34 replies to this topic

[quantumofsolace]

http://www.denofgeek...nds-are-forever

[Call Billy Bob]

Always love hearing praise for Wint and Kidd rather than distain. Kudos to Max for this one.

[AMC Hornet]

Reading all the negative comments at the end just makes me want to watch it again, even though it's not the special time of year that I reserve for watching this particular favorite.

 

When I was a kid I thought Las Vegas must be the epitome of glitz and glamour. After visiting the city as an adult, I realized that it was Connery who lent the location some class while he was there.

[hoagy]

I think it is helpful to know how the films were received in their own times.

Goldfinger was shown around the clock, with lines around the block.

Thunderball was a BIG movie.  It featured a welcome return to settings that are sexy, as had been employed in Dr. No.  You can't have Bond in the Bahamas every time out, but after old European cities (FRWL) and Kentucky (GF), it was a welcome return to glamour and sexy settings.

OHMSS received much less notice.  Very simply - it did not have Connery in it and, to twist a line from the film, that other fellow never had a chance.

Diamonds Are Forever was not just the return of Connery.  Everyone knew it was a one-shot anyway.  It was FUN !  Cheesy fx on the satellite attacks. Mustang miraculously and without explanation comes out on the wrong two wheels and -- as a Bond film tradition dating to FRWL -- lousy fx on the helicopter explosions ?  Sure.  But FUN !  (By the way -- can you imagine that goof even happening now ?  Or, if it did, that the producers would declare it too expensive to re-shoot ?!!!?  Of course, nowadays, the gawking streetfolks could just be CGI-ed out)

Similarly, TSWLM and Octopussy were just FUN !  It can difficult to say how it all comes together sometimes and not others.  Part of it certainly can be what's going on outside the theaters as to how a film is received.

At any rate, DAF was big, colorful, entertaining, amusing, comfortable and fun, and was very well received.  It was not MEANT to withstand critical scrutiny.  It DID achieve that which it was meant to do -- entertained lots and lots of people who left the theater feeling that they just had a ball.

[DaveBond21]

Hoagy - They shot a quick car interior scene where Connery and Tiffany lay to one side and the car goes onto the other set of wheels. Watch the film again to spot it.

 

Otherwise, you make some very good points.

[hoagy]

Oh, I know that scene and that it is meant to "explain" the change.  Of course,It wouldn't work.  They could shift their body weight to get the car to go level again, but not to then go (and so smoothly !)  up on the OTHER pair of wheels.  It took a ramp, after all, to get the car up on one pair in the first place.  Just shifting body weight would not make it switch to the other pair.  And without leveling off and being stable again on all four !!!  It was absolutely non-sensical as an "explanation."  Bottom line:  the producers were being cheap.  You can tell I enjoy the movie, but that part made no sense.  It was worse than the moon buggy's wheel clearly flying off yet it still had 4 as it kept going.  A little edit would kept the audience from seeing the loose wheel !  They were sloppy back then, but audiences were used to it.  You just held on and enjoyed the roller coaster ride.

[dtuba]

Taken on its own merits, I enjoy DAF for what it is  - a lighthearted adventure with a a witty script. However, coming directly after OHMSS it commits one of the gravest crimes in the history of narrative filmdom. Which is of course basically crapping all over the tragic legacy of one Countess Tracy Di Vicenzo, arguably the greatest Bond Girl of all time.

[Turn]

DAF is important to me as it's the first Bond film I saw when it was brand new and in the cinema when I was barely 5. That made it my favorite film in the series for years and it still has a special place.

 

I've said before the OHMSS follow-up regret thing is very modern. Nobody knew for years Peter Hunt was considering DAF being an actual follow-up do OHMSS. I don't think anybody at all even wanted such a thing in 1970. I too would have liked to see what they'd have come up with, but don't waste a lot of brain space worrying over it.

[freemo]

I think OHMSS is all the more impactful and special for being a stark, one time thing, and not just an episode in some (ugh) ongoing DVD boxset melodrama.

