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BijouBob8mm wrote:

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Richard, I know I've seen the film you're talking about with the spilled coffins, but am coming up blank on the title.

It might be a Euro heist film called The Biggest Bundle of Them All circa 1967.
But somehow that doesn't sound right.

Richard

ryanbrennan wrote:

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So, DR. NO is made with no idea of what to expect. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, being only the second film and one that attempted to adhere to the book, took a different tack with what is the least gimmicky and most serious approach of the Connery film. GOLDFINGER changed everything. A refinement and extrapolation of elements in DR. NO, it pushed the envelope of audience credulity, the series introducing or perfecting the core foundation of the series -- exotic locales, gadgets, fantastic sets, unusual methods of lethal dispatch, the villain's incredible but barely plausible master plan, and the singularly unusual villain's henchman, among other elements. These are the pieces that audiences liked the most about Bond and this film presented them with the best balance. With the success of GOLDFINGER, Broccoli and Saltzman were placed in the unenviable position of trying to top themselves with each successive film.

I believe I've stated it before elsewhere on these boards but, for me, GOLDFINGER was the apogee of the series. This was the film that turned the series from being merely successful to megahit status, so throroughly whetting the audience appetite that with THUNDERBALL Bond moved out of the realm of mere film and became an international phenomenon. After that film Broccoli and Saltzman must have felt they could do no wrong.

These are broad sweeping generalizations, but I get your point. Dr. No is a definitive Bond film because it strikes the right balance of plausible story with surrealism. Elements of the fantastic are present but in deference to the plausible. The film's dynamic action and tongue-in-cheek humor never deteriorate into self-parody or camp. The right balance is struck, and everywhere you look: drama / humor, character / action, fantastic / plausible,. Although not entirely without antecedents, it puts something on the screen that had never been seen before. Many fans underestimate the creative achievement of Dr. No. It is an epic achievement and a milestone in British cinema. So, for that matter, is From Russia With Love.

By the time we get to Thunderball, the producer's theory of always having to "top" the previous film is beginning to get in the way of telling the story. It isn't necessary to have ejector seats and jet packs and verbal self-references. True these things get a big laugh, but they also break the fourth wall, and remind us that we're watching a hit movie. At this time the Bond films are still noted for their daring originality and are still strong enough as stories and as entertainment to succeed in the marketplace without the ejector seats, the jet packs, and the verbal self-references.

Also, the character of James Bond is carefully maintained throughout these early films. The originating film makers are mindful of who and what Bond is, and they never cross the line into deconstruction. There is a lot more going on in Connery's performances than I have seen mention of. He creates a personality from the inside out.

When Paula is killed in Thunderball, Connery makess Bond's outrage clear without whining to M in his cell phone or making a big speech about it. The action lets him express his outrage. Bond goes on a stealth raid of Largo's estate, and exacts a kind of revenge. When he has to break the bad news to Domino of her brother's death, he puts on sunglasses to hide his feelings. It's not all quips and fights and flirtations. There is a believable Bond behind the heroics, believable because heroics are never superman or superhero in nature. in contrast, the jet pack, rocket-firing motorcycle, and Fiona Volpe's over-wrought lecture about not hearing heavenly choirs is a mis-step. If the film were weaker, or the story not so carefully written, these things could have destroyed Thunderball. Most importantly, Bond remains strong and confident, motivated by good intentions and a higher moral purpose.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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It's interesting to speculate what the series would have been like had it stuck to the models of the first two films. Would the Bond films have been so wildly popular and still be with us? Or would the series have died off, leaving us with only a half dozen or less films of higher quality? Any thoughts?

It might be argued that the franchise almost died after Live and Let Die with only a half-dozen films of high quality since the inception.

