The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - Lewis Gilbert
The Plot
Someone's hijacked 3 nuclear submarines, one from each of the main players of the Cold War - the US, the Brits and the Soviets. Bond is called in to investigate, while the Russians send their own agent - a female agent codenamed XXX, no less. And you know Bond's gonna hit that, when they get to work together. All that interagency uh, cooperation, probably made the warhawks and propagandists on both sides go into fits. Anyway, all signs point to a crazy (and wealthy) industrialist being the mastermind (where do all these people come from? is Bill Gates like this?) - and he wants to terraform the Earth so he can create a new one beneath the sea. Okay, why not just dive in and live there, asshole? Stop bothering us. And oh, thanks a lot for unleashing a certain "shark" on us.
Grade: A-
Locales
Egypt, Sardinia, and the on-sea sites - subs, a mammoth supertanker (the inside sets were built from scratch) and the villain's high-tech submersible and collosal headquarters
Grade: B+
The Man
Roger Moore
Moore stated in the documentary feature that the writers wanted to strip Bond away from the Connery cloth, where He-Man routinely roughs up his women (noted in my last review). Here, Moore turns the charm up, sneaks in a few nonplussed looks, and totally makes the character his own.
Grade: A
The Villain(s)
Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) - Think Jacques Costeau crossed with Bill Gates money with a healthy dose of dementia. And he has thousands of underlings willing to do his bidding (yes, even kill). So who's crazier - the nut or those who follow the nut? I mean this is probably how Scientology operates. But for all his money and resources, he can't kill Bond. He can freakin' disable and capture 3 nuclear subs from superpowers but he can't whack a ladies man. Bond is much more man than him. The fact that Bond shot him in the balls kinda drives home the point.
Jaws (Richard Kiel) - Became one of the enduring icons of the Bond series, if not of cinema itself. The character design was pure genius. Cross a 7'2" giant with a mean streak, steel-capped shark teeth and the DNA of a cockroach, and you got Jaws. I mean, you could probably the nuke the area where he is, and he'll still crawl out from the ground. What if he had a healing factor? Frak!!! This was Wolverine before Wolverine!!!
He's so badass he even outchomps a shark (ok, they cheated - let's see him take on real full-sized Great White). Kiel, a gentle giant in real life, made such an impact that he would return in the next Bond movie. You could say he struck while the uh, metal was hot.
Sandor (Milton Reid) - A lesser aide-de-camp to Stromberg. He could have avoided falling off a Cairo building if only he took my advice and double-teamed Bond with Jaws. They never ever learn.
Aziz Fekkesh (Nadim Sawalha) - point man for black market goodies, like the microfilm for the plans of submarine tracking device stolen from Stromberg. Died in the Giza catacombs at the uh, mouth of Jaws.
Max Kalba (Vernon Dobtcheff) - Black market merchant who wanted to sell the plans for the tracking device. Again, died at the ... oh, you get the damn idea.
Grade: A
The Girl(s)
Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) - Despite her rep as the Soviets' premiere field agent, she's as docile as a lamb, answers questions like the bookish class nerd, and we never see her kicking butt. So when she finds out that Bond killed her lover prior to this mission, she declares that she's gonna kill Bond after this mission is over (after of course, falling for his charms) - and of course no one believes her. Not even Bond.
Barbara Bach arrives as one of the prettier (and shapelier) Bond girls. This was probably the highlight of her career, as it was bookended by Italian B-Movies. At least she bagged a Starr. Ringo Starr, that is.
"I am Agent XXX. In my country that means 30, not the perverted notion you are thinking, you pervert!"
Naomi (Caroline Munro) - Stromberg's scantily-clad assistant (hey, she works on the water) after he fed the last one to a shark. Came close to killing Bond, but no cigar. What was her prior occupation? A helicopter gunship pilot in Vietnam?
Felicca (Olga Bisera) - More cannon fodder. Solely to delay Bond and set him up for a kill. Of course, she gets it from uh, behind.
The Girl in the Log Cabin (Sue Vanner) - Was the object of M's statement when he orders Bond to "pull out", so to speak ... of the mission, that is.
Hotel Receptionist (Valerie Leon) - Shown to be fooling around with Bond in the Deleted Scenes of the DVD, amping up Anya's rage at him after she discovers he killed her Russian boyfriend. juuuuuuust kidding.