 

DAF is a fine follow up. When we saw them last, both Blofeld and Bond were attempting to break free of this sort of thing and more forward to something more respectable. Blofeld was going to become a count and “retire into private life”, Bond was going to get married and “find something else to do”. But they both ruined the other’s plans. So now here they both are, back to the familiar, back to doing this (DAF is so a “typical” James Bond film). This is all that they are, all that they ever will be. That’s infinitely bleaker than “Bond has a cry and cuddles Tracey’s headstone while ‘All the time in the world’ plays poignantly in the background”.

[DamnCoffee]

Watched this again quite recently, actually. There's some stuff about it that I love. Wint & Kidd, John Barry's marvellous soundtrack, one of the best title songs in the series and some great dialogue and humour. However, there is no escaping the fact that Sean Connery looked bored as hell, and gave one of the laziest performances of his career. That's the main thing that brings the film down for me. As good as the one liners are, and as good as some of the dialogue is, Connery does absolutely nothing with it. I feel I'd enjoy Diamonds Are Forever a lot more if it was Moore's first. It still wouldn't be a masterpiece but I feel I'd probably feel more obliged to 'go along for the ride' . It's the equivalent of Daniel Craig doing a complete uturn for his last movie and doing a Die Another Day.  Connery for me epitomises Bond: ruthless, charming, handsome, debonair. It all leaves a bit of a sour taste really because in Diamonds Are Forever he's NONE of these things. I think Roger would've had a blast with it. It's totally his kind of Bond film anyway. 

 

I can enjoy it though, and pick out a handful of things to love about it. It's just a shame that Sean Connery just isn't one of them. 

[AMC Hornet]

Funny, I always thought Sir Sean looked more interested and amused by the goings-on than he did in his previous entry. I always assumed it was knowing that he was receiving $1.25m for eight weeks work that kept him engaged.

 

Sean's laconic approach suited the film, I think. Better than expecting him to compete with all the zaniness by joining in.

[SecretAgentFan]

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (re-watch)

 

For years it was a lesser entry in my opinion.  Then, three years ago, when I did my re-watch sessions before the release of SKYFALL, I fell in love with this one, found it immensely entertaining and underrated.

 

Strangely, now I think it´s really not that special. 

 

Sure, there are great things in it - Connery, Jill St. John, Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd, Charles Gray, the elevator fight, Bond hopping on the outside elevator of the hotel, and most of all Barry´s enchanting score and song.  But apart from that, the movie feels tired.  As if the team was still under shock from the lack of enthusiasm for the wonderful OHMSS.  The film suddenly felt to me as if EON thought: damn, we´ll have to rush this one into the cinemas before our golden goose is finished, so... um... let´s just throw around some ideas and Guy, please, make them all come together.  Doesn´t matter how.  We´ve got Sean.  That´s all we need for people to show up.

 

The film has uninteresting locations, subpar sets, the pacing is off, the stunts are unremarkable.  True, there are the occasional funny one-liners - but I really think people are right when they say: this is when camp and parody entered, not with Moore´s films.  And gee, for the first time I noticed that this is a film in which an elephant played a slot machine.

 

Suddenly, THUNDERBALL feels very inspired to me again.

 

So, not counting NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN - this is my Connery top 6 list on this year´s re-watch:

 

1. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

2. GOLDFINGER

3. DR.NO

4. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

5. THUNDERBALL

6. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER

[DaveBond21]

Good one, SecretAgentFan.

 

I am enjoying your reviews.

 

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[tdalton]

Yeah, this one is definitely not one of the more inspired entries.  Objectively, it's pretty bad.  Connery is really the only thing they have going for them this time out.  It's a shame that they wasted Las Vegas on this film, as it should be a great setting for a Bond film.

[glidrose]

Sometimes the "little" things make all the difference. *IF* Peter Hunt had cut the film I do think it would have been a much, much better film and many of the things people complain about would have not been as objectionable.

