Tag Archives: Roger Moore
Octopussy (1983)
After twelve of these things, I finally come to a Bond film that’s exactly as old as I am. Feels strange to see it again from a recently re-educated perspective. Thanks to its pedigree this is was one of the first Bond films my generation saw as children and I’m no different. Throughout, I catch myself…not watching it so much as…remembering it. And more importantly, remembering the color of the walls in the room where I watched it for the first five hundred times. I was…how old? That part I can’t remember. It’s lost. But that room is as clear and bright now as it was back then.
I can remember the poster for this film, which – being the child I was – immediately made me think of Ray Harryhausen’s six-armed Kali from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Young-me was nonplussed to discover Bond never fights a magically animated statue, not even once. However, the scene where Miss Sweden 1970, Kristina Wayborn, uses her sarong to escape a second floor balcony, literally unwrapping her way down the ground, more than made up Kali Ma’s absence.
I think this is what you humans call “nostalgia.” I hear you use it to ignore faults in things you liked when you were children. Things that give you a warm, comfortable feeling of remembrance and security. Believe it or not, I enjoy those feelings as much as any bloke. And because of that I enjoyed Octopussy more than I thought I would. As usual, this does not mean I’m going to go easy on it, but feel free to j’accuse me.
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
After Moonraker pulled in more money than God, James Bond’s producers could have pushed the envelope even further into self-parody and silliness. Thank your personal gods they didn’t and the Guy Hamilton/Lewis Gilbert aesthetic of tension-free action scenes, idiotic Bond girls and villains unworthy of their gorgeously sets/lairs finally checked out with the Carter Administration. It was so past time to go back to basics even the producers knew it. For a second, it looked as if they were going to go all out and hire a fourth actor for their lead roll, just to top everything off.
Makes sense when you think about it. By this point, James Bond was a bonafide icon and the movie-going world seems to like its icons young. Roger Moore was fifty-four at this point, over a decade older than the First Bond when he quit for the second time. Despite this, For Your Eyes Only is as heavy on the action as anything we’ve seen in this series. It’s also the first straight-up Cold War spy thriller we’ve seen since From Russia with Love. No supervillains! No international extortion! No plots to start World War III! What the hell is going on here? Is this even a James Bond film? Continue reading For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Moonraker (1979)
For various reasons, I haven’t been feeling so well lately. And when I feel like shit I like to take it out on bad movies. So I am very glad to be reviewing a Bond film I honestly despise, considered by some people to be The Worst James Bond Movie Ever Made. Of course, things would be pretty boring if it weren’t also acclaimed by almost-as-many people as the quintessential representation of everything this series is, was, or should be. It’s the Bond movie parents think they can safely pass down to their children…especially if their children have a pre-existing interest in sci-fi films, like some of us.
Because of that, it’s the first James Bond movie a lot of people (who aren’t me) see, forever coloring their expectations of the franchise. I’ll admit I’m predisposed to enjoy some of the elements you Normals may find the most ludicrous. But even for me, Moonraker goes right off the rails, abandoning any pretensions of being a spy-fi thriller made for people with functioning brains. In that, and one more area, it is the quintessential Bond movie: things start off well, but get steadily worse as they go on…and this movie does go on. At length. So at least it’s in good company, eh? Continue reading Moonraker (1979)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
“Art from adversity” is a tired cliche at this point, casually bandied about by all manner of creative arts professionals and self-appointed self-help gurus. If those people every wanted a Bond movie to back them up, they could do a lot worse than The Spy Who Loved Me. Nothing went right with this and it still manages to be the best Bond film in eight long years…that must’ve seemed even longer the first time around. No one sacrificed any first born children or danced in circles until the rain came: they simply struck a balance. Spy gets a lot of fan points by following the Bond Formula more faithfully than either of its Moore Era predecessors…but it also racks up a lot of my points ignoring that Formula wherever it sees fit (until the end of course…but we’ll get there).
This is not so inconceivable as you’ve been led to believe. What else are Goldfinger and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but elaborate permutations of Dr. No? Those three films trace a clear trajectory, pulling the spy-fi genre from its Noir/Thriller roots towards the supervillain-stomping grounds usually occupied by comic book superheroes. The Spy Who Loved Me continues into territory broad enough for the new landscape of Big, Dumb Summer Movies already taking shape in the late 70s. Continue reading The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Eleven James Bond novels and one short story collection reached store shelves before their author, Ian Fleming, shuffled off this mortal coil in 1964. The Man with the Golden Gun was one of those unfortunate books you sometimes see after bestselling authors kick it: a rough, unfinished work with no real meat on its bones, rushed to press by hungry publishers who’ve just buried their meal ticket. Perfect material for adaptation to the silver screen, don’t you think? Hell, they made movies out of anything back in the mid-70s. Why I hear some crazy asshole even gave the director of 1941 money so he could go make a giant shark movie…
For his third Bond screenplay in a row, returning writer Tom Mankiewicz junked most of the novel, as he did before in Live and Let Die. Returning director Guy Hamilton didn’t like what Mankiewicz came up with so he called in his old collaborator, Richard Maibaum, for a second draft. You’d think the issue of such veteran talent could only be good. Instead, these three produced the worst film in the franchise (up to this point). Sure, nothing beats Die Another Day nowadays, but after Live and Let Die, the drop off in quality really chapped my ass. Continue reading The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Live and Let Die (1973)
First, a salute to Baron Samedi:
Great Tracy’s ghost, it’s finally here! The debut of Roger Moore, the Third and Longest-Lasting Bond (so far), who’ll carry the weight of these next seven films for a very long time. I feel like a kid at Christmas because the Moore Era contains some of the series best and worst, irrevocably cementing Bond’s place in modern cinema as a character who’d outlive his actors….for better and worse…
Where Connery feared the role would dominate his career, Moore came to it already “groomed” by eight years as TV’s The Saint. He seemed to embrace that….despite having to cut his hair and loose some weight for this part. He’d packed it on and let it grow out during his disastrous slow-motion train wreck of a TV show The Persuaders! (Yes, the exclamation point’s part of the title – whaddya expect? It was the 70s.) At that point, Moore could’ve helmed ten bad TV shows and people still would’ve flocked to their theaters to see him as James Bond in (a heavily altered facsimile of) Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die. Continue reading Live and Let Die (1973)