For Your Eyes Only

Kristatos: The odds favor standing pat.
Bond: If you play the odds.

That's why I love For Your Eyes Only.

It would have been easy for the franchise to stand pat. Although it's come into disfavor, at the time the reviews for Moonraker were surprisingly positive. Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars, and Vincent Canby in the New York Times made it a "critic's pick" and declared, "Almost everyone connected with the movie is in top form..." Really, he said that. And Moonraker made a gazillion dollars...in absolute terms (but not-inflation adjusted) it outpaced every prior Bond movie, and was a huge world-wide financial success.

So the momentum was there, the temptation to keep the movies huge fantasy pieces, gala spectacles. Moonraker cribbed from The Spy Who Loved Me, which retold You Only Live Twice, and few noticed or complained at the time. They'd abandoned any real connection with Ian Fleming, and were rewarded handsomely for it. So why not keeping remaking the same blockbuster over and over? Why not keep bringing back Jaws, and keep facing billionaire madmen who want to blow up the whole world?

Yet, for some reason, they didn't. After the spectacular one-two punch of TSWLM and Moonraker, they abruptly changed direction, taking Bond back to his roots. There was precedent for this: after You Only Live Twice and its (for the time) huger than huge spectacle, the producers suddenly retrenched, dumped most of the gadgets, and brought Bond back down to earth with On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Coincidence? Or did Cubby Broccoli and crew realize that, despite the continued praise and money, they had taken Bond a little too far each time, and it was time to reel him back?

There are more similarities between OHMSS and FYEO. In both cases, after the prior movie was written by someone else, Richard Maibaum was brought back in. Both times, after the prior movie was related to Fleming essentially by title only, we were given much closer adaptations of Flemings' Bond stories. And in each case, the series' long time editor and occasional 2nd unit director was given his first shot ever at directing a motion picture. And (in my opinion, at least) both movies rocked pretty hard.

How risky was this reversion to an older Bond archetype? Consider that this was 1981, and we have James Bond without gadgets. None, nada (unless you count the "identograph," which is really just a big Etch-A-Sketch/police artist, and it never was in the field with Bond). After a film in which Bond never even held a gun, and relied 100% on gadgets, this was a pretty big reversal. This is a movie where Bond has to survive on wits and skill, not toys.

And I think Maibaum and co-writer Michael Wilson deliberately comment on this a couple of times. In the teaser, when "Blofeld" gets dumped down the smokestack, I think that's a symbolic way of saying "goodbye" to the style of Bond epics that dominated the 1970s. And when the Lotus blows up early on, not only is it a funny joke in its own right (burglar proof, indeed), I like to view it also as a statement: "We don't need no stinking submarine cars filled with gadgets!!" I'm sure that every person in the theater expected to see a gadget enhanced chase at that point--and the movie subverts that brilliantly.

Of course, one can only wish the teaser were a little bit better.. It gets off to an auspicious start, as we start with Bond leaving flowers at Tracy's grave. Wait--continuity in the Bond franchise?? Explicit acknowledgment of name and dates of Bond's wife?? Color me stunned but thrilled. Unfortunately, things go south fairly quickly. Bond as prisoner on the remote control helicopter isn't bad, really; it just pales next to the outlandishly wonderful stunts in the previous two teasers. While the stunt work is nice, it's also repetitive and overlong, and the direction is unimpressive, as we often aren't given a sense of scale or perspective as to the copter's location or how close it is to crashing.

And of course, the part everybody hates, "Blofeld." For legal reasons, they couldn't actually use a character named "Blofeld," (more on that next week) and the character popularly known as "Wheelchair Man" doesn't even get a mention in the credits. For which, no doubt, the actor is eternally grateful. Because his dialogue is cliched at best, because he exudes no particular wit or charm, and because his personality changes from criminal mastermind to whinging cretin in the space of seconds, this is at best a fraternity follies version of Blofeld. Especially galling is perhaps the strangest and most cringe-worthy line of dialogue in any Bond movie, as "Blofeld" pleading for his life, tells Bond "I'll buy you a delicatessen--in stainless steel!!" 27 years later, I am still waiting for someone--anyone--to explain what the hell that even means. Someone, it's not too late--tell us what the hell you were thinking!! Even if you give this appearance and disposal of Blofeld the most charitable reading--which I mention above--it is terribly executed, and ridiculously inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the movie. And for people who weren't thrilled with Moonraker, the reappearance of an old villain in a jokey end to the teaser wasn't too reassuring.

(Aside: I guess I'd better share with you the best Blofeld theorem ever. It's not mine--I didn't come up with it--but I can't remember where in the world I've heard it...although it does have the smell of 3AM-waiting-for-pizza dorm room conversation. Anyway, the theory is this: THE CAT is really Blofeld...it just keeps finding a new human to mind control and carry out its will. That's why we always get Blofelds who look different, with different hair, different accents, different personalities...they're not really Blofeld, they're just fronts. Whenever a "Blofeld" dies, the cat gets away to find a new host...)

Ah, but the theme song...I rated it #4 in my theme song rankings, but I'll be damned if there aren't some days I'm tempted to make it #1. Heresy, I know...and I'm undoubtedly influenced by my (at the time) schoolboy crush on Sheena Easton. Sensuous and hypnotic, I love this song. I'm not the biggest fan of some of the arrangements Bill Conti used throughout the movie, but this song is great and is used well in the film's score. Fact--this movie is the first and only time that the singer appears in the opening credits...it was the MTV era, after all, and I guess the assumption was that people now wanted to see the people singing the songs. The "trend" didn't last. (Note to youngsters--MTV used to show "videos" all day long, not asinine reality crap)

With the next scene, we know something is different about this movie. The sinking of the St. Georges is exciting and well filmed, but it's also different from everything else in franchise history in a very real way--because for the first time in a Bond film it's an accident, not a villain's plan, that is the impetus for all the action in the story. MI6 doesn't stumble across a plot to destroy America's gold supply, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. isn't hijacking planes or space capsules...no, a simple "act of God" in the form of an old WWII mine that puts the MacGuffin into play, and both sides are equally scrambling to get it.

