The Battle of the River Plate (1956)

 "The captain must have a hat!"

I suppose I've slightly neglected war films. I've seen and blogged a few, like Wesrerns, but I suspect, given the sheer number of films I've blogged (789, I think), they're underrepresented.

Moonraker (1979)

"I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir!"

Meh. This is Bond by numbers. It's just a collection of barely connected set pieces,  some of them admittedly rather good, leading up to a silly and implausible finale. Hugo Drax must have the resources of a G7 nation to build six space shuttles and a space station. The fact that Michael Lonsdale makes a dull and charisma-free Drax doesn't help either.

At least Roger Moore is on good form. He seemed a little old in The Spy Who Loved Me but he seems a little rejuvenated in his sixth decade. It's also good to see a bigger role for M in Bernard Lee's final film, with a suggestion that, deep down, he always had a high regard for Bond. The return of Jaws is a mixed bag; he gets some superb action sequences but the scenes of him falling in love at first sight are just silly. And he finally gets to utter four whole words!!! Still, I love the way hired him after Chang dies, the suggestion being that there's actually an employment market for henchmen!

But this is all very obviously influenced by Star Wars and very silly, at a time when peak human space travel had already given way to the age of the space shuttle and the Moon had given way to the brilliant Voyager spacecraft. And worse: it's very worrying to see a Bond film be quite as formulaic as this.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

"Just keeping the British end up, Sir..."

Ah, 1977. The year of my birth. No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones. The two sevens clash. And any number of punk allusions you'd care to make. It's also the absolute nadir of men's fashions: every single bloke in this film looks absolutely awful. It's difficult to understand why men bothered to wear suits at all in 1977 because they all, without exception, look shit. You can see how punk was so very necessary, for fashion as much as music.

Still, The Spy Who Loved Me is another triumph. I'm a little puzzled as to why The Man with the Golden Gun was so no pulse with both critics and public- I rather liked it- but I'll not argue with the consensus here. The taut plot, the awesome action sequences, the wittiest script yet, all of this makes for one of the finest Bond films yet, even if Roger Moore is perhaps, in only his third film, beginning to look just a little too old for the part.

Neither Moore nor Barbara Bach )Mrs. Ringi Starr!) will ever win any Oscars, but they somehow work perfectly together. Curd Jurgens, taking a break from playing 75% of all Nazi officers in the history of cinema, is the finest Bond villain yet. He has it all; the underwater lair, the hare-brained scheme to bike the world so humanity can start a new life under the sea(!); and the sharks beneath a trapdoor to eat treacherous underlings. 

Meanwhile Caroline Munro is there to look sexy, and Richard Kiel is a splendid if mute presence as Jaws, suspiciously soon after a film after the same name, also featuring a shark. Hmm. There's also a staggering number of British characters on display- George Baker, Edward de Souza, Vernon Dobtcheff, Nadim Sawalha and Cyril Chaps. The American submarine commander is played, inevitably, by Shane Rimmer. It could never have been otherwise.

The film is full of brilliant, stylish action sequences from the opening ski chase (love the parachute) to Bond's best car yet. By this point we know all the tropes and the film can have real fun with them.

The double entendres ("Well, tell him to pull out immediately") are superb. There's even a moment of wit for the incidental music: the familiar refrain from Lawrence of Arabia is heard as Bond and Anya traverse the desert.

The locations- Cairo, the pyramids and Karnak- are the best possible. Carly Simon's theme tune is the best yet and surely unsurpassable. Can this be the best Bond yet?

Live and Let Die (1973)

"There's no sense in going out half-cocked..."

Well then. It seems there's a possible new candidate for best Bond film so far. Live and Let Die is brilliant, crammed with set piece after set piece, Roger Moore is charismatic and compelling from the word go- he is Bond, straight away- and Yaphet Kotto as Dr Kananga may be the best Bond villain yet. All this and we also get Jane Seymour as a decidedly quirky Bond girl. Where's Q, though?

I'll leave others to decide whether or not the depiction of black Americans and the Carribbean is racist or not (sooo many afros!), but Baron Samedi and the snake are cool, and I love the killings with the coffin that make a great pre-titles sequence. Unlike On Her Majesty's Secret Service, this time we don't see the new James Bond until after the opening titles, dragging out the suspense.

So much cool stuff- alligators, Tee Hee's hand, tarot cards,  boat chase across the Louisiana bayou and a comedy sheriff: this is a very different but very impressive Bond film.

Again, though, why are so many MI6  agents operating in America when, you know, the CIA exists?

You Only Live Twice (1967)

"Well, at least he died on the job..."

Well, it's quite the contrast. Thunderball was a pile of pants, an incoherently directed film with little in the way of charm or entertainment, whereas You Only Live Twice is superb, and easily the best Bond film so far. What went right? Well, the straightforward direction by Lewis Gilbert helps; Thunderball may be much artier (It has wipes, for Christ's sake! In a James Bond film), but it fails to make the narrative clear. Here we have no such problems. What we do have is a well constructed and paced film courtesy of a script by the great Roald Dahl. Yes, that Roald Dahl.

