Right, time for YET look back at one of my older posts and this time its one on another Bond film and the film in question is Roger Moore's fifth film, For Your Eyes Only. So, it will be just the usual give the post another look to extend certain sections and add a bit more detail as I recently re-watched the film again, so figured why not?
And with that said, let's take another look at this one...
And the usual warning is coming up...
SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!
STORY
So
the film begins with a British spy boat being sunk after its strikes a
mine, the boat itself contained a specialised communications system
used by the ministry of defence to communite with its fleet of Polaris
submarines, named ATAC. Bond (Moore) as a result of the incident
is order by his superiors to retrieve the ATAC before the Soviets can as
they could use it for their own means.
Meanwhile a British marine
archaeologist who was hired by the British to locate the sunk spy boat
is murdered by a hitman named Hector Gonzalez (Stefan Kalipha). Bond
follows up the lead and travels to Spain where he sneaks around
Gonzalez's villa but he is captured, however Gonzalez himself is killed
by an arrow, which allows Bond to escape. Bond soon finds out
Gonzalez's assassin is the daughter of the murdered archaeologist,
Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) and the two of them escape together.
Bond later on with the help of Q (Desmond Lewellyn) discovers the
identity of one of the men that was present at Gonzalez's villa was
Emile Leopold Locque (Michael Gothard) another hired killer. Bond then
travels to Cortina in Italy to track Locque and he meets with his
Italian contact, Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno) and a Greek businessman and
informant named, Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover) who tells Bond that
Locque is employed by a smuggler named Milos Columbo (Topol) who was one
time a former business partner of his.
Bond later
meets up with Kristatos's protege figure skater, Bibi Dahl (Lynn Holly
Johnson) and while they ski together, Bibi points out to Bond an East
German biathlete, Eric Kriegler (John Wyman) who later tries to kill
Bond, who manages to escape. Later on Bond fends off another attempt on
his life at an ice rink and soon finds his contact, Luigi dead, with
the symbol of a "dove" in his hands, the nickname for Locque.
Bond then
travels to Corfu to follow Columbo and he meets with Columbo's
mistress, Countess Lisl van Schaff (Cassandra Harris) and they spend the
night together. The next morning while walking a beach, Bond and Lisl
are attacked by Locque who kills Lisl but Locque flees just as Columbo's
men show up and capture Bond and take him to Columbo.
Columbo later
explains to Bond that Kristatos is the man Bond should be after as he
was the one who hired Locque and Kristatos is working with the KGB to
retrieve the ATAC and he persuades Bond to go along on a raid of
Kristato's opium processing warehouse in Albania. During the raid, Bond
discovers naval mines similar to the one that sunk the British spy
boat, later Bond chases after Locque, shooting him in the shoulder,
causes Locque's car to crash on the edge of a cliff and Bond kicks the
car over, which sees Locque plummet to his death.
So after this Bond then
teams up with Columbo and reunites with Melina to take down Kristatos
and end his schemes....
THOUGHTS
After the somewhat over the top and completely fantastical
Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only saw the Bond series come back down to
Earth (literally!) and with the change of director, John Glen, FYEO has a
more gritty feel to it than Moore's previous films did, which in itself
is no bad thing.
The film also saw a change in the cast as sadly
Bernard Lee, who played M, died shortly just after filming had begun in
1981, so instead of replacing the actor, they re-wrote his character to
include a new one, Bill Tanner, to take over as the chief of staff
at MI6 and Bond's superior. Roger Moore also apparently was set to
make this his last Bond film but later of course did come back to play
the part in two more films, Octopussy and View to a kill.
PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
Performance
wise, the film is actually quite good and features a largely fine cast.
And to start off of course we have Roger Moore who provides another solid turn in the part
and this time he plays Bond with a bit more sensitivty and with less
chauvanism and it actually stands as one of his most likeable
performances in the role. Although it does have to be said that Roger
is starting to look a bit old for the part by this time as he already 54 years old by this point.
Moore has some
good scenes and naturally some good one-liners and even his opening
scene is quite funny where Bond is attacked by a bald headed villain
(unidentified but clearly based on Blofeld) who remote controls a
helicopter that Bond is in. And in the scene Bond eventually manages to
take control of the helicopter and picks up the villains' wheelchair by
one of the copter's landing skids and as the villain pleads with him
and Bond pats his head and says "Alright keep your hair on!" and the
villain continues "Please Mr Bond, put me down!" Bond teases him saying
"Oh you want to get off???" and he drops the villain down a large
chimney stack!
