Tanya Roberts 15th October 1955 – 5th January 2021

The death has taken place of actress Tanya Roberts, a unique performer whose work crossed exploitation, cult, erotica, much-loved television shows and mainstream cinema, most famously as geologist Stacey Sutton opposite love interest Roger Moore in A View to a Kill. She worked with filmmakers as diverse as Larry Cohen and James Toback before finding fame in fabulous swords and sorcery epic The Beastmaster as the beautiful slave Kiri which led to other exotic fare like Sheena: Queen of the Jungle (well directed by John Guillermin). She starred on TV as Julie Rogers in the final season of Charlie’s Angels. She made a great Velda opposite Stacy Keach’s Mike Hammer and with fewer high profile roles in the Nineties she appeared in some erotic fare on the big and small screen including comedies and mysteries, one of which she associate produced, and did voice work on animations. She found her niche again on the beloved retro TV series That Seventies Show as hippie mom Midge Pinciotti. Sadly she fell ill on Christmas Eve. May she rest in peace.

Diana Rigg 20th July 1938 – 10th September 2020

The glorious Diana Rigg has died. Best known as the feisty Emma Peel in that exceedingly English action TV show The Avengers she followed the lead of Honor Blackman in becoming the most tragic Bond girl of them all in OHMSS where she was Teresa aka Tracy the woman who finally made an honest man out of James (George Lazenby) even if their love was short-lived. Lazenby was dazzled by her in real life, marvelling at her driving skills when she had to pilot them through an icy rally and knew precisely how to turn the wheel at the correct place to avoid flipping. She had already made an impression by complaining in the press about not getting equal pay with her male colleagues in TV. Asked about being harassed she admitted to having experienced it as a young woman and urged actresses to treat men with scorn. Not a woman to be messed with. She was a superb stage actress where she felt most at home and had trained at RADA and first worked at the RSC but she had more than one TV series built around her, including a self-titled comedy show and more recently Mark Gatiss wrote a Doctor Who episode just for her. She made appearances in any number of series as well as maintaining a features presence. Some of her great performances were in movies like In This House of Brede, an adaptation of a Rumer Godden novel, and interestingly one of the projects she had recently completed was the new adaptation of Godden’s Black Narcissus, a prospect to savour. She didn’t fear sending herself up and played second fiddle to Miss Piggy in The Muppet Caper albeit she was ostensibly her employer. She had a great time with period crime drama The Mrs Bradley Mysteries and very recently relished being the waspishly dangerous Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones, the biggest TV show in the world.  Her daughter Rachael Stirling had a role in TV’s beloved The Detectorists and she appeared in several episodes alongside her. Magisterial in everything from Bleak House to Victoria, The Worst Witch to Hedda Gabler, A Little Night Music to Witness for the Prosecution, she is currently appearing in the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small on Channel 5 and, productive to the last, she stars in Edgar Wright’s upcoming film which gives us another reason to cheer the reopening of cinemas. What a trouper. Let’s raise a glass to her sheer magnificence. What a Dame.  Rest in peace, Diana Rigg.

Happy 90th Birthday Sean Connery 25th August 2020!

Many happy returns to Sean Connery who celebrates his 90th birthday. Some uninspired early casting was followed by the landmark choice as the first big screen James Bond, creating a series that made him world famous. A series of collaborations with director Sidney Lumet gave him great opportunities outside the action heroic mode in The Hill and The Offence, and he did not disappoint:  Lumet took him seriously and Connery responded. Following Bond he came into his own in some historical romantic films, especially The Man Who Would Be King with Michael Caine:  he dumped the toupee and kept his accent and it was the making of him. Thereafter his talent could be seen clearly and he was rewarded with an Oscar for The Untouchables for his Irish-American policeman. Between actioners, romances and playing mentors to equally irascible younger men (including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) in his later career, he is the living embodiment of what twentieth century masculinity aspired to be. What a guy. Happy birthday!

