Thunderball

Four films in, I'm coming to the heretical conclusion that I really don't like Sean Connery's Bond very much. Mind you, as of Thunderball, I don't think Sean Connery likes Sean Connery's Bond any more either.

He's clearly getting fed up. His accent, which started off as polished RP in DRNO and began to slide during Goldfinger, is now one notch from where it'll be in The Hunt for Red October. It's suggestive of an actor who is as much anxious about being subsumed as he is unwilling to make the effort.

But then, there's not much acting to be done in a movie where so much takes place underwater. And Connery could, perhaps, be forgiven for beginning to feel like merchandise: for most of the film he's almost naked, either draped in a tiny towel at the health spa or running around in tiny shorts in the Bahamas. Forget Daniel Craig, this is the third film out of four in which Connery's had his top off (three films, (co)incidentally all directed by Terence Young). No wonder he felt like a piece of meat.

Of course, as the male lead, the business of being consumed by the audience, by the films, is a gradual process and one that is only finally beginning to tell upon him. In the meantime, the series has been chewing up women at a much faster rate. We get three more here. Molly Peters plays Patricia Fearing, a nurse at Shrublands - we'll come back to her in Crimes Against Women. The female lead is Domino Derval, played by former Miss France Claudine Auger. She's certainly Bond's type: beautiful, demure, submissive and dull, with a tragic yet endearing vulnerability. In other words, she is almost a carbon copy of Honey and Tatiana. She's redubbed by the same voice actor too so the three of them even sound the same.

But if, to paraphrase Pussy Galore, we haven't yet met a real woman in the series, Thunderball does at last provide. Thank goodness for Fiona Volpe. Okay, perhaps real is the wrong word. The SPECTRE assassin and first 'evil' Bond woman is as much a ludicrous caricature as the good ones have been. The difference is that because she is 'bad', she can do and say and be things that would be beyond the pale for a 'good' woman according to the society of the time. You know, things like be funny. Or have desires. Or act independently. Against a backdrop of bikini-clad Stepford Wives, Volpe is breath of fresh air. A breath of smouldering, purring, murdering fresh air.

Now, all Bond women are beautiful. Yes, even the one with the cello. But Volpe, played by Luciana Paluzzi, is something else. Flame haired and equipped with a magnificent pair of lips that swell and snarl and pout as she fizzes her way around the Bahamas, she is playful, dastardly and utterly gorgeous. If you're reading this, there is a good chance that you have in your head, at some level or other of your consciousness, no matter how sketchy, a ranked list of Bond women. Scrub out the name at the top. You can keep your Stacey Suttons, your Melina Havelocks, your (God help you) Christmas Jones and Jinxes. Fiona Volpe is the best.

She's certainly the best thing in Thunderball. She has all the best lines for one thing. Early on, her pilot lover has to go to work. "I might not be in the mood later," he warns her. Volpe's nostrils flare. "D'you wanna bet?" she shoots back.

It's her scenes with Bond where she really offers something we haven't seen before. After having had her way with him (and for once it is that way round) she castigates him. "You made a shocking mess of my hair, you sadistic brute!" In a reverse of the situation with Ms Taro in DRNO, it turns out that she has been stalling 007 with sex. At last the tables are turned. When her thugs arrive, the charade is dropped and Bond and Volpe can have a frank exchange of views: "Vanity, Mr Bond? Something you know so much about," she snarks. The conversation in fact serves as some sort of antidote to a lot of the nonsense we've had to put up with before now.

"But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, who only has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue... But not this one!"

It isn't an apology for the treatment of Pussy Galore, but there is an implicit criticism there, I think. At the very least, Volpe exists to subvert the audience's expectations and reduce 007 to more mortal dimensions. Never again will Bond's magic penis save the world, and it's all thanks to her.

Oh and somewhere behind her feather boa there is some story about nuclear weapons or something. I wasn't really concentrating. Suffice to say that there's another UK propaganda subtext to proceedings. The horrifying scenario is that NATO is being held to ransom by a ruthless gang who have stolen two atomic bombs. So we get a procession of unflappable British men with grey hair (a mixture of RAF officers, civil servants, M and the Foreign Secretary) whose upper lips never unstiffen, even when all seems lost. Keep Calm and Carry On, indeed, but there's more to it than that. These patrician gentlemen will quietly sort it out behind the scenes. There's no press, no public disclosure, nothing, in short, for us to worry our little heads about. It's a very old-fashioned, British take upon a nuclear crisis, set in sumptuous Whitehall chambers with geo-political maps hidden behind the tapestries.

Needless to say that Britain is very much supported by her junior ally, the United States of Somewhere or Other, who obligingly furnishes MI6 with those incidental niceties like troops, warships and so on. So welcome back Felix Leiter of the CIA, Baldrick to Bond's Blackadder, who hangs around being helpful and earnest, not so much second fiddle to 007 as a kazoo in Ray-Bans.