Two things are noteworthy about the A.T.A.C. First, it's certainly the most humble MacGuffin in a Bond movie since From Russia With Love. The fate of humanity, or WWIII, isn't at stake here. Nope, just like the Lektor coding machine, the A.T.A.C. isn't a device that will cause a war or wipe out a continent--it's just a piece of intelligence that will make life easier for one side of the cold war and harder for the other. Probably no one will die, new technology will be found to replace the old, and in 5 years none of it will have mattered (As Spock said, "Military secrets are the most fleeting of all"). For the first time in nearly 20 years, we have a real-world spy situation.

Secondly, and I had to double check this to make sure I wasn't nuts, FYEO is the first time a Bond film makes England and the Soviet Union direct competitors. They sorta kinda were in FRWL, but both sides were being manipulated by S.P.E.C.T.R.E., and Blofeld's organization tried much harder to kill Bond than the Russians did. In the rest of the movies, it was either S.P.E.C.T.R.E. or demented billionaires who were the enemy. Which was a huge change from the Fleming novels, because there, SMERSH was behind almost everything. I find it interesting that after 20 years of trying to avoid Cold War controversy by avoiding the Russians or making them dupes or making them allies, the franchise decided that the time had come to make them rivals, if not actual villains.

The quest for the A.T.A.C. is the glue which holds together the merging of two Ian Fleming short stories. In "For Your Eyes Only," M's friends the Havelocks are murdered in Jamaica (again with the Jamaica, Ian??), and he sends Bond on an off-the-books mission to find their killer and protect their daughter, Judy...who it turns out has taken up hunting down her parents killers with a crossbow. "Risico" is pretty much the story of Colombo and Kristatos as presented in the movie. Bond is sent to investigate an Italian drug ring, meets with contact Kristatos who tells him Colombo is the bad guy, Colombo captures Bond and tells him that Kristatos is really the Russian-backed bad guy, and proves it by having Bond join him on a raid of Kristatos' warehouse. The movie also borrows the "shark-drag" from the Live And Let Die novel (which the Venture Brothers did a hilarious riff on last week!).

Adding spice to this recipe is a collection of memorable supporting characters. Really, aside from Bond Girls and villains, we haven't had a lot of interesting people for Bond to meet in recent movies, and those he did were usually just cannon fodder. But FYEO gives us one of the classics, in Milos Columbo (yes, they change the spelling from the book). Topol charms the pants off the audience as the latest in the Bond tradition of roguish "bad guys" that Bond becomes first allies and then friends with. Watching Bond's initial distrust turn to grudging acceptance and eventual friendship helps humanize Moore's performance. And it brings back a Flemingesque element that's often lost in the "extravaganza" Bond films--the overlap between the spy world and the criminal world, and how 007 is able to tread in both. Bond taking part in a gang war between Greek smugglers, even if a diversion from his mission, is a facet of Bond you don't get often in the movies.

Yes, Topol overdoes the pistachios bit. But you know what I would pay to see a movie of? I would pay to see a movie of Kerim Bey, Draco and Columbo sitting around, drinking and telling roguish stories and sharing philosophies of life. Could the screen hold that much charisma??

Another wonderful character is Contessa Lisl Von Schlaf, Columbo's doomed mistress (and Bond's). Cassandra Harris (the first wife of Pierce Brosnan!) makes the most of her small amount of screen time, turning what could have been another forgettable conquest into a touching and sad bit. We never learn much about her--was she really a contessa, perhaps a girl who married a minor noble as Tracy Bond had? Or was it just a costume, part of her role as a shill for the house at Columbo's casino? Whatever her origin, Lisl's relationship with Bond is believable and touching, and her death is one of the series' most painful.

A lot of people rip on Bibi, which is their right, but forgive me if I disagree. Sure, she doesn't actually do much, and she's no one's ideal of a Bond girl. But she provides a good contrast with Melina, and helps disguise the fact that Kristatos is the villain. Plus, she gives Kristatos someone to slap, so we can really hate him. To address a specific complaint, about the "ick" factor of such a youngster making it with Bond: First, they never do it, and Bond is never even tempted, so where's this supposed ick? Secondly, Lynn-Holly Johnson is one whole year younger than Carol Bouquet, so any queasiness over Bond and young ladies is highly selective. She's pretty, she jumps on a trampoline. What more can I ask?

Continuing the trend of mostly silent henchmen, Michael Gothard is one of the few who can actually pull that off while still being memorable. Locque's quiet menace is palpable, even when he doesn't say a thing. I was surprised to find that he doesn't have a single line of dialogue the whole movie! Yet his presence dominates the first half of the movie--which just goes to show how much impact someone can have without having to resort to metal teeth or prosthetic hands. He earns Bond's enmity, killing both Luigi and Lisl, and hunting Bond during the winter sports chase. When Bond shoots him down, and administers the coup de grace of kicking Locque's car down the cliff, it's one of the most satisfying moments of the Moore era (even though it's been said that Moore himself didn't like that scene at all).

Speaking of that car fall, did you notice how it didn't explode? FYEO took very seriously its commitment to more realism. Despite several car crashes, none of them exploded! That same commitment can be seen in many of the set pieces, which take a much less outlandish approach than, say, Moonraker:

• The Citroen chase. It could have been turned into a joke, like the hover-gondola, but no--they treat it seriously. Bond has to escape with a less than state-of-the-art car or special gadgets. It's very refreshing to see 007 mount an escape not because of special auto enhancements, and not because the people chasing him just drive into things for no reason (like a Guy Hamilton movie). Bond just out drives them, despite being out-horse powered.
  
