Right OK review time once more on this blog, which now has over 60 posts on it (not bad at all, despite the fact quite a few of them have been taken from my other blog, so there has been fair a bit of blagging there). So this time I've went for a classic Bond film, and the film I've gone for is The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore's third and best film as the secret agent Jame Bond. And with that, let's give the plot a look....
So it all starts in Austria, where James Bond (Roger Moore) is on holiday, but he soon receives a communication from HQ to investigate the disappearance of British nuclear submarines. As Bond leaves his log cabin, leaving behind a saucy Russian girl, he is attacked by Soviet agents, and he kills one of them as he skis downhill and escapes using a Union Jack parachute. Bond soon joins up with M (Bernard Lee) the head of MI6 and Bond's boss, who tells him that he is to try and recover plans for an advanced submarine tracking system, which is supposedly to be found in Egypt. Bond travels to Egypt and soon meets up with a rival agent, from the KGB, Major Anya Amasova "Triple XXX" (the foxy Barbara Bach) who is also looking for the plans, as Soviet submarines have also gone missing. Bond and Anya meet with a marketeer, Max Kalba who has the plans on microfilm, but Kalba is called away for a phone call at one point before they can start bidding for the microfilm, and Kalba is then killed by a 7 foot henchman, Jaws (Richard Kiel) who has metal teeth. Jaws takes the microfilm and leaves, with Bond following him, he get's into the back of Jaws's van, as does Anya and the two of them are driven out into the desert. Jaws parks the van at a building site, and as Bond and Anya follow him, Jaws fights with Bond, but they quickly manage to escape and take the microfilm. Bond and Anya soon make it across the desert and get onto a boat, where Anya knocks out Bond with gas from a mock cigarette and takes the microfilm.
Bond comes to and soon travels to MI6's HQ based in Egypt, where he sees M and also M's opposite number, General Gogol (Walter Gotell), the head of the KGB, along with Anya. M tells Bond that he and Anya are to work together in order to find the missing submarines, and Bond also tells them that microfilm they recovered was useless as the crucial technical information was removed, but they scan the film nonethless and see mark which shows the signature of the laboratory of scientist and shipping tycoon, Karl Stromberg (Curd Jugens) who turns out to be the film's main villain. Together Bond and Anya travel to Stromberg's base out in Sardinia, and en route Jaws tries to kill them both on a train, but Bond stops him. Once they arrive at Stromberg's base, Bond meets with the man himself, who tells Bond of his dream to create a world under the sea, as he has a great passion for marine life. After Bond and Anya leave, Stromberg reveals that he knows who they both are, and he tells Jaws to let them get ashore and then kill them. Jaws persues them on land but fails to kill Bond or Anya, who escape in Bond's fancy Q gadget loaded, Lotus Esprit, which Bond drives into the ocean and he takes out some bad guys underwater as well, before rising to the surface and driving back onto shore.
Later on Anya confronts Bond over the death of her former lover, as Bond reveals the coincidence that he was in the same place and same time as her boyfriend was. Bond admits that he did kill Anya's lover, who then coldly tells him that after the mission she will kill him. Bond and Anya soon make their way onto a US submarine, where they travel to Stromberg's underwater base, and they confirm that he is operating the tracking system. The submarine however is soon captured by a supertanker called the Liparus, which captured the other submarines aswell. Bond, Anya and the submarine crew are taken onboard the supertanker, where Stromberg tells Bond of his plan to create a new Atlantis under the water, as he plans to launch missiles at New York and Moscow, which would pre-empt nuclear war, so Stromberg can rebuild his new world under the sea. And at this point its up to the world's greatest secret agent to stop the megalomaniac from carrying out his nefarious plan....
There is little doubt that The Spy Who Loved Me is Roger Moore's best Bond film, as it has the perfect mixture of laughs, suspense, action and sheer fun. Lewis Gilbert who previously directed You Only Live Twice, does a great job here and keeps the pace of the film moving along brilliantly allowing for some really entertaining action sequences, particularly where Bond fights with Jaws on the train, and he uses a lampshade to electrocute Jaws's teeth! There is also the impressively staged opening sequence where Bond after a quick tussle with Soviet agents on the snowy hills, skis off a cliff and he opens his Union Jack parachute (the stunt itself was performed by stuntman, Ricky Sylvester, who was paid $30,000 for it). And then there are the sequences where Bond is chased by Jaws on land, while being persued by an armed helicopter, before he drives his Lotus Esprit into the sea and eventually emerges back on the shore, before dropping a fish out of his window in front of bewildered onlookers!
Performance wise you could definitely argue that things here are a bit of a mixed bag, starting with Roger Moore, while he isn't the greatest actor of all time, he was for me one of the best Jame Bonds, as he brought a great mix of charisma, dry humour and a smooth physicality to the role (at least I think so, but you can all disagree!). Roger Moore himself here I think got Bond just right, as he said himself after making The Man With The Golden Gun that he felt the filmmakers were still trying to make him more like the gritty Sean Connery type of band, wich Moore felt uncomfortable about. But here we do get Moore's Bond played just right in the tone, with a cheeky dry sense of humour, but also with right amount of seriousness. And he get's plenty of amusing lines, especially in the scene where he fights with Jaws at the building site in Egypt, as the big fella takes a swing with a piece of wood and brings down half the worksite on himself. Bond afterwards wipes his hands of dust and walks away saying "Egyptian builders!". There is also his line where he says to Anya after he saves her life from Jaws on the train "he just dropped in for a quick bite!". Also another of my favourites is when he uses the metal magnet while at Stromberg's base, to pick up Jaws by his metal teeth, and he says "how does that grab you?".