A View to a Kill (1985)

A typical Reds to riches story. Bond (Roger Moore)returns from his travels in the U.S.S.R. with a computer chip. This chip is capable of withstanding a nuclear electromagnetic pulse that would otherwise destroy a normal chip. The chip was created by Zorin Industries, and Bond heads off to investigate its owner, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), first encountering him at Ascot where despite the form of competitors his horses win against the odds. Zorin is really planning to set off an earthquake along the Hayward and San Andreas faults, which will wipe out all of Silicon Valley, the heart of the world’s microchip production. As well as Zorin, Bond must also tackle his sidekick, hit woman May Day (Grace Jones) and equally menacing companion of Zorin, while dragging State Geologist Stacy Sutton (Tanya Roberts) along for the ride… Well my dear, I take it you spend quite a lot of time in the saddle. Written by Richard Maibaum and producer Michael G, Wilson, this is the fourteenth Bond and the seventh and final to star Moore and is adapted from Ian Fleming’s story From a View to a Kill. Unusually violent for the series, with Walken machine-gunning large groups of people in a mass slaughter, albeit his origins as the product of a Nazi experiment explains the high body count. It’s more than redeemed by an awesomely staged pre-titles ski chase and another genuinely impressive chase through Paris, commencing on the Eiffel Tower and continuing with Moore following Jones in a parachute but on the ground, in a car gradually broken up (literally) in traffic before he jumps onto a bateau mouche, only to watch Jones escape in a speed boat piloted by Walken: David Bowie and Sting were first offered the role of Zorin who is perhaps a little too light although his sinister laugh paradoxically suggests the requisite insanity. In a Freudian touch the scientist responsible for him is his in-house scientist. It’s nice to see Walter Gotell returning as Soviet General Gogol while Lois Maxwell makes her final appearance as Moneypenny. The weakest acting link is Roberts but you can blame the screenplay for her shortcomings. There’s a great role for Patrick Macnee as 007’s sidekick (for a while!) Sir Godfrey Tibbett and Patrick Bauchau makes an appearance as Zorin’s security chief, Scarpine.  Dolph Lundgren makes a brief appearance, his debut, as Venz, one of Gogol’s KGB agents. There’s a welcome appearance by David Yip as the CIA agent who assists Bond in a return of the action to the US and the climax at the Golden Gate Bridge is well done. All in all it’s a bright and colourful outing for our favourite spy. The stonking title song is performed by Duran Duran who co-wrote it with John Barry. Directed by John Glen, his third time at the series’ helm. What would you be without us? A biological experiment? A physiological freak?

Dr No (1962)

You are carrying a double 0 number. It means you are licensed to kill, not get killed. British agent 007 James Bond (Sean Connery) by head of the Secret Service M (Bernard Lee) is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent, Strangways (Timothy Moxon) to determine if it is related to Strangways’ decision to co-operate on a CIA case involving the disruption of rocket launches from NASA’s base at Cape Canaveral in Florida by radio jamming. When Bond arrives in Jamaica, he is immediately accosted by a man claiming to be a chauffeur sent to collect him who is really an enemy agent sent to kill him. Before Bond can interrogate him, following a struggle, the agent kills himself with a cyanide capsule. After visiting Strangways’ house, Bond confronts Quarrel (John Kitzmiller) a boatman who was collecting mineral samples from Crab Key for Strangways and who reveals that he is aiding the CIA, introducing Bond to agent Felix Leiter (Jack Lord), who is also investigating Strangways’ disappearance. Local geologist Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson) claims the samples are normal but Bond is not convinced. Dent travels to the underground base of megalomaniac Dr Julius No (Joseph Wiseman) a Chinese-German with prosthetic metal hands who is the operator of a bauxite mine on the Caribbean island of Crab Key (and a reclusive member of SPECTRE) who is plotting to disrupt the US space programme … Cyanide in a cigarette? Fantastic! The first in the series, based on Ian Fleming’s 1958 novel (the sixth in the book series) this really introduced Connery to the world. Shot with a relatively low budget, it’s fast-moving, whip smart and set the tone for a secret agent trend that has never really ceased. Fleming originally came up with the idea for the story as a screenplay for a film called Commander Jamaica with Dr No a riff on the character of Fu Manchu. That film never got made so Fleming adapted it into a novel. The screenplay for this was based on that as well as several other strands of Fleming’s work: Richard Maibaum and Wolf Mankowitz did the original draft which the producers rejected then Maibaum did one while Mankowitz removed his name; Irish writer Johanna Harwood who worked for Harry Saltzman rewrote that draft with thriller writer Berkely Mather. SPECTRE wasn’t mentioned until Thunderball, the 1961 novel that the producers had originally wanted to adapt first before legal issues complicated that plan. This may not have the bells and whistles of later films in the series but it has many of the iconic elements that became part of the identity of this long-running franchise including Ken Adam’s production design, Bond being introduced to the Walther PPK and an undertow of S&M. Connery’s performance is nigh-on perfect, a combination of violence, suave intelligence and droll wit; while shell diver Honey Rider’s (Ursula Andress) arrival like Venus on the beach is for the cultural ages. Directed by Terence Young. I do not like failure