• The shark drag. Thrilling and frightening, there's no magnetic buzzsaw watch to save James and Melina. They escape through wits and fortitude.
• Bond's winter pentathlon (cross country skiing, downhill, ski jump, bobsled, and hockey). Silly at times, but never over the top, and exciting. And once again, no magical rescues. 007 just outperforms his enemies. Nobody does it better, and he needs no gadgets. (Special note to those who complain about Kriegler missing Bond--Kriegler may have been an expert target shooter, but that's not the same thing as hitting a swiftly moving object...which explains why he could shoot the gun and ski pole out of Bond's hand when Bond was stationary, but couldn't seem to hit him when Bond was actually moving. Good biathlete, crappy assassin)
  
• The climb. Beautiful use of location, wonderful stunt work. One man, one cliff-face to climb, one evil goomba to overcome. Tense and fascinating.
  

There's more--much more--because this movie never stands still. Whatever else you might say about FYEO, it doesn't skimp on the action, maintaining a brisk pace from Madrid to Cortina to Corfu to St. Cyril's, with auto chases, submarine battles, winter chases, raids on drug warehouses, rock climbing...And for the most part, John Glen knew how to keep it moving, never letting any set piece go on too long, and leaving plenty of room in between for the characters to breath and grow.

Kristatos makes for a good change of pace villain. No, he's no scenery chewer, but compared with Curt Jurgens and Michael Lonsdale, the existence of actual emotion and charm in his delivery is something of a revelation. He actually has a pulse!! And given the tone they wanted for this movie, Julian Glover's performance is note-perfect. Not a megalomaniac, not someone bent on conquest or blackmail; Kristatos is just a venal little man seeking to make money by betraying his people, first to the Nazis, then to the communists. His veneer of charm is convincing, as Bond (and most viewers, I find) are initially fooled by his performance, and are surprised to find that Kristatos is really the villain of the piece. The final fight between Columbo and Kristatos isn't pretty, but it's perfect--a couple of old men foes flailing at each other over an A.T.A.C., but really fighting over 40 years of bad blood and betrayal. Kiristatos is not one of the great villains, but he is a good one, particularly in the context of the Moore era. Special bonus: Julian Glover has been a Doctor Who villain, a Bond villain, an Indiana Jones villain, and a Star Wars bad guy. That's quite the resume...

Melina Havelock is a beautiful and deadly companion for Bond. No, Carole Bouquet is not a great actress, but then again, the script never tries to stretch her that much (and compared to Lois Chiles, she's Meryl Streep). Her drive to avenge her parents--while not caring about the big picture--is reminiscent of what Bond himself will be going through in Licence to Kill. And Bond's concern that getting revenge will ruin her is perhaps a hat tip to Domino, who did get her revenge--does this mean that things didn't go well for her later? (And, it should be noted, Bond's concern is rather late, as she had already killed Gonzales, in a pretty cool scene straight out of the Fleming story, before he starts warning her to dig two graves). She's striking, she competent, she has fire, and she's a good partner for Bond.

As to Bond himself, well, this is just me, but I think this is Roger Moore's best performance as 007. The know-it-all-ism is tamped down, as his smirking (teaser aside). Now when he gives the death quip, it's not to get a laugh, but a bitter taunt at his fallen foe. The visit to Tracy's grave pays dividends, as well--check out the look on Moore's face when Melina tells him that, as an Englishman, he doesn't understand what it is to have to avenge your loved ones. His chemistry with Topol is wonderful, his relationship with Melina adult, not condescending and leering (oh, Moonraker, how you still hurt me). How much credit goes to the writing of Glen's direction, I'm not sure. And the coasting is gone. Despite being in pain for much of the shooting (a badly dislocated shoulder) and reportedly not being thrilled with the direction for his character, Moore gives us his best Bond.

The ending, of course, is wonderful. What other Bond movie would have the balls to end in a stalemate? The climax line, "That's detente, comrade--you don't have it, I don't have it" would be completely out of place in any other Bond movie, but is a brilliant finish here. And the sale of that line is completed by the return of Walter Gotell as General Gogol...we know these men have some history, and that there is some respect between them (note to Eon: this is how you do a returning character...not Jaws, not Pepper, but Gogol), so his laugh and shrug at the loss of the A.T.A.C. is believable, just another move in "The Game" of Cold War spycraft. Talk about not standing pat, about not playing the odds!!

And that's what I find so magical about FYEO. Not only is it a complete change of pace in the midst of circumstances that might have called for standing pat. But it's a rearranging of the same old Bond elements into a an actual spy movie--honest to god motives, goals, and methods...with just an occasional hit of the outlandish. I don't think that I would want every Bond film to be like this--variety is good, and fantasy is an important component of the series. But I think this was a type of movie the franchise needed at this point in time...and amazingly, they got it.

FYEO doesn't have the best Bond girl of the Moore era, doesn't have the best villain (or maybe it does??), the best gadgets, the best teaser...but somehow, Maibaum and Wilson and John Glen put everything together with a synergy that hits it out of the park and removes the bad taste of Moonraker from our mouths. It's a movie that takes itself seriously, that denies itself some of the easy storytelling tools from the previous two pictures, and reaps huge rewards from the efforts. As someone who prefers the more "straight" secret agent types of Bond movies, I confess I might be biased towards this flick. But I think For Your Eyes Only is the best Roger Moore Bond. No, it's not perfect, it has flaws (more below). But the good so outweighs any less-good that I find this an easy call to make.