Then there are the scenes where Bond is stuck with taking care of Bibi, the annoying horny teenage skater and one such example is where Bibi lies in bed naked and Bond for once looks uncomfortable given that she is just a teenager. And Bib asks Bond "What is it? Don't you like me? and Bond awkwardly tells her "I think your wonderful, Bibi. I just don't think your Uncle Aris would approve!" and Bibi says "Aris? He still thinks I'm a virgin!". So, Bond again awkward, says "Yes well...you put on your clothes, I'll buy you an ice cream!".
Then we have the scene at the ski slopes where Bond bids her farewell and says "Well, sorry Bibi but I'm afraid I must be off?" and Bibi says "What?" and Bond tells her "I have an appointment". And Bibi a bit disappointed asks him "Well, will I see you before we leave?" and Bond tells her "Well, I'll try but if I don't see you again, Bibi, I'll just say don't grow up anymore" and Bibi looks at him puzzle and says "Huh?" and Bond says to her "The opposite sex would never survive it!" and he skis off.
Then there is one of the film's best scenes where Bond
chases after Locque, who crashes his car up the top of a cliff and Bond
goes up to Locque and shows him the killer's pin that he left with Luigi
Ferrara's body (Bond's associate) and Bond says to Locque "You left
this with Ferrera, I believe". And as the cars starts to give way to
the crumbling rock, Bond
kicks Locque's car off the cliff and later he quips "He didn't have a
head for heights!". Moore was reportedly uneasy about the idea of
filming the scene but eventually agreed to go ahead with filming it,
which is just as well as it remains a standout moment in Moore's era.
Another really good scene for Roger which is quite
suspenseful is when Bond makes his long climb up the mountain to St Cyril's monastery where Kristatos is hiding and waiting to deliver the ATAC machine to the KGB. And in the scene in a mountain-top monastery and one of
Kristato's men tries to kick him off the cliff and knock out the
climbing bolts he has placed one by one, but Bond manages to pull
himself up just in time before the last one is knocked out and he kills
the henchman with a throwing knife.
Roger also has one or two good serious moments as well
such as in the scene where he warns Melina about taking revenge for the
death of her parents and he says "The Chinese have a saying "before
setting off on revenge, you first dig twice two graves". And later on as
she is about to kill Kristatos he reminds her again as she is ready to kill Kristatos and Bond tells her "No, Melina, we'll leave him for the police" but Melina insists "Out of my way, James!" and James relucantly says "Alright. Just be prepared to
dig those two graves" before (PLOT SPOILER!!) Columbo saves her the
trouble.
And in the second last scene of the film Bond throws away the ATAC machine as he approaches General Gogol (Walter
Gotell) and the machine itself smashes into pieces on the rocks below. So, Bond then smiles at Gogol and says to him "That's detente, general, you don't have it
and I don't have it!" and Gogol himself laughs and bids him farewell and leaves.
Julian Glover is excellent in
his part as the main villain, Kristatos and he seems to enjoy playing
the part of the double dealing businessman and intelligence informant
although his villain isn't the most memorable or menacing it has to be
said.
But Glover has some good moments that include the one where Kristatos
has Bond and Melina tied up on his boat and they have been tied to a
speedboat which will drag them through the water to attract the sharks
for dinner! And in the scene just before Bond and Melina are to be
dropped into the water, Kristatos says to his men of Bond's wound on his
arm "Bind that wound. We don't wany any blood in the water. Not
yet!". Melina then looks disgusted at Kristatos and she spits at him
"Murderer!" and Kristatos says to her, as a way of a pun as she uses her
crossbow as a weapon in the film: "You've shot your last bolt, Miss
Havelock!".
Another scene of note is when Kristatos at the monastery near the end tries to appease a tired and bored Bibi, who is working out and he comes in to see her. So, Bibi in the scene asks Kristatos "What are we doing in this creepy place?" and Kristatos says "Our plans have changed. We are going to live in Cuba for the next few months" and Bibi annoyed says "Cuba?!" and Kristatos says to Bibi "You can skate privately there, without distractions and I will be your audience". Bibi, however is not interested "What a drag that will be! I wanna win the gold medal!" and Kristatos reassuringly says "We all want that!" and Bibi says "I know what you want...you're too old for me! I'm splitting!". Kristatos then glares angrily at Brink and says "You have poisoned her against me!" and Bibi says "Leave her alone, Ari!" and Kristatos looks angrily at Brink and says "I will deal with you as I deal with everyone who betrays me!" and he storms out.
