Ten Statements About....DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971)

"The name is Bond, James...yaaaaawn...Bond."

“You killed my only other double, I'm afraid. After his death, volunteers were understandably... rather scarce."
“Such a pity. All that time and energy wasted, simply to provide you with one mock, heroic moment."

1) This is the first of three Bond films written by Robert Maibaum and Tom Mankeiwicz, a writing team perhaps best known for how...incredibly nonsensical the scripts are.  The plot to this film is totally incomprehensible, and the sooner we accept this, the better.

2) In this film, Sean Connery (who was lured back after George Lazenby abandoned the role and John Gavin had already been signed for a then-unprecedented million dollar fee--which he then promptly donated to a local school) looks thoroughly bored.  The only time he looks motivated is in the pre-credit sequence, where he goes through a cross section of criminal types looking for Blofeld (including strangling a girl with her own bikini top!).  He’s not having any fun, he’s not showing much in the ways of signs of life.  It’s almost as if he’s got one eye on the door and the other on the check in his breast pocket.

3) I think a large reason why this film seems so...tacky...to me is because the bulk of it is set in Las Vegas.  Vegas just doesn’t have the same kind of glamour as some of the cities of previous Bond films, and its more blue collar sensibilities seem to leech into the film as a whole, making it feel a whole lot less special than it should be.

4) Yes, Tiffany Case’s character becomes extremely two note (“I want my money/the diamonds” and “I don’t want to go to jail”), and she ends up becoming part of the weirdly smarmy, condescending sexism (even for a Bond film!)  that runs through the Maibaum/Mankeiwicz scripts.  But--and maybe this is primarily Jill St. John’s doing--she is one of the sexier Bond Girls of the 70‘s and fills out that weird bikini with the long sleeves really, really well.

5) In my younger days, I preferred Charles Grey to the other two Blofelds.  While my opinion has changed--I don’t think there has been a definitive Blofeld yet--he does acquit himself well...until that last act, where he dresses up as Princess Margaret and becomes a leering goof.  Maibaum and Mankeiwicz’s tendency to play everything for broad laughs (something that will result in...shudder...Sherif Pepper in the next two films) ruins the menace by making him ludicrous.

Yep...Bond on the 'moon.'  It's gonna be a loooong
decade.

6) Is there any reason--any reason--for the Moon Buggy chase?  Admittedly, it’s typical of the lackluster action throughout this film (the best fight scene happens relatively early), but the sheer what-the-fuckedness of that moment is indicative of how this film is just a string of Stuff That Happens.

7) Don’t get me wrong--I like all of the henchmen in this film, even the campy homosexual hitmen Wint and Kidd.  But they’re a little...sketchy, and maybe calling them sketchy is charitable.  Plus, Wint and Kidd really have no direct confrontation with Bond until the final scene (a trademark of Maibaum and Mankeiwicz that grows old when they do it the third time in Man With The Golden Gun).  Their whole narrative arc really is so disjointed from the main story that they could be cut out with little or no rewriting; it’s as if they’re in the movie solely because they were in the book.

8) It’s funny, but Connery seems to have more chemistry with Jimmy Dean’s Wilfred Whyte than with Norman Burton’s fatherly, ineffectual Felix Leiter.  Hell, Leiter comes off as a mild annoyance that Bond can push aside easily, while Whyte becomes a general ally, even a friend along the lines of Draco from the previous film to the point where Bond consults with him rather than his supposed bestie.

mmmmm...okay, so maybe the 70's wasn't
all bad.

9)  Let’s be honest here....the main stunt in this film--the car driving through the narrow alley on one side--is not only boring, it doesn’t work.  Director Guy Hamilton has to resort to some editing and an obvious inset of Connery and St. John ‘shifting’ from side to side in their car to convince us that the car moved from one side to the other.  It’s just a poor payoff to a very poor car chase that’s all the more dull because of the obviously artificial glimpses of the big crowds calmly standing on the sidelines watching the filming.

10) There’s a very real sense of the movie not, you know, having an actual plot until the very last act. The whole ‘we’re built this giant-ass laser thingie in orbit around the Earth that melts tanks and vaporizes people and we’re going to sell it to the highest bidder’ endgame sees to come out of nowhere.  It’s not that Maibaum and Mankeiwicz don’t set up elements leading us to the giant-ass laser thing; it’s that those elements are either injected seemingly randomly or make no logical sense.  Thus the impact of the film’s pay off doesn’t work.

