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A View To A Kill (1985) Film Review

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A View To A Kill (1985) Director: John Glen

“Wow… what a view…”
“…to a kill!”

★★☆☆☆

With an aging Roger Moore, whose skull looks to be unnaturally stretched and gaunt following considerable cosmetic work, A View To A Kill is a painful installment in the James Bond franchise, though I will admit it can be a fun hate-watch. There is something endearing about this eminently silly movie. By this point in the series, many of the women that Bond encounters are young enough to be his grandchildren –this is not exactly the dashing hero of years past and it leads to some highly uncomfortable scenes of romance. Mercifully, this film marks Roger Moore’s final outing as James Bond (it also marks Lois Maxwell’s fourteenth and final performance as Moneypenny). As a delightful homage to her time in the role, an early scene in the film features Bond and Moneypenny playfully tossing her hat (this also marks a terminus to the Bond hat motif as featured in the early Sean Connery ere). And A View To A Kill was John Glen’s third of five Bond films he directed (he previously worked as an editor on several earlier Bond movies, part of Cubby Broccoli’s decision to promote its own staff from within).

The title for A View To A Kill comes from Ian Fleming’s short story called “From a View to a Kill” which was was featured in an anthology of five stories entitled For Your Eyes Only –although the film shares almost nothing in common with the story aside from the title (and the setting of Paris). Elements from one other story in the collection, “Risico,” was used for this film, as well. A View To A Kill opens with an unusual disclaimer that the villain “Zorin” is meant to be entirely fictional, an effort to protect the film against legal action as the crew was made aware of an existing company entitled Zorin. We begin with the best scene in the whole film –Bond is in Siberia retrieving a microchip from the locket of the deceased frozen body of a fallen agent –003– when he is instantly caught in a dramatic ski-chase sequence. However, the drama is clumsily disrupted by a ridiculous musical accompaniment of “California Girls” by the Beach Boys (a cover of the song recorded by tribute band Gidea Park) which jarringly introduces us to a film seemingly incapable of setting a consistent tone. At any rate, Bond escapes to his hidden camouflaged iceberg submarine with his young beau Kimberley Jones played by Mary Stavin (who previously appeared as one of the girls in Octopussy). She is some four decades younger than Bond…

When we finally get to the main plot, it concerns a dated bit of ’80s technology –microchips being produced by the Russians, likely the KGB, through a shell company called Zorin. The chip Bond retrieved from the late 003 is a new type of microchip developed to withstand any damage from a magnetic pulse caused by a nuclear explosion. MI6 shadows the CEO of Zorin at Ascot Racecourse where they discover his name is Max Zorin (played by Christopher Walken), a staunch anti-communist who fled East Germany in the ’60s and made a fortune in oil before expanding into microchips. While his company is Anglo-French, it seems his company has been secretly funneling a pipeline of magnetic resistant microchips to the KGB. At the horse races, we encounter a horse trainer and MI6 agent named Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) who suspects Zorin of foul play in cheating at the races. Tibbett puts Bond in communication with Achille Aubergine (Jean Rougerie), a French detective investigating Max Zorin, however during their encounter at a fancy cafe in the Eiffel Tower, Aubergine is killed by a mysterious garishly dressed figure. This leads to a wild chase through Paris, a heated pursuit up the Eiffel Tower (one of the more memorable sequences in the film), and finally brief automobile race through the streets with Bond commandeering a steadily disintegrating car –the chase causes 6 million francs worth of damage and violates much of the Napoleonic Code. The mysterious assassin is revealed to be an androgynous woman and lover of Zorin named May Day (played by Jamaican icon Grace Jones) –she swoops into various scenes like the angel of death.

Bond poses as James St. John Smythe, a wealthy equestrian buyer at Zorin’s chateau, with Tibbett undercover as his servant. They learn that Zorin has been cheating at the equestrian races, implanting his prized horse, Pegasus, with a microchip. Discovering there has been a break-in in the Zorin Industries Warehouse, Zorin and May Day search Bond’s empty room –only to find Bond waiting for May Day in her bed. Despite being Zorin’s lover, Bond and May Day sleep together in an extremely uncomfortable scene –apparently, behind the scenes, Grace Jones was one of the only actresses Roger Moore never really got along; as she was apparently quite difficult on the set). The muscular, masculine May Day insists on being on top –why don’t May Day and Zorin attempt to attack Bond in this moment? The next morning, Bond goes riding with Zorin while Tibbett is killed cleaning the car at a car wash. Zorin then reveals he knows 007’s true identity. May Day and Zorin push Bond’s car into a lake and watch him drown, but Bond secretly uses air in the tires to breathe underwater (a ridiculously amusing gag).