Even the opening sequence is innovative-the image of a NASA space capsule being eaten by another spacecraft is delicious, as is Bond's apparent death before the titles. And the image of a spacewalking astronaut drifting helplessly through space to what he knows will be his death has all the existential horror of the late David Bowie's "Space Oddity" a couple of years later.  All this before we even get to the theme song from Nancy Sinatra, who gives the great Shirley Bassey a run for her money.

We then move straight to the Americans blaming the Soviets for the swallowing of the spacecraft, with both of them portrayed as squabbling juvenile warmongers, leaving the British (naturally) as the voice of reason. This is a little uncomfortable to watch from a distance of fifty years, however. In the wake of Dean Acheson's famous comment Britain is being portrayed here as a "Greece to America's Rome", which smacks very much as a consolation prize for a wannabe superpower. Even this film, which portrays the clever British as in control and saving the world, can't hide the fact that the Americans and Russians of 1967 are sending people into space and we are not.

The fact that M and Moneypenny are in a submarine is brilliant, as is the recognition of Bond's naval rank. The two superpowers are at loggerheads and world war beckons if all this is not sorted out before the next spacecraft is launched. Fortunately, there's a lead pointing to Japan. Also fortunately, Bond took a First in Oriental Languages at Cambridge.

It's interesting that the film's inevitable misogyny (as ever, women are seen through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy) is somewhat obscured by the presentation of all this in the context of what Japanese culture is supposed to be like. There's also the question of ethnic stereotyping, and while this can't be dodged the film gives a broadly positive image of Japan, perhaps remarkably so less than a generation after the War. We get Sumo wrestling, geishas and, of course, ninjas. The tropes are all here to play.

Is impossible at this point not to mention the cute and willing Aki ("I think I will very much enjoy serving under you") who is killed, while Bond's initially more modest "wife" is not. Hmm. Still, this Japan is cool, and I love Tanaka.

The bit with "Little Nellie" looks suspiciously as if it was just crowbarred into the film to give Desmond Llewelyn something to do, but it isn't long before the Russians launch a rocket of their own (Norse pagans will be either pleased or outraged that the Russian for "three" is "Odin"), which is duly swallowed again. Cue more recriminations and a reminder of the stakes, although it certainly makes me wonder how credible it is that a criminal organisation like SMERSH could have the resources to send a rocket into space capable of doing this. Best to banish such thoughts.

This film is possibly the most influential Bond film in popular culture and certainly for Austin Powers: the volcano base is brilliant, and Donald Pleasance's splendidly hammy performance as the now-revealed Ernst Stavro Blofeld is blatantly the inspiration for Dr. Evil. And the piranhas, and the collapsible ramp above them, are perfect.

This is an incredible film and easily the best so far. I'm genuinely unsure if anything will top it.

Thunderball (1965)

"Sorry, old chap. Better luck next time."

I think I can put my finger on why this film is do rubbish: it's the direction. Oh, it's fancily shot with wipes, etc, but the director does a terrible job of telling the story clearly, especially as there are so many silent aquatic sequences. The result is a confusing mess. You have to blame the director for the performances, too: yes, Adolfo Celi is rubbish as the baddie on general terms (they had to dub his dialogue), but the performances are flat all round, and when that includes the likes of Sean Connery you just have to blame the director. The film is not only incoherent, but also charmless.

And it's a pity. On paper the film should have been good. It has SPECTRE, with an embezzling underling being buzzed beneath a trap door to his doom. It has a pool full of sharks. It even has Q, now already a fixture, supplying Bond with gadgets which end up being suspiciously and exactly what he needs.

The pre-titles sequence is good though; I love the jet pack. And Tom Jones' theme tune is superb. But I'm sad to say that this is one Bond film I've no desire to see again. Long, plodding, charmless and forgettable.

Next...

Goldfinger (1964)

"Some things just simply aren't done. Like drinking Dom Perignon '53 at above 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Or listening to the Beatles without earmuffs."

Well, Bond's taste in music is pants, then.

Let's get one thing straight, first: I liked this film a lot. But... well, I like the James Bond films. I've seen most of them, some several times, but not all them. I haven't seen Goldfinger before for instance. But I'm vaguely aware that the received opinion of this film is that it's amongst the best. But, well, I liked it very much but I liked it's predecessors better.

Why? I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps it feels smaller in scale? Perhaps the locations aren't as big or exciting, with long scenes in golf clubs and dull cells, and Bond spending much of the last part of the film as a prisoner? I think it's mainly that Gert Frobe is ok but not all that good or charismatic. Even the "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!" moment underwhelmed me. Has popular culture led me to expect too much?