Overall...the first Bond film of the 70‘s (and one of the first Bond films I saw in the theaters with my natural father) is a mess and a half, with the few bright spots far outweighed by the broad comedy, the illogical plotting and the dullness of the setting and stuntwork.  Not recommended.

And be prepared; this is going to be a long decade.

Ten Statements About....YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)

"Wait a minute...you're short, you're bald, and you have a
weak chin.  Give me a real master villain!"

“James Bond. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld. They told me you were assassinated in Hong Kong."
“Yes, this is my second life."
“You only live twice, Mr. Bond."

1) This is unique amongst the Bond films for the fact that it’s written by someone outside of the Eon Productions family--namely Roald Dahl.  And as much as I love Dahl as a writer (he’s one of the greatest short story writers ever) and a novelist, this script is very nonsensical and has the kind of ‘and then this happens, and then this happens’ make-it-up-as-it-goes-along feel that comes to dominate the series once the Roger Moore era rolls around.

2) Boy, does Sean Connery look old at times....which might be why he made the decision to leave the franchise during its filming.  He looks particularly old as he goes undercover as a Japanese fisherman (don’t ask).

3) I find it fascinating how this is one of the only Bond films--if not the only Bond film--where the bulk of the gadgets don’t come from Q.  The only thing Desmond Llewellyn gives Bond is Little Nelly; the exploding cigarettes and the ninja mufti is all Tiger Tanaka’s work.  And the ninja angle gives this film a unique feel the previous Bonds don’t have.  And speaking of Tanaka...

"I'm Japanese, damnit...JAPANESE!" 

4) Tetsuro Tamba is great as the head of the Japanese Secret Service.  Since he’s closer to Connery’s age (or at least looks closer to his age), there’s more of a sense of them treating each other as peers.  Plus he’s cool as crap in his own right, what with his own private railway car, ninja school and the ability to call up electromagnet-enabled helicopters at will.

5) While Mie Hama’s Kissy Suzuki is the featured Bond Girl, it’s real curious as to how little she actually is featured.  She doesn’t even show up until after the halfway mark, and doesn’t do much except run around in a very fetching white bikini.  Plus, she’s not all that interesting--and I have to assume that’s the script’s fault because I’ve seen Mie elsewhere and know she’s capable of being engaging.

6) And more puzzling, Connery has more screen time (and way more chemisty) with Akiko Wakabayashi’s Aki.  Aki has a great dry sense of humor that works extremely well with Connery and does a lot more than Kissy.  She definitely feels more like the prime Bond Girl, and while her ultimate fate has more impact due to her screen time, some of the energy goes out of the film when Wakabayashi is no longer in it.

Yep...pretty much the only reason Mie Hama is in this movie.

7) I’m not a big fan of the Japan depicted within this film.  There is a definite sense of Japan as a modern country--which it certainly was becoming at the time--and yet we see people wandering around in traditional Japanese dress at time.  This is particularly jarring when we see Aki tailing Bond at the beginning of Act One, dressed as a geisha in a sea of men and women in suits (I know that this might be Lewis Gilbert trying to make make Aki stand out so we know she’s different, but still....)

And we’re not going to talk about the Fishing Village That Time Forgot....

8) You know...given that this was the culmination of a tease started back with the first film, and the climax of the first leg of this series, the revelation of Donad Pleasance as Blofeld seems a little lax.  He ends up being rather unimposing and less freakish and colorful than the underlings he sent before him (well, other than Largo.  No one’s more boring than Largo yet.).  His interaction with Bond is rather bland and his running like a girl once his plan blows up in his face is laughable.  And speaking of that plan...

9) ...there are some moments that are seriously goofy.  The whole thing with Karin Dor's Helga Brandt and the plane with the wooden plank makes no sense, and the idea of using a big ass spaceship that opens up to swallow smaller spaceships seems rather exorbitant.  And Dahl seems bored whenever some details are needed.  The moment when Blofeld blackmails the Generic Asians for a larger payment calls out for a little expository dialogue...and none comes.