Soon It becomes clear to Bond that Zorin’s microchip operation is merely a cover –his true plot becomes evident as he explains it to a gang of elite businessmen. Anybody who “drops out” is sent falling to their death from Zorin’s blimp as it floats over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA. Zorin (who is apparently the victim of Nazi experiments) has gone rogue from the KGB –KGB General Gogol (Walter Gotell) confronts Zorin– and then Zorin unveils his secret plan to destroy Silicon Valley by detonating bombs along the Hayward and San Andreas fault-line causing massive earthquakes and flooding. Bond connects with his CIA contact Chuck Lee (David Yip) in San Francisco. After conducting some underwater reconnaissance, where he discovers seawater being pumped into Zorin’s oil wells, Bond connects with KGB agent Pola Ivanova (Fiona Fullerton) –they both have Zorin in their crosshairs. Bond then links up with a California state geologist whom Zorin attempted to bribe named Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) and they head to City Hall for some research, but they are quickly caught by Zorin and his gang –Zorin strangely instructs the desk clerk to call the police? And then he shoots the clerk? Only to entrap Bond and Stacey in a flaming elevator? None of this makes an iota of sense. This leads to an equally laughable scene in which Bond and Stacey evade a troupe of police officers by shooting a fire hose and stealing a fire engine, leading to a chase through the streets of San Francisco. When they eventually get away, Bond and Stacey head to one of Zorin’s mines –Zorin psychopathically murders his own employees, May Day is killed in an explosion, and Bond clings to Zorin’s blimp over the Golden Gate Bridge where they dramatically battle (the idea that Roger Moore was able to scale the Golden Gate Bridge is a compllete farce) until Zorin falls to his death in the San Francisco Bay –one the more memorable scenes in the film. Interestingly enough, by the end of the film, the Soviets wind up praising James Bond for killing the rogue criminal Zorin –a remarkable sign of easing Cold War tensions in the 1980s. Bond is given the “Order of Lenin.” Now, instead of a Russian megalomaniac, the new enemy is shown to be a billionaire titan of industry. As the film closes, Q uses his “Snooper” surveillance robot to discover Bond and Stacey together in a shower –appropriately, the film ends on another cringeworthy moment of Bond making love to a woman who is several decades his junior.

Among the long list of flawed James Bond films, A View To A Kill should be relegated somewhere prominently among the pile. It is a miracle that James Bond survived the 1980s at all! Sometimes falling into the “so bad it’s good” category among Bond fans, A View To A Kill is a lengthy, awkward, dated, mess of a film in my view. It boasts one of the strangest performances of a Bond villain from Christopher Walken, an elderly Roger Moore who has clearly aged out of the role, and one of the worst Bond girls in the series, Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), who spends much of the film shrieking like a banshee. The only redeeming part of this film is John Barry’s enticing score which regularly echoes Duran Duran’s theme song as a recurring leitmotif. Roger Moore later expressed dismay with the film, mainly for the scene in which Zorin murders his workers in cold-blood. Along with Sean Connery’s Diamonds Are Forever, Pierce Brosnan’s Die Another Day, and arguably Daniel Craig’s No Time To Die, Roger Moore’s A View To A Kill is often cited as an example of the recurring “Bond Curse” where a lead actor’s final film is significantly worse than their previous installments.

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Book Review: For Your Eyes Only (1960) by Ian Fleming.

  • James Bond actor: Roger Moore
  • Director: John Glen
  • Producers: Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
  • Screenplay: Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum, the title was borrowed from Ian Fleming’s short story entitled “From a View to a Kill”
  • Cinematography: Alan Hume
  • Editor: Peter Davies
  • Gun Barrel Sequence: completed by Roger Moore over the updated James Bond theme song by John Barry
  • Villain(s): Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), May Day (Grace Jones), Scarpine, Zorin’s head of security (Patrick Bauchau), Dr. Carl Mortner, a former Nazi and Zorin’s breeding consultant (Willoughby Gray), Bob Conley, Zorin’s henchman (Manning Redwood), and Jenny Flex (Allison Doody, who later appears as the treacherous Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
  • Bond Girl(s): A California state geologist whom Zorin attempts to bribe, Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), MI6 colleague at the start of the film, Kimberley Jones (Mary Stavin), KGB agent who seduces Bond in a hot tub, Pola Ivanova (Fiona Fullerton)
  • MI6: M (Robert Brown in his second appearance), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), Q (Desmond Llewelyn), Sir Frederick Gray, Minister of Defense (Geoffrey Keen)
  • Bond Gadgets: Microchip GPS Detector, Glacier Sub, Reflection-Eliminating Glasses, Ring Camera, Shaver Bug Detector (used by Tibbett), Check Reader, Ordinary Tape Recorder, Credit Card Window Unlocker, Q’s Robot Dog “Snooper” used for surveillance (developed by Q at MI6)
  • Allies: KGB General Gogol (Walter Gotell), MI6 agent and horse trainer Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee), CIA agent Chuck Lee (David Yip)
  • Score: John Barry
  • Theme Song: “A View To A Kill” by Duran Duran (the only James Bond theme up to this point reach #1 on the Billboard chart)
  • Locales: Siberia (Russia), London and Berkshire (England), Paris (France), San Francisco and Silicon Valley (USA)

