The Harry Palmer Trio!

"The Harry Palmer Trio" sounds like a late 1950's jazz act, but in actuality I'm referring to three movies featuring a character named Harry Palmer who was played with quite bit of verve and finesse by the great Michael Caine. The first of these of course is the outstanding movie The Ipcress Files. The 1965 movie was based on the 1962 Len Deighton novel of the same name. What Deighton didn't name was the protagonist, and that was left to Caine and others to concoct. This is not a suave spy like James Bond, but an everyman's spy who shows up for work to do his spying, but with scuds of paperwork. 

The Ipcress File is a clever movie cleverly shot. We are often given bug's eye views of the action and the director even made a thing of obscuring the action. Actually, the technology of "Techniscope" was difficult and lead to the camera man making some odd choices. This is a classic Cold War yarn with kidnapped scientists and bizarre clues and duplicitous allies. Nigel Green is outstanding in the movie and a visual equal to the impressive Caine. I'm very hesitant to discuss it too much so as not to spoil one of my favorite movies for anyone who decides to give it a glimpse. I certainly recommend it. 

The success of The Ipcress Files prompted a sequel, but with a change of director, the oddball characteristics which made the first one so different vanish Funeral in Berlin. That said, this is still a pretty nice tale with Harry heading to Berlin to oversee the defection of a seemingly disaffected military man played with enthusiasm by Oscar Homolka. It was interesting to be reminded of those days when there were two Germanys and life was exceedingly different depending on which side of the wall you happened to be on. 

Billion Dollar Brain is something else again. The fragments of what made a Harry Palmer movie click disappear in this wild fantasy about a mad billionaire who decides to use his personal army to help knock over the Soviets after setting loose a virus to rouse the populace in anger. Directed by Ken Russell, the only thing connecting this one to the earlier films are Harry's specs. (And even they vanish from time to time.)  This one is only for completists like me. 

Rip Off

Octopussy And The Living Daylights!

I write these Bond reviews with the expectation that everyone has seen all the movies, if not read the all the books. So, tread as carefully as it seems prudent. 

Octopussy and The Living Daylights close out the saga with a quartet of adventures. "Octopussy" is the story of a WWII British vet who has a golden and deadly secret from WWII and who is found out by Bond. The end is garish to say the least. "The Property of a Lady" is a neat little spy tale about Fabrege jewelry and double agents. 

"The Living Daylights" reveals that Bond's cold-blooded nature is challenged when the target is a beautiful woman, one he has fantasized about to boot. It's a delightful story set in what was to become Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. 

Finally, there's the offbeat very short story titled "007 in New York" which is exactly what it says as we get a small tour of the city as Bond has come to break up a love affair since one of the parties is a foreign agent. It originally appeared in Fleming's travelogue book Thrilling Cities. 

The 1983 Roger Moore offering Octopussy adapted elements of both "Octopussy" and "Property of a Lady". You'd think with Louis Jourdan as the top villain this Bond effort would be better. But it's not that good. Maud Adams returns as the titular Octopussy, after having revived after being killed in The Man with the Golden Gun. The states are pretty high as our baddie seeks to cover up stealing a bodacious amount of very famous jewels by agreeing to start World War III for a corrupt Soviet officer.

 

The elements are here, but somehow the silliness factor is high enough to squash any sense of danger. I thought the equipment being tested in the Q sequence was especially stupid and rather offensive this time out. But you cannot fault the film for failing to provide lots of lovely dames to gawk at, as Octopussy herself commands a bevy of ladies, many with unusual and dangerous skill sets. 

The Living Daylights featured Timothy Dalton in his debut as Bond from 1987. I'm a big fan of Dalton's Bond, though alas it seems the larger public was less enthusiastic. He only made one more Bond film in 1989 titled License Renewed. They took this opportunity to recast Moneypenny as well. All of this was necessary to maintain the illusion that Bond was indeed an effective agent. 

