaramanga and is positively in cahoots with him. This results in Bond's disguise being rumbled. Hai Fat decides the best form of execution is to send Bond to a martial arts school and let him get roughed up by some kids. We scan the background the hidden lasers, poisoned darts, anything to no avail. Hai Fat seriously thinks a bit of kung fu will do the job.  The pathetic nature of this scheme is compounded by Bond's escape. He jumps out of a window and into a boat. The marine based chase echoes Live And Let Die right up to it's inclusion of Sherriff J W Pepper. Oh yes, he's back.  Is it just a cameo? Is it balls.

More realistic than the flying car

Bond tumbles into Anders again and agrees to lose Scaramanga in exchange for the Solex agitator.  Unfortunately, this leads to Miss Anders death and Britt Ekland's incompetence as her character, Mary Goodnight, gets locked in Scaramanga's boot.  Cue car chase. Oh, great. Pepper's back and this time he's going to be Bond's comedy sidekick.  Your heart rises and then crashes as Bond corkscrews over the river with THAT sound effect.  It's all a waste as Scaramanga flies away in his car. Yes, he flies away.



Wherever could Scaramanga have escaped too? Have no fear, Goodnight had a tracking device about her person. Naturally Bond homes in on this signal and follows it to the film's conclusion.  Scaramanga's private island has been converted into a solar power generator and he wants to sell the technology to the highest bidder. Oil companies will buy it to keep it off the market whilst governments will want it to provide free energy for their countries. Apparently.  Not content with completely renewable energy the solar technology also comes with a massive laser gun as a bonus.  Before he cashes in on the Solex he decides to challenge Bond to a duel.

The original premise that Scaramanga was Bond's criminal opposite and equal is used as The Man With The Golden Gun's conclusion.  Bond emerges victorious from this tension with a bit of speed dressing in the dark. Bond has to suffer a spot of dry ice and some more Goodnight incompetence en route to his escape back to normality.  The journey home is interrupted by an appalling fight with a midget and an excessive waste of wine before Bond can use Goodnight's name in vain.

It's telling that The Man With The Golden Gun is the lowest grossing film of the franchise and it's easy to see why. It rivals Moonraker in terms of appalling-ness and cements the 70s as Bond's lost decade.  You begin to wonder how much better Tom Mankiewicz's script was and how much strife was really caused off camera.  The film has it's good points and they all belong to Christopher Lee. Lee is great as the villain and you wish that Fleming had remembered to recommend him for the role of Dr No. His weapon of choice is also more than memorable.  A gun in several innocent parts. The next time you're in an office and fiddling with your pen and cufflinks you'll wish they were golden.

I want one, you know you do too

James Bond will return as Roger Moore attempts to better Connery's Jacques Cousteau impression.

Don't get any ideas Rupert

Brosnan gets a second run out as Bond in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies and he's comfortable in the role now, maybe a little too comfortable.

Bond via a brainstorming session for The Matrix

Having successfully kick started the franchise with GoldenEye Brosnan now takes an unhealthy step towards Roger Moore territory.  This sees Bond take a step back from the vulnerability coupled with ruthlessness that worked quite well in GoldenEye. It's been replaced by a dangerous case of checklist Bond as if the writers were on autopilot.

Number one on the checklist: a big, bold, stunt driven pre credits sequence. Once you accept that terrorists go shopping at what looks like an outdoor Costco for their guns/bombs/nuclear weapons, the pre credit sequence for Tomorrow Never Dies is pretty damned good.  Bond enters by giving a terrorist lookout a light and knocks him out with a punch and the line 'filthy habit'.  It's now that it clicks that Brosnan's Bond is the first not to smoke (for now). You half expect him to say 'just say no'  Anyway, the Russians have failed to notice a plane armed with nuclear missiles has gone missing and ended up at TerrorCo and now Bond has to escape before Chernobyl looks like a picnic. And escape he does from all those white Eastern European terrorists with their designer stubble. It's as if al Qaeda didn't exist in the 90s.