To Catch A Thief (1955) Film Review

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To Catch A Thief Director: Alfred Hitchcock (1955)

“Why did I take up stealing? To live better, to own things I couldn’t afford, to acquire this good taste which you now enjoy and which I should be very reluctant to give up.”

★★★★★

Hitchcock at his most playful, To Catch A Thief is a joy to watch. I have yet to meet a Hitchcock film of poor quality. To Catch A Thief tells the story of a retired jewel thief who is forced out of hiding to capture an impersonator who is framing him. Shot in the beautiful and luxurious French Riviera, this film stars Cary Grant (in his penultimate Hitchcock film followed only by North By Northwest) as John Robie, a long-retired jewel thief who was once notoriously known as “The Cat.” He was pardoned of his criminal activity due to his work with the French Resistance. Robie now lives in retirement growing grapes and flowers from a villa atop the Mediterranean hillsides overlooking the French coastline. However, he is brought under suspicion when a series of robberies matching his signature style surfaces in France. To investigate, he pays a visit to his old gang, now working at a restaurant in France, but the police chase him on this misadventure. Robie narrowly escapes with the help from the daughter of one of his former gang members, Danielle (played by Brigitte Auber, a French actress).

Robie’s plan is to lay a trap for the new “Cat” burglar in order to prove his own innocence. He receives help from a local insurance agent who helps Robie identify all the people staying along the French Riviera who are also carrying expensive jewelry. Robie takes on an alias as a lumberman from Oregon and he quickly befriends a wealthy woman named Jessie Stevens (played by Jesse Royce Landis, who also played the roll of Cary Grant’s mother in North By Northwest) and her beautiful daughter, Frances, or “Francie” (played by Grace Kelly in her third and final role in a Hitchcock film). Frances and Robie strike up a romance and she discovers his secret past. One night while she seduces him, her mother’s prized jewels are in explicably stolen and Robie is blamed. Racing against the clock, Robie discovers the true culprit on the roof during the night of a masquerade ball –it is none other than Danielle, daughter of Robie’s former associate.

Grace Kelly gives a stunning performance, bolstered by several costumes designed by Edith Head. Interestingly enough, Truffaut once called To Catch A Thief one of Hitchcock’s most cynical films –a quirky comedy that refuses to take itself too seriously. At age 50, Cary Grant was slowing down and planning to retire (much like John Robie in the film) but Hitchcock convinced him to play this part. Robie is a thief who falls in love with a bored but wealthy heiress who wants to help him steal jewels for cheap thrills –there is very little moral difference between a thief and an heiress. Their romance is filled with one cheeky innuendo after another, but it is Grace Kelly who steals the show, along with Hitchcock’s favorite cinematographer, Robert Burkes, who elegantly captures the beauty of the French Riviera.

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Credits:

  • Director: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Screenplay by: John Michael Hayes
  • Based on: To Catch a Thief by David Dodge
  • Produced by: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Starring:
    • Cary Grant…..John Robie (“The Cat”)
    • Grace Kelly…..Frances Stevens
    • Jessie Royce Landis…..Jessie Stevens
    • John Williams…..H. H. Hughson
  • Cinematography: Robert Burks
  • Edited by: George Tomasini
  • Music by: Lyn Murray
  • Distributed by: Paramount Pictures

Other Notes:

  • Hitchcock Cameo: Alfred Hitchcock makes his signature cameo approximately ten minutes into the film. He appears as a bus passenger sitting next to Cary Grant and a caged pair of birds.

The Magnificent Seven (1960) Review

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The Magnificent Seven (1960) Director: John Sturges

“The Old Man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We’ll always lose.”

★★★★★

mag seven

The Magnificent Seven is Hollywood’s amazing re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant Seven Samurai (which was, itself, inspired by classic John Ford Westerns). John Sturges offers a star-studded and grippingly simple tale about seven individual veteran gunslingers who are hired to defend a rural Mexican farming village from a brutal bandit who is extorting their food supply. In watching the film we are asked to contemplate the stories and personalities of each individual gunman (i.e. what motivates him to defend these remote farmers) and also we are invited to contrast the bandit, Calvera, with our seven heroes. What is different? Why is Calvera, a profit-seeking warlord, considered evil; whereas the gunslingers, many of whom are also profit-seeking mercenaries, honored as heroes? When is a hero forced to choose the noble path?

