For Your Eyes Only (1981) Director: John Glen
“Before setting off on revenge, you first dig two graves…”
★★☆☆☆
For Your Eyes Only has often earned itself a reputation as one of the less goofy James Bond films during the Roger Moore era, but that is hardly saying much. After the science fiction-themed, and at times cartoonish aesthetic of Moonraker, the production team at Eon wanted to bring the next James Bond film back down to earth. For Your Eyes Only marks a course-correction of sorts, using material from Ian Fleming’s short stories “For Your Eyes Only” and “Risico” (as featured in the For Your Eyes Only anthology), the film also borrows from Fleming novels like Goldfinger and Live and Let Die. For Your Eyes Only is the twelfth James Bond film, and the fifth starring Roger Moore, but it was first of five Bond films to be directed by John Glen (who previously edited several Bond films beginning with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). For Your Eyes Only essentially saved United Artists after the notorious box office bomb of Heaven’s Gate which nearly left the whole company bankrupt.
For Your Eyes Only begins with a unique prologue rife with plenty of callbacks to earlier Bond films. James Bond visits the gravesite of his one-time wife, Tracy Bond (who was murdered at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and when he departs, Bond enters a helicopter that is quickly and remotely hijacked by an unnamed bald villain on the ground –we are strongly led to believe this assassin is, in fact, Blofeld (he is in a wheelchair, with a white cat, and is a bald man in a grey suit). However, the studio executives were unable to acquire the rights to Blofeld at the time due to the ongoing legal battle with Kevin McClory over the rights to Thunderball. Nevertheless, Bond somehow regains control of his rogue helicopter, and he manages to swoop down onto a nearby rooftop attaching the edge of the helicopter to the “Not-Blofeld” character. Bond then drops him down into a massive chimney which apparently kills him (both literally and symbolically for the studio). This was a salty middle finger thrown toward Kevin McClory.
Meanwhile, a British Royal Navy vessel is attacked and sunk off the coast of Greece. It was carrying an Automatic-Targeting-Attack-Communicator (or ATAC) which communicates with the British fleet of submarines. James Bond is assigned to retrieve the ATAC before the Soviets can find it, since the device can order coordinated attacks by the fleet of submarines. At the same time, a British archaeologist who moonlights for British intelligence named Havelock locates the sunken boat (the St. Georges) but before he can send in his report, he and his wife are suddenly murdered by a Cuban hitman named Gonzales. In Ian Fleming’s original short story, the Havelocks are owners of a historic Jamaican plantation and they are killed by Gonzales working on behalf of a Cuban counter-intelligence operative and former gestapo named Von Hammerstein. At any rate, in the film the Havelock’s daughter, Melina (Carole Bouquet), is secretly left alive on their family boat.
Interesting enough, this is the only Bond film in which M does not appear. Actor Bernard Lee, who had played M in every official Bond film up to this point, had fallen gravely ill by the time filming on For Your Eyes Only had commenced. He died in early 1981 and in his honor, the part of M was not recast and the script was rewritten. Instead, Bond meets with other members of MI6: Bill Tanner (James Villiers), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), Q (Desmond Llewelyn), Sir Frederick Gray (Geoffrey Keen). Bond is handed a packet “for your eyes only” identifying Operation Undertow, to retrieve the ATAC and prevent enemies from gaining control of the British submarine fleet.