This is a wild plot with Bond refusing to shoot a sniper who turns out to be Maryam d' Abo, a pretty actress who I saw for the first in Conan the Destroyer. Her acting has improved somewhat and she's an adequate love interest for Bond. We get two main villains, a deceitful Soviet officer and a mercenary arms dealer. There's lots of mayhem in this one as it sprawls across the globe and even into Afghanistan which at the time was invaded by the Soviets and we were on the side of the Muslim Mujahadin. There are lots of things I like about The Living Daylights, but I cannot say it has aged especially well. But in an attempt to cleave closer to the headlines of the day, it has not aged as well as other Bond outings which exist in a more fantastical arena. 

And that wraps up my month-long look at Bond...James Bond. Not all the movies were reviewed because not all of them are derived from Fleming's original source material. Goldeneye for instance gets its name from Fleming's Jamaican estate, but that's it. A few more bits of silly spy business tomorrow then in October something completely different. 

Rip Off

Dean Martin Is...Matt Helm!

I suspect one likes Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies or one hates them. These parodies of the spy genre function much like the Flint movies (more on those later this month), though with more cheese and lots more music. I've long wanted to gather these up for my collection but always found them too expensive or unavailable all together. But now I have them for a fair price and they were delightful in that hammy way only Dean Martin could deliver. There is not one moment in a Matt Helm movie in which one feels the hero is under threat. But even so, the movies do provide fun rides. 

Matt Helm was created by writer Donald Hamilton in 1960, and he continued to write new novels in the series for thirty years. The first was titled Death of a Citizen and it was adapted in the first of the Matt Helm movies from Columbia in 1966. 

That debut novel was blended with elements of the Las Vegas night club scene to make 1966's The Silencers, the debut movie. The first one had a big budget of nearly eight million and it's as smarmy as it's possible to be. The films play on the reputation that Martin had of being a drunk, always performing with a drink in his hand. He also, like most spies was supposed to be a dame magnet and with Martin's Helm, that aspect was elevated to absurd proportions. The first movie has a real Las Vegas feel to it, with Martin wandering around various night clubs looking for clues, clues which are usually supplied by some statuesque lady moments before she's killed. He drags around Stella Stevens with him because he thinks she might be in on the plot, though she does prove to be an innocent. She's so innocent that she often wanders off and just as often loses track of her clothes. Victor Buono is the master villain and he's fantastic as usual as the leader of "Big O" (No comment). Cy Charisse is around early as a former partner of Helm's. James Gregory makes the first of three appearances as Helm's boss at I.C.E. (Intelligence and Counter Espionage).

Murderers' Row brings Helm back to the big screen again in late 1966, adapting another novel by Hamilton of that title, a rare one which doesn't have the "The (fill-in-the-blank)"format. Martin uses his clout to give this one a boost when the musical group Dino, Desi, and Billy perform briefly at one point in the film. This time Karl Malden is the big villain and Ann-Margaret has the dizzy dame role who tumbles around with Helm throughout the story. She seems a bit too young for Martin in this one to be frank. The night club aroma is abandoned for a more youthful approach. Big O is using the threat of death ray to blackmail Washington D.C.  Of course, Matt saves the day. 

The Ambushers has a great poster but it's a bit of a bizarre movie. This 1967 film saw the money drying up and it shows as much of this movie takes place on remote and presumably cheaper locations.  This is the first movie not to showcase Helm's round bed that slips him into his pool-sized bath. Janice Rule is an agent and astronaut who has suffered a great trauma. She travels with Helm as they look for a stolen spacecraft, one which can only be operated by women. This film feels more like a regular movie, the glam having flaked off due to budgetary concerns. 

The Wrecking Crew from 1969 is the last Helm movie starring Martin and it's no wonder he stepped away. He really presented as tired in this one, despite being surrounded by the likes of Eke Sommer, Nancy Kwan, and Tina Louise. Despite the smallest budget yet (a third of the first movie) this one gets the old magic back a bit. Nigel Green is the mastermind this time and he's nicely cool and deadly. His scheme is to steal a train load of gold and crash the world economies. He does the first and it's up to Matt to forestall the latter. He gets help from a bumbling agent played by Sharon Tate, and she steals this movie. She's wonderful, adding some zest to the proceedings with her miscues. (This is the movie Margot Robbie is watching in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and sadly the last movie she made.) Dean Martin gets to beat up Chuck Norris in this one briefly as well. Bruce Lee was choreographing the fights as well. 