Then there is the scene where Kristatos near the end readies his
departure with the Atac machine but he is met with by an angry Bibi, who angrily asks him of the whereabouts of her coach "Where's Brink?" and he tells her "Go to your room!" and she angrily says "You can go to hell!" and Kristatos smacks her roughly and shuts the doors.
Topol however provides the film's standout role as Milos Columbo who is a really colourful character, who loves eating pestachio nuts and Bond is wary of him at first but he later becomes allies with him.
And
when
Columbo meets with Bond he tells him that he has got him all wrong and
that Kristatos is the real villian. So Columbo tells Bond "I'm here, Mr. Bond of the British Secret Service. But I'll tell you... it is Kristatos you want, NOT me. He told you about himself. He's the one with the powerful connections, not me. Locque works for him, not me. He told you that I was a heroin smuggler, yes? That is partly true. I'm a smuggler. I smuggle, yes. I smuggle gold, diamonds, cigarettes, pistachio nuts... but no heroin. Sit down. That I leave to him... when he is not too busy working for Russia against my country and yours". Bond then reminds Columbo that the British government gave Kristatos a king's medal but Columbo tells him that he was a double agent.
Bond then asks Columbo "What does Kristatos gain by setting you up?" and Columbo says "Well, I know too much about him. He wants me out of the way. By using a British agent to do his dirty work for him, your government might give him another medal". Bond, still wary of Columbo asks him "Why should I believe you?" and Columbo says "I'll prove it to you tonight. We'll go to his warehouse in Albania". Bond warns Columbo "If I don't report in by tomorrow morning, not only my people, but the entire Greek police will be down on you like a load of bricks" but Columbo reassures him "Don't worry. By tomorrow, we'll be good friends. Let us drink to that" and Bond carefully says "I'll wait until tomorrow".
Columbo then goes and takes Bond's Walther PPK and aims it at him and then hands over to him and says "You will need this. I'm a good judge of men. You, Mr Bond, have
what the Greeks calls "thrausos" Guts!".
Carole Bouquet is one of the weak links in the cast as she is pretty
wooden in her part as Bond's love interest (or one of them!) Melina
Havelock.
Regardless of that though, Bouquet does what she can with her role and
to the credit of her character, she does have more of a motivation and
backstory to deal with than most of the Bond girls we usually see.
Bouquet, a French actress, reportedly had her voice dubbed over by
another actress for the film, which given that she can speak English
herself seems a bit daft although its not entirely certain that she was
dubbed.
Bouquet still has some good moments here and there and the one that
springs to mind is when Melina tells Bond she is out for revenge for the
murder of her family. However Bond warns her with the Chinese saying
of being prepared to "dig two graves" if you plan for revenge and Melina
says to him "I don't expect you to understand, you're English, but I'm
half Greek and
Greek women like Elektra always avenge their loved ones!".
Then there is the scene where Bond, Columbo and Melina arrive at the
scene of a monastery where Kirstatos is located and Bond starts to make
his way up a steep mountain to get to the top where it is. And during
the scene, Columbo looks up concerned saying "We are just five men!" and
then Melina produces her crossbow and says "And a woman!".
Bouquet also gets the dubious pleasure of delivering the film's title line, which is one of
the naffest as well "For your eyes only, darling!" just as Bond and
Melina strip off and go for a swim. This is of course then following by
the annoying parrot who speaks to Margaret Thatcher (played by June
Brown) on the phone and keeps saying "Give us a kiss!" although the parrot is kind of funny.
As for the other cast members, Lynn-Holly
Johnson is rather annoying as the horny teenage
ice skater, Bibi Dahl who has a thing for Bond even though he is three
times her age!
However it is worth mentioning Johnson's most notable scene where she
attempts to try and seduce Bond as get's into bed naked but Bond is
reluctant to oblige her. And in the scene Bibi asks Bond "Don't you
like me?" and Bond wearily says to her "Why, I think you're wonderful,
Bibi... But I don't think your uncle Aris would approve" and Bibi says
to Bond "Him? He thinks I'm still a virgin!". Bond then awkwardly says "Yes, well, if you put your clothes and I'll buy you an ice cream!".
