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The Best of Bond – The First Ten

The first 10 Bond films arrived over a span of 15 years, yet it has taken 35 years for the next 13 to appear. To mark my revisiting of the series here’s how I rank them.

1. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Lazenby’s solo outing is also the best Bond by some distance. Don’t listen to those claiming it would have been even better with Connery; could you imagine that heartbreaking final scene, the romance with Tracy (Diana Rigg), Bond vulnerable and alone, with the Scottish titan? Lazenby fits the material perfectly. And Peter Hunt directs with a flair and energy that still impresses. Topping it off is John Barry’s most glorious Bond score and the most beautiful song (We Have All the Time in the World). (10/10)

Review

2. Diamonds are Forever

Connery’s return for big bucks is ironically the smallest scale outing since From Russia with Love. The consequence is an emphasis on character and humour. If Connery is greying and less-than-svelte, he seems to be enjoying himself in a way that was absent on his last two Bonds. The supporting cast is memorably larger than life, including Charles Gray as the best Blofeld and gay hit men Mr. Wint and Mr Kidd. In theory, you’d expect the Yankophile tendencies to maroon the series but the Las Vegas seediness lends Bond a tawdry invigoration. And Jill St. John’s brash Tiffany Case could easily have been all wrong, but she makes her most appealing. (10/10)

Review

3. Goldfinger

The one that fans and public alike extol as a benchmark for quality in the series. Certainly, the gift that is Gert Froebe (albeit dubbed) makes for a scene-stealing villain (escorted by the soon-to-be-obligatory distinctive henchman) and Connery is still putting in some effort; Honor Blackman makes for a believably equal and opposite sparring partner. So how to countenance the raves with lack of action and Bond being locked up for half the running time? That it works, basically, but to try and make it a template would be asking for trouble (notably, the planned return of Froebe as Goldfinger’s brother never happened). (9/10)

Review

4. The Spy Who Loved Me

Very much in the mold of the modern Bond film; set piece leads to set piece leads to set piece. In that respect, picking up from where the overblown mid-‘60s Connerys left off. But with a new weapon in the arsenal; overt humour. Jaws is an imposing but pronouncedly comedic villain, Moore gets whole scenes based on his schoolboy wit and there is a lightness of touch that felt fresh even in a series that had often gone quite broad up until that point. Marvin Hamlisch gives a Bond-goes-disco score, while Lewis Gilbert is completely on board with the goofy tone. But comes as unstuck with the climax as he did in You Only Live Twice. (8/10)

Review

5. From Russia with Love

The second Bond, and the last time (for a while at least) that a tight budget would dictate content. The result is as economical and crisp as a Bond film gets. Robert Shaw is the ultimate brawny match for Connery’s brawny 007, and having him shadow the British spy, one step ahead, until the train dust-up is a smart move that puts our agent on a back foot. The fight itself is enthrallingly visceral. (8/10)

Review

6. Live and Let Die

Roger Moore’s debut, embracing Blaxploitation movies and dressing 007 in some very ‘70s fashions. It’s the incongruity, in part, that makes the whole so appealing. Very formulaic in some respects, quite unusual in others (the supernatural element). Jane Seymour is very pretty, but easily the least autonomous Bond girl up to this point. Moore’s penchant for adlibs (“Butter hook”) works better than some of the scripted laughs (the character of Sheriff Pepper is one, overlong gag). McCartney’s theme song is marvelously overblown. (8/10)

Review

7. The Man with the Golden Gun

Ever-so-slightly run-of-the-mill (wheel on Pepper again, why don’t you?), but boosted by a charming and sophisticated performance from Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland’s inept eye candy turn as Agent Goodnight. Bond is in fantasyland by this point, with cartoonish henchmen (Nick Nack), flying cars (both literally, and in terms of impressive stunt work) and an exotic, hi-tech, island paradise. Lulu’s theme song is akin to being beaten about the head with a breezeblock. (7/10)