This is the problem with Leiter; he cannot ever be allowed equal billing lest the audience discover that the USA is actually a richer and more powerful nation than the UK. Fleming dealt with this by feeding him to the sharks in Live and Let Die so that afterwards he was hampered by a false leg and a hook for a hand (hence LTK), but in the films he's just varying degrees of useless. Although David Hedison did better than most (LALD, LTK), it's the current version, played by Jeffrey Wright in Casino Royale and QOS, that offers the most compelling interpretation of the relationship. He is the spy-bureaucrat, operating within the machinery of the CIA and, occasionally, able to try and throw 007 a line. It works nicely, with plenty of opportunity for murk. Having said all that, the best Bond/Leiter paring is, of course, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood in Where Eagles Dare. Oh yes it is.

The underwater sequences are impressive, but they do go on and totally dominate the last half hour. The climatic battle goes on forever, but presumably there was considerable pressure, after Goldfinger, to up the ante. What we end up with then is full of sex, sun, sharks and seawater, but the story is weak given the potential of the subject matter. If it is beginning to feel like Bond-by-numbers, don't be too surprised: this one was, literally, written by a committee.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: It's no Goldfinger, but hidden away inside this dull grey PCS is a rather tasty fight. And a stupid jet-pack stunt that a) doesn't fit at all, jarring horribly with the grey French aesthetic, and b) looks stupid because the stuntman insisted on wearing a helmet. As we know, Connery can't wear hats without looking like an idiot. The helmet is so much worse.

Theme: It could have been, should have been Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but we get Tom Jones belting out the improbable lyrics of Thunderball instead. Maurice Binder's back at the vision mixing desk so it's naked ladies and phallic spear-guns all the way.

Deaths: Tricky, thanks to another confusingly edited and protracted battle. It's about 49. Probably slightly higher considering there must be some people on the Disco Volante when it explodes.

Memorable Deaths: Vargas gets the point. Henchmen get thrown to the sharks. Fiona Volpe somehow gets a bullet in the back on the dance floor thanks to a 007 switcheroo. Most memorable is the SPECTRE agent that Blofeld electrocutes in his chair at the board meeting. Can you imagine Boardroom Bingo as a SPECTRE employee? Japanese fighting fish? Tick.. Electrocution? Tick.. White cat? Tick..

Licence to Kill: 16 (if you count Volpe, which I have). Most of these are during the big battle.

Exploding Helicopters: None. There is a helicopter but, inexplicably, it doesn't explode. A plane does crash though. Depressingly, this is what I wrote for Goldfinger as well.

Shags: 3. A new record. For the first time he hits the unholy trinity: early shag, evil shag, good shag. Presumably he did Paula and the French agent from the PCS too, knowing him...

Crimes Against Women: Plenty, not least of which is blackmailing nurse Patricia Fearing into having sex with him. After several unwanted advances and some general harassment (treated as fun and games by the film of course), she's worried he'll get her into trouble for something that he knows isn't her fault. "My silence could have a price," he suggests. "Oh no," she replies, but he moves in nonetheless. Surprisingly, the current Wikipedia entry for this character states that she "is not unwilling" which tells you a lot about the sort of people that edit these articles. Knowing her brother is dead, Bond shags Domino before telling her the news - of course, otherwise she might not have been in the mood, right? When he first meets her, 007 tries this charming chat up line: "Most girls just paddle about. You swim like a man."

Casual Racism: The vulnerable underbelly of NATO's nuclear weapons security is a corrupt Italian. All the baddies are foreign, apart from one SPECTRE board member. 

Out of Time: Well the whole nuclear anxiety thing is very Sixties, but the thing that dates it most, sadly, for us is the disbelief that SPECTRE are happy to hold the world to ransom so discretely. Surely modern audiences would expect them to fly the first bomb straight into a major city and then start issuing demands?

Fashion Disasters: Largo, in double-breasted yachting blazer, bare chest and wet-suit leggings looks like he's about to star in a very strange Richard III. Bond's helmet we've mentioned, but there's yet another hat as well. Were they trying to save on wigs? Q's Hawaiian shirt is presumably intentionally horrible.

Eh?: Two major plot holes: why chase after Derval's sister? And how does she know Largo? Both reduce themselves to this: why should Largo bring the sister of the man he is murdering on his top secret mission? >> Why does Count Lippe's room at the spa have his name on a brass plaque on the door? >> Why does a traction machine need a lethal setting? >> Despite the global nuclear emergency Bond apparently has the time and inclination to change suits between the 00-Section briefing and his individual meeting with M. >> When Bond arrives in Nassau, he immediately locates Domino swimming in the sea. >> During the final grapple on the bridge of the Disco Volante, whilst the ship is out of control and careering improbably between rocks, one of Largo's men appears to bring a tray of champagne up the stairs. Is this mid-fight refreshment? >> Why do the SPECTRE agents all wear over-sized rings that establish their affiliation? >> Does the US Coast Guard normally operate in the Bahamas? >> Finally, one thing that isn't as weird as it looks: Bond and Domino are rescued at the end by an aeroplane that plucks them from a life-raft on a rope and pulls them into the sky. Stupidly, this is a real extraction technique.  