Grade: A-
Gadgets
After eschewing the gadgets in The Man With The Golden Gun, the producers felt Bond wasn't Bond without them. So they're back with a vengeance.
The highlight would be the Lotus Esprit that doubles as a mini-submarine. Aside from proving itself in high-speed chases, it can also outrun submersibles underwater, and has offensive weaponry to boot. The car emerging from beneath the waves in the midst of a normal day at the beach is a definite cheer-inducing scene in any Bond movie.
Bond also uses a ski pole gun, a miniviewer for microfilms, and - egad! - a ticker-tape watch (remember the Dymo old-school labels?) ... good thing he wasn't using it to check the stock market. Bond also uses a jetski, quite futuristic for 1977 as it was still known as a 'wetbike', to rescue Anya in the movie's final scene.
Other goodies that Q showed off, but were never used, includes a spring-loaded seat to toss Middle Eastern radicals into the air while they watched belly dancers, a hookah pipe/gun, a saddle spike (ouch) and my favorite, a floating magnetized tray that was used to decapitate a dummy. Now that should have been used to dispatch Stromberg.
The bad guys, with their supertanker that 'swallowed' disabled subs (shades of You Only Live Twice), also had minisubs and tricycles whose sidecar functioned as a missile. I mean, aside from Bond, who did they intend to chase with it?
Grade: A
Bond Moments
The introductory pre-credit scene where Bond skis off a cliff, and with only the whispering wind as an aural backdrop, gently freefalls until his parachute opens (as the Union Jack, natch), presumably drew roars and raves from the audience back then. Such an opener became de facto standard for the rest of the series, kicking off its own "can you top this" contest for the most ridiculous yet awe-inspiring audience-grabber. It never became so clear to me as much as it did in Goldeneye.
Never leave the car keys in the car. Especially when you're working with a rival spy against a common enemy.
Stromberg eats at a 30-foot long dinner table, and he has a custom-made gun with the barrel extending up to the other end. He tries to kill Bond, fails miserably and then inexplicably the barrel is now just a hollow tube, because Bond just shoots him back in reverse using his own Walther PPK. Even more puzzling, Stromberg never makes a move to get out of the seat, run or escape. He probably was too amazed that Bond dodged his shot.
Atlantis, Stromberg's hideaway beneath the sea, strangely looks like a 4-legged spider. Presumably, it will be the center of his operations as he presides over a new world. But where the hell is he gonna get industrial resources to build such cities if the rest of the world is a nuclear wasteland? All that trouble for one man's wish to be left alone? He could have bought his own island and stayed there.
3 minutes is enough to avert nuclear disaster.
Grade: A-
One Liners
M: Moneypenny, where's 007?
Moneypenny: He's on a mission sir. In Austria.
M: Well, tell him to pull out. Immediately.
(scene cuts to Bond just finishing up with The Girl in the Log Cabin)
Q: Right. Now pay attention, 007. I want you to take great care of this equipment. There are one or two rather special accessories ...
Bond: Q, have I ever let you down?
Q: Frequently!
Hotel Receptionist: I have a message for you.
Bond: I think you just delivered it.
(admiring either Naomi or the boat)
Bond: What a handsome craft ... such lovely lines.
Bond: In my country, Major, a condemned man is usually allowed one final request
Anya: Granted
Bond: Let's get out of these wet things ...?
(Goooooooaaaaaaaaaaaallllll!!!!)
Minister of Defense: Bond! What do you think you're doing?
Bond: Keeping the British end up, sir.
Let's see who gets offended with this!
Bond: When one is in Egypt, one should delve deeply into its treasures.
Grade: B
Overall
From Carly Simon memorably performing Nobody Does It Better until the explosive finish and the final wink-wink scene, the Bond series found its legs again with its 10th outing. Sure, it cops from previous ones (skiing from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, preposterous hijacking methods from You Only Live Twice, train scene from From Russia With Love), but Roger Moore has legit claim to the role as anyone else with his performance here. Lewis Gilbert, in his second Bond go-round, is in his element as he used to direct various sea-themed war films.
Grade: A-
While Gorbachev was still Chairman of Youth Affairs:
That's it! The Cold War is Over! Why didn't we think of this earlier!?!?
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