You're right Zorin, but I feel that the great directors can overcome weaknesses in script or acting. Spielberg (and I know I'm citing the other extreme) has made some films that are far from great, and yet when you've finished watching them, he's still left a mark, a sheen, something, that you has elevated at least parts of the film or left with the notion that you know you've seen something thats his.A director doesn't just "film a scene" then "cut it". You said that the scene works because of "the script and the acting"... who do you think steers both aspects of any film? It's the director. Glen is from a different generation of British film production - a generation that would still exist now had the British film industry not crumbled thrice over. If a film is any good (like EYES ONLY) it is because the director got it right.
Glen, IMHO, was never able to transcend the parts he was given into something greater as a whole. I personally feel OP is a bit of a mess, and AVTAK is just flat at best. I'm not saying it's Glen's fault - my only point is that the great directors can lift, if only momentarily, the most mediocre of material. At some level I think it must have been very difficult for Glen - I do get the sense that it was as much Cubby's vision, and the fact that he had defer to Sir Rog in terms of the character of Bond. Hearing about Glen and TD not getting along is interesting - IMHO TLD and LTK are superior to the two films that precede them.
Can anyone tell me why some of the biggest names in directing (Hitchcock, Spielberg etc) have never chaired a Bond. Not asked, not wanted to, never came around? Or were EON uncomfortable with an auteur getting his hands on the thing?