And lastly I will mention her scene where Bibi who has been taken to St Cyril's with Kristatos and her coach, Brink but she hates the place and is bored of working out and Kristatos comes
in to see her. So, Bibi in the scene asks Kristatos "What are we doing
in this creepy place?" and Kristatos says "Our plans have changed. We
are going to live in Cuba for the next few months" and Bibi annoyed says
"Cuba?!" and Kristatos says to Bibi "You can skate privately there,
without distractions and I will be your audience". Bibi, however is not
interested "What a drag that will be! I wanna win the gold medal!" and
Kristatos reassuringly says "We all want that!" and Bibi says "I know
what you want...you're too old for me! I'm splitting!". Kristatos then
glares angrily at Brink and says "You have poisoned her against me!" and
Bibi says "Leave her alone, Ari!" and Kristatos looks angrily at Brink
and says "I will deal with you as I deal with everyone who betrays me!"
and he storms out.
Michael Gothard is quite effective in his role as the
creepy silent assassin, Locque aka "The Dove" who Bond kicks Locque's
car off a cliff with him in it. Gothard himself has no dialogue at all
in the film, which would suggest that his character was a mute. Sadly
Gothard later took his own life in 1992 after years of struggling with
depression.
Desmond Lewellyn also nicely reprises
his role as Q and has a good scene where Q and Bond try to identify
Locque by using specialised facial ID tracking equipment.
So, in the scene, Q sets up the machine to use it with Bond's help and tells Bond "This -D Visual ldentigraph is still in the experimental stage. Now, once we get a composite of the man...we can find a match by patching into the photographic files...of the Surety, lnterpol, CIA, the Mossad..." and Bond finishes Q's list and says "Yes and the West German police. You've told me so already five times!".
And later there is the amusing scene where Bond goes into a church in St
Cyrils and goes into a confession booth and he says to the priest on
the other side "Forgive me father, I have sinned" and the priest turns
out to be non other than Q who says to him "That's putting it mildly,
007!" who peels off a fake beard. Q then says to Bond "Your signal sent Whitehall into shock. So far we have managed to locate...St. Cyril's in Greece. Heaven only knows to which one Kristatos took the ATAC!" and Bond says "Well, I know a well informed man who I contact about that, Q".
Cassandra Harris also adds a bit of sexy charm to the film aswell
in her role as the Countess, Columbo's mistress, whom Bond spends the
night with just before she meets her fate the next day.
And I will mention one of Harris's scenes which is the one where Bond spends the night with the Countess but her Greek accent starts to slip a little revealing her to be English. So, as the Countess lies next to Bond she says in an English accent "My nightie's slipping!" and Bond says "So's your accent, Countess. Manchester?" and she corrects him "Close. Liverpool!. Bond asks her of her fake storm out to Columbo earlier "That was quite a performance earlier with Columbo. What exactly did Columbo whisper to you?" and she says "That you're a spy and to find out more about you" and Bond asks "And have you?" and she says "Have I ever?" and they kiss and you know the rest!
John Wyman does OK in his role as Eric Kriegler, Kristatos's henchman, who has an amusing scene after chasing Bond in the mountains and Bond escapes, Kriegler out of rage angrily lifts his bike above his head and throws toward Bond's general direction! In fact it has to be said that this film seems to have a thing for not so very talkative henchmen!
And last of all is of course June Brown, who provides an amusing cameo performance as Margaret Thatcher, who calls to congratulate Bond on his mission's succcess, however instead she talks to Melina's parrot, Max, while Bond and Melina both go off for a night swim.
So, in the scene, Maggie Thatcher unwittingly talking to Max says "Ah, Mr. Bond. I wanted to call you personnally and to say how pleased we all are that your mission was a success. Thank you" and Max says "Thank you! Thank you!". So, Maggie continues "Don't thank me, Mr. Bond. Your courage and resourcefulness are a credit to the nation. Denis and I look forward to meeting you. Meanwhile, if there is anything I can do for you..." and Max tells her "Give us a kiss!" and Maggie bashfully says "Oh, Mr Bond!".
DIRECTOR AND MUSIC
Moving
onto the director, John Glen does a fine job here in his directorial
debut and he confidently handles the action of the film very well as he
would continue to in his next four Bond films that he directed. Glen
also contributed well towards changing the tone and style of Bond quite a
bit and he radically changed it when Timothy Dalton came onboard as
Bond and its funny to think he was the only active Bond director in the entire decade of the 1980's! However, Irvin Kershner did direct the Thunderball remake, Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery in 1983 but that's not part of the official Bond series.
