44 replies to this topic

[The Shark]

It's a really good Bond film, but if I were being harsh on it I'd say it's a film about a love story in which the love story is swept under the carpet.

That comment (above) about Bond's character changing half way through is really, really missing the point. The first third of the film carefully and dramatically sets up Bond's growing interest and affection for Tracey. Their scenes become very intimate and romantic. She is falling in love with him, and he, without really realizing it, is slowly falling for her too.

That's all well and good, but the fact that you had to write a massive paragraph to explain it backs my point. For comparison, I've never seen anybody "explain" that Bond fell in love with Vesper in Casino Royale. It's obvious. Show, don't tell -- that's the scripture of film.

Yes, I know what is supposed to be happening with the story arc; I guess it just doesn't work for me. It doesn't feel authentic. Yes, fall in love. Great. But this is James Bond we're talking about here. He has a hardened shell that lets him do his brutal and ugly job. That shell is not easily broken -- it takes a soul-shattering incident to turn the bad bastard off. OHMSS, in my view, never has such a moment and fails at giving Bond a heart. The final scene is the only exception -- but at that point it's too late, and so jarring it doesn't fit the rest of the film.

Yes; quite- there's no love story there. She hates him, he grabs her physically, says a really crap line and somehow persuades her to go out with him.

The romantic montage, for example, is as much "Show, don't tell" as it gets.

No: it really isn't. You learn nothing in the montage other than Tracy likes kittens- there is no arc of a relationship shown- she hates him and then literally thirty seconds of film later, she's getting engaged to him. That's rubbish. You could replace that montage with a subtitle which says 'THEY FELL IN LOVE AND GOT ENGAGED' and you would literally miss nothing.
That's as much 'Tell, don't show' as it gets.

The rest of the film is great, but the love story is barely dealt with. Arguably you see Bond fall in love with her during the Piz Gloria escape, but half of that love story remains missing.

She doesn't hate him by any means. She does love him, but is quite clearly in denial of it, and is trying to quell her feelings for him. THAT is why she falls for him so easily. She can't keep up her barricade any longer.

[jaguar007]

But OHMSS, in my opinion, doesn't quite know what it wants to be: Classic Bond adventure? Melancholy anti-adventure? It can't be both. It doesn't work as both.

Are you sure you are not confusing this with a Brosnan outing?

[jaguar007]

That said, several of these interminable greatest lists feature at least one Bond film, although its usually DN, FRWL or GF, rather than OHMSS. So, at least some critics have an idea of what much of the fee paying public like to see.

While many may feel it is inferior to OHMSS, GF would have to at least make a "most influential films" list

Actually out of all the Bond movies with a romantic storyline, the most natural romance developing in my eyes was in TLD. You could actually see the relationship develop between Kara and Bond.

[The Shark]

Hogwash. It easily fit as both.

Classic melancholic Bond anti-adventure.

[David_M]

But isn't the whole idea within Fleming's span of Bond novels, that Bond naturally has a weakness for these emotionally fragile, 'bird with a wing down' types? Arguably the two girls that left the strongest mark on Bond, are Vesper and Tracy - Who also have the most mental aberrations and are the most likely 'candidates for psychotherapy.'

You're quite right, that's how Bond operates...in the novels. But on the screen up 'til this point the prototypical movie "Bond girl" had been something altogether different from Fleming's definition (a reality, again, acknowledged by the script's addition of action scenes for Tracy, to bring her more in line with her on-screen predecessors, and even outdo them). And the Bond of the books, with his tendency not only to be drawn to the "bird with a wing down," but also to fall in love (or what passed for it with him) time and again (even when the girl didn't feel the same, as with Gala Brand), had in the films given way to a "love 'em and leave 'em" lothario. Fleming's Bond would act as Lazenby does, but Movie Bond -- to this point embodied by Connery -- would have walked away from Tracy at the first sign she'd be a troublesome drain on his patience or a fragile psyche in need of TLC. He'd have been quite incapable of offering that kind of support, and at any rate uninterested.

But again, that's why I say the movie works for me as an adaptation of Fleming's novel much better than it does as an entry in the EON series, where it doesn't quite fit for numerous reasons.

[Guy Haines]

Hogwash. It easily fit as both.

Classic melancholic Bond anti-adventure.

Indeed. And the novel was written at a time when the author was most likely becoming aware of how his "high life" was beginning to catch up with him. Perhaps he was trying to slow down or even wind down Bond as well, by offering the reader the idea that Bond, at last, had to settle down and become a relatively normal human being - even though, of course, that promise of domestic bliss is cruelly destroyed.

I may be wrong, but I got the impression, reading and re-reading OHMSS, YOLT and even TMWTGG, that Fleming was looking for an exit strategy for Bond (and himself - didn't he consider writing these books a chore and a "bloody nuisance" later in the series?). My personal view is that, had he lived beyond 1964, Mr Fleming might not have had many more Bond adventures left in him.

[marktmurphy]

She doesn't hate him by any means. She does love him, but is quite clearly in denial of it, and is trying to quell her feelings for him. THAT is why she falls for him so easily. She can't keep up her barricade any longer.

She's only met him once before for a quick shag! Seriously: grabbing her and wiping her face and saying a really duff line (what is it he says to her? I forget but I remember it being very unconvincing) is the most unbelievable part of the film. The rest of it's great though, luckily.

[Aris007]

She doesn't hate him by any means. She does love him, but is quite clearly in denial of it, and is trying to quell her feelings for him. THAT is why she falls for him so easily. She can't keep up her barricade any longer.

She's only met him once before for a quick shag! Seriously: grabbing her and wiping her face and saying a really duff line (what is it he says to her? I forget but I remember it being very unconvincing) is the most unbelievable part of the film. The rest of it's great though, luckily.

I'm with "The Shark" here. I also think that she denies the fact that she loves him, by showing that she hates him instead. Perhaps Draco's words get things more clear, cause that 'shag' was the thing that made Tracy fall for Bond. "What she needs is a man to dominate her! A man to make love to her enough to make her love him!". So I think that Tracy actually fall in love just after the first night!

[dodge]

None of the Bond films qualify for Greatest Films of All Time status.

Well, are the rest of us free to opine that this does?

[Harmsway]

None of the Bond films qualify for Greatest Films of All Time status.

Well, are the rest of us free to opine that this does?

You don't see me patrolling this thread with a rifle telling you that you can't, do you?

[DR76]

I don't know about "all time", but it is certainly one of my favorite movies of the 1960s.

[jaguar007]

Well, are the rest of us free to opine that this does?

You don't see me patrolling this thread with a rifle telling you that you can't, do you?

^Harmsway

[Judo chop]

Sure it is.

Would anyone try to say that OHMSS is not easily the 21,304th greatest film of all time? I mean... SOOOO easily. Seriously. No challenge, it is.

[Matt_13]

None of the Bond films qualify for Greatest Films of All Time status.

I certainly think a few of them constitute as some of the most entertaining films of all time. But among the best, in terms of writing, directing, pacing, art direction, cinematography, editing, sound, and acting? Absolutely not. They are outrageously fun romps that give us something to aspire to. In that sense, nobody does it better.

[dodge]

Well, are the rest of us free to opine that this does?

You don't see me patrolling this thread with a rifle telling you that you can't, do you?

^Harmsway

Nice shot.