If it's good enough for Sean, it's good enough for you Pierce

Checklist item number two: an overbearing megalomaniac villain. Step forward Elliott Carver. Jonathan Pryce is forced to ham it up as William Randolph Murdoch as Carver seeks to engineer a war to gain control of a TV contract aided by a poor head henchman and an iPad predecessor that can do EVERYTHING.  The worst part of Carver is his catchphrase of 'delicious' not to mention his karate act.

 I might be wearing my PJs but I can spot a good headline

Carver's plans centre around a stealth ship. A handy bit of kit sailing around with the even handier ability of sinking a Royal Navy ship in Chinese waters only for it's wreckage to end up in Vietnam. Let's also ignore that the technology used to make the stealth ship invisible seemingly means it's radar doesn't work and so Bond and Wai Lin can float right up and knock on the door.

Further to trying to turn Brosnan into Roger Moore for the 21st century we have checklist item number three: a big henchman of limited acting ability. Mr Stamper. The producers missed a trick by not casting Dolph Lundgren as Mr Stamper and so we have an almost pointless character. Just some bleached blond hair running around in a tight T shirt. Don't even get me started on his hero worship of Dr Kaufman.  Even his death at the end is rubbish.

The checklist continues by throwing Bond into far off locations. We end up in China for the first time in a few years, presumably to remind the world that Hong Kong still belonged to the UK. The set pieces bouncing around the Far East are pleasant enough even if they are saturated in BMW product placement.

Brace yourself for the continuation of the checklist. Delving heavily into the Roger Moore book of Bond cliches we have Q developing a remote controlled car. Bond can now drive his BMW with a Sony Ericsson. What's he going to be able to do if he gets his hands on an iPhone?  Having said that Q's appearance is a genuine high point in the film. He's held with such affection we can forgive the crocodile submarines and talking cars.

Tomorrow Never Dies leaves you with the feeling that Brosnan's Bond may have peaked to soon with GoldeEye. This is Bond by rote, lazy and uninspired and it's more than apparent the film suffered from rushed rewrites and no basis in Fleming's stories.  Tomorrow Never Dies is littered with one liners and innuendo, from cunning linguists to celebrity overdoses.  There's a hint of tiredness as the film casts names in minor roles in the same way ailing US TV shows cast bigger and bigger special guest stars before being cancelled and so we see Teri Hatcher getting the gig ahead of a then fairly unknown Monica Bellucci.

 You can see why Brosnan had the hump Monica didn't get the part

Looking back, Pulp should have done the theme song and the producers can count themselves reasonably lucky they were up against Cameron's indulgent Titanic at the box office.  James Cameron's juggernaut proved that at least there was something that was truly terrible in the cinema.

James Bond will return but first he needs a nap to recharge his batteries. The next instalment needs to be made with a considered approach to get the series back on track. Thank God it's not the 20th movie of the series.

They say you should never go back

The Seventies are here and so is James Bond's seventh big screen outing.

The good news (thanks to the studio, United Artists) is that Sean Connery has come back. It only cost a then record $1.25 million some of which was used for charity. Mr Kidd and Mr Wint are good too and Shirley's back on theme tune duties. That's. About. It.

Diamonds are Forever is horrifically camp which probably explains why Adam West was considered for the role and the storyline is peppered with just plain stupid elements.

To begin with Connery is unseen as he pursues old enemy Blofeld across the globe. Obviously still upset at Blofeld's murder of his wife, Bond is very determined popping up in Japan and Cairo amongst other places before a rather plump and sweaty Mr Connery locates Blofeld and his attempt to use mud to make himself a plastic surgeoned double. It looks like the years since Connery last picked up a Walther PPK have been good to him and have taken the edge of his ability to deliver a decently pithy one liner and he now keeps a mousetrap in his pocket.

Sean Connery because he's not as camp as the other guy

Echoes of Goldfinger see a diamond smuggling scheme take centre stage early on. Several links of the smuggling chain are dispatched in entertaining ways from South Africa to Amsterdam. So far, so good but then the action shifts to Las Vegas. Gaudy and kitsch Vegas is home to elements that will plague the Bond series for much of the next decade. Tiffany Case and Plenty O'Toole are the early incarnations of Bond girls having daft names for the sake of it in an attempt at a euphemism. See also later, Dr Goodhead, Chu Mi and Jenny Fleck.  Don't even start on Bambi and Thumper. Just be glad Sgt J W Pepper hasn't reared his ugly head just yet.  In fact Las Vegas' image of all style and no substance is soaked into Diamonds Are Forever.

