Sean Connery obviously loved playing James Bond. Why else would he have come back to the role after leaving it behind forever not once, but twice? They could have named a film after that habit of his, mew.
Having slept all the way through the making of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and thus given George Lazenby a chance to take his part, as well as having some kiffs with Diana Rigg and some chases with Telly Savalas, Connery was back for the seventh of the expensive luxury James Bond films, 1971's Diamonds Are Forever.
It starts with Bond looking for Blofeld for some unspecified reason. Let's just assume Bond is miffed at Blofeld having killed off Diana Rigg at the end of the last film, even though this is at no point directly specified as being his motivation. It might just as easily be Sean Connery being annoyed that the film he missed out on being in was better than this one.
If Bond wants revenge on the Telly Savalas version of Blofeld then he's too late, because Blofeld is now played by Charles "it's just a jump to the left" Gray, last seen by us playing Henderson in You Only Live Twice. He got killed in that, so that would make this Gray's second life. Bond sneaks in to Blofeld's new lair and has a fight with some henchmannys, then kills Blofeld by pushing him into some bubbling mud that he had installed in his lair for no apparent reason - already we are getting a taste of one of the themes of this film, which is that sometimes things happen with no explanation for them.
SECTRE Number One mews at his latest Blofeld for getting killed already, and we can see he is wearing an expensive luxury collar of diamonds. His eye turns into a diamond by way of a crude special effect (certainly not an expensive luxury effect!) and this expands into the title sequence.
Number One actually takes part in the title sequence, making it even more expensive and luxury than usual. The lyrics to the theme song are scientifically inaccurate, so they are probably a metaphor for something - knowing James Bond films, probably something naughty.
After the titles, M is showing Bond some diamonds. They then meet with Sir Donald, played by Laurence Naismith taking time out from giving missions to Tony Curtis and Roger Moore to give a mission to the original James Bond. Bond's assignment is to find out who has been stealing diamonds, which seems a bit low key compared to some of his recent missions.
Bond sees Miss Moneypenny before he leaves, and asks her
"What can I bring you back from Holland?"
"A diamond? In a ring?""Would you shettle for a tulip?"
Bond pretends to be Peter Franks, a diamond smuggler, and he meets Tiffany Case (who is also a diamond smuggler) and immediately pervs at her. Bond gets into a fight with the real Peter Franks - a tense, dramatic fight that takes place in a cramped and decidedly unsafe-looking lift - and kills him. Swapping wallets with Franks, he convinces Tiffany that he has just killed James Bond, whom she has heard of, but not so much that she was able to recognise the real Bond - she must have only seen On Her Majesty's Secret Service, then. Mew.
Bond hides Tiffany's stolen diamonds inside Franks's body (up his bum, lol) and smuggles it to America. He talks to the aeroplane's pilot, who is played by John "General Carrington" Abineri, although he has for some reason been dubbed so that his accent sounds generically foreign. Perhaps they had to dub over him saying "Mr Bond, with these diamonds you are spoiling us!"
In America Bond meets Felix Leiter, who is in disguise as a customs manny - which is why he is being played by a different actor once again. He also meets with some obvious gangsters who take him, and the coffin containing Franks and the diamonds, away to meet Morton Slumber.
Slumber is played by David "Living in Harmony" Bauer in a wig, and this cunning disguise might be the reason why Bond doesn't realise straight away that he's in the presence of a Number Two.
We have seen Mr Wint and Mr Kidd kill off several other diamond smugglers so far, and now they are after Bond, still mistaikenly thinking he is Franks. They knock him out and put him in a coffin, which they set fire to and then leave - these are classy baddys, who know how the game is played.
Bond doesn't like being trapped in a box, and starts to lose his cool - he knows that pretty soon he will be both dead and alive at the same time. Bond gets rescued by another baddy called Shady Tree because the diamonds Bond hid were fake, and Tree wants the real diamonds. Bond starts acting cool again as soon as he is let out.
