You Only Live Twice (1967) Film Review

You Only Live Twice (1967) Director: Lewis Gilbert

“They told me you were assassinated in Hong Kong.”
“Yes, this is my second life.”
“You only live twice, Mr. Bond.”

★★★☆☆

You Only Live Twice is the archetypal Bond film that has spawned a thousand parodies –it shows us a tired, charmless, pudgy Sean Connery reprising his role as 007 (at the time, he was subsumed with contempt for the invasive press and resentment toward producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman), wherein he joins a band of Japanese ninjas who invade a gigantic hollowed-out island volcano lair to stop SPECTRE and Blofeld from sparking a nuclear war (cue the Austin Powers jokes). This was Lewis Gilbert’s first time directing a Bond film (he would later return to the Bond series with The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977 and Moonraker in 1979, both featuring Roger Moore in the lead role). Interestingly enough, the script for You Only Live Twice was written by celebrated children’s author, Roald Dahl (discarding almost everything from the original Ian Fleming novel). You Only Live Twice was Dahl’s first screenplay. This was originally intended to be Sean Connery’s final Bond film (Connery made it no secret that he was fatigued with the James Bond franchise by this point), but he later returned for one more official Eon Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 (and, technically, he reprised the role of Bond again in Never Say Never Again, though it was not an official Eon Bond film).

At the outset, a NASA spacecraft is suddenly swallowed whole by another spacecraft. The U.S. blames Russia (with the British acting as arbiter in the dispute) while the U.K. blames Japan since the unidentified aircraft appears to land somewhere in the sea of Japan. International hostilities are tense and war seems inevitable. To investigate the situation, Bond is dispatched to fake his own death (he is buried at sea in a goofy gag) and he travels incognito to Tokyo where he witnesses a sumo wrestling match while searching for his undercover contact Dikko Henderson (using the secret code-phrase: “I love you”). He is then led by Aki, a spy disguised as a geisha, to his MI6 contact, Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray, who later plays Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever). Unlike in the book, Henderson is promptly killed by stabbing mid-sentence with Bond inside his own paper-walled house. Bond chases down the mysterious masked assailant and kills him (perhaps a nod to the masked assailant who steals Bond’s wallet on the train in the original Fleming novel?). Bond dons the assailant’s clothes and assumes the now-deceased man’s identity in his getaway car. In a highly tense scene, Bond steals documents in a safe at “Osato Chemicals” (the documents detail an order for lox, which Bond explains is an American term for smoked salmon, but also the technical term for liquid oxygen, a key ingredient in rocket fuel) from the killers but during an intense chase, Bond is once again rescued at the last moment by Aki. Unsure if she can be trusted, Bond chases Aki through a subway until she suddenly stops at one tunnel, and in pursuit, Bond falls down a trap door to the underground lair of Tiger Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba), a secret double agent who is rarely seen in public. Together, they investigate Bond’s stolen papers, which lead to a ship called the ning-po, meanwhile Bond and Aki enjoy a romance with one another. Eventually Bond is led to a secret base inside a volcano which leads to his arch-nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), the leader of the international criminal syndicate known as SPECTRE. His lair is fully equipped with a pool of flesh-hungry piranhas (which devour a man alive when one of Blofeld’s henchmen fails to kill Bond). Aki is tragically killed by mistaken poisoning when a SPECTRE agent attempts to poison Bond, so Bond and Tanaka infiltrate and booby-trap the volcano, while Bond attempts to board SPECTRE’s rocket incognito as it heads into outer space. And of course another Bond girl is introduced into the mix: Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama), though her name is never actually given in the film for some reason –Kissy is the name of Bond’s paramour in the original Fleming novel. However, Bond is captured at the last moment and taken to Blofeld (where he meets Donald Pleasence’s comical, unimpressive interpretation of Blofeld –Bond’s first meeting with Blofeld– the scene is a bit anti-climactic for their first face-to-face meeting in the films). The launch of the rocket was initially intended to spark a nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR, however a group of Japanese ninjas suddenly arrives inside the volcano lair to prevent its detonation. In this odd twist, the ninjas allow Bond to activate the self-destruct sequence for SPECTRE’s rocket, thus preventing nuclear war. In the end, Blofeld escapes leaving Bond, Tanaka, and the ninjas to escape the volcano before it detonates in a massive explosion. Thus concludes one of the sillier James Bond movies from the Sean Connery era –a film that was wholly plagued by behind-the-scenes drama and interpersonal unpleasantness.

All things considered, You Only Live Twice (the title alludes to Bond’s fake death at the outset) is a fairly flimsy film. Perhaps the most ridiculous scene (aside from the climax with the deus ex machina ninjas who arrive to save Bond) is the Q-branch scene which offers Bond a miniature autogyro helicopter. Instantly, and only once, Bond uses the vehicle to destroy four other helicopters chasing him: he destroys one with a machine gun, another with rockets, another with missiles, and the last with a backwards shooting flamethrower. You Only Live Twice is an example of the triumph of vapid spectacle over any semblance of serious espionage. This film has a somewhat confusing plot –I mean, why is Blofeld actually trying to start a nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR? And why, in this dramatic first meeting, does Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) appear so ridiculous? Anyway, this rather clunky installment is still a fun adventure, despite Sean Connery obviously phoning it in and all the tensions among the production staff and crew. The redeeming aspects of You Only Live Twice include Ken Adam’s extraordinarily giant set designs, Freddie Young’s eye-watering cinematography, and John Barry’s unforgettable recurring leitmotif of Nancy Sinatra’s classic theme song “You Only Live Twice.”