A fifth movie titled The Ravagers was apparently planned with Tate scheduled to return, but Martin was done. The first three movies advertise "The Slaygirls", the models Helm uses for his calendar work. They playmates and models from across the globe who have obvious assets which make these movies of their time for certain. These Matt Helm movies are delightful and dumb. They feed off the spy craze and at the same time point out the absurdities which came with the genre. Glad I finally got to see them all in wacky original order. 

Rip Off

The Man With The Golden Gun!

The Man With the Golden Gun brings Bond back for one final bow, and this time he has to try and find and kill a notorious assassin for the other side. It's another jaunt into the Caribbean, clearly Fleming's favorite location for a wild adventure which doesn't make sense all the time, but is a lot of fun. The mission is meant to in many ways rehabilitate Bond after the weird ending of the Shatterhand confrontation in Japan from the previous book have left him a questionable agent. I won't say too much so as not spoil a surprise or two. 

But in this last James Bond novel, published after Fleming's death, our hero is sent to seek out the deadly killer, a cold-blooded maniac who was perhaps driven mad by a tragedy in the circus in which he grew up. Francisco "Pistols" Scaramanga is a contract killer with a tremendous reputation who employs a gold-plated Colt pistol and hand-crafted bullets made of gold inside silver jackets.  

Bond makes contact with Scaramanga rather quickly in the book, pretending himself to be a man named "Mark Hazard", a chap good with guns and looking for a payday. Scaramanga takes him on, though Bond doesn't know if he's being led into a trap or not. Turns out he's put his foot into a mob of gangsters from across the world who have formed a syndicate of sorts and are trying to get a foothold in Jamaica with a hotel which is still only half built. Old allies turn up and the whole thing ends in a bizarre shoot out in the deadly swamps, which are full of twists of all kinds. 

The Man with the Golden Gun is one of my favorite Bond flicks. It's probably my favorite Roger Moore effort. Britt Ekland is both charming and funny as a daffy Bond Girl who brings a bit of slapstick to the project. Herve Villachaize does a dandy job as the secondary villain Nick Nack. The big draw is Christopher Lee as the titular villain. He's fantastic and is probably my all-time favorite Bond baddie. Lee has the stature for such a role and his cold, cruel delivery is compelling. The plot gets a tad goofy when they try to inject a world-beating element to the story. It wasn't needed. The duel between Scaramanga and Bond had sufficient gavitas for my tastes. 

The theme from this one by John Barry gets in my head and tumbles around for days at a time. I'm humming it even now. The attempts to squeeze in some legit martial arts into the movie gets my nod of approval as well. I don't much expect Moore to be adept at it, and neither does the movie. The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu editors had a different idea. All in all, a winner. 

James Bond Returns one final time in Octopussy and The Living Daylights! 

Rip Off

You Only Live Twice!

I write these Bond reviews with the expectation that everyone has seen all the movies, if not read the all the books. So, tread as carefully as it seems prudent. 

You Only Live Twice is the final of the three Blofeld stories and the most outlandish. Bond ends up in Japan for other reasons, becomes a faux-Japanese only to discover that his enemy is on the spot traveling under the name of "Shatterhand". The coincidence hurts this story a lot, but the action is so over the top that it's hard not to be sucked in. The Garden of Death is a lurid and fascinating invention. The ending is a hoot and a half. The Japanese culture comes in for a lot of knocks, and I can't imagine they feel very warm to this presentation.

Once again, the relationship that Bond has with another man is the key to this story, this time with the head of Japanese secrets named Tiger Tanaka. Bond has been sent to get access to Japanese espionage information, and since he's been in an understandable funk since the death of his wife, this is M's last-ditch effort to save his career. The process by which slowly becomes Japanese in the novel goes down a bit better than the movie which is openly ludicrous. The story makes much more sense than its cinematic offspring. Dr. No had hit the screens before this novel was written and apparently Fleming tried to inject a bit of Sean Connery's lighter-hearted charm into his iconic character. 

You Only Live Twice was the final novel written and published in Fleming's lifetime. He'd already written one more and there were a few short stories still to be published. Those in due course. 