Worst Line: Lots of very clunky dialogue, but Largo gets the worst of it. It seems as if the script is at pains to point out that lots of things are happening underwater. Presumably we might not notice the evidence of our own eyes. So Largo barks: "Open the underwater hatch!" and "Turn on the underwater lights!", the second one twice. Bond's quips are already groan-worthy. "Some people really burn you up on the roads these days." 

Best Line: But his silent quips are lovely character touches - he mockingly throws lilies over the body of a dispatched enemy and, sneaking out of a suspect's hospital room, pops back to steal a grape from his fruit bowl. His response to news of a global terror alert: "Someone's probably lost a dog." Volpe pursues 007 to a club where she finds him hiding on the dance floor with a holidaymaker. Icily, she asks to cut in. "You should have told me your wife was here," the young tourist reproaches him mournfully. Best of all is the look between Volpe and Bond. It's an entire unspoken conversation, him cornered, trying to be disarmingly charming, to resist; her smouldering, victorious, hungry.

Worst Bond Moment: Small beer this time, but he does look like a wazzock with that helmet on.

Best Bond Moment: All the stuff with the sharks is pretty cool, to be honest. There's a nice moment of improvisation from Bond as he escapes from a car with a bottle of rum and a lighter. But the best moment is another bit of silent interplay between 007 and Volpe. She's hiding in his hotel room, having a bath, pretending that she thinks it is her room, and pretends to be affronted when he walks in on her. "Aren't you in the wrong room, Mr Bond?" she asks. "Not from where I'm standing," he dead-pans. Casually glancing down at her naked body, she changes tack. "Since you are here, would you mind giving me something to put on?" Bond, thoughtfully steps into the room, bends down and, without taking his eyes off her, picks up and offers her a pair of shoes. 

Overall: It's the underwater one that isn't FYEO. Lots of sharks and diving masks and spear guns. It looks colossally expensive compared with the first four films, and it remains one of the highest grossing of all the Bond films. In fact, allowing for inflation, Thunderball would be on a par with a Harry Potter movie today. The producers have found themselves in charge of a runaway train full of money - but their star is restless and the public wants even more. How on Earth are they going to top this?

James Bond Will Return: Oooh, it doesn't say anything. Legend has it that the caption did read "James Bond will return in On Her Majesty's Secret Service" but that the credits were curtailed to remove this once the decision was made to make You Only Live Twice instead. Now you're imagining that, aren't you. Yeah, me too.

Thanksgiving

I think it's fair to say that I am still not fully engaged in American life. Partly this is inertia on my part - I miss a lot of British things and enjoy trying to cling to them. But it is also that there is so much to learn. Not having grown up here means there's stuff I'll never get. I'll never have a college football team, or a home state. I'll never vote for a President. And there are so many traditions, customs and holidays that I haven't grown up with and probably won't ever truly understand.

And that's fine. I prefer Remembrance Sunday to Veterans' Day. I'd rather celebrate the 5th of November than July 4th.

But if I ever do go back to the UK, I would like try and take Thanksgiving back with me. It's a brilliant holiday and one which I can fully endorse. It's simple and easy, just good food and loved ones, and it serves as a legitimate starting gun for Christmas. Of course, I don't have an unruly feuding extended family that I have to cater for, so I'm guessing that some Thanksgivings are less fun and more complicated than others. I'm also aware that we aren't doing it quite properly. Although we can manage a green bean casserole, one of many delicious side dishes that differentiate Texan Thanksgiving from British Christmas dinner, we'll not be deep-frying a turkey and I won't be passing up on roast potatoes or parsnips.

But this is surely the glorious thing about Thanksgiving - it transcends America because at the core is a universal idea. I don't give two hoots for the Pilgrim Fathers, but I do have plenty to be grateful for. We all do, of course. I'm grateful for my incredibly hard-working wife and my indefatigable children. I'm grateful for my amazing family and friends. The giants of my life: my parents, my siblings, my school, university and other friends I've left behind in Britain. But also the new friends and new family I've found here in America, all startling and unlooked for, but heartbreakingly generous and welcoming. I'm grateful to be able to sit outside in my shirt sleeves in November. I'm grateful for the restorative powers of tea, toast and Marmite that are gently pushing the edges of a mighty hangover from my brain. And I'm grateful that this day exists: a day to remember how lucky and loved I am; a day to give thanks.