This lightning in a bottle wouldn't last--the same writing and directing team is on board for the next 4 Eon pictures, and they would somehow plunge to the depths of A View To A Kill. But this movie? I love this movie.

And I think the Thatcher scene was hilarious. So sue me.

SNELL"S RANDOM NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS:

**Let's start with the baccarat screw-up. In the first hand we see against "Bunky," the croupier somehow announces that Bond has a 9, when he quite plainly has a 5:

It's an obvious editing error...the next hand, Bond is dealt the exact same hand, queen of spades + 5 of diamonds, so they just used the wrong frames there.

Still, as this is the first game of chance we see Moore as Bond playing (really--5 movies in, and it's the first), it's a shame they screwed it up.

**An obvious question to ask is, why the hell doesn't Bond just set off the self-destruct on the A.T.A.C. the moment they find it at the bottom of the sea? Having it destroyed and not in Russian hands is clearly viewed as a huge triumph by his superiors. And it's not like you need that particular console--England presumably still has the blueprints and can build more, right?? By recovering it and carrying it around, you run the risk of exactly what happened--the A.T.A.C. falling into enemy hands.

**Q's trip to Greece is not only unnecessary, but ridiculous! Timeline: Bond signals Whitehall that Kristatos has taken the A.T.A.C. to "St. Cyril's." Q goes all the way out to Greece to tell Bond there are 439 St. Cyrils!! Then, and only then, does Bond think, "Hey, I'll ask Columbo!"

Given the need for speed--Russian agents are surely on the way for the A.T.A.C.--couldn't Q have just phoned Bond, or sent a wire to Station G, as opposed to wasting a day flying out there, setting up a rendezvous, etc? And more to the point, couldn't Bond have just asked Columbo in the first place? We have two Q scenes in this movie already...do we really need a third, just as an excuse to put Q in a silly costume?

**The question has been asked, "Why does Locque kill Lisl? Isn't Kristatos trying to convince Bond that Columbo is 'The Dove?' Killing Lisl is counterproductive?" Yes, but seconds afterward they also try to kill Bond. It's clear that Kristatos has given up on having Bond kill Columbo--Bond has gotten too close, and once he meets with Columbo the game is over. So take out Bond now, and Lisl is just the bonus.

**Another reason why Kriegler couldn't hit Bond: An East German athlete from the late 70s/early 80s? It's gotta be 'roid rage:

**I know that it was kind of short notice, having to come up with an excuse for M not being around in the wake of Bernard Lee's death. But James Villiers as Chief of Staff (Bill Tanner, but not named as such on screen) is all wrong. He comes across as a somewhat supercilious upper class twitsmug and clueless, not the man who should be running the Double O section. Fortunately, a longer term solution was on the horizon.

**Yeah, yeah, there's a transsexual in the pool scene. Big whoopity do. Who really cares?

**Did the priest know?

In the teaser, the priest tells Bond his company has called, and is sending a chopper. Even though it is a Universal Exports helicopter, "Blofeld" says the pilot was one of his men. So was there really an emergency, and Blofeld intercepts the MI-6 pilot and replaces him with one of his own? (If so, we never hear of this emergency). Or is it all made up, and Blofeld's show all the way?

And since Blofeld is set up a ways away, how does he know that Bond is at the church? Did he have him trailed? Or is the priest in on it, and he gave Blofeld a call ("he's here, send the copter quick!")?

**There's a crossbow shop in Cortina? (and worse...Melina doesn't re-arm herself before she gets there??)

**Why does it take Kristatos so long to find St. Georges? Havelock's diary says he found the wreck near where he had earlier seen a diving bell (presumably Kristatos'). Since it takes Bond several days, at least, to get down there in the submarine (London, Madrid for at least one overnight, back to London, Cortina for at least one overnight, Corfu for at least 2 nights before he meets up with Melina)...what are Kristatos' people doing? They should have found it before Bond showed up...

**Speaking of which, this is a good reason why Chief Of Staff Tanner shouldn't be running things, because the mission he gives Bond is ass backwards. Instead of worrying about who hired Gonzales to kill the Havelocks, shouldn't the first priority be recovering the A.T.A.C.?? All the time Bond is traipsing about in Madrid and Cortina and snuggling with Lisl, not a single thing is done to recover the A.T.A.C. Nothing. All that time Bond spends hunting the person who ordered the hit, that same person could have been (and should have been) finding the A.T.A.C. and handing it over to the Soviets. Finding the killers doesn't do you any good if they still recover the A.T.A.C. first. Why not clue in Melina, or hire other fronts, to keep looking?!?

**Is this really the best use of taxpayer funds? Really, Q and Moneypenny...

**Bond Score: 2. Lisl and Melina. Cumulative Bond score: 34

And, as always

But wait....there's been another rip in the space/time continuum...TWO Bond movies in 1983? And one of them starring Sean Connery? That could NEVER happen, could it? Tune in next week to find out...

Because God Hates Us

You may or may not have heard already--the US premiere of Quantum of Solace has been delayed one week, until November 14th, as part of the post-Harry-Potter-delay reshuffling.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!!

Well, the countdown clock above has been adjusted.

And since this upsets my delicately planned one-Bond-movie-per-week-until-the-debut time schedule, and since I'm running behind this week anyway, I'll skip this week, and bring you For Your Eyes Only next week.

Enjoy you're weekend.

Damn you, Harry Potter!!!

Moonraker

Moonraker is the worst James Bond movie.

OK, now that that's out of the way...

As all of you head straight to the comments section to a) tell me how crazy I am or b) log in your own personal nominees for the worst Bond, let me make my case.

Let me start out by saying that I used to be a Moonraker apologist. "Yes, it's bad, " I'd tell my friends, "but it only made the same mistakes as every other movie of its era--trying to jump on the Star Wars bandwagon. If you factor that part out, it's not as bad as you remember."