10) The Ken Adams volcano set is pretty impressive--it netted Eon Productions an Oscar--but the film seems to engage in a little too much set porn as Gilbert lovingly goes over every nook and cranny of this area without much of a point.  There’s a particular moment near the end of Act Two where we just asked to take in this fortress for roughly five minutes before another drawn out scene in Blofeld’s sprawling office.  If they made these picturesque moments a little more streamlined, maybe the film would’ve flowed better.

Overall...not a great entry, mainly due to Dahl’s rather peculiar script, even though there are some great moments.  Not a good coda for this leg of the Bond series (although, to be fair, it’s a little better than either of Connery’s return to the roles).

Ten Statements About....THUNDERBALL (1965)

"Yes, yes, I am boring...but given all the movies,
sometimes you get a baddie like me!"

“My dear girl, don't flatter yourself. What I did this evening was for Queen and country. You don't think it gave me any pleasure, do you?"
“But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue...but not this one!"

1) The reason this is my least favorite of the Connery Bonds is that even though it is more coherent than the two that follow it, it is aggressively dull.  This film drags, it has very few engaging moments, and is a chore to watch.

It’s also the only Bond film in the official canon produced by perpetually water-logged thorn in the Broccoli family’s side, Kevin McClory.  Make of it what you will.

2) And the dullness begins with the extended sequence at the health club.  The thing that makes this rather lengthy and boring stretch of film unendurable is how inconsequential and coincidental it all is.  Even though Connery does stumble across the imposter that is part of Largo’s plot to blackmail the world, his discovery is not integral to his cracking the case at all.  In all it’s just twenty hours of him running around in shorts and stuff.

3) The weirdest thing about the overall plot is how frontloaded the intrigue is; so much of the first forty five minutes is spent with Fiona and her plastic surgery’d pawn getting everything set up so the bombs will end up off the coast of Nassau....followed quickly by an hour and twenty-some minutes of Bond wandering around looking for trouble.  It’s hard not for the second and third acts to not be a let down after all the running around of the first act.

4) Of course, this leads us into one of the other major problems with this film--namely, Emilio Largo is a terribly dull villain.  Now I know Adolpho Celi is an amazing character actor; he’s been a highlight of many policia films, as well as Danger: Daibolik.  But here he comes off as a pumped up gangland accountant, even with all his accouterments.  Some of this may be because Celi was dubbed, but there’s something inherently flawed with the performance and the character that makes his a non-starter.

SCUBA!!!!!!!

5) And while we’re on the subject of non-starters...I will admit that Claudine Auger is drop-dead gorgeous...but there’s a difference between being gorgeous and being sexy, and Auger’s Domino is cold and stiff, making her one of the least interesting Bond Girls to date...no matter how hot the scene involving the poison spine is.

6) But luckily, Auger is the only dull Bond girl in this film.  Martine Bestwick’s Paula and--especially--Luciano Paluzzi’s Fiona Volpe are wonderful additions to the Bond mythos...to the point where I wished that Fiona was the main villain Bond came up against, and not Largo.  Fiona is so fun, reveling in her nastiness while being flirty with Bond, that her every scene is a delight.

7) Fiona plays a part in what has to be the highlight of the film--namely, the cat-and-mouse chase between her, Largo’s henchmen and Bond through Junkcano, referred to as ‘the Nassau Mardi Gras.’  Apparently director Terence Young shot this sequence using handheld cameras, and it manages to increase the paranoia and suspense of the chase without losing any coherence.  Granted, the whole sequence ends kinda dopily, but other than that...choice!

Yep, evil...but I'd do her...

8) If you don’t like scuba diving, this film is going to be truly painful for you.  There are massive stretches of ‘suspenseful’ scuba fight scenes and similar action, and they’re dreadful boring.  No amount of orchestration will be able to convince you otherwise.

9) But you know, I would put up with all this underwater noodling and the dull villain and main Bond girl if Bond actually acted like an actual spy, and not like some schmoe who’s stumbling around in the dark guessing at clues.  Hell, Bond deduces the bombs have to be in Nassau because...well, he sees a photo of Domino in a bikini and naturally assumes that’s where it is.  The way the script makes it sound, it’s more like Bond decides the weapons are there because he wants to see Domino in a bikini in the flesh.

