Octopussy (1983) Director: John Glen
“Mr. Bond is indeed a very rare breed, soon to be made extinct…“
★★★☆☆
The thirteenth canonical Eon James Bond film, or the often-derided titled “Octopussy,” is the sixth Bond film to star the silly and dapper Roger Moore in the lead role. The film takes its title from Ian Fleming’s short story found in Octopussy and The Living Daylights — posthumously published short story collection released in 1966. The film and the original short story share almost nothing in common, and after the more stripped down plot in the previous Bond film For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy brings Bond into an old pulpy adventure-mystery. It features John Glen who returned to the director’s chair after his directorial debut in For Your Eyes Only (1981), and after Octopussy, he would also return to direct several more Bond films A View To Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1987), and Licence To Kill (1989). Previously, Glen began by working as an editor on several earlier Bond films, including On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Mooonraker (1979).
Unsurprisingly, there was a controversy underlying the release of Octopussy. It was the year of the “Battle of the Bonds.” Roger Moore was somewhat reticent to reprise the lead role in the new Bond film, but when it was announced that Sean Connery had signed on to reprise his role as James Bond in the non-Eon film Never Say Never Again, much to producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli’s chagrin, Roger Moore was quickly secured once again for Eon. Never Say Never Again was the long-awaited project Kevin McClory (in a deal with Jack Schwartzman), whose litigiousness extended back to Ian Fleming and the drafting of the novel for Thunderball. The two films —Octopussy and Never Say Never Again— locked horns in competition for revenue, and derailed Roger Moore’s plans to retire from playing James Bond (thus ending American actor Josh Brolin’s chance to appear as Bond) and ultimately Eon’s Octopussy ($187.5M) beat out Warner Bros.’s Never Say Never Again ($160M). Pulpy adventure writer, George MacDonald Fraser (author of “Flashman” novels), was hired to write an early draft of the script which took Bond to India, but the script was quickly revised by Eon’s go-to writing duo of the 1980s: Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum.
Nevertheless, Octopussy is another mostly forgettable Bond movie rife with campy jokes and a really ridiculous plot that takes Bond on an adventure chasing Faberge eggs dressed as a circus clown through locales like East Berlin and India.
The film opens with a slapstick, whimsical action pre-title sequence of James Bond undercover, assuming the name of “Colonel Toro” with a fake mustache and ID card at a horse stable inside a communist military establishment in an undisclosed country, perhaps in Cuba, but Bond is quickly captured only to escape, thanks to an attractive woman at his side (she is unnamed in the film and only credited as “Bianca” played by Tina Hudson). Using her as a distraction, while seated in the back of a military transport vehicle, Bond releases the parachutes for a pair of henchmen, sending them floating away, while Bond commandeers a tiny jet plane (an experimental Acrostar Jet flown by stunt pilot J.W. “Corkey” Fornoff shot mostly in Moab, Utah). The shot of the jet flying through the hangar doors was done by attaching it to a steel pole sticking out of a Jaguar with its roof torn off. After a wild aerial chase that was originally going to be used in Moonraker, Bond ends up landing the plane at a remote gas station where he asks the astonished hillbilly owner to “fill ‘er up, please” before the credits roll (John Glen initially wanted to remove this line, but after seeing it in the commercial at a local cinema, he decided to re-insert it) . By this point, Maurice Binder was tardy with his title sequences and pretty much phoning these in –the sequence in Octopussy is somewhat infamous for showing almost explicit nudity and often ranks low among fan-favorite Bond title sequences, along with the theme song “All Time High” which is performed by Rita Coolidge.
The central plot of the film is driven by the assassination of 009 –while serving as an undercover circus clown escaping from the Soviets while moving from East to West Berlin, he is chased by a pair of knife-throwing twins (Mischka and Grischka, played by twin actors David and Anthony Meyer) as he comes crashes through a window carrying a Faberge egg, a jeweled egg created by the Russian House of Faberge as a gift for the Russian Empire. 009 washes downstream to West Berlin where he bombastically arrives at the residence of the British ambassador, and he delivres the egg (it was based on the Imperial Coronation Egg designed in 1897). However, during deliberations with M back at MI6, the recovered egg is proven to be a fake. In replacing 009 on “Operation Trove,” Bond is set to solve the mystery of the fake Faberge eggs. He is then sent by MI6 to a Sotheby’s auction for one of the eggs (a story which is lifted from Ian Fleming’s short story “The Property of a Lay”) during a tense auction scene wherein Bond quickly identifies the mysterious purchaser, Kamal Khan, a former Afghan prince (played by French actor Louis Jourdan).