What can I say? I was young. Sure, the Star Wars me-tooism does hurt the film. But the movie's problems run much deeper and much wider than that. In almost every category, Moonraker is a substandard Bond film.

Which is a crying shame, because after the franchise's "return to glory" with The Spy Who Loved Me, the sky was the limit. Bond was Bond again, and for one brief shining moment in the 70's 007 was cool again. But rather than build upon that success, Moonraker reeks of laziness and trendiness. "This writer and director did great last movie--let's just throw them back out there, regardless of whether or not they have any new ideas! We did boffo box office last time, so we have a big budget--let's just throw lots of money at the screen and everyone will love it!! Everything we did in TSWLM--let's just do it again!!" Which is how one of the better Bond films ends of followed by one of the worst.

And of course, there was the Star Wars bandwagon. As you know, the "James Bond Will Return" in the closing credits of TSWLM called out For Your Eyes Only as the next Bond film. Oops. Wha' happened? Star Wars happened. While TSWLM was in release, so Star Wars (now known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), and it made approximately one gazillion dollars. Across the land, producers saw this and learned one lesson: sci-fi=big bucks. Ignoring the quality part of the equation, TV and movie producers began to churn out ridiculous amounts of knock-offs and rip-offs, trying to hit it big while working cheaply in this "new" genre.

In a perfect world, you would hope a venerable franchise such as James Bond would be beyond such a crass attempt at a cash-in. No such luck. As we've already seen, Eon had already spent half the 1970's trying to mimic "hot" movie trends such as blaxploitation and kung fu. So it should be no surprise that Cubby Broccoli would see the success of Star Wars, realize they had the rights to a Bond book that was sorta kinda related to space, and decide to ride that nag until it dropped. The fact that they had already publicly announced FYEO made that decision to hop the bandwagon a little more embarrassing, but in all honesty the decision itself was no different than that made by a hundred different producers and studios at the time.

And financially, it worked: Moonraker had a healthy 50% box office bump over TSWLM. Of course, the question is how much of that was because people flocked to "Bond in space," and how much was carry over from memories of the quality of TSWLM. But critically, the film was far less successful.

On one level, it's a shame because Moonraker was such a good novel. The movie only took the main villain, Hugo Drax, and the fact that rockets were involved, and left everything else behind.

In the Ian Fleming novel, M calls in Bond for an "off the books" personal mission. Sir Hugo Drax, a supposed WWII hero who has become one of the most prominent industrialists in England as well as the developer of Britain's ballistic missile program, is a member of M's club. M is convinced the Drax has been cheating at bridge. M is concerned about the damage that could be done to Britain's defense program by a public gambling scandal, so he asks James to confirm whether or not Drax is cheating, and to help him put a stop to it before Drax gets caught and publicly humiliated. What follows, and I'm not making this up, is one of the best-written scenes in all of Bond, as James tries to out cheat the cheater without causing a scandal. Tense and exciting, no one can write a bridge scene like Ian Fleming. I'm serious!!

Anyway, Bond ends up infiltrating and investigating other nefarious mysteries surround Drax's business. With the help of Special Branch agent Gala Brand, who is posing as Drax's personal secretary, Bond discovers that Drax and most of his higher-ups are actually ex-Nazi's who escaped at the end of WWII and established new identities (remember, this was 1955, when such a scenario was credible, and not just a spy fiction cliche). With the help of those pesky Soviets, the Moonraker missile that Drax is supposed to test fire into the North Sea is really armed with an atomic warhead and will land in the heart of London, to avenge Germany's loss. After horrific tortures and trials, Bond and Brand manage to redirect the missile so it hits the Soviet submarine Drax and his goons are escaping in (yeah, they used that bit in TSWLM). And Bond doesn't get the girl!! All in all, a terrific read...and not a syllable of it gets used in the movie.

With TSWLM, screenwriter Christopher Wood finessed up Richard Maibaum's synthesis of the 902 versions of the script. Here, in Moonraker, he didn't have that to work with. Given a completely clean slate, with the exception of "give me Drax and space and bring back Jaws," we get a true test of his ability to write a Bond screenplay.

The results of that test? He failed utterly. Even given the constraints the producers gave him, you'd think he could have come up with something with a mild bit of originality. But while TSWLM recycled bunches of You Only Live Twice, hey, that movie was a decade old, and it improves on the original in most ways. For Moonraker, he wrote a carbon copy of THE PREVIOUS Bond movie. All he did was run it through the word processor again and change a few of the nouns. Let's compare, shall we?

TSWLM: Teaser involves ship being mysteriously stolen, the girl Bond is macking with tries to have him killed, and the teaser climaxes with a Bond parachute stunt.
MR: Teaser starts with a ship being mysteriously stolen, the girl Bond is macking with tries to have him killed, and the teaser climaxes with a Bond parachute jump.

TSWLM: The plot involves an insane billionaire who believes humanity has become corrupt; he wants to eliminate all humans and start over from his undersea base.
MR: The plot involves an insane billionaire who believes humanity has become corrupt; he wants to eliminate all humans and start over from his satellite base.

TSWLM: The main henchmen is a mute giant named Jaws.
MR: The main henchmen is a mute giant named Jaws (with added bonus: a mostly mute Japanese henchmen!!)

TSWLM: The Bond girl is a Russian spy.!
MR: The Bond girl is an American spy!

TSWLM: A special Bond vehicles comes out of the water onto dry land, as tourists and animals do double takes.
MR: A special Bond vehicles comes out of the water onto dry land, as tourists and animals do double takes. Except in this one, we get lots more double-takes and reaction shots. lots more.