10) The thing I find so amusing about Rik Van Nutter’s version of Felix Leiter is how it seems that McClory found an actor who looked as much like Jack Lord as possible, dressed him up like Jack Lord...but made the actor behave like a goof.  Leiter in this film is here mainly to drive Bond around and, in a key scene, get punched in the gut by him.

Overall...dull, uninteresting and full of filler, this is the first real big let down of the Bond series (although it’s gold compared to what comes down the pike during the later part of the Moore era).

Ten Statements About....GOLDFINGER (1964)

Yep...Shirley Eaton covered in gold paint...why does this do
it for me?

"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No, Mr. Bond!  I expect you to die.  There is nothing you can talk to me about that I don't already know."

1) This is pretty unique in the Connery cycle in that it's the only film where Spectre doesn't have any role.  As such, this film is not so much an exemplar of The Connery Era as the blueprint for the Roger Moore era that is to follow.  There's a decidedly different feel to this film that sets it apart from the other Connerys--which might be why it's used as the reflex choice for most people when asked to name their favorite Bond film.

2) Gert Frobe is essential to this film even working to the extent that it does.  He's so...grotesque in his behavior, a true glutton who is nonetheless supremely satisfied with himself.  Frobe's physical acting (his voice was dubbed) is wonderfully operatic, and he drives home the monstrousness and arrogance of Goldfinger well.

3) However, as much as I respect her for being a major part of my favorite television show, and for being the woman who forged the symbiotic connection between The Avengers and the James Bond series, I cannot endorse Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore.  The character is fairly mangled in the film as the script tries to acknowledge her lesbianism without out and out saying it, and her motivation seems thoroughly messed up in the process.  Plus the sudden face turn after Bond hits the hay with her--literally--makes no sense whatsoever.  And...I'm being honest here...she does very little for me, ending up arguably in my bottom tier of Bond girls.

The first laser on film...and it's used to threaten
Sean Connery's nuts.....

4) Is it just me, or does all the argle barge Goldfinger does leading up to Operation Grand Slam seem excessively showy?  Granted, part of Goldfinger's nature is his desire to be thought of as the cleverest guy in the room (notice how he decides to keep Bond alive a little longer only when he acknowledges how brilliant Operation Grand Slam is), but the whole 'let me bring you all together so I can brag, then kill you' thing seems a bit...pointless, doesn't it?

5) The thing that strikes me about Howard Sakata's Oddjob is how, solely through body language and facial expressions, he creates a fully realized character with menace and, most importantly, a sense of humor.  We never once doubt that Oddjob is anything but a scary individual--partially because Connery treats him thusly--but those little smirks reveal something in his inner life that's extremely vivid.  It's not for nothing that he remains one of the greatest Bond henchmen in the series' history.

6) I have this theory that the films where an American city is the central site of the adventure tend to be lackluster...and this may be the best, but not by much.  Kentucky is so....unphotogenic until we get to Fort Knox, and then the film is almost over.  There's little to engage the eye, so much so that the only thing I was concerned with in one scene involving Felix Leiter was the big ol' Kentucky Fried Chicken sign in the background.

"I'm so glad we had this time together....."

7) I like Shirley Eaton.  Really like.  She's got far more life and fun than either of the other Bond girls, and it's a shame she has to exit so quickly.  It's not for nothing that she is the center of one of the most iconic images in the series' history.

8) I don't know why it bugs me so, but I really wish they hadn't hired such a dowdy, obviously older Felix Leiter.  It makes the whole friendship between the two seem less than close.  Hell, Cec Linder looks and acts more like Connery's uncle and not his friend.

9) Boy, Ken Adams' sets are still amazingly tasty....particularly the one for Fort Knox, which Adams made up whole from his imagination.  These few sets--the Fort, Goldfinger's weird lounge room/planning area, the laser laboratory--just jump out at you amidst all the rather ordinary landscapes, reminding you that yes, this is supposed to be a Bond film.

10) Is it just me, or does Connery just stumble around annoying the crap out of Goldfinger until the goof drags him by the ear into his plan?  For a spy film, Bond doesn't do much in the way of spying...which is why it's so odd how so many of the tropes of the series seem to solidify here.

Overall...I know this is heretical, given how this is usually the default choice people have for Best Bond Film, but this is a film that drags at times, detracting from the generally good acting from its principles.  Not my favorite, although far from the worst of the Connery cycle (that's for the next time we look in on 007....)