James Bond trails the assassin Gonzales to his Spanish villa (these scenes were shot at a real abbey of monks who tried to obstruct the film at every turn), where Bonds spots a payment transaction to Gonzales, but before he can investigate further, Bond is quickly captured and then saved when a mysterious crossbow shoots and kills Gonzales in his own pool (this is an echo of what happens in the short story). Bond discovers the shooter is Melina Havelock, daughter of the murdered British archaeologist. They escape together, and, somehow using now-archaic British technology (an “Identograph” in the film, which was based on the “Identicast” that appeared in Ian Fleming’s novel Goldfinger), a strangely bored Q is able to help Bond identify the man who paid Gonzales as Emile Locque (Michael Gothard). Bond trails Locque to Italy where he meets with his Clouseau-esque contact, Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno), who connects Bond with an informant named Aristotle “Aris” Kristatos (Julian Glover). Kristatos is the sponsor of a young ice skater named Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson), and he reveals that Locque is under the employ of a man named Mr. Columbo. Shortly thereafter, Bond and Melina thwart several attacks while the childish Bibi is strangely infatuated with Bond (she suddenly appears naked in his bed). This leads to an odd sequence of downhill skiing and ice-skating as Bond is once again attacked, this time by Erich Kriegler (John Wyman) and also an unnamed character played by Charles Dance, who appears in an early role in this film, as well. Next, Bond escapes Bibi and he and Melina head to Corfu together in search of Columbo. Bond reconnects with Kristatos and they spot Columbo out to dinner with his paramour, Lisl, The Countess Von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris, who was incidentally Pierce Brosnan’s wife at the time). Naturally, Bond seduces Lisl but she is quickly killed and when Bond finally confronts Columbo, the twist is revealed –Columbo is actually on Bond’s side and it has secretly been Kristatos all along who is the villain. The theft of the ATAC was his own plan all along. Bond tags along with Columbo en route to Kristatos’s Albanian warehouse and, once confirmed, Bond returns to Melina to reveal what he has learned (they go diving together in a scene using a clever effect on dry land with fans and fake bubbles since Carole Bouquet could not dive due to sinus issues). At any rate, Bond and Melina trail Kristatos aboard his yacht, and Melina’s parent’s parrot actually guides them next to a secret rendezvous point at an abandoned mountaintop monastery to kill Kristatos and recover the ATAC. Columbo slays Kristatos by throwing knife into his back. Then the Soviets arrive, and instead of either giving the Soviets the ATAC device or keeping it for himself, Bond decides to simply toss it over the cliffside, presumably destroying the ATAC so no one can ever use it again. Doesn’t this only serve to hurt the British, while costing nothing to the Soviets? In the end, Bond and Melina receive a call from Margaret Thatcher from her kitchen, but instead of answering the call himself, Bond amusingly allows Melinda’s parrot take the call. Bond and Melina enjoy a moment of skinny-dipping together, which is incredibly cringeworthy when considering their age difference, plus the fact that Bond has mostly served as a paternalistic figure for Melina throughout the film.
With too many bland, forgettable characters and a lengthy, wandering, convoluted plot, For Your Eyes Only is not one of my favorite Bond films. I do appreciate the attempt at groundedness with this film, but it is still one of the Bond movies I never seem to relish watching –and one which I always seem to fall asleep in. Throughout the film there is a confused theme of revenge in the recurring use of the Chinese proverb “Before setting off on revenge, you first dig two graves…” to discourage Melina from exacting revenge on her parents’ killer. The quotation also appears in the Fleming short story, however it doesn’t really seem to make sense. Why is revenge so bad accoring to Bond? Doesn’t Bond take revenge against the Blofeld-esque character at the start of the film? Doesn’t he take revenge when remorselessly killing Locque by kicking his car off a ledge?
At any rate, the story for For Your Eyes Only is drawn from a combination of both plot and characters borrowed from the two aforementioned Ian Fleming short stories featured in his “For Your Eyes Only” anthology. In truth, For Your Eyes Only is one of my least favorite Bond films, though I know it has its staunch defenders.
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Book Review: For Your Eyes Only Short Story Anthology (1960) by Ian Fleming
- James Bond actor: Roger Moore
- Director: John Glen
- Producers: Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli
- Screenplay: Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum, based on Ian Fleming’s short stories “For Your Eyes Only” and “Risico” with additional ideas pulled from Goldfinger and Live and Let Die
- Cinematography: Alan Hume
- Editor: John Grover
- Gun Barrel Sequence: completed by Roger Moore (as originally shot in The Spy Who Loved Me and used in all other Roger Moore Bond films)
- Villain(s): Aristotle “Aris” Kristatos (Julian Glover), Emile Leopold Locque (Michael Gothard), Erich Kriegler (John Wyman), Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha), General Gogol (Walter Gotell), Claus (Charles Dance), and John Hollis as Ernst Stavro Blofeld or simple “Man in Wheelchair”
- Bond Girl(s): Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet),
- MI6: Bill Tanner (James Villiers), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), Q (Desmond Llewelyn), Sir Frederick Gray (Geoffrey Keen)
- Bond Gadgets: Self-destructing Lotus Esprit, Identograph, Diving Suit, Bond’s watch
- Allies: Milos Columbo (Topol), Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson), Jacoba Brink (Jill Bennett), Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno)
- Score: Bill Conti
- Theme Song: “For Your Eyes Only” performed by Sheena Easton (by Bill Conti, lyrics by Mick Leeson)
- Locales: England, Greece, Italy, the North Sea, the Bahamas