I mean, if nothing else, you have to admire the size of Wood's cojones, to turn in exactly the same script. And he got paid for it. But the staggeringly mind-numbing lack of originality here is simply unbelievable for a supposedly proud franchise.

The teaser, although it is a bit reminiscent of TSWLM, does feature the great, great,GREAT skydiving sequence. It's well shot, well paced, and thrilling. They made 88 jumps (yes, 88) to get all the shots needed for the sequence.

And then they screw it up and put Jaws in it.

Look, I understand why they wanted to bring Jaws back--they misread the public, who loved TSWLM not just for Jaws, but also for reasons of, you know, quality--but if you're going to bring him back, this was the worst way possible. First, the "comedy" he brings in destroys what was going to be one of the highest-quality teasers. After all the work and care in staging the elaborate suspenseful skydiving sequence, we suddenly have Richard Kiel flapping his arms like a bird and comedy music and a circus and...like the slide whistle and slow motion on the barrel roll jump in TMWTGG, the people making the movie have absolutely NO conception that ridiculous comedy DURING the stunt drains all of the tension out of it.

And then there's Jaws surviving a fall from that height. It's the "Indy nuked in a fridge" problem--once you have a character survive an actual freakin' nuclear explosion in the opening reel, you've told the audience he can't be killed, so there is no more belief by the audience that any of the situations are at all threatening. So when Jaws walks away from the mile-high fall, well, it ruins not just the teaser, but the whole movie...we've moved from half-step-out-of-reality spy action movie to a Road Runner cartoon, and we can't take anything seriously again.

Last week I discussed how having Jaws be so indestructible hurt TSWLM; but this time, they've taken his strength and invulnerability to even greater heights, as the physical rules of the universe no longer apply. He stops a cable car spool with his bare hands?!? A crash that demolishes the whole terminal he just walks away from? He and his cute girlfriend survive the breakup of the space station? Please. With his bare hands he tears up the docking mechanism on the space station? This is now Popeye and Bluto, not Bond and Oddjob. Just as with the re-use of J.W. Pepper, the return of Jaws shows that the filmmakers are so afraid of offending the public by doing new things that they'll torpedo originality and quality for safety. And at least Pepper was back for only about 5 minutes.

And I have to say, Jaws' betrayal of Drax at the end is not at all convincing: there's no foreshadowing, no mistreatment of Jaws or Dolly by Drax, nothing...Bond just gestures with his head and Jaws is converted? And I thought Pussy Galore was an easy conversion...And frankly, Jaws becoming a good guy is also borderline offensive. For the second movie in a row, Jaws was a willing accomplice in the attempted genocide of the human race. In three seconds he and Bond are suddenly best buds? All is forgiven, sorry about all the times I tried to kill you and 4 billion others? Grrrrr...

After the thoroughly mediocre theme song by Shirley Bassey (another reurn!!), we get another clear example of lethargic writing. When Bond is given the mission to find out what happened to the Moonraker, he decides that since Drax Industries made the shuttle, that's where his investigation should begin. Huh? So far there hasn't been a single clue, hint or indication that Drax was involved...so why start your investigation there? Unless there was some evidence, it would be like starting the investigation in TSWLM with the manufacturer of the submarines. In that movie, it took a lengthy investigation, spy work, and the following of clues to get to Stromberg. In this movie, though, Wood clearly has no idea how to lead Bond to Drax, so he has Bond just start out there, on a whim.

So Bond shows up, apparently without a clue (what, he expected to find the missing shuttle hidden under a tarp out back?), and Drax immediately tries to kill him. That was Drax's plan? If anyone shows up to ask about the shuttle, kill them? Seriously? Bond had no clue at that point (and would never have any if you weren't a careless idiot, Hugo)--attempting to kill him just makes him suspicious.

And so Bond follows a trail of bread crumbs that Drax stupidly leaves behind. He leaves a document in his safe that leads to Venice, he leaves boxes laying around in Venice marked Rio, in his warehouse in Rio he leaves behind shipping stickers for Drax Air Freight...jeebus, it's like Drax wants Bond to find his hideout. Of course, most of these clue make no sense, and there's little reason for Bond to follow them. There's nothing innately suspicious, for example, about the blueprints for glass cylinders, and nothing at all to link them to the shuttle. But what the hell, psychic Bond drops everything and rushes off to Venice. And although he and Goodhead say they're going to track all the Drax Air Freight flights leaving from Rio, they never do!! Bond finds the secret HQ because of the orchid nerve toxin...so everything that happened in Rio (except for Goodhead being captured) was completely irrelevant to the plot!! Thanks, Christopher Wood!!

The idiot/rerun plot continues until Bond finds Drax's hidden Amazonian HQ, and we embark on the MOST BORING 40 minutes in the entire Bond canon. Seriously, in a classic case of post-Star Wars syndrome, there is nothing to see here except some great Ken Adam sets on his last Bond movie. The writer/director just assume that "amazing" special effects will enthrall us.

At the end James Bond himself is essentially demoted to an observer. Goodhead flies the shuttle, Goodhead leads him to all the important points on the station and disables the radar-jammer. He turns Jaws to the side of the angels with a glance, but they're captured anyway. He basically just stands around and watches the U.S. military fight Drax's goons, not getting involved until he sees Drax fleeing. Jaws has to free the trapped shuttle. Goodhead flies the shuttle while the auto-target tracks the first two globes. When Bond has to manually shoot down the last one--well, you remember how I complained that at the climax of Stromberg's plot, we might as well have been watching Bond play a video game? Well, that's what we're reduced to here.

