You Only Live Twice

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Here we are with the 5th installment of the Bond franchise.  I constantly find myself conflicted on the cheesy special affects.  I'm thinking that I should just cut em some slack due to the age of the movie. Once again the world is about to fall to the mercy of the evil empire SPECTRE and Secret Agent 007 must infiltrate the operation.

Our hero wastes no time as he opens the movie in the sack with one of his lovelies.  I have to chuckle as his repeated un-politically correct gafs such as, "Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?"- as he's kissing Ling.  Once again, a different era.

The opening theme was pleasant. Sang by Nancy Sinatra.

The hero's female sidekick drives a very cool little car.  I had to look it up, I don't think I've ever seen one.

Toyota 2000GT

This marathon is teaching me many things about culture, such as apparently Japanese sake is supposed to be served hot. 98.4 degrees apparently.

The special effects, or lack of I should say, are in full bloom during an aerial dog fight where our hero uses a small gyro-copter (armed with guns and missiles) to shoot down 4 enemy helicopters.  It was pretty corny camera work, but exciting none the less.  

007 of course gets caught, sleeps with the villain's mistress, then escapes.  This seems to be routine.  Perhaps they may want to come up with a different scenario.  At some point she (who is known as #11 in the ranks of SPECTRE) gets fed to the piranhas by #1.  

Shame too, she was a hottie.

James Bond becomes a ninja over night and dawn's "Asianface".  Seems like this would be deemed offensive in today's PC world.  The different era thing once again.

Bond takes a Japanese bride to appear as a local.  She's a honey, but a lousy actress.

Finally we see #1's face and it's Donald Pleasance! Donald Pleasance with a wad of bubble gum in his eye.

As I mentioned before, if you fail #1 he does something very dastardly to you, such as feeding you to his pool of hungry piranhas.

Good movie.  Held my attention but it did have me chuckling and saying "Aw C'mon!" a couple of times.  I believe I'm becoming a bit bored with the same cliche's over and over though.  Honestly I'm thinking it might be time for a new Bond.  Something needs to change.

I rate it

Thunderball

Thunderball (1965)
Directed by Terence Young

Back to director Terence Young who did the first two Bond flicks (Dr. No, From Russia with Love) for the 4th Bond film.

Opening the movie we have Thunderball sang by the legendary Tom Jones.

It's kinda cheesy.

Early on Bond is on his game, making moves on the ladies.  At one point he extorts sex from a masseuse.  Why is it cool when he does it?

I found the first 20 minutes to be quite boring.  Then suddenly the story starts to take shape when there is a changeling of a British pilot who manages to steal a Vulcan bomber with a  payload of 2 nuclear bombs.

Vulcan bombers! Cool!

The pilot kills the crew and ditches the bomber in the waters off of Nassau in what must have been the easiest water crash landing ever! Apparently it's not that difficult to land a British bomber on the bottom of the ocean.

Sidebar - I had to Google Nassau.  Looks nice!

Agent 007 attempts to get a beauty in the mood with the use of an aphrodisiac, conch chowder.  Sounds disgusting.  Is chonch chowder really an aphrodisiac?  Google says yes!

We meet our bad guy for this story, Largo...

...who is known as #2 in the evil crime syndicate, SPECTRE.  Who does #2 work for?  Well, #1 of course, whom we  never really see.  Apparently if you fail your task #1 disposes of you in some dastardly manner.  Largo here likes to feed people to his pet sharks.

Let's not forget our Bond girl for this episode, Domino.

Hubba, Hubba

Along the way 007 gets caught, escapes and eventually locates the stolen a-bombs which leads to an underwater speargun fight between the bad guys and Navy troops. An obnoxiously LONG speargun fight!  Get on with it!

The movie ends with Bond and the lovely Domino getting yanked out of the ocean by a B-17 with a hook on the nose.  Wait, was that a B-17???

I believe it is!  What the hell?  Who thought this crap up?  Apparently it was a real thing.

Skyhook

Seems that it be would overly-stressful on one's person.

Once again the movie held my attention.  These first 4 have all been about the same, you can see the character developing more along the way.  Increasing use of one liners and doing more "secret agent shit".  In retrospect the Bond of the first movie almost seems like a deluxe insurance investigator compared to this one.  Still enjoying the movies so far.

I give it 

Goldfinger

So on to Bond #3, Goldfinger (1964)
Directed by Guy Hamilton

So a new director and a new feel.  While only 2 years after the first Bond this one had a much more 'modern' feel, at least for 1964.  The movie opens with 007 going all navy seal on us, as he sneaks into enemy territory with the help of scuba gear, and uses high-tech timers and explosives.

It then breaks into the most horrible Bond song I've ever heard. "Goldfingaaaaaaa"

Wow that was bad.

What's the deal with Moneypenny?  We can see how Bond and Moneypenny have this on-going flirtation thing happening.  Does it ever pan out?  Do they ever hook up?  I guess we'll see later on.

The story unfolds as more of the British Secret Service pulling off a paid hit rather then typical spy stuff, but it leads to saving the United States from a greedy mad-man.  Along the way we see super-new technology like a "laser" and what I believe, our first hint of terrorist using nuclear weapons.

We see Bond's very sweet Astin Martin DB5!

Ooohhh, who's a pretty girl?