By the time the 1970s films come along, the franchise is in trouble creatively. Instead of writing the scripts first, the scripts are rewritten by committee and by the producer to match the locations and logistics instead of the other way around. Instead of trusting the story and the action that derives from it, the producers rely more on "topping" the previous set-piece with a bigger set-piece. The films are now seen as set-pieces by the producers instead of as stories, as events for the marketplace instead of as a commercial art. Guy Hamilton's misguided interpretation of James Bond as a light comedy is a large part of the problem that helped to derail the series, creatively, during this time, but at least the character remains intact, a little smug and full of himself at times, but largely intact. I agree with James Chapman's criticism in License to Thrill of the character flaws with regard to Bond's treatment of women in the Mankiewics scripts. The deterioration into camp, self-parody, and comic-book fantasy starts in the 1970s. The introduction of amateur writing and amateur producing also begins in the 1970s.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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Then came YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, which pushed everything to the max. OHMSS, needing to introduce a replacement for Connery in the Bond role, dropped him into a previously unseen landscape of snow and ice (but one often revisited by Bond), gave him a stronger than normal female to play against, and brought back one of the series most popular villains, Blofeld. For DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER a move to the USA's favorite play spot, Las Vegas, also gave us deserts and a brilliant concept -- the world's most famous recluse, Amercia's own Howard Hughes in the guise of Willard Whyte, kidnapped and imprisoned by Blofeld. But this film is the jokiest Bond up to that time and sloppy both in its internal logic and production.

And so it has continued to the present day. The current producers are following in the footsteps of their predecessors by trying to give audiences what they want. Every film is a gamble that they have "read" the audience expectations correctly. Right now, audiences seem to want a more serious Bourne-like character and film. But each time they introduce a new actor in the role they try to make adjustments for that actor, playing to his strengths and minimizing his weaknesses, which often results in a somewhat different sort of Bond film. In a few years, when Daniel Craig decides to move on, audiences may be ready for a return to the more fantastic sort of Bond films. Meanwhile, no doubt, the character, and the films, will live on.

The character has not lived on.
Internally, the character of James Bond is obliterated by Casino Royale. He is stripped of his dignity, stripped of his internal traits and virtues. He is deconstructed. He is changed into something else, something different, that neither Ian Fleming nor the originating film makers would recognize. People who love this film are simply not looking at the character. Yes the action is still good -- better than usual in fact -- but who is this uncouth and developmentally challenged character who has to be followed around by a nagging, male-bashing, condescending den mother and taught how to be a better man by a screaming female lead who despises him for two thirds and then inexplicably changes her mind in the last third. Casino Royale is a jerk of a movie.

If the character of James Bond lives on, it's in the earlier films.

Richard

ryanbrennan wrote:

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It's interesting to speculate what the series would have been like had it stuck to the models of the first two films. Would the Bond films have been so wildly popular and still be with us?

Yes.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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Or would the series have died off, leaving us with only a half dozen or less films of higher quality? Any thoughts?

Out of 22 Bond films, the half-dozen higher quality Bonds are the most like the first two.
Given the circumstances, the first two films would be just as big a hit if made today as the lesser-quality event films, only they'd be a bigger hit because they're better films.

Richard

Right on the money, Wich2.
TO CATCH A THIEF (1955) and NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) were the antecedents I was thinking of, but also FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940), SABOTEUR (1942), and the astonishing NOTORIOUS (1946) (there is a measure of Alicia Huberman in Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale (1953).
So there is cross-pollination, but Fleming is also working from his own experience.

The one element that really separates Bond from the Hitchcock films is the surrealism, about which not enough is understood by the current crop of writers and producer, and about which not enough is written.
And then there is the character of Bond, who predates John Roby and Roger Thornhill.
The character of Bond probably inspired them, to some degree, and in return they inspired Bond.
And then there is Ursula Andress in the French-cut bikini.
You never saw that in a Hitchcock film.

Richard

ryanbrennan wrote:

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By the time the 1970s films come along, the franchise is in trouble creatively. Instead of writing the scripts first, the scripts are rewritten by committee and by the producer to match the locations and logistics instead of the other way around.

This was happening as early as YOLT. The volcano as rocket base idea didn't crop up until a location recce sparked the concept.

The idea of a hidden rocket base was in the script at the outset.
How to hide it was the question.
The idea of hiding the rocket base inside the volcano was arrived at during the location scout.
A fun idea, and a very pictorial idea, given the nature of this particular film.
Mindless fun, but I wish they hadn't made it.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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I like your remarks about some of the subtleties in THUNDERBALL.