The sense of coasting that pervades the script also pervades many of the set pieces. Bond has had boat chases in 2 of the last 3 movies (if you count the underwater Lotus in TSWLM, it's three in a row). So what do we do? I know...let's have a boat chase!! Hey, let's have two!! Sure, the boat chase in Brazil is well done (except for Wile E. Jaws going down the falls), but by that point the audience is going, "Another boat chase?!? What's up with that?" Especially since the one, in Venice, is so terrible. Aside from being an exercise in repeating yourself (water vehicle goes up on land? Check and check...one boat cuts another in two? Check...), the staging is ridiculously poor. When the assassin's "funeral" boat goes by and crashes into the bridge because the coffin makes it too tall--so what, that was their escape plan? Nobody checks the boat's height beforehand? Did this happen to "real" funeral boats? And when Bond turns the gondola into a hovercraft and takes it into the square...

the people chasing him just sit there and watch while he trundles away at two miles per hour. Why didn't he just get out and run? Why didn't they get out of their boat and chase him?? Why are we subjected to a pigeon doing a double take??

When Bond kills the huntsman at Drax's estate, why does Drax let him leave? Why not turn him into the police? Even if they end up dismissing it as a hunting accident it would tie Bond up for awhile. Hell, why not sick the dogs on Bond like you did with Corrine? Or, since you were going to stage a hunting accident anyway, just shoot him yourself?!?!?

It continues...After Bond leaves the virus factory, why does he leave it unwatched? Why not call some of your people from Station V to watch the place while you're making love to Holly, so the bad guys can't empty the place out? Since the person in the centrifuge trainer has his hands tied down, why is there a control panel inside the cockpit, and how would shooting it override the commands from the control room (you'd think the opposite)?

Sadly, almost the entire film is like this. There's no rhyme of reason to why most of the events occur, nothing organic to the story. There's merely a need to get Bond from point A to point B, and no serious effort put into doing so. We want Bond to meet Drax early--who cares if it makes sense. We need Bond to ride a hover gondola through St. Martin's Square--who cares if it is the world's most impractical escape? We need to get Bond to Vienna--sure, the clue makes no sense, but no one will notice.

Going through the motions also describes the direction in this film. While Lewis Gilbert turned in an impressive job in TSWLM, this time around the pacing feels tired and slow. The dogs hunting down poor Corrine is a stellar scene, but it feels like it's from a different movie--there's an urgency and tension there that's simply not in any of the other scenes. The return of the dreaded "speeded up footage to mimic actual action" is quite obvious, and not a sign of a well directed film. Maybe the turn towards camp, or having to work around special effects, threw Gilbert off his game (and lo and behold...Corrine's death has neither Jaws nor lasers). Even the old Gilbert standby--massive climactic battle all over one of Ken Adam's massive sets--is tepid and lifeless and cold.

Speaking of going through the motions, there are our acting performances. Let's start with Drax (Michael Lonsdale). I'll give Wood a little bit of credit here...Drax has some better lines than Stromberg did, a couple of very memorable ones. But he's still not fleshed out in the least--like Stromberg, we have no idea why he thinks the world is corrupt and deserves to be wiped out. Especially given that he's a billionaire with industrial concerns on at least 3 continents and brings French mansions to America "brick by brick," we need some reason to believe why a man who has done so well in the world hates the world so much. Nor is any reason shown why he has such an antipathy to Bond from the first moment they meet, as Bond hasn't done anything to annoy or interfere with Drax yet.

And most of the good lines are buried in "low-key" non-energy of Lonsdale's performance. Someone needed to grab Lonsdale by the lapels and scream to him that droll does not equal lethargic, that menacing does not equal monotone, that wealth and power do not equal somnabulance. It's interesting that both villains in this Gilbert "duology" are both played in such low affect, low personality performances. It's as if the actors both watched Dr. No for prep and took the wrong lessons from Joseph Wiseman's performance (while obviously neglecting to watch even a frame of Goldfinger--now there's an insane billionaire). Drax rises above the level of Stromberg, albeit barely...but neither is a terribly good villain.


And then there's Holly Goodhead. Lois (Voodoo) Chiles performance is straight out of Mannequin--not the parts with Kim Catrall, but the parts where we just see the dummy. She is plasticine, wooden, without a trace of emotion in any of her delivery, her words stiff and robotic. Her performance is out of a 1st grade Christmas pageant. Her timing is almost always off, as her lines are delivered too fast or a beat too late. She's a lovely women, but she's simply not any kind of an actress. It's a shame, too, because it's a decently written role, and Holly is actually a much better spy than Anya from TSWLM--she's a crack shot with a laser, she takes down a couple of goons to turn of the radar blocker (something Anya never did, despite her rep), she knows her way around the station and can fly the shuttle...it's too bad that they gave the role to someone completely incapable of performing it. (Note: fortunately, there's not a scene where Drax and Goodhead both have dialogue, or the entire film, if not the entire universe, would have collapsed into a black hole of ennui and flatness.)

And then there's 007 himself. Upon a careful viewing, I've got to say that this is one of the most atypical roles for Bond ever. Fact #1--Bond doesn't drive any car at all the whole movie. Fact #2--at no point does Bond have a handgun...no Walther, no Beretta, no Magnum, no laser pistol. The only time he has a gun is when Drax forces him to carry the hunting shotgun. James Bond with no cars or guns?!?

Bond is also far too chauvinistic towards Goodhead, making several sexist remarks, which is especially surprising given what happened with Anya last movie...maybe it ended badly, and now he has a sour opinion of female spies? Wood also plays up the most annoying aspect of Roger Moore's Bond, the smug know-it-all who likes to arrogantly interrupt and lecture people. He recognizes the orchid from its chemical make-up, and even though it's extremely rare he knows its scientific name and knows better than Q where it was found. He interrupts Holly several times during her tour of Drax's facilities, eager to show off his superior knowledge of space shuttles. This version of Bond is one you wouldn't want to have a pint with...he's a Cliff Clavin who feels compelled to try and one-up you by showing off knowledge on any and every topic.