Wint and Kidd kill Tree next, preventing Bond from getting more information out of him or finding out who he was supposed to give the diamonds to once he got them. After finding the ded Tree, Bond goes to a casino because... he's James Bond, of course he does. He meets "Plenty O'Toole" and takes her back to his hotel suite for some naughtiness, but some henchmannys are waiting for him there. They don't want Plenty so they throw her out of the window into a swimming pool. Bond says
"Exceptionally fine shot.""I didn't know there was a pool down there."
quips the main henchmanny. The henchmannys then leave, because Tiffany is in Bond's bed for him to get up to naughtiness with instead of Plenty.
Tiffany double-crosses Bond and gets away from Felix's incompetent henchmannys who were following her, but she changes her mind when she sees Plenty O'Toole has been killed by mistaik instead of her. Some confusing editing around this point in the film makes it look as though Plenty O'Toole just liked going around getting thrown in swimming pools, since this is the second one she ended up in in as many scenes.
Tiffany helps Bond follow the diamonds to their ultimate destination, a secret base in the desert. Bond sneaks inside using the classic 'hide in the back of a van' technique.
There he sees that the base has already been infiltrated by Ed Straker of SHADO (formerly of NASA), and he helps Bond get into a restricted area while pretending to be a low-ranking jobsworth. Bond uses the same false identity of "Klaush Hergersheimer of G Shection" to bluff his way into meeting Professor Dr Metz (played by Joseph "Professor Zaroff" Furst, one of the few actors in ze vurld who can give Sean Connery's accent a run for its money), who is in charge here, and sees he is using the diamonds to make a satellite. Unfortunately, because both Bond and Straker are using the same identity, they get caught out. We don't see Straker getting chased by the baddys, since this is a Bond film not an episode of UFO, we just see the consequences for Bond.
In a different part of the secret base, for no apparent reason, some mannys are faking up a moon landing, and Bond steals their moon buggy to escape in. This chase is played for laughs, such as when the astronauts continue to move in slow motion even when going after Bond. The buggy turns out to be much better over the desert terrain than the cars that are chasing him, so Bond gets away.
This chase is barely over when, when Bond and Tiffany get back to the city, the police decide to have a car chase with them through the streets. This is played more seriously, and with no incidental music other than police sirens. It might be technically the better chase scene, but it is less interesting than the one we just had - it goes on just a bit too long, though it does at least end on a decent stunt.
With all the clues pointing at the main baddy being reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte, Bond and Tiffany stay at his hotel so that Bond can go "upshtairsh" to meet him. This involves a lot of Bond climbing around on the outside of the building, a scene that manages to be much more dramatic and tense than the high-speed car chase was.
Inside the penthouse lair, Bond sees Number One and two Blofelds. They have been impersonating Willard Whyte using a voice-changing gadget, and have taken over his business empire. Bond says he doesn't know which Blofeld is the real one so he doesn't know which one to kill, since his gun only has a single shot. He scares Number One and then shoots the Blofeld that the cat jumps to, reasoning that must be the real Blofeld.
"Right idea, Mr Bond.""But wrong pusshy."
There are really two Number Ones! And just like with Doctor Whos, when they meet up they don't get on, lol! (This is, obviously, the most expensive and luxury bit of the whole film.) Blofeld refuses to tell Bond his plan, or how he is going to use the diamonds to take over the world, and sends Bond away in a lift. Bond understandably thinks it might be a deathtrap, but it only gasses him into having sleeps.
Mr Wint and Mr Kidd pick up the sleeping Bond to put him in a deathtrap. This is the first confirmation we have seen that they are Blofeld's henchmannys, and haven't just wandered in from the wrong film. Bond wakes up in a big pipe along with a mouse. He gets chased by some kind of electricity robot that is also in the pipe - we might ask why, but there is little point to questioning why some things happen in this film; they just do.