Music wise the film also has a fairly good score by Bill Conti, however at the same time his musical style isn't quite well suited to the Bond films as you just keep hearing echoes of his Rocky scores here. Regardless his score is still a decent one and it has some good sections to it that include the one where Bond makes his mountain climb up to the top of St Cyril's monastery.
The film's theme song however sung by Sheena Easton was never really a favourite of mine, so its a pretty average theme for me but there are worse ones for sure out there. Interestingly enough though, Sheena Easton herself was the first singer to feature in the title theme credits as the title designer, Maurice Binder liked her appearance (or basically fancied her!) and wanted to include her in them.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
As for
flaws...... well For Your Eyes Only isn't perfect and it has to
be said that again the film lacks a strong central villain as Kristatos
isn't very menacing even though Julian Glover's performance is pretty
good his character is not an effective villain, certainly not in
comparison to the likes of Goldfinger, Scaramanga or Kananga and next to
them he is quite forgettable.
The same can also be said to an extent for its
leading lady and Bond girl character, Melina Havelock, as her character
doesn't really come across as well as she could have, given that
Melina's character had the potential to be really good as she had a
motivation for revenge in the story. This however could also even have
come down to the possibility of Boquet's voice being dubbed over and if
it was then it would certainly attribute to her performance being not as
strong as it might have been, which if it is the case then that's
probably more to do with the director's decisions than the actress.
Then there is that stupid albeit entertaining opening scene where a
bald-headed man, who is presumably Blofeld, takes remote control of a
helicopter that Bond is flying in, however Bond manages to severe the
cable that was remotely controlling it. So then Bond turns the table
and he scoops up the bald-headed villain's wheelchair, which leaves the
villain pleasing "Mr Bond, I'll give you anything! A delicatessen in
stainless steel!!". A WHAT???!! A delicastessen in stainless
steel???!! Now that is a bizzare one even by any Bond villain's
standards! Its just an example of very cheesy, lazy writing if you ask
me and it marrs the opening scene.
Another silly scene is the facial ID equipment Q uses with Bond to identify Loque and while Bond's description is hardly pin accurate, the tech of the time is pretty crude, so its amazing they were able to come up with Loque almost straight away! So, yep about 10 seconds later, we get an old dot matrix printer print a copy of Loque's face and full bio on the man. Not too bad eh for the early 80's! ;-)
I also felt that the film's underwater scenes were a bit tedious where Bond and Melina locate the ATAC and get attacked by a man in a metallic suit with pincers (yep really daft!). Then there is the scene where Bond and Melina are tied to the back of Kristatos's speedboat and he has them dragged through the water in an effort to attracts nearby sharks in the water. Its a pretty laboured drawn out sequence which ultimately of course results in Bond and Melina escaping anyway.
And then we have Bibi...ohh God! Yeah, Bibi. Bibi must be one of the most annoying Bond characters to have appeared in the series, who is of course a horny teenage ice-skater with a promising career ahead of her, who has her eyes on Bond despite the fact that he must be about 40 years older than her! And there is one point where Bibi is even arrogant enough to think that Kristatos wants her and she says to him that he is too old for her yet Julian Glover is actually 8 years younger than Roger Moore! But yeah, Bibi is pretty annoying and she has plenty of naff dialogue and one of her worst lines which I did't mention is when she hugs Bond and says "I could just eat you alive!". Uggghhhhhh!!!
And lastly Bernard Lee's presence is
somewhat missed from the film as his character M was written out to
allow for the new character Bill Tanner to be written in who makes a
rather bland replacement. But then Lee's contribution to the series was
very memorable so his successor would have had some tough shoes to
fill and unfortunately Tanner just doesn't cut it.
Anyway that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up, For Your Eyes Only remains one of Moore's stronger Bond
films and definitely one of the more underrated Bond films of the era as
it has plenty of good solid action, a likeable performance from Moore
himself and a good supporting cast particularly from Topol and Glover.
And yes it does have a few problems and its not one of the most memorable
Bond films but its still got alot going for it and it saw the series
come down to Earth after the outlandish (literally) Moonraker. Although
the following film, Octopussy, would see the series become perhaps the
most ridiculous its ever been up to this point, so we go from one extreme to the other...again! ;-)
Anyway, I will give For Your Eyes Only a rating of:
8 out of 10.
So, that's it for now and I will be back with another post soon!
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