Ten Statements About....FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963)

This is one of the tensest exchanges in a Bond film...and it's
about wine and fish....

"Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something."
"You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees. How does it feel old man?"

1) One of the many, many things I love about this film is how this, more than any other Connery Bond, is a true spy movie. Even with its super-spy trappings and the presence of SPECTRE, the operation to retrieve the Lektor and SPECTRE's plan to grab the Lektor for themselves while discrediting MI-5 are legitimate espionage schemes carried out like legitimate espionage operations. This is one of the purest espionage capers we'll see until we get to For Your Eyes Only in the 80's.

2) Of course, part of the reason this film is such a success is the vivid characterizations...and none are more vivid than my favorite of the 'sacrificial lamb,' Pedro Armandariz' Ali Karim Bey. Bey is such a wonderful character who's so colorful I almost wish we got a film entirely about him. Armandariz was dying from cancer, which makes his joyous, lustful and vibrant performance even more remarkable. Add into it a legitimate chemistry between him and Connery, and you have a magnificent character.

3) I'm pretty sure this is the only Bond film where the henchman thoroughly overshadows the main villains, but it's with good reason--Robert Shaw's Red Grant is the first of the true elite of the Henchmen characters. It's not for nothing that my great friend and partner Derrick Ferguson once said that 'Robert Shaw played the shark in Jaws years before he hunted it'; director Terrence Young frequently has Grant hovering around the fringes of the action, stalking Bond silently. Shaw is so effective as this silent monolith that it's almost a disappointment when he opens his mouth in the third act. Grant is one of the best creations of 60's spy culture, and he should be justifiably celebrated.

4) You know, one of the things that I think makes this film stand out amongst the early Bonds is Young's direction. Young seems to delight in these sequences with multiple planes of action--there are numerous moments where one of the actors is doing something either in reaction to the main actor or in contrast to it that adds a little flavor to the composition. Perhaps my two favorite moments like when Bond is walking alongside the train--and we watch Red Grant stalking him from inside, and the scene on the same train where Karim Bey and Bond are going over their plan while Daniela Bianchi is trying out her new cover name. These moments give an extra touch of life to the proceedings.

Ahhhhhh, the 60's...where men were frightfully hairy and a
woman could show up dressed in just a ribbon in his bed just
because....

5) And while we're talking about Ms. Bianchi, I know many people look upon her as a minor Bond girl, but I always found her rather appealing. Maybe part of it is because she is integral to the plot--the film doesn't work without her cooperation with Lotte Lenya's Klebb--but there are these moments of physical acting (as with Ursula Andress before her, Bianchi was dubbed) that seem to indicate she could have been a good lil' actress if she had decided to pursue the craft further. And I do think she's really hot, but that might just be me.

6) Earlier I made reference to how Shaw's Red Grant overshadows the main villains here...and a small portion of that may very well be how little screen time the main villains do get. Vladek Shaybel's Kronsteen, in particular, is a ghost of a presence, only showing up in two scenes before Lenya's Klebb kills him. And Lenya gives it her all, but the character doesn't have the vivid life the others around her have.

7) I find it fascinating how it seems that Roger Maibaum's script doesn't want to let go of some of the tawdrier aspects of Fleming's novel, but can't fully express it in the language of 1963's pop culture. This results in scenes such as the one where Klebb, a lesbian in the novel, seems to drool over Bianchi's Tatiana Romanova without it being expressedly said. To tell the truth, I'm not sure if I prefer this treatment to what would surely be an obverse statement of her sexuality if the film was made today.

8) Even I admit freely that this film loses loads of steam once Red Grant is dispatched. Both the helicopter sequence and the boat chase are somewhat lacking in speed, pacing and zest. It was almost as if Young lost interest in the story once the most interesting of the bad guys is gone.

"Yes, yes, I know.  I am supposed to be a major villain, but I'm
actually irrelevant.  Just go with it...."

9) The puttering around with what will become the James Bond formula continues, resulting in us witnessing the first pre-credit sequence and the first 'last attempt' sequence. The pre-credit sequence is real suspenseful and gives us a great hook with Bond being killed only for it to be a training exercise for Grant...and thankfully the 'last attempt' sequence doesn't reach the ludicrousness of the 70's ones, although Lotte Lenya being pinned to the wall by a comfy chair is a little silly.