At the same time, Octopussy shows us internal deliberations within Russia, with a gaggle of Russian generals debating a policy of detente with the West, while others prefer to continue aggression. General Gogol (reprised by Walter Gotell) wants to work with NATO, while General Orlov (Steven Berkoff) wants to storm his tank division through Berlin. Soon, it is revealed that General Orlov was behind the knife-wielding twins and the Sotheby’s auction buyer. From here, Bond trails Kamal Khan to India. Bond meets his contact, Vijay on the street who is playing the famous Bond theme while disguised as a snake-charmer (the Bond films occasionally break the fourth wall like this). Vijay is played by Vijay Amritraj, the famous tennis player, and his scenes in the film are filled with amusing tennis jokes (he claims his backhand has improved). From here Bond meets his other contact, Sadruddin, head of Station I (Albert Moses) and Bond learns that Kamal Khan resides in the massive Monsoon Palace that overlooks the city. Bond later faces Khan at the casino tables and catches on to his cheating ploy using loaded dice, so Bond bets his Faberge Egg using his own dice and naturally beats Khan, who bitterly states, “spend the money quickly” (an allusion to the Ian Fleming novel Moonraker wherein Hugo Drax says the same words to Bond after being outdone at Blades). At any rate, this conflict leads to a wild chase through the streets of Udaipur with Bond and Vijay in a tuk tuk (or three wheeled taxi) while pursued by Khan’s henchmen. Bond is stabbed but amusingly saved by all the rupees he won in his pocket, while Vijay fends off others with his trusty tennis racket. This scene is filled with goofy street-fair in India –men swallowing swords, snake charmers, open flames, a bed of nails, and so on.
They pass through a trick wall into Q’s lair where Bond is outfitted with various gadgets. And after an obvious attempt to ensnare Bond, he has an unexpected liaison with Magda (Kristina Wayborn) before she steals his Faberge egg (which has a tracking device inside it). Their bedroom scene is incredibly awkward as Madga makes aggressive motions with her jaw, and after she hops off his balcony, Bond is then knocked out and captured by Khan’s bodyguard, Gobinda (Kabir Bedi) and brought to Khan’s palace where he discovers that Khan is working with Orlov, the expansionist Soviet general (played by British actor Steven Berkoff). Naturally, Bond escapes in a silly gag wherein he hides inside a body bag (for some reason, Khan’s palace has a room filled with dead bodies a la Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”?) before Bond flees through the jungle while being shot at by Khan’s men –at one point, he commands a wild tiger to “sit” and then swings through the trees, belting out a Tarzan yell –a particular cringeworthy moment in the Bond series.
Bond tracks his way to the smuggler –swimming inside a comical fake crocodile suit– which leads to a floating island palace occupied by an ‘Octopus cult’ led by a jewel smuggler named Octopussy, whose business interests extend to circuses, carnivals, and shipping (played by Maud Adams who also starred as Andrea Anders in The Man With The Golden Gun). The Octopus cult is filled with a cohort of female acrobats who all have unique octopus tattoos. At any rate, Octopussy is a somewhat ambiguous character, a beautiful smuggler with a heart of gold and a dark past. Sadly, Vijay is killed by a spinning saw-sling in a brutal scene during this period of the film. And Bond learns about Octopussy’s smuggling operation, and the involvement of Orlov and Khan, via a fraudulent circus troupe, and from here, Bond infiltrates Octopussy’s circus at Karl-Marx-Stadt in East Germany, and uncovers a plot to detonate a nuclear warhead. Bond trails Khan and Orlov on a train headed for West Germany, kills the twin assassins from the start of the film, while Orlov is killed by border guards, and Bond hides aboard the train in a silly gorilla suit, and he eventually escapes dressed as a clown in yet another corny stunt at a circus (how in the world did Bond find the time to don such elaborate clown make-up with a ticking nuclear bomb?). In the end, Bond persuades Octopussy to join him and disable the nuclear warhead and defeat Khan (Bond diffuses the bomb down to the final second in the middle of a circus). And the film doesn’t end there –Octopussy’s cult returns to India to exact vengeance on Khan. They infiltrate Khan’s Monsoon Palace while Q and Bond join them from a hot air balloon in the sky (really…?). The image invokes memories of the climax in Ian Fleming’s novel You Only Live Twice, even though in that case it was Blofeld’s “suicide castle” in Japan with a hot air balloon simply looming overhead to mark the place of death. Anyway, in the scuffle, Octopussy is captured by Khan and Bond hops onto a horse and clings to Khan’s plane as it takes off. Amidst some truly amazing stunt work, Bond fights Khan’s bodyguard Gobinda, ultimately sending him flying downward to the ground below after smacking him in the face with an antenna on the plane. Bond and Octopussy then leap off the plan onto a mountain while Bond redirects the plane downward with his feet, sending Khan down to his death in a fiery airplane crash.