Whilst in Las Vegas Bond attempts to get to grips with the smuggling supply line by playing craps and taking in casino shows. His efforts culminate in a laboratory infiltration and posing as the greatly named Klaus Hergersheimer. When rumbled Bond escapes in a moon buggy. A moon buggy. Despite this Roger Moore still accepted the role. Following the moon buggy incident is the world's worst car chase. Twenty miles per hour around a car park.  Someone, somewhere thought this was a good idea.

 Worst escape vehicle ever

Before long Bond gets to the crux of the matter, only to find it's Charles Gray's Blofeld. Yes, Charles Gray, The Narrator who last had a knife stuck in his back in You Only Live Twice (his leg has also grown back). The crafty bastard now seemingly shed of his S.P.E.C.T.R.E is bent on using the smuggled diamonds in a laser toting satellite. As weapons go it's a bit crap. It's intense beam of diamond enhanced light makes things go red and wobble.  Needless to say Washington DC is on it's hitlist unless Blofeld gets his big bag of swag. Even Dr Evil wouldn't be this lame....

Bond pitches up at Blofeld's oil rig base in a zorbing ball. Blofeld is no longer worthy of a volcano lair and Bond is happy to roll around in inflated polythene rather than a sexy speed boat. Blofeld is defeated rather predictably and Bond gets to go cruising with Tiffany Case and dispatch Mr Wint and Mr Kidd with some brandy and a cheap thrill.

It's dispiriting that the best part of Diamonds Are Forever is Bond's conversation with a rat.

'One of us smells like a tart's handkerchief..............I'm afraid it's me. Sorry about that old boy.'

 I am NEVER doing this again. Never. Never.

Diamonds Are Forever makes me feel uncomfortable. Our ruthless yet charming spy is being reduced to a stunt man smuggling cheap innuendo. It's as if Carry On Spying went viral. The only hope is that the next incumbent of the role will bring a fresh start. Hope can be cruel sometimes. Diamonds Are Forever proves the old adage that you should never go back.

James Bond will return and this time he'll be ginger.

You took your time

We all know it's named after Ian Fleming's old house. We all know it's the first film not to take anything from the books. We all know it might be a little too slick for our liking but none of that matters. We've been waiting.

We've been waiting. Since 1989.

We've been waiting for what seems like an eternity, but now we have GoldenEye.

Legal wrangles produced the longest gaps between Bond films so far. Understandably Mr Dalton got a bit bored waiting and so gave up the role and nearly ten years too late the producers got Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan with his improbably coiffured hair and impressive jawline in the role he was born to play. In the time since License To Kill the Berlin Wall has fallen and Communism with it. Bond has lost his old enemy so we wait with baited breath to see who will replace the Russians and their KGB.

 That hair will NOT move

This was the first Bond film I was old enough to see at the cinema. There is something quite magical about seeing the gun barrel intro on the big screen but something less wonderful about the cinema goers who mockingly applauded Bond's mastery of the small plane after blowing up the chemical plant.  GoldenEye's best feature is the way it draws on previous Bond films. Brosnan is the suavest Bond since Connery, he still pitches the odd one liner a la Moore (thankfully not as cringeworthy) and retains a little of Dalton's grit.  Balanced against the traditions of Moneypenny flirting and the comic asides of Q are some new elements. First and most obvious is the new M, Judi Dench is perfectly cast and perfectly reminiscent of Bernard Lee's M. It's good to see Bond getting the telling off he deserves every now and then.  Try and ignore the fact Bond has a BMW now, add in some relatively unknown actresses as Bond girls Simonova and Onatopp and some exotic locations and we're all set.