When Bond breaks the robot, he gets let out of the pipe by two mannys whose job it is to fix the robot whenever it breaks, which the mannys claim happens "twice a day" - implying Wint and Kidd have been trying to use this deathtrap to kill a couple of secret agents every day, all of whom have foiled it in the same way.
Number One is having some noms (expensive luxury noms, we must presume) when Bond telephones Blofeld and uses a voice-changing gadget of his own, supplied by Q, to pretend to be one of Blofeld's henchmannys. He tricks Blofeld into revealing where he is keeping Willard Whyte prisoner, so Bond can go and rescue him. He has to get past Whyte's two bodyguards "Bambi" and "Thumper" first. They're not quite "lady mudwrestlers" but might be the closest that an actual Bond film came to doing that for real.
Tiffany is at the casino and sees Number One being carried past her, and somehow recognises him. Well, if she knew who James Bond was from watching On Her Majesty's Secret Service, maybe she recognised Number One the same way. She follows the manny carrying the cat, and it turns out to be Blofeld in drag, who captures her.
"Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in."
Could this film get any more camp? Well, as it happens... no - this is the high point.
Willard Whyte finds out that mannys who think they have been W-wording for him have already launched his satellite. The model shots of the satellite deploying in space are impressively convincing. It doesn't take Bond and Whyte long to W-word out that the satellite is a giant space laser, of the sort that would make Terry Nation proud.
The laser starts pewpewpewing nuclear missiles still in their bases, and submarines in the sea. These are demonstration pews, and Blofeld is holding the world to ransom once again:
"An international auction, with nuclear supremacy going to the highest bidder."
Blofeld has taken over one of Willard Whyte's sea platforms to use as his new secret base, but unfortunately for him it isn't that secret, and Bond finds it easily. To give Blofeld a bit more of a chance, he allows himself to get captured and taken on board.
Blofeld is about to use the space laser to blow up Washington DC, and gets a henchmanny to start a countdown:
"Ten minutes and counting."
Blofeld, just like El Tel, loves a countdown, and this might be the most iconic countdown out of any Bond film, due to the announcer's distinctive deep voice and accent. It would later be parodied in Austin Powers: International Manny of Mystery.
Felix and Whyte lead a helicopter attack on the base for the climax of the film, while Bond and Tiffany make attempts at sabotaging the laser satellite's controls. With things now going wrong for him, Blofeld decides to try and escape in a small submarine, and he doesn't even try to take Number One with him. (There's no sign of Number One in these scenes - presumably after his scary experience in You Only Live Twice he decided to make his own way off the base as soon as the explosions started up.) Bond knocks out the manny in charge of lowering the submarine into the water, and takes over. Instead of lowering Blofeld, he starts swinging him about for the lols.
The countdown manny reaches
"One minute and counting."
and then very soon after he skips straight to
"Ten, nine, eight..."
Bond swings Blofeld's submarine into the satellite's controls and they blow up, and pretty soon the whole base blows up. The day is saved, but after a lot of build up this is actually a somewhat anticlimactic climax, with Bond just sort of suddenly winning through more-or-less at random.
For the final scene Bond and Tiffany are leaving America on a ship. The incidental music lets us know the danger is not completely passed yet, and then we see Mr Wint and Mr Kidd are on board. They try and blow Bond up with a bomb disguised as a cake, "our bombe surprise."
While they had carefully ensured that whenever they tried to kill Bond earlier in the film, he did not get to see them so doesn't know what they look like, he does recognise them by the smell - all henchmannys need a trademark, and Mr Wint is undone from his being a distinctive aftershave. They have a fight that ends with Mr Kidd getting set on fire and Mr Wint gets blowed up by their own bombe bomb.
The film ends with Tiffany asking Bond
"James, how the hell do we get those diamonds down again?"
and he doesn't answer because he has no more of an idea of how to do it than we cats do.
Expensive Luxury Cat's rating: Very Expensive and Luxury
No comments:
Post a Comment