Octopussy (1983)

Englishman. Likes eggs, preferably Fabergé. Likes dice, preferably fully loaded. British MI6 agent 009 drops off a fake Fabergé jewelled egg at the British embassy in East Berlin and is later killed at Octopussy’s travelling circus. Suspicions mount when the assistant manager of the circus who happens to be exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), outbids 007 James Bond (Roger Moore) for the real Fabergé piece at Sotheby’s. Bond follows Kamal to India where Bond thwarts several ingenious attacks, kidnapping by Kamal and encounters Kamal’s ally, the anti-heroine of the title (Maud Adams), an international smuggler who runs the circus as a cover for her illegal operations. It seems that Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a decidedly rank and belligerent Russian general is planning to raise enough money with the fake Fabergés to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare… The West is decadent and divided. The thirteenth in the series and Moore’s seventh appearance as the sexy superspy as well as the first to feature Robert Brown as M following Bernard Lee’s recent death, this is derived from a number of Ian Fleming’s stories: the title is from his 1966 short story collection and there is a scene inspired by another story, The Property of a Lady (included in 1967 and later editions of Octopussy and The Living Daylights), as well as one brief bit of characterisation lifted from Moonraker; while the events of the titular story Octopussy form a part of the title character’s background which she relates herself; but the bulk of the narrative is original, the screenplay credited to novelist George MacDonald Fraser who suggested that it be set in India, series regular Richard Maibaum & producer Michael G. Wilson. In fact Moore had intended retiring from the role but was deemed the most profitable actor for the part when the rival production Never Say Never Again with former Bond Sean Connery was up and running at the same time: James Brolin was apparently due to take over from Moore – can you imagine! The perception of this as the weakest of Moore’s particular Bond films doesn’t hold up despite its apparently problematic heroine (her MO is a bit slight) but Bond’s seduction of a woman who is his equal is particularly well observed –  in fact they both have a death to avenge. The narrative is especially prescient – to have a nuclear bomb planned for Germany, at the time the centre of Cold War fears (see the TV show Deutschland 83 for a dramatic interpretation of the time), feels utterly relevant and Moore is given great space for both humour and action, pitched at a perfect balance here and decidedly lacking in camp. It’s probably the best written of all his Bond iterations. The chases (and there are quite a few) are brilliantly mounted, including trains, planes automobiles and elephants and there’s a great homage to The Most Dangerous Game when our man is the jungle prey. The climactic aerial stunts are some of the most astonishing you’ll ever see – utterly thrilling. Legendary tennis player Vijay Amritraj has a great supporting role as Bond’s MI6 ally in India and even Q (Desmond Llewelyn) gets in on the action with a fabulous hot air balloon! Jourdan makes for a suitably insidious villain and Berkoff (almost!) has a blast as the nutty military man who makes the KGB’s Gogol (Walter Gotell) look sane. There is a terrific performance by Kristina Wayborn as Kamal’s stunning henchwoman Magda – her exit from a night with Bond has to be seen! Adams had of course appeared opposite Moore in previous Bond outing The Man With the Golden Gun as Scaramanga’s doomed mistress and she gets to flex more muscles here albeit her entrance is not until the film’s second half. Watch out for former Pan’s People dancer Cherry Gillespie as Midge, one of Octopussy’s bodyguards.  It’s wonderfully paced, with each sequence superseding the action of the previous one and the flavourful locations are beautifully captured by Alan Hume’s cinematography: this has undergone a pristine restoration. Among the very best Bonds, an episode whose influence can clearly be seen in both the Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible franchises.  The theme song, All Time High is written by John Barry and Tim Rice and performed by Rita Coolidge. Directed by John Glen, the second of his five outings at the helm. Perfect escapism. Mr Bond is indeed a very rare breed, soon to be made extinct

 

Thunderball (1965)