GoldenEye is essentially a revenge tale with a twist. An old MI6 colleague, Trevelyan, returns from the dead in an attempt to use a nuclear powered satellite (what else?) to initiate global financial meltdown and destroy the UK to avenge his parents.  Conveniently, Trevelyan will also get revenge on Bond who he blames for his facial disfigurement caused in the pre-credit sequence.  Ah yes, the credits.  The very credits which feature a girl who can deep throat a pistol.  In what I assume was a measure not to be too old fashioned the powers that be drafted in Tina Turner instead of Dame Shirley Bassey to belt out a Bono penned song. There are two things wrong with this. Firstly, it's a Bono song, it's a wonder his ego allowed him involvement. Secondly, I can't listen to any Tina Turner song without thinking of her 'dancing'.

Tina Turner should've taught Bono how to do this

Trevelyan is using renegade Soviet miltia to help him use the GoldenEye satellite to set off an EMP (remember Moore's explanation in A View to a Kill) to wipe out his emtying of every bank account he can lay his virtual hands on. He chooses Cuba as his base and so the hunt is on. After an altercation in a junkyard Brosnan finds himself bombing around St Petersburg in a tank to hunt Treveyan and save Simonova.

 Smashing up St Petersburg makes you thirsty

Despite an odd turn of events with a horse statue this is a very entertaining chase sequence (please ignore blatant product placement). It's no Bullitt but it's 100 times better than Connery in a car park in Diamonds are Forever. So we're off around the world again, destroying trains and squishing people with helicopters before a heavily choreographed fight inside Trevelyan's satellite's gearbox.

Sean Bean vs Pierce Brosnan in a good old fashioned fist fight is quite a good way for the villain to get his comeuppance. It's understated, no compressed air pellets, air locks or golden gunned duels.

Brosnan's debut was slick, entertaining and just the right thing to restart the Bond series after hiatus, let's hope it doesn't get silly in the future.

Bond has been substantially modernised.  GoldenEye was the first film in the series to use CGI. The franchise has been invigorated and hasn't gone too 'Hollywood' just yet, a good job then that John Woo turned down directing duties and the guest star roles haven't quite begun in earnest.

James Bond will return. Tomorrow or Today. Well, in the future and he'll have that bloody BMW too.



P.S.

GoldenEye was supposed to have been filmed at Pinewood but production clashed with Connery's First Knight. Instead production was moved to Leavesden, near Watford, now the home of Harry Potter World. So, basically, Harry Potter in Watford is your fault Sean Connery. I'll forgive GoldenEye that due to the fact it spawned the best computer game EVER and the only reason anyone bought a Nintendo 64.

Is that a duck on your head, or are you pleased to see me?

Bond has changed slightly. Connery has more than made the role his own, jumped in a DB5 and set about making a template for all following Bond films.

Some people say Goldfinger is the quintessential Bond film. In a way it is as here we are introduced to the wittier one liners, the larger than life baddies with grandiose schemes (more than Dr No ever had), gadgets and big bold theme songs.  Goldfinger is a slight reboot of Bond since From Russia with Love. Bond is less serious but makes up for this with chauvinism and arrogance.  This isn't a bad thing as we are moved from just another Cold War thriller towards an more accessible suave action film. This is what Goldfinger did more than anything; it made Bond for the masses.

We begin with the now almost traditional ending of a previous mission before the film's proper storyline begins. This means Connery with a duck on his head (the BEST disguise ever), some plastic explosives. heroin flavoured bananas and a damned treacherous belly dancer. A witty retort to a thugs death leads to a thunderous entrance for Dame Shirley's theme tune.

Bond is tasked with a simple case of gold smuggling but soon uncovers Goldfinger's plan to send the Western world back to the Dark Ages by making the US gold reserve glow in the dark. It's a simple storyline that encompasses the best looking death on screen in the history of cinema, some well place gadgets and a bird nicked out of The Avengers.

 Strategic cushion. Excellent Feng Shui

Pussy Galore. Really? I mean, really? Honey Rider was subtle and we haven't reached the depths of Holly Goodhead, but Pussy? It's just daft, Fleming must have been taking the piss.  It's a good job she's a strong character and gives Bond as good as she gets before the inevitable roll in the hay.  Bond's eventual 'seduction' is more than a little rapey.