10) I guess I was too busy enjoying the fun of the 'training island' sequence in the first act to realize that the man running said island was played by Walter Gotell, who will go on to play Gogol in a number of Moore Bond films (ending his tenure with the first Dalton). It's an interesting little performance that's very unlike the ones I associate Gotell with.

Overall...arguably my favorite of the Connery Bonds thanks to some great characters and a spy plot that's a genuine spy plot before the crazier elements take off. Recommended.

Ten Statements About....DR. NO (1962)

"HEY!  Stop checking out my shells.  My eyes are up here!"

"I admire your courage, Miss...er?
"Trench, Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, Mr...?
"Bond. James Bond."

1) The thing that might strike a viewer only familiar with later Bond films is how this one plays out for the bulk of its running time more as a private detective film than a spy film. We see Bond using his brain, following leads and investigating the situation though footwork and deductive reasoning. It's a definite difference from the Bond we will see under Moore or Brosnan or Craig, or even the later Connery flicks for that matter.

2) And there's also a different feel to the film as a whole--which makes total sense, given how so much of this film is a bunch of people feeling their way around looking for what makes a Bond film a Bond film. Unlike in later Connery entries, this Bond is rather professional, actually caring about his anonymity and not drawing attention to himself. The Bond we become familiar with doesn't crystalize until much later in the series.

3) Boy, given how we've lived on the myth of the Bond Girl as a piece of set dressing good only for her to hang on his arm and look hot (which also gave rise to the trope of the woman cast as the newest Bond Girl promising that she'll be an integral part of the action), Ursula Andress' Honey is anything but. Right from the first shot, where we're struck by how muscular she is, she has a purpose and contributes quite a bit to Bond's survival. Granted, once we get into No's lair and she becomes a trembling willow branch, it comes off as odd...but while we're on the island grounds, Honey is a peer and an integral part of the team.

4) I can't help but think that at some point in his childhood, David Caruso watched this movie and thought he was going to imitate Jack Lord's Felix Leiter one day. I can almost understand why later Leiters are so doughy and older, given how Lord dominates the few scenes he has with Connery.

5) One of the things I find fascinating is that Quarrel--usually codified as The Sacrificial Ally--spends the majority of his time pretty much as comic relief. Even more fascinating is how that comic relief is expressed, namely through his drinking and how those people around him (including Leiter) disapproves of his guzzling an entire freaking moonshine jug of rum. It's the sort of thing I can't imagine the motion picture industry standing for these days.

"I'm sorry, ma'am...you're a strange looking girl, and I'd rather
go first a mock-Asian madman...."

6) I know I remarked upon this in an episode of Better In The Dark, but there are moments where you can see how Ken Adams' design work inspired so many of the spy series that followed. The look of The Avengers, for example, was directly derived from such scenes as the one where Anthony Dawson's Professor Dent gets his instructions from No in that weird bare room with the circular window throwing shadows on the wall.

7) And speaking of Professor Dent...man, that scene where Bond cold-blooded murders Dent--admittedly after Dent tries to kill him--is pretty harsh. I'm particularly struck by how Bond shoots him, pauses, then pumps two more bullets in him. This is one nasty customer, that is.

8) Look, I know that the general belief in movies in the early 60's was to emphasize instrumentals over actual songs, but couldn't Broccoli and Salzman had bought a song other than 'Under The Mango Tree'? After the fifteenth iteration of this song, both as a full on song and as an instrumental, it became a full-on earworm and tortured me for hours after the present viewing of the film.

"I'm sorry, Quarrel...I've got manly chest hair, and she's an
Italian blonde in a wet shirt...you've got to be the one to go
out like a bitch."

9) It's funny how the film, unlike so many others in the Bond canon, keeps Joseph Wiseman's disturbingly reptilian Dr. No off screen until the film is literally almost over. And to be honest, I really don't know whether I like the idea or not. It does give him a grander feel when he does show his head...but once he sits down to dinner with Bond, he doesn't seem to deserve such a grand build-up. Plus, as Derrick Ferguson has pointed out, Wiseman runs like a girl.