“The fighting is over. Your work is done. For them, each season has its tasks. If there were a season for gratitude, they’d show it more…Only the farmers remain. They are like the land itself. You helped to rid them of Calvera the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts. You are like the wind, blowing over the land and passing on. Vaya con Dios”
-closing words from the village elder to the hired gunmen.

magnificent seven

The lead actor, Yul Brynner, initially approached producer Walter Mirisch with the idea of acquiring the rights to the story from Toho Studios in Japan (Brynner was late unsuccessfully sued by friend and fellow actor, Anthony Quinn, who claimed they worked on the idea together). The Magnificent Seven was shot on location in a variety of Mexican locales and interestingly enough Yul Brynner was married on the set while making the movie.

The film is about a small Mexican farming village that is being extorted by a ruthless group of bandits led by a man named Calvera (Eli Wallach who also memorably appears as “the ugly” in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly). Calvera steals food from the farmers under threats of death. After a villager is killed, several men consult the village elder (played by Russian actor Vladimir Sokoloff) who advises them to fight back against Calvera. So they ride north to a town across the United States border. Initially, they intend to barter for weapons, however they soon witness a remarkable scene. A veteran Cajun gunslinger named Chris Adams (played by Yul Brynner) offers to deliver the body of a recently dead Indian to the cemetery on the hill, which is guarded by a group of racist cowboys who prevent Indians from being buried in the cemetery. Chris is then joined by another gunslinger, Vin Tanner (played by Steve McQueen). Apparently Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen had quite a rocky relationship offscreen, though they play compatriots in the movie. McQueen was upset with his minimal dialogue, and as recompense he would use various tactics to distract the audience while Brynner spoke -such as by lowering his hat, flipping a coin, or rattling his shotgun shells. Also, the actors battled over their height on camera. Brynner was slightly taller than McQueen and he would build a small mound of dirt to stand on just before a shot to highlight his height advantage, but McQueen would often kick the dirt away before the take.

At any rate, returning to the story, the villagers hire Chris and Vin, who recruit Chris’s friend Harry Luck (played by Brad Dexter) who only joins because he believes there may be riches hidden out in the hills; Bernardo O’Reilly (played by Charles Bronson), an Irish-Mexican gunslinger in need of money; Britt (played by James Coburn), an expert knife-fighter and gunner who handily wins a random duel using only a knife; and a well-dressed gentleman named Lee (played by Robert Vaughn), who is haunted by fears that death is chasing him after many gunfights over the years. En route they are drunkenly confronted by a hot-headed young man named Chico (played by Horst Buchholz) who demands to join the group, and when denied he follows them to the village and ultimately earns their respect.

Upon arrival in the village this ‘magnificent seven’ begins training the farmers to fire guns and build fortifications and traps for Calvera when he arrives. Chico discovers the women in hiding, out of fear that the gunslingers might rape them, but they are invited to join the group again. One day, three scouts visit the village on behalf of Calvera, but the seven gunslingers kill the scouts. So Calvera, himself, surrounded by a large force arrives but this time he is scared him off into the hills. In the evening Chico infiltrates Calvera’s camp and learns that Calvera’s men are starving and struggling. However when the seven plan a raid on Calvera’s camp they return to the village to find they have been betrayed by some of the farmers. Calvera confiscates their weapons and he banishes them from the village, but fearing reprisals from their friends, he lets them live and returns their weapons several leagues from the village, mistakenly believing they have learned their lesson, only for six of them to return with a vengeance (the seventh later joins). In the end, three of the seven survive the shootout: the original compadres Chris and Vin, and also the young buck, Chico, who stays behind in the village with his young lover (played by Mexican actress Rosenda Monteros).

“The Old Man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We’ll always lose.”

Elmer Bernstein composed this inspiring score -one of many including To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Ten Commandments among many others. The Magnificent Seven spawned several unsuccessful sequels (and a remake in 2016 that I refuse to see as a protest against more recycled unoriginality from a lazy, contemporary Hollywood).

Despite receiving mixed reviews, John Sturges got the one vote of approval that mattered – when Akira Kurosawa saw the film he was so impressed that he reportedly sent a ceremonial sword to Sturges.

magnificent_seven_-_h_-_1960__0

For Your Eyes Only (1981) Film Review

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For Your Eyes Only (1981) Director: John Glen

“Before setting off on revenge, you first dig two graves…”

For_Your_Eyes_Only_-_UK_cinema_poster

★★☆☆☆

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