For the first time in the film series we see Bond put in real perilous situations that he can't fight or shoot his way out of and the villain of the piece is armed with just as many quips as Bond.

'Get comfy Mr Bond, I intend to gloat over you'

The elevation of the villain to 'star' status is genius and allows for more development to the story.  For the first time we see the villain explain his diabolical scheme in no uncertain terms. The blow by blow breakdown of the plan is set up and conveniently gives Bond (actually spying) all the info he needs. Bond's use of Q's gadgets here is necessary and purposeful. The homing device especially. These aren't gadgets for the sake of having gadgets. Pay attention Roger Moore.

Predictably Goldfinger double crosses his allies and hurtles towards the final showdown at Fort Knox full of confidence and an unhealthy obsession with lasers.

Goldfinger has set up many elements which will become key to following films. The suave one liners, the gadgets, the theme tune, the henchman with a unique talent and the bonkers plots to take over the world from gorgeous locations.

Goldfinger was the first Bond to have everything. Connery peaked as Bond in this film and without disrespecting the two previous films set out what a Bond film should be.

Connery's next film splashing about in The Bahamas has got a lot to live up to.

Time to retire Roger

A View To A Kill was the first Bond film I can remember seeing. I was born smack in the middle of the Moore era and didn't really know what Bank Holidays were about until I was about seven. A View To A Kill remains arguably my favourite Bond film and this is mainly down to Christopher Walken.

The story goes that David Bowie turned down the Zorin part. Walken was ace but you still have a little feeling of 'what if....' with Bowie's snub.  Walken has said he based his performance on Robert Shaw's Red Grant. Fair play to an American caring about a movie legacy. Walken is understated and menacing as the genetically engineered genius. You just wish he was in the movie a bit more.

OK, so A View To A Kill has it's bad points. The sodding Beach Boys and the iceberg submarine. Roger Moore spending a fair amount of time looking for his pension book on screen and the God awful fire engine sequence. Chuck in the fact that you can have a very easy game of 'Spot The Stunt Double' when Bond is engaged in mild action and you should have a Bond film that is worse than Moonraker (if possible)  But you don't, thanks to a reasonably sensible plot compared to other Moore jaunts, Patrick Macnee and some great set pieces on the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Oh, and Duran Duran with the best Bond theme since Goldfinger.

That's not Roger

So we go from retrieving a microchip in Siberia and a well utilised smoke flare to San Francisco via an odd horse doping set up in France and a detective named after a vegetable.  I, for one, was quite relieved Detective Aubergine was a very bit part.  Chuck in a solid job by David Yip as a helping CIA agent and a bizarre turn from Willoughby Gray as Hans Glaub and you can forgive them for casting Tanya Roberts and her throaty screaming in the lift shaft.  If only those petrol filled Bacardi bottles had hit her on the head.

Then there's Grace Jones.  Most people are still scared of Jones but Moore, well, ahem, Rogered her and did his standard sucky face kiss thing.  Hard to work out who was on more drugs, Pegasus the horse or Grace Jones. Mind you I'd run faster than Pegasus in that mine shaft if she was after me and I certainly wouldn't want Little Roger anywhere near me.

Why haven't they invented Viagra yet?

A View To A Kill is a fitting send off for Roger Moore, after the piss poor Octopussy the game had to be raised for fear of mortally wounding the franchise but it's almost a movie or two too late. the fight scene with Grandpa's ashes was almost exclusively carried out by Moore's stunt double. Roger probably had the day off for a prostate exam and a couple of big cigars. A bit worrying then that the tagline for this was 'Smooth Operator' describing a man seemingly crying out for a hip replacement.

The final scenes high up on the Golden Gate Bridge see the more youthful Walken fighting on a level of OAP. No punches but a bit of pushing and shoving with an axe. Zorin gives Bond a chance and pays for it by transforming into a shop mannequin as he plummets to the ocean. You don't technically see him die, in a Mr Big/Scaramanga kind of way, so maybe he was due to pop up again for revenge. We'll probably never know.

What we do know is that James Bond will return.

And this time he'll be Welsh.