A poker in the hands of a widow.  Two of NATO’s atomic bombs are hijacked by the criminal organisation SPECTRE, which holds the world to ransom for £100 million in diamonds, in exchange for not destroying an unspecified city in either the United Kingdom or the United States (later revealed to be Miami). The search leads James Bond (Sean Connery) to the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) the card-playing, eye patch-wearing SPECTRE Number Two whom he bests at the tables. Backed by CIA agent Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter) and Largo’s mistress Domino Derval (Claudine Auger) Bond’s search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo’s henchmen but time is running out … What strange eyes you’ve got. The one that caused the franchise a whole lot of legal issues in the ensuing years, this was also the one the audiences went bonkers for with Widescreen shooting, seriously glossy production values and slick underwater sequences that take up about a quarter of the overall running time which at two hours ten minutes was by far the longest in the series thus far. The legal issues arose because Ian Fleming’s 1961 novel was based on a story by producer Kevin McClory and was intended as the first in the series with a screenplay by them with Jack Whittingham. The new screenplay is by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins and it commences with an ingenious escape from a surprising funeral. The cat and mouse relationship between Bond and Largo is consistently surprising and satisfying; Celi is particularly good in the role. The production design by Ken Adam is quite breathtaking, the women are among the most beautiful of the era – Auger (Miss France, voiced by Nikki van der Zyl), Luciana Paluzzi as femme fatale Fiona Volpe, Martine Beswick as Paula Caplan, Bond’s tragic CIA ally, Molly Peters as physiotherapist Patricia Fearing – and Bond is actually saved by a woman. The gadgets include water-firing cannon affixed to the rear of the Aston Martin, a jetpack and a handbag-friendly Geiger counter. It all looks glorious and the incredible underwater work is shot by Ricou Browning although it’s not always clear what’s going on. The theme song by composer John Barry (returning to the franchise) with lyrics by Don Black is performed by Tom Jones who fainted in the recording booth as he sang the final note. What’s not to like? Directed by Terence Young in his third and final Bond outing. Remade 18 years later as Never Say Never Again, with Connery once more taking the lead in what was his final Bond film. Was ever a man more misunderstood?

Goldfinger (1964)

I must be dreaming. MI6 agent James Bond (Sean Connery) is holidaying in Miami when his opposite number in the CIA Felix Leiter (Cec Linder) asks him to keep an eye on a fellow hotel guest – so he winds up investigating a gold-smuggling ring run by businessman Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe). As he delves deeper into his activities, he uncovers a sinister plan to attack Fort Knox’s gold reserves to destroy the world’s economy… Do you expect me to talk?/No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die! The third in the series, this is where everything came right – action, humour, thrills, villain, style, ingenious gadgets,  great set design by Ken Adam, doubles entendres, devilish mute Korean hitman Oddjob (Harold Takata), Goldfinger’s persuasive personal pilot Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) with her Flying Circus and the notorious death by gold paint of Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) which still startles today. Adapted by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn (with suggestions by Wolf Mankowitz) from Ian Fleming’s eponymous seventh novel, the character of Auric Goldfinger is a very specific kind of nemesis, with his psychopathic obsession the Achilles heel of the man: This is gold, Mr. Bond. All my life I’ve been in love with its color… its brilliance, its divine heaviness. That’s what makes him a perfect crazed criminal but also a great pivot into Cold War politics and economic ideas, a kind of double bluff à la Hitchcock. This is a narrative where sex and danger and death are combined symbolically in the iconic title sequence (by graphic artist Robert Brownjohn) with all those dead painted girls providing a backdrop of morbidity and Connery freely imbues his performance with fear particularly when he’s about to get his by an artfully directed laser beam. The chase and action sequences are brilliantly managed with the modified Aston Martin DB5 in a class of its own. Then of course there’s the legendary theme written by composer John Barry with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Tony Newley and performed by Shirley Bassey, creating a siren song of sass. Smartly directed by Guy Hamilton, a colleague of Fleming’s in Britain’s wartime intelligence operations, this is totally thrilling entertainment that provided the blueprint for the films that followed.  Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He’s fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavour… except crime!