Still, Connery is awesome as ever.and the full on gadgetry emerges with the gadget filled Aston Martin and a glimpse into "Q" branch. There are some good set pieces, too, most notably Jill Masterson being killed from asphyxiation after being covered in gold paint, as so splendidly debunked in Mythbusters.

Honor Blackman is suitably icy as the deliciously named Pussy Galore, but.. well, the sexual politics of the Bond films have raised a good number of eyebrows up until now, with all the slapping and somewhat unreconstructed attitudes, but Bond quite unambiguously subjects Pussy to sexual assault. It isn't depicted as rape, with Pussy clearly shown to be yielding... but that in itself is troubling.

Still, it has the best theme tune so far and possibly ever. And is still a bloody good film.

From Russia with Love (1963)

"Red wine with fish- that should have told me something!"

Two films in and we still haven't quite hit the formula as it would be. There's another perfect, fully-formed Bond villain- a cat-stroking head of SPECTRE whose face is unseen and who is, as yet, unnamed- and this time there's a rather extensive gadget, handed to Bond by Major Boothroyd of Q branch (not "Q"), this time played by Desmond Llewelyn. It's early days still, though: it's 1963, and in the final sequences Bond even wears a hat.

It's a good film though, making the most if it's glamorous Istanbul location with a set piece in the Hagia Sophia, although this contrasts somewhat with the cramped surroundings of the Orient Express.

The film is again carried by the remarkable Sean Connery, although another acting highlight is the rare appearance of George Pastell in a film not featuring Egyptian mummies. Pedro Armendariz gives us a likeable, worldly-wise Karim Bey, although it's obvious from an early stage that he's going to die. Such is the rhythm of films like this.

Daniela Bianchi is a rather passive and restrained Bond girl; that's a tradition which had still to evolve. At this point the films are still reasonably faithful adaptations of the novels, even to the absurd point of the clearly Scottish Bond being referred to as an "English gentleman. It is again, though, a bloody entertaining film.

Dr No (1962)

"Tell me, does the toppling of American missiles really compensate for having no hands?"

Time for my first Bond film, I think. I'll blog them all as and when, but in order. I'm not really a hardcore Bond fan, but I've certainly seen and enjoyed a lot of Bond films and I'm expecting to have a lot of fun along the way.

My first observation is that Sean Connery is superb, and oozes charisma: all the other British characters are very, very public school, yet Connery manages to pull off the character of Bond, comfortable in casinos and colonial gentlemens' clubs, while maintaining his working class Edinburgh accent, and pulls it off. In an age of strict actorly RP he's unique, and he pulls it off brazenly and brilliantly. This film is a triumph in no small part to his charisma.

My second observation is that all the women seem to have been written by fifteen year old boys but, hey, that's Bond. No Bechdel test here.

My third observation is just how long ago this film was made. Yes, everyone dresses as though they're in an episode of Mad Men but, even more evocative of just how long ago it was, this film is set in a Janaica that's still a British colony, with a Governor General and everything.it seems the Winds of Change haven't reached gale force yet. Still, the film deserves credit for not being particularly racist for its time, although I notice that, in the case of Quarrel, the trope of the black guy getting killed is present and correct.

It's a reasonably faithful adaptation of the novel- a more cinematic spider is substituted for the centipede, but this is a much more straightforward adaptation than what came later. There are no gadgets: Major Boothroyd (not called Q) only appears in a rather pointless scene where he replaces Bond's gun. One thing is present and correct, though: "Honey Rider" is (titter) the first of many, er, hilariously naughtily named Bond girls. And Dr No is the archetypal Bond villain from the start, with the lair and arch dialogue down pat.

I suppose I have a hard time believing that anyone could have believed that "dragon" was a flesh and blood creature, but other than that very minor pint the film is superb, and it's easy to see why the Bond films continued.

The Third Man (1949)

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Yes, it had to be that quote. Predictable but necessary.

This film is, essentially, superb. It tends to suffer somewhat from the overly high expectations one tends to have for films as critically acclaimed as this, but I won't discriminate against it for that. The film didn't choose to be so hyped. In truth, this film may not be quite amongst the best ever made but it is, nonetheless, utterly superb.

I won't recount the intriguing plot with its twists and turns and the gradual reveal of the story of Harry Lime, played with splendid charisma by the great Orson Welles. But the script paints as dark a picture of human nature as one would expect from the typewriter of Graham Greene. Vienna is made to look awesome by Carol Reed in its monochrome splendour, and the cast is superb. This is a Vienna still under occupation by the four powers, where even minor aristocrats resort to the black market to survive. This once-great imperial city has fallen very far indeed, with its grandiose Habsburg architecture seeming to mock it. 

Above all this film has atmosphere, pervaded as it is by a sense of doom and pessimism. And above it all floats that zither tune. This is a film that everyone should see.