I recall reading somewhere on the 'net a memo Richard Maibaum wrote to the producers saying that DAF sorely needed a fantastic cutter like Peter Hunt and that Guy Hamilton doesn't have a particularly fast directing style. Shame I can't remember where I read it.

[SecretAgentFan]

IMO, the editing would not have improved this film.  Only a better script.

[DaveBond21]

This is not one of my favourites, and after a gap of about 5 years, I watched this again. It certainly ushers in the humour and car chase-based action that we saw a lot of in the 70's films. It also features the reactions of incompetent US cops, something that every 70's and early 80's action movie seemed to include when I was a kid.

 

Connery is nowhere near as intense as his portrayal of 007 as he was for Dr No and FRWL; indeed this interpretation could easily have been played by Roger Moore.

 

There are only a few good moments - the fight with Franks, the Las Vegas car chase and the explosions on the oil rig (including more good helicopter work), but the bad elements include poor Bond girls, a weak villain, too many lame scenes in the hotel & Vegas attractions, and this must be the Bond with the least attractive scenery.

 

Certainly near the bottom of my list.

[AMC Hornet]

Dear Dave,

 

Showcasing exotic scenery is one of the attractions to the series as a whole. It certainly made a fan of me. Imagine TB with no beaches, or OHMSS with no mountains, or QoS with no - oh, wait; make that: 'remember QoS'?

 

Granted, Las Vegas is gaudy as hell, but as an impressionable 12-year-old I ate it up on screen, and as an adult I enjoy visiting the surviving filming locations. I enjoy any movie that features Las Vegas as a location, even if I have to endure Chevy Chase (although The Hangover is one I never care to see again).

 

In fact, I was disappointed with Last Vegas, as there was too little location-hopping.

 

Having been to Japan, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Rio as well, I enjoy visiting them again every time I watch YOLT, TMWTGG and MR. Watching TWINE and DAD doesn't inspire me to go to Baku or Iceland.

 

The travelogue aspect of the Bond films is something that has been diminishing lately, but which Mendes/Deakins tried to bring back with SF. I hope to see more of the same in SPECTRE.

[0072]

Taken for what it is, Diamonds are Forever is a fun film, best seen out of context and apart from the meta-narrative of Bond's journey.  Seen straight after the first six films (and especially OHMSS), it seems like a mis-fire - and a half-arsed one at that.

 

This film belongs to the same world as most Roger Moore films than the earlier Bonds.  Timothy Dalton's Bond, in hindsight, would have been a far better successor to OHMSS than a return to more Connery (and I'm a Connery fan!).

[dtuba]

 

The travelogue aspect of the Bond films is something that has been diminishing lately, but which Mendes/Deakins tried to bring back with SF. I hope to see more of the same in SPECTRE.

Great post Hornet but this last line is a little confusing. What was QOS if not globe-trotting?

[AMC Hornet]

 

 

The travelogue aspect of the Bond films is something that has been diminishing lately, but which Mendes/Deakins tried to bring back with SF. I hope to see more of the same in SPECTRE.

Great post Hornet but this last line is a little confusing. What was QOS if not globe-trotting?

 

You can't show off Haiti's charms when you film the Haiti scenes in Panama, nor can you highlight Bolivia's attractions when Chile is doubling.

 

What did we see of Austria? An outdoor theatre on a lake and an airport, which could have been anywhere.

 

With the exception of the horse race in Sienna, we didn't really see anything of the exotic countries that Bond was supposed to be globe-hopping to.

 

Same can be said of DAD, although around here it seems the less said of DAD the better.

 

Dr. No was definitely filmed in Jamaica, and also serves as a time capsule recalling simpler, pre-package-tour times. Ditto most of the films which were actually filmed in the countries featured.

 

The trend away from travelogue imagery is a step away from the 'Fleming sweep', as are realistic villains and women with ordinary names (although admittedly names like 'Holly Goodhead' are better left uninvented).