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Welcome to Remote Control Airways! After a British information-gathering vessel gets sunk into the sea, MI6’s Agent 007 (Roger Moore) is given the responsibility of locating the lost encryption device the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) and thwarting it from entering enemy ie Russian military hands led by the KGB’s General Gogol (Walter Gotell). Bond becomes tangled in a web of deception spun by rival Greek businessmen Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover) who initially presents as Bond’s ally and Milos Columbo (Topol); along with Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), a British-Greek woman  seeking to avenge the murder of her parents, marine archaeologists working for the British Government … The Chinese have a saying: “When setting out on revenge, you first dig two graves”. This is the Bond that rather divides the purists. Culled from the title story in the eponymous collection along with another, Risico, plus an action sequence from Live and Let Die, this is back to basics and a down to earth reboot after the sci fi outing Moonraker. James visits late wife Tracy’s grave (from OHMSS) and has to live on his wits instead of Q’s (Desmond Llewelyn) gadgets – hence the Lotus exploding early on followed by a hair raising Keystone Cops-style chase through a Spanish village in a rickety little Citroën 2CV. It’s got to be one of the more visually pleasurable of all films, never mind in the franchise, with heart-stoppingly beautiful location shooting in Greece and Italy, and Greece standing in for some scenes set in Spain. Bouquet is a fabulous leading lady with great motivation – revenge – and she can shoot a very mean crossbow.  The action overall is simply breathtaking – that initial helicopter sequence around the abandoned Beckton Gas Works (which Kubrick would turn into Vietnam for Full Metal Jacket), the ski/motorbike chase and jump, the mountain top monastery that lends such a dramatic impact for the final scene, the Empress Sissi’s summer palace in Corfu that provides such a distinctive setting, the yachts that home the catalysing confrontations which include sharks! Glover (originally mooted as Bond himself, years earlier) makes for a satisfying ally turned villain after the jokey title set piece, the winter sports, and the use of the bob sleigh run are quite thrilling. Topol is very charismatic as the Greek helpmate Columbo, Kristatos’ former smuggling partner; and Lynn-Holly Johnson is totally disarming as the ice-skating Olympic hopeful and ingenue Bibi Dahl who has an unhealthy desire for inappropriate relations with a clearly embarrassed Bond. Smooth as butter with Moore very good in a demanding realistic production. What’s not to love in a film that channels the best bits of Black Magic and Martini adverts from the Seventies?! This boasts the first titles sequence in the series to feature the song’s performer, Sheena Easton, singing a composition by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson. Badass Cassandra Harris who plays Columbo’s mistress Countess Lisl Von Schlaf was visited by her husband Pierce Brosnan during production and the Bond team duly took notice. Charles Dance makes a brief appearance as a henchman of Locque (Emil Gothard), a hired killer deployed by Kristatos. Out of respect for the recent death of Bernard Lee, the role of M was put aside. The screenplay is by vet Richard Maibaum and executive producer Michael G. Wilson while long time editor John Glen graduates to the top job and does it wonderfully. Remarkably good in every way, this is one of the very best Bonds and even though it was the first one of the Eighties feels like it could have been made an hour ago. Don’t grow up. You’ll make life impossible for men

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Bad news from outer space. When an American space capsule is supposedly swallowed by a Russian spaceship it’s an international incident. James Bond has apparently been killed in Hong Kong but he is ‘resurrected’ following his own funeral and sent undercover to Japan to find out who is behind the political aggression and the owner of the mysterious spacecraft. However while Russia and the US blame each other and Japan is under suspiion, he discovers with the assistance of his Japanese opposite number Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tanba) that SPECTRE is responsible for this attempt to start World War III and uncovers a trail that leads to the mysterious Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) whose evil empire is run from the centre of a volcano … Now that you’re dead our old friends will perhaps pay a little less attention to you than before. The one where Bond turns Japanese and trains as a ninja. A carnival of implausibilities that has the benefit of some gorgeous Japanese locations, stylish direction by Lewis Gilbert and introducing cat-loving megalomaniac Blofeld in the form of Pleasence, who we only glimpse over his shoulder as he strokes his pussycat before the big reveal. What an amazing villain! And how ripe for parody! Roald Dahl’s screenplay may throw out most of Ian Fleming’s novel (there is ‘additional story material’ by Harold Jack Bloom) but he does something clever – he takes the title seriously and has the second half begin exactly as the first, replacing a US with a Soviet rocket and doing a Screenplay 101 with the differing outcome second time around. The Cold War/space race theme might remind you of a certain Dr Strangelove. There are some good media jibes – If you’re going to force me to watch television I’m going to need a smoke, says James before aiming his cigarette at the enemy; astonishing production design by Ken Adam; and very resourceful sidekicks in Aki (Akika Wakabayashi) and Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama); as well as the series’ first German Bond girl, Karin Dor, aka Miss Crime, due to the number of thrillers she starred in. Sadly it doesn’t save her here. This is gorgeously shot by Freddie Young and the restoration is impeccable. The John Barry and Leslie Bricusse theme song is performed by Nancy Sinatra. For a European you are very cultivated!