Amazingly, after a rewatch, I have to admit there is something charming and delightful about this utterly ridiculous, at times cartoonish, action-adventure Bond flick. Despite the fact that Roger Moore is clearly aging out of the lead role –and he spends a significant blocks of the film dressed as a clown, or in a gorilla suit, or inside a fake submersible alligator, or swinging from vines yelling like Tarzan, Octopussy is a surprisingly delightful, pulpy adventure for Bond in India. It reminds me a great deal of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was released two years prior, and it also foreshadows the exotic allure of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which would be released the following year. As with many Bond films, Octopussy has an incredibly difficult plot to follow –essentially, the sub-plot concerning the fake Faberge eggs leads to Octopussy whose cult is smuggling jewelry into the West, but this scheme has been exploited by a recalcitrant Russian General (Orlov) and an Afghan Prince (Kamal Khan) who plan to sneak a nuclear weapon into the West aboard one of Octopussy’s trains, such that when the bomb is detonated it will appear to be an accident by the United States, triggering a de-escalation and de-armament of Europe, and while the crisis is addressed, General Olgov’s forces can easily invade Western Europe. However, this is all foiled by James Bond in a clown costume at a circus diffusing a nuclear bomb with only seconds to spare. However, provided you don’t pay attention too closely, there are some extraordinary action sequences in this film –Bond riding atop an airplane in the sky, battling a bodyguard, hopping around on a moving train, fighting various henchmen, brutally killing some (shooting them in the head or chest, and stabbing others), commandeering various vehicles, and jumping off of both a moving train as well as a midair plane. Octopussy is an altogether affable, silly film with some amazing stunts, but this film has really grown on me over time. If you simply don’t pay attention to the story, this is a really great ride. I have to admit, this is one of Roger Moore’s better outings as Bond.
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Book Review: Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966) by Ian Fleming
- James Bond actor: Roger Moore
- Director: John Glen
- Producers: Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli
- Screenplay: George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson (Maibaum and Wilson were brought in to revise Fraser’s early drafts)
- Cinematography: Alan Hume
- Editor: Peter Davies and Henry Richardson
- Gun Barrel Sequence: This is the same scope barrel sequence used in prior films.
- Villain(s): Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), Khan’s powerful bodyguard, Gobinda (Kabir Bedi), General Orlov, a renegade Soviet general who works with Khan to bomb a US airbase and destabilize NATO (Steven Berkoff), the knife-throwing twins Mischka and Grischka (played by twin actors David and Anthony Meyer)
- Bond Girl(s): Octopussy (Maud Adams, who previously appeared in The Man With the Golden Gun), a jewel smuggler and wealthy businesswoman, Bianca (Tina Hudson)
- MI6: M (replacing Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, who previously appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me as Vice Admiral Hargreaves of the Royal Navy a high-ranking flag officer –there is a fan debate about whether or the new M is a contiguous character of Hargreaves being promoted or simply the same M character as in previous films), Minister of Defense Sir Frederick Gray (reprised by Geoffrey Keen), Jim Fanning, a government art expert (Douglas Wilmer), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), Penelope Smallbone, a young assistant to Moneypenny (Michaela Clavell)
- Bond Gadgets: Submersible alligator, acid pen, hot air balloon, tracker device placed inside a Faberge Egg
- Allies: Vijay (Vijay Amritraj), Sadruddin, head of Station I (Albert Moses)
- Score: John Barry
- Theme Song: “All Time High” by Rita Coolidge, written by John Barry with lyrics by Tim Rice. “All Time High”is one of seven musical themes in the James Bond series whose song titles do not refer to the film’s title. “All Time High” spent four weeks at number one on the United States’ Adult Contemporary singles chart and reached number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- Locales: Latin America, Germany, London, Moscow (Russia), and Udaipur (India)
- During the introduction of Vijay in the film, he can be heard playing the James Bond theme song on his snake-charming flute. It is somewhat similar to George Laznby’s line at the start of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, “this never happened to the other fellow.”
- This film borrows heavily from Ian Fleming’s short story “The Property of a Lady,” particularly the Faberge Egg auction at Sotheby’s, as well as Fleming’s short story “Octopussy.” Dexter Smythe is described as Octopussy’s father, and Bond left him to honorably commit suicide and avoid scandal (as with the same character in the short story). Also, the game of backgammon between Bond and Khan ends in an allusion to Ian Fleming’s novel Moonraker as Bond catches Hugo Drax in his cheating ploy at Blades.
- Apparently, Octopussy’s real name is Octavia Charlotte Smythe, though this is never explicitly mentioned in the film.
- In May 1981, one month after the announcement of a new Bond film, UA was purchased and merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the wake of the notorious financial disaster, Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate.
- Interestingly, in addition to appearances in The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy, Maud Adams would also have a brief unplanned cameo appearance in A View to a Kill while visiting the filming crew in San Francisco with her boyfriend. She was the first woman to appear in two Bond films (later three) who wasn’t a recurring character like Lois Maxwell.
- Since this was the first MGM-produced Bond film, the infamous Tarzan yell was used freely from the MGM vaults –this was the original Johnny Weissmuller from Tarzan: The Ape Man (1932).
- In some respects, the scene of Bond inside a fake submersible alligator is a nod to the fake seagull in Goldfinger.
- During the dinner scene at Khan’s Monsoon Palace, the eyeballs in the sheep’s head were made of marzipan (per Roger Moore).
- In one of the dangerous train stunts in this film, stuntman Martin Grace had a serious accident hanging on the side of the train and it went into a non-assessed area of the track, ramming him into a pylon and seriously damaging his leg and hip and hospitalizing him for several months. He later fully recovered.