I was very much surprised to discover that You Only Live Twice is my second favorite Bond movie. The movie itself is such a mess in terms of narrative and its painful transformation of Sean Connery into an utterly unconvincing Japanese man is more than a little bit embarrassing. All that said, no Bond movie before or since has a more dynamic finale and the utterly awesome volcano secret rocket base is my favorite set in all the history of film. Roald Dahl is credited with the screenplay, but the haphazard nature of the story makes me imagine things were wildly off the original outline.

This movie is really what most people think of when they imagine the movies of super spies. We have a strong heroic lead who tumbles into a bizarre twisting impossible scheme to hold the world in fear and who by dint of strength, skill and a lot of luck defeats the villains in the most bombastic ways conceivable. That's what defines this movie, a series of strange and sometimes confusing set pieces which eventually add up to a plot to destroy the world. The villain too is a bit weak as we finally meet Blofeld, but as portrayed by Donald Pleasance is not as awesome as the character was in the shadows. Karin Dor is lovely and dies much too soon in this story, but then that's the way this unravels.

We get the ironic Bond in this one, the one who realizes there's some absurdity in all this mishegoss, but when the action starts it's full on and the tempo is wonderful. I realized watching it this time that the story itself makes almost no sense, but the pacing is so good that you have little time to realize it. The idea that SPECTRE could build an entire volcano facility with apparently no hint of it to people on the island is bewildering, but then the decision to invade the island by posing as fishermen is equally absurd. It serves to give the viewer glimpses of Japanese culture, but little beyond that.

And finally in a movie in which Bond is supposedly killed to make his secret agent status a bit more secret, he gets found out and attacked with regularity, though of course as usual others pay the freight. All that said, this one is a blockbuster which despite its myriad flaws offers up a thrill ride of a movie that pays off completely. Watching it now, I see the lines and shapes which informed Jim Steranko in his memorable SHIELD work.

James Bond Returns in The Man with the Golden Gun. 

Rip Off

On Her Majesty's Secret Service!

I write these Bond reviews with the expectation that everyone has seen all the movies, if not read the all the books. So, tread as carefully as it seems prudent. 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service pits Bond against his arch-enemy Blofeld for the second time, as tries to stop the fiend from trying to poison the livestock and crops of England. It's a pretty out-sized plot and the action is pretty extreme. Along for the ride is the woman who becomes the love of Bond's life and briefly his wife.

Actually, we have two main stories in this one. Bond becomes involved with Tracy, the daughter of an Italian gangster who has become distraught and has attempted suicide. Her dad wants Bond to help her as she seems to respond to him. The second plot is the one about Blofeld. The two intertwine when Bond goes to Switzerland under the guise of an expert in heraldry, an attempt to lure Blofeld out and hopefully capture him. 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is low on my list of Bond movies, in fact it's in last place. George Lazenby is dutiful and earnest in the role, but the snap just isn't there. His quips fall flat throughout. Telly Savalas is an adequate villain, but he doesn't bring anything new to the franchise. The movie is salvaged by the presence of Diana Rigg, fresh from her role as Emma Peel in The Avengers. That role alas gave her more to do than this one does. The tragic ending of the movie loses its punch because frankly I haven't been moved to care that much all the way through. And to be honest it's hard to imagine Bond being bereft for long. 

The World is Not Enough from 1999 gets its title from information in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It is the family motto of the Bond family. Upon hearing it, Bond says it will serve sufficiently. Bond gets this data from an expert in heraldry during his long hunt for Blofeld. It proves to be the link that allows Bond to find him in Switzerland after over a year of searching. The Pierce Brosnan movie has nothing to do with that at all and instead gives us a tale about a defiant heiress scheming to corner the energy market in Europe. It's full of action and whatnot and a good distraction as Bond films go. 

James Bond Returns in You Only Live Twice! 

Rip Off

The Spy Who Loved Me!

I write these Bond reviews with the expectation that everyone has seen all the movies, if not read the all the books. So, tread as carefully as it seems prudent. 

The Spy Who Loved Me from 1962 is a very peculiar Bond novel told from the point of view of a young woman who has had several dalliances but is seeking a new life when she gets essentially shanghaied into an insurance swindle to burn down a motel in the Adirondacks. Bond shows up to save the day in the midst of his quest to find Blofeld who escaped after the events of Thunderball. He will save the day and even eventually follow through on the title's promise. It's likely not what most Bond fans expected at the time, nor now, but it's not bad. The perspective is different and that's flavorful to say the least.