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Book Review: You Only Live Twice (1964) by Ian Fleming

• James Bond actor: Sean Connery
• Director: Lewis Gilbert
• Producers: Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli
• Screenplay: Roald Dahl (additional story material by Harold Jack Bloom as he completed the initial script treatment, but much of his material was rejected and famous children’s book author Roald Dahl was selected as his replacement). Despite being a personal friend of Fleming, Dahl stated You Only Live Twice was the worst of the Bond novels. He was given the script for Thunderball and essentially instructed
• Cinematography: Freddie Young (the man who shot Lawrence of Arabia)
• Editor: Peter Hunt
• Gun Barrel Sequence: completed by Sean Connery, re-using the shot from Thunderball with Connery in his trademark fedora.
• Villain(s): Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada), head of “Osato Chemicals, a front for SPECTRE, Helga Brandt/No. 11, a SPECTRE assassin (Karin Dor) who dies falling into the piranha pool, and Hans (Ronald Rich), Blofeld’s personal bodyguard.
• Bond Girl(s): Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama), she is dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl (uncredited), Ling (Tsai Chin), the Chinese girl Bond is in bed with at the start of the film in Hong Kong. She later returns to the Bond series some 39 years later as Madame Wu, a poker player in Casino Royale.
• MI6: M (Bernard Lee), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), and Q (Desmond Llewelyn)
• Bond Gadgets: “Little Nellie” Autogyro, or gyrocopter (constructed and piloted by former RAF pilot, Ken Wallis). It became known as the “Wallis WA-116 Agile.”
• Allies: Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), Tiger Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba), he is dubbed by Robert Rietty who dubbed Emilio Largo in Thunderball, Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray), Bond’s British contact in Japan –Gray would later famously play Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever.
• Score: John Barry
• Theme Song: “You Only Live Twice”, composed by John Barry alongside lyricist Leslie Bricusse, and sung by Nancy Sinatra after her father Frank Sinatra passed on the opportunity. Nancy Sinatra was reportedly very nervous while recording and it apparently took some 25 takes before the final version was captured.
• Locales: Outer Space, Hawaii, Washington DC, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, Tokyo.
• Other Notes:
  • This is the first film in the Bond series that completely deviates from the original Ian Fleming source material.
  • This is the only Bond film lacking even a single scene that takes place in England.
  • This is one of the more sexist/racist films in the Bond franchise with Bond making various derogatory comments about women even undergoing a transformation into “yellow-face” to appear more Japanese.
  • Ed Bishop briefly appears as a Hawaii NASA engineer communicating with the space shuttle. Bishop would later portray Klaus Hergersheimer in Diamonds Are Forever.
  • Also in the Hawaii NASA station is actor Shane Rimmer, who later briefly appears in Diamonds Are Forever, as well as a voiceover role in Live and Let Die, and a supporting role as Commander Carter in The Spy Who Loved Me.
  • George Baker also plays a NASA engineer. He also played the real genealogist Sir Hilary Bray (as well as the dubbed voice of James Bond during his Piz Gloria scenes) in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as well as Captain Benson in The Spy Who Loved Me.
  • Actor David Bauer, who later plays Morton Slumber in Diamonds Are Forever, portrays the American diplomat seen at the summit meeting with Russia and the UK inside the Epcot Center.
  • This film features the recurring “Bond has been killed” opening gag.
  • In the film, Bond claims this is the first time he has been to Japan, but this retcons the line in From Russia with Love about the time he and M were in Tokyo.
  • During their brief meeting, Dikko Henderson amusingly serves Bond with a martini “stirred not shaken.”
  • After killing the fleeing assassin of Dikko Henderson, Bond enters the getaway car intended for the assassin. The driver, whose name is never given, was played by actor and former WWE wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s grandfather, Peter Maivia, who was a former professional wrestler.
  • After being rescued by Aki, there is an amusing helicopter with a giant magnet that lifts a car.
  • In his one scene, Q appears in shorts, which Desmond Llewelyn strongly objected to.
  • At one point while filming the gyrocopter, cameraman John Jordan’s foot was tragically severed by a helicopter blade. There was a conference of surgeons that just happened to be present nearby, and they reattached his foot, but further complications forced its amputation back in England. Two years later, Jordan would return to the Bond series to shoot some of the gorgeous aerial shots in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Sadly, he died later that same year when he fell to his death while capturing aerial shots for the film Catch 22.
  • The gigantic volcano lair set was a high point in Ken Adam’s career. The budget for the set cost about as much as the entire production of the first Bond film Dr. No.
  • When initially auditioning for the role of Kissy, Mie Hama and Akiko Wakabayashi were hired to play the two love interests. Although Hama wanted the part of Aki (at that point she was known as “Suki”), Eon ultimately decided to fire her due to her difficulties with the English language. Actor Tetsuro Tamba (Tiger Tanaka) was asked to deliver the bad news. He returned saying that she was going to commit suicide by jumping from her balcony at the Dorchester Hotel due to the shame of being rejected for the role. Thus, a compromise was offered and Hama was able to play Kissy. She has significantly less dialogue and in the end, her voice was dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl, who previously dubbed other main love interests after providing the voices of Honey Ryder in Dr. No and Domino Derval in Thunderball.
  • Diane Cilento, Sean Connery’s then wife, acts as a double for the diving shots off Ama in this film, she can be seen wearing a black wig.
  • Released mere months after the goofy ’60s interpretation of Casino Royale, a heavy marketing campaign included posters of Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice teasing “Sean Connery IS James Bond.” However, this angered Connery who was growing tired of being typecast in the role.
  • This was the first film attended by Queen Elizabeth II (the last was Die Another Day in 2002).
  • Peter Hunt apparently sat out much of this film, frustrated after being denied the chance direct.