What is missing by the time of THUNDERBALL, though, is the animalism, carnality and a certain ruthless edge evident in Connery's first three performances. It's easy to see why women fell in love with him, he's a man's man and simply oozes sexuality. He is, of course, still a magnificent specimen of manliness after GOLDFINGER but he is no longer as dangerous or surprising.

True, I'm glad you brought this up.
It is animalism, carnality, and ruthlessness with intelligence and with reasoning.
Connery's Bond is a "safe" heartless brute, as Moneypenny calls him, at the office, but not so safe in the field.
Bond sees through Miss Taro back at the office in Dr. No, but Miss Taro thinks she can use sex to lure him to his death, but when Bond shows up anyway, she has no trouble sleeping with him, and is once again planning his demise again even as Bond checks his watch during their embrace. It is amusing to see how they're constantly second-guessing one another. Miss Taro is smart, but Bond has obviously been there before, and he's going to enjoy himself before turning her over to the authorities. Like Bond, Miss Taro is required to be responsible for her own behavior, instead of being oppressed into it somehow by nasty terrible men. There's no double-standard in Dr. No like there is in Casino Royale.
The adult and sophisticated subtext of this scene, so well played by the two actors, is above the heads of the current crop of writers and actors.
In contrast, Craig's Bond is a dumb animal with no carnality and no ability to think or reason.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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In GOLDFINGER, Bond is clearly disturbed by Oddjob's killing of Tilly Masterson.

and also by the killing of her sister.
In GOLDFINGER Bond is a conscientious and morally centered ruthless killer.
These contradictions are important, and they must all be present for the character to be James Bond.
The character who sees no difference between "a clean kill or sending a message?" as in Casino Royale is not James Bond.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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It might be argued that the franchise almost died after Live and Let Die with only a half-dozen films of high quality since the inception.

LIVE AND LET DIE was a box office success.

I was referring to a creative death, not the money.
The script is pathetic, a hollow shell, 117 pages of typing, full of bad ideas and no substance.
How much or how little money these films make is irrelevant.

It's a poorly realized film.
Roger Moore was given nothing to work with dramatically, and the director thought he was making a comedy.
The film is devoid of tension, suspense, espionage, and any fun between the sexes.
The interaction between Bond and Solitaire may have left a sour afertaste.
Everybody paid money to see the new Bond, but once curiosity was satisfied, what they saw did not encourage them to return for more.

ryanbrennan wrote:

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THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN did almost 50% of the prior film's business. Hence the return to the grandiose Bond in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

I think the failure of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was due to backlash from LIVE AND LET DIE.
This is unfortunate, because in many ways, MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is the better film.
I suppose that's not saying much because when it's bad, it's really bad.
But it operates on the right scale, not overproduced, but not too small, either.
Pepper and the chase scenes were just awful, and the stunts belong in a Flint movie.
Once again Guy Hamilton's direction works against the material.
But I like one-on-one closeness of it, and the narrative does build up a certain momentum.
Tom Mankiewicz was beginning to catch on, but he was clearly the wrong choice for writing these films.
Other fingers were in the writing pie by this time, including Michael G Wilson.
Mankiewicz needed to study the scene between Bond and Miss Taro before undertaking the scenes between Andrea Anders and Bond.
Richard Maibaum had a draft that wasn't used and should have been.

The return to a more grandiose Bond in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME may have produced a crowd pleaser in terms of action and set pieces, but the character of Bond continues to deteriorate. That's not Roger Moore's fault. Actors were just the hired help with no say in the script. His job was to show up and put the suit on. He carries the film better than it deserves, however. The fault is in the writing by Christopher Wood and Michael G. Wilson, and with the producers who think a film should be guided by the stunt men. Whatever strengths THE SPY WHO LOVED ME has, in terms of character and story comes from Richard Maibaum's original drafts. If the producers would just allow for a good script and trust that instead of turning everything into a farce, the film would have been equally successful, perhaps more successful, and it would also be a better film.

More later.

Appreciate the discourse, ryanbrennan.

Richard