The novel is divided into three parts -- "Me", "Them" and "Him". Because of the changes in perspective and the fact that Bond doesn't show up until well into the novel, this one manages to capture the reader with a refreshing take. Fleming was clearly grinding these out at this point, looking for any way to drop a fresh Bond onto the ready marketplace. I like this one quite a bit. 

The 1977 film The Spy Who Love Me has absolutely nothing to do with the novel, save for lifting the title. We are presented with a typical Bond adventure with 007 trying to stay alive long enough to track down a rich madman who threatens the world by capturing nuclear subs and blowing up civilization as we know it. The titular "Spy" is actually a Soviet agent who Bond kills in the very beginning of the movie and later unknown to either of them he is partnered with the lover. Barbara Bach is gorgeous in the role of the vengeful lover while Roger Moore is showing even more signs of creakiness in the part. 

Kurt Jurgens is the master villain, and he's assisted by Richard Kiel in his first turn as the killer Jaws. Jaws is actually quite deadly in this movie, not yet reduced to a clownish echo of himself as will be the case in Moonraker, the next Bond project. (Which I have to say has the exact same plot, save that it's all in space rather on the high seas.) This one isn't a bomb, but the viewer can see the rot in the superstructure. 

The movie is helped quite a bit by the fact much of it takes place in Egypt and the viewer gets a pretty good tour of the most famous icons from that ancient territory. The dry desert contrasts well with the oceans which dominate the finale.

James Bond Returns in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. And Blofeld is back! Who loves ya baby?

Rip Off

Thunderball!

I write these Bond reviews with the expectation that everyone has seen all the movies, if not read the all the books. So, tread as carefully as it seems prudent. 

Thunderball begins the high-voltage Bond adventures and the is the first of what is dubbed the "Blofeld Trilogy". The plot is pretty well known as the movie does a first-rate job of translating it pretty completely. This one began life as a movie script and shows it. More on that below. This first SPECTRE story is a cracking good super-spy adventure.

Bond's encounter with a SPECTRE agent at the Shrublands where he's been sent for a health cure is more realistic than in the movie which depends much too much on coincidence to put Bond at the core of the events too soon. I like that going to the Carribean is M's idea and not Bond's. Fleming gets off a few neat jabs at health spas, it's almost like he has a grudge. 

The novel depends less on coincidence than the inevitable movie will and so seems more naturalistic. There's some, but not so much as to break all credulity which the movie does, but at a tempo which doesn't allow for reflection until it's all over. Felix Leiter is back, pressed back into government service due to the international threat. In the novel we are given histories of both Blofeld and Largo as the SPECTRE organization is detailed. And as is typical in the novels, Bond suffers a lot more from his wounds, they leave mark. 

Thunderball is a movie which should be so much better than it is. It has all the elements, but somehow, someway the thing always shakes apart a bit when I watch it. The first problem is that already Connery is getting a bit paunchy to sell the role, something a little bit evident in Goldfinger. The glimmer of a virile energy he projected on the screen in the first two Bond movies is missing a bit. That said, the plot rumbles around a bodacious scheme by SPECTRE.

The movie begins with blazing coincidence when James Bond, the arch-enemy of SPECTRE just so happens to be healing up at the same facility at which the schemers are hiding their fake pilot who will infiltrate NATO defenses and make off with an atomic-laden plane. Bond gets onto the scheme before it really gets going and that makes for some weird connections to what is happening, an almost too personal relationship which undermines the professional nature of his work. It's an action-movie thing, but not a Bond thing, if you follow my meaning.

We do get to go to the Caribbean again, which is good, but this trip unlike that in the first movie lacks novelty and the helpers are less interesting. Paula (Martine Beswick) is Bond's aide and like most of them gets killed off, but not in any particularly memorable fashion. The guy playing Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter) this time looks like a member of the Beach Boys and not a spy. It all feels lightweight somehow. Bond finds the villains almost immediately, but his superiors never seem to send him any real help to fend off the threat to world order until the very finale. Domino (Claudine Auger) is beautiful to look at, but seems to lack the snap of earlier dames in the series. More interesting is Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) but she gets killed off too soon.