Review

8. Dr. No

Connery’s debut is more satisfying in the opening stages, when it more resembles a traditional spy picture, than when we are introduced to the titular character and his typically extravagant lair. The crippled super villain is a requirement from the off, and his affliction (and name) are more memorable than the character Joseph Wiseman is asked to play. (6/10)

Review

9. Thunderball

The first time the series really falls prey to the more-is-more approach. A series of set pieces (some tiresomely elongated; see the underwater climax) in search of an involving plot, Thunderball is frequently very nice to look at but little else. The result is as loud and empty as Tom Jones’ title song. But it was a massive hit, and so dictated the approach of many future installments, alas. And gave Kevin McClory a protractedly disputed stake in Bond (Never Say Never Again). (5/10)

Review

10. You Only Live Twice

A sluggish, set-driven mess. Connery would clearly rather be anywhere else, and is ridiculously turned Japanese. Lewis Gilbert is all-at-sea, there’s scant humour to be mined and only Donald Pleasance makes much impression out of the guest cast (and even then, he’s more memorable in light of Dr. Evil than for any particular wit). It looks like a very tired series with little life left in it at this point. A good thing change was in the air… (4/10)

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Comments

Mondo bizarro. No offence man, but you’re in way over your head.

The X-Files 8.7: Via Negativa I wasn’t as down on the last couple of seasons of The X-Files as most seemed to be. For me, the mythology arc walked off a cliff somewhere around the first movie, with only the occasional glimmer of something worthwhile after that. So the fact that the show was tripping over itself with super soldiers and Mulder’s abduction/his and Scully’s baby (although we all now know it wasn’t, sheesh ), anything to stretch itself beyond breaking point in the vain hope viewers would carry on dangling, didn’t really make much odds. Of course, it finally snapped with the wretched main arc when the show returned, although the writing was truly on the wall with Season 9 finale The Truth . For the most part, though, I found 8 and 9 more watchable than, say 5 or 7. They came up with their fair share of engaging standalones, one of which I remembered to be Via Negativa .

Schnell, you stinkers! Come on, raus!

Private’s Progress (1956) (SPOILERS) Truth be told, there’s good reason sequel I’m Alright Jack reaps the raves – it is, after all, razor sharp and entirely focussed in its satire – but Private’s Progress is no slouch either. In some respects, it makes for an easy bedfellow with such wartime larks as Norman Wisdom’s The Square Peg (one of the slapstick funny man’s better vehicles). But it’s also, typically of the Boulting Brothers’ unsentimental disposition, utterly remorseless in rebuffing any notions of romantic wartime heroism, nobility and fighting the good fight. Everyone in the British Army is entirely cynical, or terrified, or an idiot.

Isn’t it true, it’s easier to be a holy man on the top of a mountain?

The Razor’s Edge (1984) (SPOILERS) I’d hadn’t so much a hankering as an idle interest in finally getting round to seeing Bill Murray’s passion project. Partly because it seemed like such an odd fit. And partly because passion isn’t something you tend to associate with any Murray movie project, involving as it usually does laidback deadpan. Murray, at nigh-on peak fame – only cemented by the movie he agreed to make to make this movie – embarks on a serious-acting-chops dramatic project, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s story of one man’s journey of spiritual self-discovery. It should at least be interesting, shouldn’t it? A real curio? Alas, not. The Razor’s Edge is desperately turgid.

It’s not as if she were a… maniac, a raving thing.

Psycho (1960) (SPOILERS) One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom . One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those negative elements remain irrelevant to its overall power.