We meet OddJob, arguably one of the most interesting hit man of all time with his lethal bowler hat.

Ol' Odd doesn't get many lines, as a matter of fact all he gets to say is "Og!" which seems to mean many things such as, "Get him", "Put him in the car", and  "get in the cell".  He also seems to be a Judo master, which means crushing golf balls with his hands and throwing guys around with super human strength.  He also seemed to be the inventor of the "Judo chop!"

It occurs to me that despite 007 being a super-secret spy, all of the bad guys seem to know of him.  Maybe British intelligence isn't as secret as they believe.

Bond seems to get caught fairly easily, despite his neato car with all the cool gadgets, repeatedly.  It's this odd game, the bad guy catches him, he fights free and causes mayhem, then gets caught again only to be locked away yet again.  Why doesn't the bad guy just shoot him?  I think Scott had a point.  Just cap him!

We meet Pussy Galore! She ends up literally in a roll in the hay with Bond. Is it rude of me to comment that she's about the most un-attractive Bond girl so far?

Perhaps that's a bit childish of me, her name makes me chuckle though, perhaps that's childish of me as well. Oh well, Alotta Fagina was much sexier.

Once again I find James Bond enjoyable.  I'm not having a bad time watching these.  I guess I should mention yes, the movie is a bit dated, some of the dialogue is pretty corny and the in-your-face sexism made me laugh.  But it's a good time.  I'd have to say this is the best one so far.

I rate it

From Russia with Love

Directed by Terence Young (1963)

Next in order of our Bond marathon is From Russian with Love-

Once again we have Sean Connery playing the lead role. To me this felt very much like it's predecessor (Dr. No) which makes sense as they were both directed by the same guy.  A 36 year old Robert Shaw of Jaws fame plays the bad guy Grant, an ex-convict psychopathic murderer who's been uber-trained at a super-secret assasin camp for one purpose - to kill James Bond.

Bond beds his typical bevy of beauties, has women begging to sew his shirts and even makes a Russian spy fall in love with him.  I did find it a bit - odd- I suppose, when he has to rough up the beautiful Russian spy to make her come clean, in some 60's manly sorta way.  I realize it was a different era, but the suave and debonair (yes I had to Google the spelling) James Bond is far too smooth for that type of thing.

I can't help but chuckle every time I come across a part mimicked by Mike Myers.

I feel almost rude in saying this, but I found the story to seem a bit, I dunno, "cobbled together". Secret agent turning double in a sham for an evil empire to lure James Bond with a gift of a secret Russian decoder and along the way there are gypsies,  Russians, trains and boats.  Whew!  I realize this may sound like a typical Bond plot, but this one just seemed like something Chandler and Joey would come up with in a 10 second conversation.

I guess I'm nitpicking however because I did enjoy the flick.  Sure it's dated and a bit corny at times, but that doesn't make it unlikeable.  I would watch it again.

I rate it

Bond, James Bond...

One of my cable channels seems to always be showing a James Bond movie.  I’ve been quite shocked at how bad some of them actually are.  It dawned on me that I’ve seen a handful, but many I have never seen.  This seems like a prime opportunity for me to do some blogging.  My lovely wife Dena and myself will be watching all of the James Bond movies, in order and giving my thoughts on each.

From Wikipedia – 

“The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, seven other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelizations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver and William Boyd, with a further instalment due in September 2015 by Anthony Horowitz. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
The character has also been adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games and film. The films are the longest continually running and the third-highest grossing film series to date, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, starring Sean Connery as Bond. As of 2015, there have been twenty-three films in the Eon Productions series. The most recent Bond film, Skyfall (2012), stars Daniel Craig in his third portrayal of Bond; he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also been two independent productions of Bond films: Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) and Never Say Never Again (a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film,Thunderball).The Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and one win. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bond's cars, his guns, and the gadgets with which he is supplied by Q Branch. The films are also noted for Bond's relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as "Bond girls".”

 So, without further ado...

Dr. No (1962)

Director: Terence Young

The first James Bond is the handsome Sean Connery.  We first meet Agent 007 about 8 minutes into the feature with the iconic line, "Bond, James Bond".

The feel of the movie is a bit dated, but after it was filmed in 1962 so this has to be expected.  The musical score in the now famous opening graphic is almost magical.

No computer generated music here, this is full orchestral majesty.  I found myself in a bit of awe just from the original Bond Theme.  Dena Comments at some point, "This music is hilarious" - as she's not accustomed to such composure from modern movies.  Since I've seen various other Bond movies (out of order) this one kind of took me off guard.  This isn't the Bond that I've grown to know.  This one - the original Bond, was daring, charming, fearless but devoid of the gadgets that he's famous for.  This is a much more simple Bond then later iterations.  Fancy cars abound, for 1962 that is, at one point he's driving a Sunbeam Alpine...

..and makes use of a 1957 Chevy.

Along the way we are introduced to the Walther PPK.

We can't forget Bond's drink of choice, vodka martini, which he prefers shaken rather than stirred.  While the final fight scene was a tad on the corny side, you have to keep in mind it was 1962 after all.  Honestly I wasn't expecting much out of this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was action packed, had the lovely Bond ladies and conveyed the suave sophistication that is James Bond. 

I rate it