The final battle underwater was more enjoyable for me this time. In the past I've found it a bit too difficult to decipher, but somehow it worked for me as I watched it. The battle aboard the yacht is still a low-point for the series, the weird fast-action outside the windows is like something from an old silent comedy and almost completely undermines the rough and tumble of the fight. All in all, this one has all of the moving parts, but they just don't hang as well as they ought.

Thunderball is adapted again in 1983 as Never Say Never Again and featured a somewhat older Sean Connery return to the role he'd originated two decades before. This came about because of a complicated haggle over the rights to film the movie which led to litigation. This was because Thunderball began as a film script and then when Ian Fleming decided to just make it a novel without consulting his co-authors, and didn't give credit to the guys he'd been working with. They won and got the chance to make their own version of the movie. Despite a great cast including Barbara Carrera and Kim Basinger, this one just muddles along. 

James Bond Returns in The Spy Who Love Me. 

Rip Off

Goldfinger!

I write these Bond reviews with the expectation that everyone has seen all the movies, if not read the all the books. So, tread as carefully as it seems prudent. 

Goldfinger is a great movie, but only a so-so novel. The movie and the novel though both offer up a great villain, the titular "Goldfinger", but both alas share the terrible ending which requires hundreds if not thousands of people to pretend to die. It's somewhat ludicrous that this could be accomplished and seems frankly to be a writer trying to get out of a hole. The novel also has the peculiar lesbian myth that men like Bond can turn such women. It's pretty ludicrous.

In the novel Bond has just wrapped up taking down a heroin smuggling outfit and is headed home for America when a rich American who sat next to Bond at the Casino Royale asks him to help him to discover how a fellow Brit is cheating him at Canasta. With a few days on his hand and being offered a good paycheck for light work, Bond takes up the case.  He encounters Auric Goldfinger for the first time and ruins his scheme. It is of note that the infamous golden girl of the movie does exist, but we only hear about it second hand from her sister Tilly Masterson. Bond finds himself looking to scotch the schemes of Goldfinger and we meet the gruesome Oddjob, a terrifying Koran martial arts master. As in the movie there is a plot to rob the mint at Fort Knox and there is a woman named Pussy Galore. Tilly and Pussy supply the sexual tension in this novel. It's a wild ending for certain, if implausible. 

Goldfinger is often tagged as the gold standard of Bond movies, but for my tastes it falls short in many respects, though still quite diverting in many ways and so comes in as my fourth favorite Bond film. The notion of Bond taking on someone other than SPECTRE is fine and dandy, but the lack of that secret organization's shadow on this story hurts the motivations for me personally. If Goldfinger (portrayed by portly Gert Frobe) had been working for them all along and making monkeys out of the Chinese who seem to be his benefactors, then I'd have liked this one more.

The high points in this are the girls. Both Masterson girls end tragically in this tale, but both go out in memorable fashions. Jill (Shirley Eaton) gets painted gold and has become an icon for the Bond films and Tilly (Tania Mallet) out for revenge gets knocked in the noggin by Oddjob's deadly hat. But the star of the show is the insanely named Pussy Galore played by Honor Blackman, the first woman in the Bond series who can occupy the screen with Connery on equal footing.

The flaw in this one is the finale which is downright stupid. Somehow, we are to think that Bond after converting Pussy to his side with his awesome maleness uses her to undermine Goldfinger's scheme by having hundreds and hundreds of soldiers and others fall down (rather unconvincingly) as the supposed deadly gas passes through them. They all then stay still as legions of Red Chinese soldiers motor into Fort Knox. Then they all jump up and knock down the bad guys when the atomic bomb shows up. The battle between Bond and Oddjob is a classic but the tag ending with Goldfinger while perhaps fitting undercuts the potency of end.

This is the one in which a gleam gets in the eye of the producers, and they start to treat Bond with more humor than is really necessary. It's not readily noticeable in this installment, but the trend will continue until the whole shebang becomes open farce in the post-Connery years. Goldfinger has some dandy scenes, but its overall impact is diminished mightily by its impossible ending. But I do always like to see scenes of Kentucky in a movie of this scale.

James Bond Returns in For Your Eyes Only.

Rip Off