10) I'm still trying to figure out what Broccoli and Salzman were thinking with the addition of Eunice Gayson's Sylvia Trench in this film and the next. Unlike Lois Maxwell, who ends up fulfilling the 'flirtatious galpal' role I think they were going for, Gayson seems to be out of place. She plays her lines with this strange somberness that clashes with Connery's underplayed humor and has an even stranger, unsymmetrical face that draws attention away from each of her scenes.

Overall...it's a little prototypical and has a few false avenues it goes down, but this is where it all began, and is an effective action-adventure film in its own right. Recommended, and not just for the historical element.

Ten Statements About....THE AVENGERS (1998)

NO!  No kissing!  You're supposed to be British!

"A man with an umbrella is a man praying for rain."

"And a man without one in a fool. Never trust the weather, Sir August."

1) Ralph Fiennes was born to play a modern John Steed. From the first moment's walk through the British Village O' Danger to the last scene's champagne toast, Fiennes channels the same sort of calm and controlled charm that Patrick MacNee exemplified in the television series.

2) However, Uma Thurman is...not very good. It's obvious she's trying hard to capture the same sort of sophisticated sex appeal (Or 'man appeal,' which is how Emma Peel got her name), but we never get anything more than the sense that she's a girl playing dress up. Sure, she looks swell in some of the outfits, and there is a degree of chemistry between her and Fiennes, but she never clicks as Emma. One wonders if originally cast Nicole Kidman could have done better.

3) There are two fundamental problems with the film as a whole--and they're both sort of clashing with each other. Primarily, there is the fact that this is a film based on a property whose sole attraction to many of its fans is its inherent Britishness...and yet, distinctly American tropes are being imposed on this very British thing. Thus, the whole 'there's a mole in The Ministry' subplot and, more importantly, the overt romance between Steed and Peel feels very, very out of place. Hell, the big kiss in Act Three practically screams out how wrong it is in the context of what came before it.

4) But arguably a bigger problem is that director Jeremiah S. Chechik obviously loves the television series a lot--so much so that he painstakingly retains so many of the quirky elements of the series, not realizing that what we're able to accept in forty-five minute doses (street scenes totally devoid of people; a determination not to place the locations in any sort of context save for when absolutely necessary; set pieces for no reason except that they're set pieces) can seem strange and bizarre in a ninety-minute dose. In making the film seem like an episode of the regular series writ large, Chechik ends up making the film impenetrable to anyone not intimately familiar with the source material.

5) Wow...you cast Eddie Izzard, an incredibly talented comedic actor with a wonderful voice...and you stick him in a role that maybe amounts to ten minutes and one line (said line being 'Oh, Fuck')? Really, movie? Really?

"I Keel You!  I Keel You!"

6) The story goes that Chechik's original cut was two hours and change, and Warner Brothers insisted that he cut the film down to its extant 88 minutes. I do have to wonder if that extreme editing job is the reason the film is riddled with continuity problems where characters appear and disappear at will.

7) I know a lot of people loathe Sean Connery's turn as main villain Sir August deWynther...I rather like him. It's obvious that Connery is having a ball playing a mad scientist who thinks nothing of dressing his employees up in teddy bear outfits. I just wish they concentrated him as a meteorologist and not decided to make him an all-purpose crazy scientist who also cloned Emma Peel as an act of obsession, as that element just muddies the water.

"All those in favor of recategorizing Fuzzy Wuzzy as
not Fuzzy say 'Aye."

8) It's odd that Chechik included the element of Mother and Father, who were more integral to the series' last season, features of the at the time very, very inexperienced Linda Thorson as Tara King (Yes, I know Mother was introduced in the last episode of the Emma Peel run, but that episode was pretty much a pilot for the King run, so....). Yes, I understand that it was so we could have Father be a traitor in one of those uniquely American elements I was talking about, but it still comes off as odd.

9) You gotta give Chechik credit for finding a way to give us a Patrick MacNee cameo in such a way that he interacts with Fiennis while not overshadowing him. Hell, MacNee's scene as Colonel Jones is one of those elements that feels the most like the television series.

10) Maybe because of the aforementioned editing job, there are long stretches where the individual scenes themselves work in and of themselves, but they make no sense narratively when strung together.

Overall...a real mess that, truth be told, I still find pretty entertaining at times...only to be brought down by some of the choices made that were obviously designed to net Warner Brothers a big budget franchise. Pity we'll never know whether to put the blame at the feet of Chechik or the producers....