Of for the other cast members, Barbara Bach is probably the real weak link here, as despite the fact she is undeniably gorgeous as Major Anya Amasova, her performance is almost totally robotic. Bach delivers pretty much all her lines in a monotone, and quite a few of them are delivered in such a naff way, if it wasn't for her great looks, it makes you wonder why she was cast, especially in the scene where she tends to Bond's injury at the hands of Jaws, and she says "why don't you lie down and let me look at it". Regardless of her flaws however, Bach does a good job as showing Anya to be a tough and resourceful agent, and it is a good reveal when we see that the KGB's best man (so to speak) is a woman, and while she isn't as physically strong, mentally she is very much Bond's equal. Curd Jurgens however as the main villain, Karl Stromberg is excellent, as his grandiose voice really lends to the dramatic villanous qualities that Stromberg requires. Jurgens uses it particularly well in his first scene where he ejects his assistant from a lift into a watery grave where she is eaten by a shark and he says "it was you who betrayed me, and now you will pay the penalty!". Stromberg also gets some rather dry and sicky witty lines in the film, especially in his first scene where he kills off two scientists who worked for him, as he detonates the helicopter they are on, and he says "in form the next of kin, they were killed in a tragic helicopter accident. The funeral was at sea!".
But for me the main star of the show is of course Richard Kiel, who plays Jaws, Stromberg's 7 foot tall metal toothed henchmark, who is seemingly indestructable throughout the film. Jaws's character was in fact partly based on a villain from one of Ian Fleming's books called Horror, who wore metal braces on his teeth. Kiel has a remarkably imposing presence in the fim, and for the first half he really is quite intimidating, particularly in the scene where he kills Fekkesh at the Pyramids, by viciously throwing him against a pillar and biting his neck. However after that Jaws does become a bit comical, as he fights with Bond at the Egyptian building site, and as they flee, he picks up a big boulder which he clumsily drops on his foot! Also rather amusingly Jaws's name is clearly a piss-take from Steven Spielberg's same named film, and this is reflected in the scene near the end where Bond drops Jaws into Stromberg's water tank with the sharks, and Jaws kills the shark with his metal teeth. Regardless, Jaws still remains one of the most memorable villains in the Bond films, and Kiel does a great job here, and his character was such a hit that he was brought back for the next Bond film, Moonraker.
As for the flaws of the film, well it has to be said that yes it isn't perfect, as for starters, some of the film's problems lie with Christopher Wood's script, which while it is quite witty and entertaining, it also features some cringeworthy dialogue as well, and it also definitely reflects the rather old fashioned and sexist views of the time. One such scene I cringe at is when Bond meets his contact in Egypt, as he delivers a steely line and a stern look and then says "James Bond, how are you after all these years, my dear fellow!". Some of Bond's dialogue while it is really amusing its also a bit cringeworthy at times, especially in the scene where he meets the woman who is at Fekkesh's place, and she comes onto Bond and says "is there anything you would like?" and Bond replies "well I had lunch, but I seemed to have skipped desert!". Another line is when Bond and Anya are at the Kalba club, and Kalba says regarding Anya's dress "seems you have competition, Mr Bond, and judging by the lady's figure, you will find it hard to match!". Another thing that slightly troubled me is the scene where Bond drives his Lotus into the water and Anya screams as he does it, yet she knows what the car can do, and studied the blueprints of it two years ago, so surely she knows its no surprise that it can go underwater (I guess its just her surprised reaction at the time).
There are also some silly illogical moments especially in the scene, where Bond uses the nuclear warhead to blast open Stromberg's control room onboard the Liparus (this next bit sounds confusing). In the scene Bond sets the timer on the warhead for 10 seconds, he starts the timer and tries to push away from the warhead (which is strapped to a large silver globe Bond travelled on) using an automatic metal rail, which is not turned on, and he is stuck dangling in the air, but then the baddies in the control room turn the rail back on, and Bond jumps back onto the stairwell just in time. But given the time it took for the bomb to complete its countdown and the rail to switch on and get him back far enough safely to the stairs, Bond would have been killed in the blast, but again its just silly, how in the Bond films how they continue to cheat time!
Regardless of that however the film technically is terrific, and its easily one of the best looking Bond films in terms of production. Ken Adam, the production designer (who famously worked on previous Bond films, and some of Stanely Kubrick's films such as Dr Strangelove) created a stunning set for Stromberg's supertanker, the Liparus, which was built at Pinewood Studios. Derek Meddings, one of the best ever special effects designers (some of his screen credits include Superman and Alien), also designed some brilliant miniatures for the supertanker as well, particularly in the scenes where Bond and the others escape from it. Location wise the film also looks stunning, as Lewis Gilbert shot the film in various different locations, such as Sardinia, Egypt, Matla and Mount Asgard in Canada (which was used for the opening sequence with Bond being chased on skis).
And finally I can't leave without saying something about the film's excellent score by Marvin Hamlisch, which was actually nominated for an Academy award, which has a great mixture of suspense, drama and sheer fun in it, and even pays homage to Lawrence of Arabia at one point. Hamlisch also co-wrote the memorable theme song "The Spy Who Loved Me" which was sung by Carly Simon and to this day it still remains one of the very best Bond theme songs.
So that's it for my pretty exhaustive look at The Spy Who Loved Me, which remains one of my favourite Bond films, and one of the best regarded Bond films in the public eye (and rightly so).
And on that note I'll leave it there.
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