 

Give me beaches! Give me temples! And mountains and skylines and cultural events! At least it sounds like we'll be getting something like enough of these in SPECTRE, despite some people grousing about the Mexican Government wanting to be presented in a positive light. Who can blame them?

[dtuba]

Oh I see. QOS did travel the globe, but we never got to see any of the highlights of the countries featured...mainly because they weren't filmed there.

Not that we would have been able to enjoy them anyway, given the poor editing of that film.

[tdalton]

Skyfall in no way was an attempt to bring back the travelogue nature of Fleming's novels and some of the earlier films.  If you want an example of how not to use your locations, Skyfall is the film that you'd point to.  Shanghai is completely wasted and virtually all of the Macau sequences were either shot on a soundstage or in the backlot at Pinewood. 

[AMC Hornet]

But we did see the Grand bazaar in Istanbul, Hashima Island, the Scottish Highlands and the rooftops of London ("Coo, wot a site!").

[tdalton]

What we get is Bond's backyard (London), an open field, and a bazaar that had just been featured a month prior in Taken 2.  All of which, including Hashima Island, are woefully underused and are hardly highlighted in any meaningful way.  Even in London, Bond and company spend a good portion of that time underground, either in the new MI6 HQ or in the subway.

 

The two most interesting locations are reduced to a scene that's probably less than a minute long of Bond driving through crowded city streets.  The rest of it was done on soundstages and in the back lot at Pinewood.

[AMC Hornet]

Like I said, I hope to see more travelogue in SPECTRE (although from the looks of the trailer, one had better not blink while in Rome).

[trevanian]

I guess it is time for me to repeat my old query: does anybody have an earlier draft of DIAMONDS? The guy who wound up with the Bathosub did an article for BONDAGE way way back, and in it he mentions during his set visit that he was told Bond would make a major issue of Tracy's death during his face-to-face-to-face with the Blofelds in the penthouse ... yet there's not even a hint of this in the finished film (though I do grant that the expression on Connery's face when ordered into the lift suggests more trouble in mind than the whole rest of the film put together, so maybe they shot and dropped?)

 

It's fine they can add Sammy Davis'cut scenes, but something like the Tracy biz -- even just the text -- would actually be significant, y'know?

[New Digs]

 

I've said before the OHMSS follow-up regret thing is very modern. Nobody knew for years Peter Hunt was considering DAF being an actual follow-up do OHMSS. I don't think anybody at all even wanted such a thing in 1970. I too would have liked to see what they'd have come up with, but don't waste a lot of brain space worrying over it.

 

Agreed. Right up until about the time GoldenEye was released OHMSS was regarded as the black sheep of the Bond films. 

[Guy Haines]

I've mentioned this before but here I go again. I went to see DAF at my local cinema in 1972. And I bought a souvenir programme, which I still have. What struck me then as now was that whereas there were copious mentions of previous Bond movies, of the immediate predecessor OHMSS there was hardly any. One mention of Diana Rigg as a "former Bond girl" and that was about it.

 

Admittedly the film producers were in the unusual position of having to promote a new James Bond who just happened to be same as the old James Bond - bar the previous flick - but it struck me then as now that it was as if OHMSS had never happened. Which was a shame. 

[AMC Hornet]

Some people like to think that the lines about Bond being on 'holiday' - and the fact that DAF opens in Japan - indicates that Bond has been hunting for Blofeld since 1967.

 

Yet despite references to YOLT in OHMSS (samurai in the titles, "you've had two years to set up your target") some folks like to assume that YOLT is being left out of the canon (thereby explaining why Bond & Blofeld don't recognize each other).

 

The simple solution is that the canon becomes elastic with the recruiting of every new or returning director.

 

Perhaps we should leave DAF out ("but it's a Connery!") and assume that Bond doesn't catch up with Baldfellow until 1981.

 

I know - that's a stupid idea too.