Goldfinger

And then - BAM! - it was the Sixties.

There are many reasons why Bond's antics will forever carry the smirk of a middle-aged man behaving like a schoolboy. Most of them you know, instinctively. But it's telling that the films have all those neat contemporary pop-culture references. The stolen Goya in DRNO, the Margaret and Dennis cameo in FYEO - it's the old codger trying to seem up-to-date, but always being slightly behind the curve. Despite the series' popularity, it's rarely a trend setter and almost always (with the exception of Andress' bikini) a follower of fashion.

1964's Goldfinger marks the point where we start to see the Sixties on screen, just as LALD (1973) is the first Seventies Bond and AVTAK (1985 - not Moore's age at the time) is the first of the Eighties. Here things are hotting up. We get the gleaming white skyline of Miami Beach instead of old Istanbul. Out goes the pre-war Bentley (which, to be fair, looked horrifically old-fashioned in FRWL) and in comes the modern Aston Martin DB5. Whilst Bond's attaché case could have been issued by the S.O.E., now Q's loading 007 up with homing devices and GPS on microfiche. Let's not forget that the baddies are au courant as well, with nerve gas, lasers and dirty bombs up their sleeves. 

Barfly.

Everything about Goldfinger is bigger, brighter and shinier than its predecessors. The pre-credits sequence is as cool as Bond ever gets, like a mini movie all of its own. In five minutes 007 goes through a wide repertoire: frogman, saboteur, tuxedoed barfly, lover, fighter, killer. The sequence pauses to deliver the first and superlative quip and then, immaculately, Bond closes the door on the scene - a perfect piece of punctuation that allows the opening bars of the theme to crash into our ears. It's almost a shame the rest of the film has to exist because those few minutes are not only the best of Goldfinger but, arguably, of the entire series. 

So what of the rest? I'm not wrong, am I, in assuming that this is widely considered to be the definitive, the archetypal Bond film? Presumably, this is as good as it gets? Well, for me, what is good here is excellent; but there are also some truly terrible aspects and these are irredeemable. In terms of its reputation, I'd agree that this is the film that cements the Bond formula, this is the one where the production team nail it. Ken Adam is back and his set design continues to be stunning. He was refused access to the real Fort Knox vault and had to pull one from his imagination; given that, it is a marvellous set - both credible and fantastic. John Barry's music improves dramatically on FRWL: muscular and martial in the action scenes, sweepingly scenic during, for example, 007's leisurely pursuit through the Swiss Alps, occasionally playful (the Kentucky Bluegrass) and, in the case of Oddjob's chiming leitmotif, chillingly sinister. The theme is spectacular, of course, thanks to Shirley Bassey's bravura delivery, but it's married with great visuals too. Again it's Robert Brownjohn, not Maurice Binder, in charge of the credits and again there is a simple and brilliantly effective idea: scenes from the film are played over the golden skin of a model, but this is hardly the soft porn we'll put up with in later years. It's rather witty, in fact, and no more so when a golf ball is seemingly putted up the woman's arm and sinks into her cleavage.

There's plenty of wit in the script too and some lovely performances. Fröbe is excellent as Goldfinger (albeit dubbed, of course), both charming and ogreish. See how he physically twitches when he sees the gold in the vault. Honor Blackman does what she can with the little she's given, but the script actively works against her having any sort of character. More on that later. Of the guest stars, it's Harold Sakata as Oddjob who steals the show. He has no lines (other than 'Ah-ah') and is in only a few scenes, but his implacable henchmen is a joy. His smile is delightful, part Buddha, part imp. Watch him grin as Bond smashes a steel bar across his face or, most brilliantly, the way his expression changes as 007 finds the steel-edged hat during their final fight. Suddenly he is wary, his eyes narrow, his chin drops - then Bond throws and misses and the most beautiful smile spreads across Oddjob's face, like the sun coming out.

Other aspects of the formula are being perfected here. Q gets his own Branch and, brilliantly, a personality as well. The Aston Martin DB5 becomes the first Bond car (not to mention the most iconic). The golf match between Bond and Goldfinger is merely the first of many penis-measuring contests that 007 will inevitably win. Connery's Bond is clearly enjoying himself much more here, although it is at the expense of everyone else, and under the veneer of sophistication lurks much that is dark and unpleasant. If it's part of Connery's performance then it's impressive acting. Familiar elements turn up and do their stuff. There's a new Felix Leiter, albeit one utterly without charisma, but M gets a welcome extended outing, taking Bond to the Bank of England for dinner and a lecture. Unfortunately, it's 007 holding forth on brandy but at least here his expertise is still merely that of the connoisseur - soon he'll be an insufferable know-it-all on all manner of subjects.