And, while it's hard to separate from the writing, Moore's performance feels like a step backwards. He comes across as smug and self-satisfied, too eager to play up the comedy rather than let it flow around him as he plays it seriously. Given that the writer and directors and producers and other actors don't seem to be throwing large amounts of energy into this film, maybe it's no surprise that Moore is coasting a bit, too.

Allow me to applaud Derek Meddings and the rest of the special effects team. No, the visuals aren't as good as Star Wars or 2001. But they did this ALL in-house, without ILM or any other special effects house. No computers, just models and overlays and running a negative through the projector 40 times to get all of the elements on screen. For the time, with what they had to work with, it was fairly amazing stuff.

But the producers forgot one of rules of the franchise: Bond should be set ten minutes into the future, not 10 years. Cool gadgets that are at least feasible if not practical? Sure. The U.S., England, and private armies all armed with laser weapons (never to be seen again)? Too far. A super magnetic watch? That's pushing it, but it's not Bond in Space, so we accept it. The public knew that the first space shuttle mission hadn't even flown yet, yet here was Moonraker asking us to believe fleets of shuttles and a U.S. military space special forces squad ready to blast off in 5 minutes notice. Star Wars and Star Trek could get us to suspend our belief by setting themselves in other galaxies or centuries in the future. Bond was supposed to have one foot in the real world, but in Moonraker they rejected that for a world of pure science fiction fantasy.

So amazingly enough, after the triumph of The Spy Who Loved Me, the franchise crashes to Earth (at least in terms of quality) almost immediately with Moonraker. It's a movie that tales no chances--it copies itself, it copies Star Wars, it plays it safe in every respect. And every time something exciting or original might happen, they immediately undercut it with camp and "audience favorites" and seemingly doing everything possible to avoid stretching themsleves. The cast, the writer, the director, the producers--except for some special effects, Ken Adam's and a glorious skydiving stunt, everyone involved is guilty of coasting.

The 1970's was a particularly fallow decade for the James Bond franchise, and this film was the nadir. Fortunately, the 1980's were around the corner.

**Farewell, Bernard Lee.

**So, when they transport a space shuttle atop a jumbo jet, the space shuttle is fully fueled?? You'd think that wouldn't be so for weight and safety problems, and you'd certainly think the pilot would know. (Bonus huh--the RAF has 747s??) (Oh, and why was Britain borrowing a space shuttle, anyway?)

**If Drax had to have 6 shuttles, why not just make 2 trips with one of the remaining 5 instead of stealing a sixth? If he doesn't steal it, there's no investigation, and we're all dead! Since no one could detect the station (or 6 simultaneous shuttle launches from Brazil!!), why risk exposure with a lame ass theft, when you could just make one more run?

**Speaking of which, sure, the space station was somehow radar shielded...but a U.S. that's capable of launching military strikes into space can't detect a whole bunch of shuttles coming and going (not only at the climax, but all of the launches that must have been necessary to build the station in the first place)? The shuttles weren't radar shielded (Goodhead could see them on radar, but not the station). The U.S. couldn't see six shuttles converging on one point in space??? And let's not ask how the stolen shuttle got from the Yukon to Brazil without being seen on radar...what, they walked it??

**At least Drax thought to include women in his plan to repopulate, unlike Stromberg.

**Another sign of coasting: In Thunderball, the producers paid to stange an out-of-season junkanoo festival, resulting in one of the greatest chase sequences in franchise history. In this movie, they filmed some stock footage of the Carnivale months earlier, and edited that into footage of close-ups of a bunch of extras jumping around Bond and Manuela to make it look as if they're actual at the parade. That's why 97% of the scenes with Bond, Manuela and Jaws take place down a long, dark alley, with no parade in sight.

**Ha ha, this part of the credits is funny because maybe we're supposed to think they were really in space?!?

And using the Close Encounters tones for the door code? And the notes from Also Spach Zarathustra during the hunting scene? These people are really determined to give us clues to how clever they think they are, when they got actually got to this ground after Buck Rogers and Battlestar: Galactica...and don't get me started on the Magnificent Seven theme..

**Moonraker received an Oscar nomination for special effects, but I'm pretty sure that nomination would have been taken away if any of the voters had actually watched the scene with the snake:

**"Drax Enterprise Corporation?" They forget Amalgamated, Company and LLC...

**And also, a farewell to Ken Adams, as this was his last Bond work. If you've been reading this blog, you know how I love the man's work. The unique look he created for these movies is soooo perfect, and such a factor in the feel the franchise had for it's first 2 decades. Like the meeting room/silo:


And the control room, which seems to channeling Jim Steranko's Nick Fury comics:


The pyramid interior:


The space station control room:

Others will follow, and many will do note-worthy work. But for me, nothing says "Bond" like the unique, bizarre, and somehow frightening use of space of Ken Adam's designs. Thank you, sir.

**Those chest-mounted lasers can't be very good for aiming, can they? Plus, not to bring physics into a nonsense situation, but shouldn't the soldiers from each side be propelled backwards each time they fire??

**If "most people" pass out at 7 Gs, and 20 Gs is fatal, why in the world have a centrifuge trainer that goes up to 20Gs? Is there a point to that, other than evil death traps??

**On one of the DVD documentaries, Christopher Wood says that he came up with the name Holly Goodhead, thinking it was a perfect Fleming name.

Two words, Christopher: Gala Brand (short for Galatea!). There already was a perfectly good "Ian Fleming name."

**The Iron Law of Bond Movies: Hotel clerks think Bond is hot!!

**Bond Score: 3. Poor Corrine, Manuela, and Holly. Attempting re-entry, indeed. Cumulative Bond score: 32.

And of course:

Don't worry, this time they mean it...