You have done well to keep so much hair, when so many’s after it.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) (SPOILERS) Hitherto, I was most familiar with Jeremiah Johnson in the form of a popular animated gif of beardy Robert Redford smiling and nodding in slow zoom close up (a moment that is every bit as cheesy in the film as it is in the gif). For whatever reason, I hadn’t mustered the enthusiasm to check out the 1970s’ The Revenant until now (well, beard-wise, at any rate). It’s easy to distinguish the different personalities at work in the movie. The John Milius one – the (mythic) man against the mythic landscape; the likeably accentuated, semi-poetic dialogue – versus the more naturalistic approach favoured by director Sydney Pollack and star Redford. The fusion of the two makes for a very watchable, if undeniably languorous picture. It was evidently an influence on Dances with Wolves in some respects, although that Best Picture Oscar winner is at greater pains to summon a more sensitive portrayal of Native Americans (and thus, perversely, at times a more patr

My Doggett would have called that crazy.

The X-Files 9.4: 4-D I get the impression no one much liked Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), but I felt, for all the sub-Counsellor Troi, empath twiddling that dogged her characterisation, she was a mostly positive addition to the series’ last two years (of its main run). Undoubtedly, pairing her with Doggett, in anticipation of Gillian Anderson exiting just as David Duchovny had – you rewatch these seasons and you wonder where her head was at in hanging on – made for aggressively facile gender-swapped conflict positions on any given assignment. And generally, I’d have been more interested in seeing how two individuals sympathetic to the cause – her and Mulder – might have got on. Nevertheless, in an episode like 4-D you get her character, and Doggett’s, at probably their best mutual showing.

You’re a disgrace, sir... Weren’t you at Harrow?

Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead (1966) (SPOILERS) I hadn’t seen this one in more than three decades, and I had in mind that it was a decent spy spoof, well populated with a selection of stalwart British character actors in supporting roles. Well, I had the last bit right. I wasn’t aware this came from the stable of producer Harry Alan Towers, less still of his pedigree, or lack thereof, as a sort of British Roger Corman (he tried his hand at Star Wars with The Shape of Things to Come and Conan the Barbarian with Gor , for example). More legitimately, if you wish to call it that, he was responsible for the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu flicks. Our Man in Marrakesh – riffing overtly on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana in title – seems to have in mind the then popular spy genre and its burgeoning spoofs, but it’s unsure which it is; too lightweight to work as a thriller and too light on laughs to elicit a chuckle.

The best thing in the world for the inside of a man or a woman is the outside of a horse.

Marnie (1964) (SPOILERS) Hitch in a creative ditch. If you’ve read my Vertigo review, you’ll know I admired rather than really liked the picture many fete as his greatest work. Marnie is, in many ways, a redux, in the way De Palma kept repeating himself in the early 80s only significantly less delirious and… well, compelling. While Marnie succeeds in commanding the attention fitfully, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. And Hitch, digging his heels in as he strives to fashion a star against public disinterest – he failed to persuade Grace Kelly out of retirement for Marnie Rutland – comes entirely adrift with his leads.

I tell you, it saw me! The hanged man’s asphyx saw me!

The Asphyx (1972) (SPOILERS) There was such a welter of British horror from the mid 60s to mid 70s, even leaving aside the Hammers and Amicuses, that it’s easy to lose track of them in the shuffle. This one, the sole directorial effort of Peter Newbrook (a cameraman for David Lean, then a cinematographer), has a strong premise and a decent cast, but it stumbles somewhat when it comes to taking that premise any place interesting. On the plus side, it largely eschews the grue. On the minus, directing clearly wasn’t Newbrook’s forte, and even aided by industry stalwart cinematographer Freddie Young (also a go-to for Lean), The Aspyhx is stylistically rather flat.

I don't like the way Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.

North by Northwest (1959) (SPOILERS) North by Northwest gets a lot of attention as a progenitor of the Bond formula, but that’s giving it far too little credit. Really, it’s the first modern blockbuster, paving the way for hundreds of slipshod, loosely plotted action movies built around set pieces rather than expertly devised narratives. That it delivers, and delivers so effortlessly, is a testament to Hitchcock, to writer Ernest Lehmann, and to a cast who make the entire implausible exercise such a delight.

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