Screengrab Salutes: The Best & Worst James Bond Films of All Time! (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:30:00 GMT

THE BEST:

8. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)

One of the biggest hits and best-received films in the series, and deservedly so, even though it's now underrated, partly because of the sequence in which Sean Connery, as Bond, is supposed to pass for Japanese by means of eye makeup and a modified Beatles wig. Actually, the location shooting is a pretty good commercial for Japan, and in Connery's last appearance as Bond before his first official retirement from the role, his relationship with the Bond girls is sweeter-spirited than ever before. Roald Dahl did the script, which has some nifty lines, and Little Nellie may be the niftiest of Bond's gadgets to date. This is the first in the so-called "Blofeld" trilogy and the first film that lets us get an actual good look at the SPECTRE uber-baddie. Here, he is played by Donald Pleasance with a scar, an accent, and a pussycat; only the pussycat would be adopted by any of the actors who would pick up the role in the films to come.

7. DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002)

Although some felt it went too far over the top with its invisible car and ice palace and whatnot, Die Another Day, after three bland and disappointing efforts by Pierce Brosnan, was not only the best James Bond picture in years at the time of its release, but also a reminder of how much fun Hollywood blockbusters can be when they're smart, cool and light on their feet. Filled with clever 40th Anniversary references to past 007 adventures, Brosnan’s special agent swansong featured no bimbo nuclear physicists, but rather a taut, ripping yarn with some dark, topical undertones (a North Korean villain, the capture and brutal imprisonment of our hero in the opening minutes of the film, a bizarre opening title sequence featuring sexy girls and, uh, “enhanced interrogation” techniques), as well as a pretty cool old-school evil henchman (the diamond-faced Mr. Kil!), the best Moneypenny scene ever, a wicked pissah ice field car chase (with not one but two fully-loaded, weapon-packed spy cars) and a creepy CGI character that looked unnervingly like Madonna. (As for Halle Berry’s performance as Jinx, well...let’s just say it fell somewhere between Oscar-worthy and Denise Richards.)

6. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981)

Arguably the best 007 movie of the Roger Moore era (and, this being the Screengrab, there probably will be plenty of argument), For Your Eyes Only scores on numerous counts: (1) not the best theme song ever, but certainly more hummable and memorable than, say, “Tomorrow Never Dies” or “You Know My Name” (Huh? What? Exactly!) (2) but definitely one of the best chase scenes ever, featuring skis and motorcycles on a bobsled track (!!!!) (3) the pre-credits death of Blofeld! (4) a relatively coherent, relatively un-winky storyline, including perfectly respectable performances by Topol, Julian Glover and Carole Bouquet as the lethal, crossbow-wielding Bond babe Melina Havelock (5) again...crossbows!!! (6) a breathtaking ascent up a pants-shittingly scary mountain followed by one of the all-time great bad guy fortress battles (7) an uncharacteristically ambiguous ending where Bond doesn’t exactly lose but doesn’t exactly win either, and finally (8) for all the abuse he gets for being old and cheesy and not Sean Connery, Moore was nevertheless the James Bond of my formative moviegoing years -– my Bond -– and these, in my opinion, were his finest two hours.