At least Moneypenny is able to put him in his place - seizing his hat and flinging it casually onto the stand during their 'customary byplay'. Goodness knows somebody needs to cool him down because Bond's machismo is unpleasantly rampant here. Throughout the film 007 is repellently sexist. It starts with him sending his latest blonde, Dink, off with a slap on the arse and the caveman growl "Man talk," so he can gossip with Leiter. Just a few minutes later he's invading the personal space of a hotel maid to snatch a key from her skirt. She stands there aghast. "You're very sweet," he says by way of, what, apology? explanation? - it sounds just as threatening as it is patronising.

And then, finally, shockingly, there is Pussy Galore and this is where it all falls down.

Let's get this bit over and done with. You may disagree with my interpretation of events but, as far as I'm concerned, Bond rapes Ms Galore. Oh, yes he does. He propositions her in the hay barn. She refuses. Four times. Four times she verbally indicates that she is unwilling. Then there's a physical struggle (that she initiates) during which he overpowers her. Yes, cultural standards shift over time, yes this is escapist, silly James Bond but, frankly, who cares? If it was Silvio Berlusconi doing this instead of James Bond, you wouldn't hesitate for a moment to call it what it is, or to smash him in the balls with a cricket bat.

What makes this worse is that the entire film hinges on this rape. In the book, Bond passes a message to the CIA warning them of the attack. The film deviates and gives this role to Pussy Galore, but crucially she does this because Bond has made her swap sides. And how did he do that? By raping her. Furthermore, Bond does nothing during the attack on Fort Knox but kill Oddjob and stare hopelessly at a nuclear bomb - it's the US Army that fight off the Communists and disarm the device. So 007's only contribution to the successful defence of the world economy is to rape a woman so that she magically becomes a goody. That's how he beats Goldfinger. It's all fairly horrible.

But there's another layer to this, left over from the book and it's worth a look at that I think because only so much can be hinted at on screen. She's a real gangster in the book, American and - explicitly - a 'Lesbian' [sic]. Bond is disgusted to notice that Tilly Masterson, pale would-be assassin of Goldfinger, is enamoured of her.

Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterson was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and 'sex equality'. As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits - barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them. 

I suppose in his defence I should point out that Fleming was born in 1908; his opinions could have been even more conservative. At least in the novel Bond doesn't force himself on Galore. She just happens to be around at the end of the book. She still switches sides, but it's suggested that she's just made a pragmatic gangster's decision to throw in her lot with 007. But once Goldfinger's playing his golden harp, Bond orders her into bed and "she did as she was told, like an obedient child."

He said, "They told me you only liked women."
She said, "I never met a man before." The toughness came back into her voice. "I'm from the South. You know the definition of a virgin down there? Well, it's a girl who can run faster than her brother. In my case I couldn't run as fast as my uncle. I was twelve. That's not so good, James. You ought to be able to guess that."

So that's all right then. There's no such thing as an actual lesbian - it's just a confusion created by bad men and which can be cured by good men. Hooray for men! Ugh.

But when you watch the film with this back story playing underneath it all then the whole thing becomes even more disturbing. This is the film where James Bond saves the day by raping a bad lesbian so that she becomes a good compliant heterosexual. The icing on the cake? Bond's explanatory quip when Leiter asks him why she alerted the CIA: "I must have appealed to her maternal instincts."

What a guy.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: Seagull? No it's James Bond! Grappling hook, over the wall. Kick the guard. Find the switch. Inside, squeeze the toothpaste. Set the charges. Outside. Drop. Undo top, stick fresh carnation in button hole. Into the bar. Girl does a shimmy. Light fag. Look at Rolex. KABOOM! Look suspiciously unfazed by explosion as everyone else goes crazy. Heroin-flavoured bananas. Up to the room. Girl's in the bath. Get her out. Kiss her. OUCH! Hang up gun. Kiss her again. There's something in her eye.. A capungo! Spin, thwack, odd twisty leg move, knock him into the bath. He's reaching for the gun! Flick electric - is it a heater? - into the bath. FIZZLE! Retrieve gun. Replace jacket. Glance at naked girl in towel regaining consciousness on the floor and groaning. Say "Shocking. Positively shocking." Close door. Cue Shirley. Bloody brilliant.

Theme: It's Goldfinger. It's Shirley Bassey. It's a bit of a belter.

Deaths: Well, I make it 58. But there must be load more at the battle at Fort Knox. Probably. Doesn't help when footage is reused though.

Memorable Deaths [new category!]: Plenty. Capungo in the bath. Shirley Eaton covered in gold paint. Oddjob blows a fuse. Goldfinger out the window.  

Licence to Kill: 7. Two of which are electrocutions. This means he is left flailing about for a second electric death quip once he's offed Oddjob. He doesn't come up with anything good.

Exploding Helicopters: None. There is a helicopter but, inexplicably, it doesn't explode. A plane does crash though.

Shags: 2. Yes, there's the dancing girl, and Dink, but we don't know he shagged them. He incontrovertibly goes all the way with Shirley Eaton and, for the record, she seems to be very keen on the idea too.

Crimes Against Women: An actual crime this time. Don't worry, they'll go all meta and subvert it in the next film so it's all okay. (For what it's worth, Mei-Lei could probably get him for harassment too.)

Casual Racism: The Communists' uniforms. (It's never explicitly stated if they are Chinese, like Mr Ling, or Korean, like Oddjob.) 

Out of Time: Amazingly, 007 has maps of the whole of Europe on his homing device. That's a lot of microfiche for 1964 but as a gadget it's rather less remarkable given our gee-whiz GPS sat-navs. The nuclear device is ENORMOUS. The brown overcoats the Q technicians wear suggest Mr Bennett the caretaker from Take Hart. Bond flies to Switzerland from Southend-on-Sea. There's glamorous.

Fashion Disasters: Hahahaha. That's me laughing at Bond's blue terry one-piece romper suit. It's terrible. Connery is persevering unsuccessfully with the hat idea but the golf hat is one of the better ones. Leiter wears a terrible hat too. The Flying Circus pilots have very, er, pointy flight-suits.

Eh?: Oh good grief, why tell the gangsters your plan if you've just gathered them there to kill them? Why let Solo leave, if you're about to gas all the others anyway? It's a waste of petrol to drive him to the junk yard, let alone all the effort of extracting the gold from the crushed up car. >> How on Earth, did Felix drill the entire town around Fort Knox to fall over at the right time? It's sixty thousand people, isn't it? Did he call a Town Hall meeting? >> What is Bond trying to do to the capungo's leg during the fight in the pre-credit sequence? Twist it off? >> Felix's office improbably overlooks the White House. >> The flight crew of the plane that Goldfinger hi-jacks are shown violently struggling against their bonds - but a few minutes later when they are discovered by Leiter et al, they are all unconscious, as if they struggled themselves to sleep, like tiny swaddled babies. >> Most infuriatingly, Bond is on the verge of escaping from Goldfinger's foundry when he is confronted with a little old lady with a machine gun, so he swerves about and drives back into the complex and is caught. Just run her over, FFS! Perhaps she reminds him of May? 

Worst Line: Almost anything said by the hoodlums. They bleat like new born lambs, seemingly confused by everything around them: "What's with that trick pool table!", "Hey, what is this? A merry-go-round?" and "What's that map doing there?" are three of their hysterical cries for help.  None of this can compete with "MAN TALK," or Bond's bid for Fuddy-Duddy of the Year, 1964: "My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!" Actually worse than all this is the breathless, little-girlish "Ooh!" Pussy Galore gives as Bond knocks her on her back once again before the final credits roll.

Best Line: "Shocking. Positively shocking." It's the best Bond quip ever but, sadly, that means it's responsible for all the dreadful ones to come. There's also: "Manners, Oddjob. I thought you always took your hat off to a lady?" from Bond and the incomparable "I never joke about my work, 007," from an already exasperated Q. And don't forget that Mr Solo had a pressing engagement...

Worst Bond Moment: Other than YOU KNOW WHAT? Helplessly staring at the innards of a nuclear bomb? Standing around in that terry one-piece? Here it is:

Best Bond Moment: I've mentioned the pre-credit sequence already possibly? The way he breaks out of his cell at the ranch is pretty neat too.

Overall: Our mundane reality of spies and scandals has been left behind and from now on it's all going to be fantastic(al). Every thing's done so confidently that it's easy to miss the things they get wrong, perhaps. I don't know. This is exciting, bold, beautiful and witty. More importantly, it's cynically and successfully aimed at the American market. From now on 007 is a global commodity, but the world may not be enough...

James Bond Will Return: It says:

THE END

OF
'GOLDFINGER'

BUT
JAMES BOND
WILL BE BACK

IN
'THUNDERBALL'

and they're not wrong.

From Russia With Love

It has the same writers, the same director, the same star, but FRWL is a huge improvement on DRNO. What makes it better? The swagger, the confidence that could only be occasionally glimpsed in the first film is here in spades. In other words this is, from beginning to end, a James Bond movie. Both Connery and Bond are much more comfortable, and the latter is transformed from a cold British policeman into a suave international spy.

Yes, unusually for the series, this film actually places Bond in the world of international espionage, complete with encryption machines, dead letter drops, proxies and coded password exchanges. Despite the seeming realism of the film, Bond is already a spy with both a global reputation and a nemesis in the shape of the cat-stroking (but as yet unnamed) head of SPECTRE.