5. DR. NO (1962)

The first James Bond movie. (Though the first screen version of Bond appears in a 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale, in which Barry Nelson, as "Jimmy Bond", goes up against Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre -- part of it can be found on the DVD of the 1967 Casino Royale adaptation. The TV show was supposed to be the first of a series of small-screen productions for which Ian Fleming actually whipped up a number of original story outlines, but nothing came of it.) Looking at Dr. No today, it's remarkable how many of the key personnel were in place from the start: the director, Terence Young (who also did From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and, more importantly, the editor Peter R. Hunt and the production designer Ken Adam, the composer John Barry, Bernard Lee as M and Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny, and of course the producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli. (They would produce the films jointly until 1975, when Saltzman dropped out; after Broccoli died in 1996, his daughter Barabara took over the franchise.) The screenplay is credited to Richard Maibaum, who would work on another dozen Bond movies as well as another lavish Cubby Broccoli production based on Ian Fleming material, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (The script reportedly also included significant contributions from the playwight-screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz, who asked that his name not be included in the credits. Oddly enough, he had no problem with his name being included in the credits of the 1967 Casino Royale.) The movie also introduced several of the gimmicks and gambits that would define the series, not the least of which was the way it managed to simultaneously stroke and defuse the audience's Cold War tensions by introducing the sinister organization, SPECTRE, which, it was explained, was always trying to start some shit between the East and the West; presumably, if James Bond could ever wipe these bozos out once and for all, the East and the West could just ignore each other while quietly going about their business. The list of potential screen Bonds reportedly considered is said to have included Cary Grant, James Mason, David Niven (later the star of Casino Royale), and a twenty-eight-year-old male model named Peter Anthony who was selected the winner of a talent contest the producers threw for the sake of the publicity, and also maybe because they didn't have any better ideas. Sean Connery, who could just barely act at this stage of his career, is said to have given an audition that wowed the filmmakers, not with his technique or talent but rather with an undefinable but undeniable quality that clearly marked him as having been put on this Earth to play the part. Another look at the movie suggests that the quality might be defined thusly: he radiated the insolent, arrogant confidence that Bond was supposed to have by virtue of his class and superior breeding, yet at the same time was such a rough hewn bruiser of a male animal that the sheer power of his presence beat the snobbery out of that conception. And he looked good in a tux. The movie also starred the twenty-six-year-old Swiss actress Ursula Andress as the shell-collecting, knife-wielding heroine Honey Ryder, and here the filmmakers' genius may show through even more than it does in the casting of Connery. At the time, Andress' English was in such a sorry state that she required dubbing by two other women, Nikki van der Zyl to provide her speaking voice, and Diana Coupland for her singing. Clearly, it was worth it to get that iconic image of Andress emerging from the surf like Venus reporting for duty on a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover shoot. As Matthew Barney, who cast Andress in his 1997 Cremaster 5, has said, that scene represented the birth of a new kind of female sex symbol, doll-faced and curvaceous but in an athletic, physically assertive way. That's why there may be no better way of appreciating the seismic effect that the Bond films had on the culture at large than to go back and read some of the original reviews of Dr. No and goggle at how many (male) critics expressed their bewilderment at why that awful butch creature had been allowed into the movie.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three & Five

Contributors: Phil Nugent, Andrew Osborne

Unwatchable #97: “Bolero”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Bo Derek became the natural successor to Farrah Fawcett as poster girl of choice in the bedrooms of adolescent boys with the 1979 release of 10, in which the cornrowed, bikinied Derek played Dudley Moore’s object of lust. (For some reason her acting debut in 1977’s Orca, in which her leg was bitten off by a killer whale, did not catapult her to stardom.) Director John Derek was ahead of the game, having met 16-year-old Bo on the casting couch years earlier. Better known for trading in a series of hot blonde wives for younger models than any filmmaking acumen, Derek abandoned wife Linda Evans (who had earlier replaced Ursula Andress) for Bo, with whom he made four movies. Bolero is one of them, and perhaps not even the worst one, though I’d hate to have to live on the difference.

Released in 1984, Bolero (the title is meant to conjure happy memories of 10, in which Bo jogged in slow motion on the beach accompanied by Ravel’s “Bolero” on the soundtrack) was billed as the Hottest Erotic Film of the Century. (Which century was not specified.) Among its IMDb keywords are “Female Nudity,” “Female Frontal Nudity,” “Female Full Frontal Nudity” and “Box Office Flop.” All of this is accurate. Derek is plenty naked as Lida MacGillivery, a wealthy schoolgirl who graduates, moons her alma mater and announces to her chauffeur Cotton (George Kennedy) her plan to travel the world and find a rich sheik to take her virginity. She finds a willing sheik, who commences licking milk and honey from her bare breasts, but he passes out before consummating the deed. Lida continues her travels, in hopes of finding another heavily accented himbo to accept her precious gift. Yes, this is a movie about a rich girl who looks like Bo Derek trying desperately to get laid.

Eventually it happens when she meets a bullfighter in Spain, but soon thereafter her future happiness is threatened when he is gored in the breadbasket by a charging bull. He grows bitter, but Lida cheers him up by learning to bullfight and riding a horse naked, and in the stirring finale, his equipment once again functions properly.

Bolero is softcore porn like they really don’t make anymore (for one thing, it features plentiful nudity by then-15-year-old Olivia d’Abo, which probably wouldn’t fly today.) It’s truly a young woman’s strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk, but what makes it so unbearable is the cutesy-whimsical tone of the whole thing, from goofy opium den hijinx to George Kennedy’s attempt to stop a plane from taking off with his bare hands. (Kennedy has an expression on his face throughout suggesting that his agent is already looking for a new job.) I guess it’s a vanity project of sorts for Bo Derek – everyone in the movie keeps saying she’s the most beautiful woman in the world – but she comes off as an overmedicated halfwit in every scene. The sex is more silly than sensual, but naked Bo Derek is undeniably a special effect – one that saves Bolero from the full four Maurys.

Previously on Unwatchable:

98. Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor
99. The Honeymooners
100. Devil Fish

The Screengrab : ursula andress

Screengrab Salutes: The Best & Worst James Bond Films of All Time! (Part Four)

Unwatchable #97: “Bolero”