It's this singular deviation from the source material (in the book, the operation against Bond is pure SMERSH) that provides the fantastic edge to FRWL but, whereas in DRNO the fantasy lifted us out of the boredom, here it threatens to spoil what is actually a taut East/West spy thriller. As with DRNO, real world concerns are present. SPECTRE's plan is to create a scandal that would embarrass MI6 by filming 007 having sex with a female KGB agent. It's remarkable enough that this film could be released just weeks after Lord Denning's report into the Profumo affair - but remember the original novel was written in 1957, six years earlier. Unlike DRNO, the subject of British security weaknesses is handled much more confidently here. 'They' (SMERSH/SPECTRE/whoever) want to attack us because we are a threat, we are strong - that's the message here. And it is very clear and very deliberate that the baddies are keen to target a particular agent too: James Bond. Already the character has become associated with ideas of British prestige and security and his on screen victories therefore become all the more important.

The early scenes include a chess match, now a clichéd metaphor for the Cold War, between Soviet and US pawns – Czechoslovakia and Canada respectively. (On the scoreboard, incidentally, the players are billed as “Czechoslovakia Kronsteen” and “Canada MacAdams” which would make pretty great names themselves. Might steal that.) If we could ignore SPECTRE then the remainder of the plot would be a murky continuation of that chess game, but immediately we are dragged to ‘SPECTRE Island’ which is seemingly a terrorist training camp adapted for a Japanese game show. It is a silly place where training means letting everyone loose together in a confined space with flame throwers, machine guns and swords: a preposterous mêlée through which VIP tours coolly pick their way. It's like something from Monty Python. There's more SPECTRE silliness later on but until then Fleming's book asserts itself and we get the straight, if colourful, spy film we might have expected.

Other than a slight stumble when Grant calls Bond "oh-oh-seven" (c.f. WOTAN's "Doctor Who is required!") this is really coming together now. The legendary Desmond Llewellyn makes his début as Q and brings with him the first bona fide gadget of the series: an attaché briefcase loaded with guns, knives, tear gas and gold sovereigns. We have the all-out pitched battle at the gypsy encampment and, joy of joys, the brilliant fight between Bond and Robert Shaw's Red Grant on board the Orient Express. It's a brutal crashing battle in a tiny space and, almost certainly, the best fight scene in the series.

Grant himself is the best thing in this movie, something the director, Terence Young, seemed to notice as the character wasn't supposed to appear in the first half of the film and had to be hastily added into the scenes in Turkey. Throughout FRWL he is a brooding and ominous presence: from the opening teaser sequence (another Bond staple appearing for the first time) to that fight, he lurks and prowls, shadowing Bond like a jungle cat. Here, in only the second film, we are offered Grant as an 'anti-Bond', a reflection: identically dressed, but blond, he is an equal and an opposite, capable of offing our hero. Shaw, given little to say, is brilliant, physically powerful, able to dominate a scene even when he's hiding in the background. My favourite moment is when the train stops at Belgrade. Bond gets off to search for his contact and wanders along the platform. Grant appears in the window of the carriage behind him and silently follows, effortlessly melting away every time 007 turns his head. It's excellently done and the real achievement is to provide a menace which seems more powerful than Bond. The only weird thing is just how much he reminds me of, er, Daniel Craig...

As for the rest of the cast, well, Lotte Lenya (as Colonel Klebb) is great, but she's in this a lot less than I remembered. Still, she gets her own fight scene and has the wonderful shoes with the hidden blade - surely the most memorable movie footwear since Dorothy's ruby slippers. Daniela Bianchi plays Tatiana, the unworldly KGB cipher clerk duped by SPECTRE into seducing Bond. Like Ursula Andress before her, her English was deemed poor enough to have her dubbed over by another actress, but her performance is strong despite that, bringing a convincing naive vulnerability - hang on, that's just the same as last time. Oh well. Tatiana does have a sweet girlish quality - practising her (fake) married name, trying on dresses - but this sort of demure pliable Bond woman is going to get boring quickly.

Another source of charm is Pedro Armendáriz as Kerim Bey, MI6's man in Station T, Turkey. The character is the perfect foil for Connery's Bond: smooth, reliable, tough and with an old fashioned view of gender relations. Still, it's hard not to be fond of the man and his family spy network. It's a lovely performance by Armendáriz, astonishingly so given that he was in tremendous pain throughout, having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The condition worsened during filming and Armendáriz was sent to hospital. He did not return to the set and committed suicide before his scenes could be completed.

As Bond leaves the Orient Express, so the film abandons Fleming's story and sets off across country. There's a so-so North by Northwest pastiche and then the full force of Blofeld's sinister organisation is unleashed, giving us... the SPECTRE Regatta. Perhaps this was thrilling in 1963. It's not impossible. But I doubt it. Poor Walter Gotell (who'll reappear later in the series as a KGB chief) has to take command of this jolly flotilla whilst commentating through a megaphone. It all comes across a bit Balamory. The boats are named SPECTRE 1, 2 and 3 for one thing so as bullets splash into the water we hear commands like "A little to your left, SPECTRE number three! Keep right, SPECTRE number two!" as if he was the guy in charge of the pedalos on the boating lake. He also gets to tell off one of his henchmen for firing too accurately. "We don't want to hit them!" Oh no, why would you want to do that? It's all very genteel.

* * *

Pre-Credits Sequence: The job here is to sum up in the first third of the novel in three minutes. Basically, people are plotting to take revenge on James Bond. It says something about the success of DRNO that we are immediately supposed to care about the threat to this James Bond fellow.

Theme: It's another vague medley, and the organ arrangement of the FRWL theme makes this sound like a variety show. And yes, we have semi-naked women wibbling and wobbling between the credits but this is not Maurice Binder, kids. This is Robert Brownjohn. You knows it.

Deaths: A whopping 25. That's a 278% increase on DRNO. It could be higher as well (but see below). 12 are killed during the fight at the gypsy camp alone.

Licence to Kill: At least 9, 5 of which are dispatched during the big fight. There are various woundings that might have proved fatal had the camera stayed on the victim longer. For example, Bond pushes a flaming cart into three men during the gypsy/Bulgarian battle, but they don't drop to the floor and could conceivably get away relatively unharmed. Similarly, during the boat chase at the end, there is certainly 1 fatality, but the fate of approximately 9 other men is not revealed. Let's be generous.

Exploding Helicopters: 1. The first, hopefully, of many.

Shags: 1. Although it is hinted that Bond has been 'given' the pair of gypsy girls for the night, when we next see them they are still fully (and elaborately) dressed so I'm not counting them.

Crimes Against Women: Unforgivably, Bond hits Tatiana across the face. He's cross about Kerim's death but even so, there's not much at stake to justify smacking her about. He also attacks Rosa Klebb with a chair, but that's rather more understandable as she has got very pointy shoes on. The belly dance is hardly offensive, but the cat-fight that follows is entirely gratuitous: half-naked women fighting to the death over a man that they will cook and sew for?

Casual Racism: Minor officials get a bad press here: the clerk in the Soviet embassy is pig-headed; the conductor on the Orient Express is corrupt. The Bulgars are Soviet patsies. The gypsies are wild and rough but they're hospitable and happy to fight on Bond's side.

Out of Time: This whole movie was made dated. Aside from Bond's pager and the odd topical news reference (all that Piccadilly stuff we no longer get) this could be the '50s or even earlier. It oozes old world charm. (Incidentally this might be a factor: Ken Adam was unavailable, working on Dr. Strangelove, so FRWL lacks his bold modern stylings.)

Fashion Disasters: The Bulgar spy is preposterously conspicuous in his beret and thick spectacles, like something from 'Allo 'Allo. The problem might be Soviet bloc opticians though because Klebb's are made from jam jars. Connery can't wear hats, it just looks silly. But the ship captain's hat he wears (with his Saville Row suit at one point) is terrible. 

Eh?: Bond leaves the shower running when Tatania sneaks into his room. For ages. >> Tatiana arranges to meet Bond at the Hagia Sophia and is shown walking through Istanbul to get there - except that in almost every shot, the Hagia Sophia is clearly seen over her shoulder, even the one where she is seen going inside. I don't think there are two of them are there? Also she asks a policeman directions on how to get to the enormous pointy mosque on the hill dominating the city.

Worst Line: SPECTRE's Admiral of the Fleet speaks nothing but tosh, of which "Ahoy Mr Bond!" is probably the nadir. His mysterious boss spouts "Twelve seconds. One day we must develop a faster acting venom." Bond says "Ciao" again.

Best Line: No real zingers. The secret code ("Have you got a match?" "I use a lighter.." and so forth) is fondly remembered by men of a certain age.

Worst Bond Moment: Use of the exciting and dynamic James Bond theme merely exacerbates the utter dullness of a scene where 007, yawn, examines his hotel room for bugs. 

Best Bond Moment: Connery gives Bond lots of clever little characterizations, telling darts of the eyes and so forth, but the most wonderful touch comes after the climactic fight with Red Grant: exhausted but victorious, Bond coolly leans against the door and straightens his tie even as he's catching his breath. 

Overall: This is the moment of harmony, where Fleming's book and the film series are perfectly balanced. As a result we end up with a confident and stylish Cold War spy drama. But this isn't sustainable. The films need the exotic, the excess to keep going and, from now on, things will begin to get brasher and bolder.

James Bond Will Return: Here, argh, is what it says (just imagine wobbly home movie footage of Venice in the background):

THE END.

NOT QUITE THE END.

JAMES BOND WILL RETURN

IN THE NEXT IAN FLEMING THRILLER

GOLDFINGER

Hmm. Could be snappier perhaps?