THE RAPE OF PUSSY GALORE
Look, we know gender politics isn’t Bond’s finest point, but forcing yourself
on a woman like this in the hay was surely unacceptable even in the 1964 of Goldfinger?
Watch the Goldfinger
trailer
THE SWANNY WHISTLE
The first car stunt in cinema history to be calculated by computer, the
stunning corkscrew jump in The Man with the Golden Gun is ruined by
the addition of a swanny whistle to the soundtrack. It is preceded by Roger
Moore imitating an American accent, and J. W. Pepper (qv) gawping in the
passenger seat.
The infamous scene
recreated for BBC's Top Gear
JAMES BOND CHEATS
It’s the climax of The Man with the Golden Gun, and Bond (Roger
Moore) and Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) are about to duel to the death in
Scaramanga’s hall of mirrors. Bond wins by pretending to be a waxwork and
gunning down Scaramanga. Insert your own Roger Moore waxwork joke here.
The Man with the Golden
Gun trailer
MAGGIE’S PARROT
Mission accomplished in For Your Eyes Only, our man goes for a skinny
dip with Carole Bouquet, leaving a parrot on the line to . . . no, it can’t
be. It is! It’s Margaret Thatcher, played by Janet Brown, thanking the
parrot down the phone. It’s comedy gold. But I thought this was supposed to
be a thriller.
“THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO THE OTHER FELLA”
It’s 1969, and our new Bond, George Lazenby, barely five minutes into the job
in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, has dispatched a couple of
bad guys while saving Diana Rigg. We’re just warming to him when Rigg drives
off and Bond says this. Suspension of disbelief suspended.
George Lazenby delivers
some more deathless dialogue from OHMSS
LICENSED TO COOK
In A View to a Kill, Roger Moore’s Bond makes a pepper quiche, then
passes it off as a mere omelette before sharing it with Tanya Roberts,
leading contender for worst Bond girl.
BROSNAN ON THE BEACH
Pierce Brosnan’s creditable debut as Bond in Goldeneye is nearly
capsized by this sappy Caribbean sunset moment, where we are for once privy
to the inner torment of our hero and the damage it inflicts on the girl he
currently loves. She thinks it’s for ever. We know he’ll move on. So give it
a rest James, and get shooting.
Goldeneye trailer
SHERIFF J. W. PEPPER
Not content with nearly ruining Roger Moore’s debut as Bond in Live
and Let Die with his country bumpkin of a sheriff, Clifton James
reprised the role of J. W. Pepper in The Man with the Golden Gun,
Moore’s second Bond film, in which he just happens to be visiting Thailand,
where he is shopping for a new car. As you do.
JW Pepper rides again
CONNERY IS JAPANESE
How do you turn a strapping 6ft Scot and former Mr Universe contestant into a
convincing Japanese citizen for You Only Live Twice? Easy. With a
local wife, two plastic oriental eyepieces and one of Bruce Forsyth’s old
wigs, Bond can now blend unnoticed into his new life as a humble Japanese
fisherman.
TV IN SPACE
At the climax of You Only Live Twice, Bond (Sean Connery) watches on a
closed-circuit TV set as disaster in space is averted by seconds, and world
war avoided. But who’s providing the pictures? Is there another spacecraft
up there? If so, whose is it? Roald Dahl’s script signally fails to address
these vital questions.
You Only Live Twice
trailer
JAWS SEES THE LIGHT
The metal-mouthed monster played by Richard Kiel was memorable in The Spy
Who Loved Me. On his return in Moonraker he is last seen waving
weedily at Bond from the bridge of a doomed space station as he and his
speccy midget girlfriend contemplate a happy but presumably very short
future together.
The Spy Who Loved Me
trailer
BOND GOES NORTHERN
Nothing against northern accents, but we prefer RP from 007. So why does
Timothy Dalton’s Bond lapse into what sounds like broadest Lancasheer when
answering a question from the evil druglord Sanchez in Licence to Kill?
“You were just in time,” he says. “Things were about to turn nast-eh.”
See if you can spot the
broader vowels in this Licence to Kill trailer
BOND SURFS ICEBERGS
One of the great appeals of the Bond films has always been the lengths they go
to in order to make stunts seem real. So why in the name of all that’s holy
did the makers of Die Another Day abandon this belief in favour of
digital effects less convincing than Sonic the Hedgehog? The burning
plane at the end is also rubbish.
GONDOLA HOVERCRAFT
After a high-speed chase through the canals of Venice, Roger Moore’s Bond
emerges from the water in his motorised gondola, which then converts into
some sort of baroque hovercraft and scoots across St Mark’s Square, where a
pigeon does a double take and a bloke checks his wine bottle. Awful.
Moonraker trailer
Q IN DISGUISE
Timothy Dalton’s Bond has gone rogue in Licence to Kill. He’s on
his own against a fearsome and cruel drug cartel. But wait! Who’s that with
the Zapata moustache, sweeping up leaves by the side of the road? Why it’s
Q, and he’s here to help, with a broom that doubles as a walkie-talkie.
GOLDFINGER EXPLAINS
As Connery’s Bond watches from below, the arch-villain Auric Goldfinger spends
ten minutes outlining his dastardly plot to a room full of hoodlums, then
fatally gases them all. So why did they need to know? They didn’t. We, the
audience, did. Some of those Austin Powers parodies were very close
to home indeed.
KANANGA EXPLODES
The villain of Live and Let Die (the otherwise brilliant Yaphet Kotto)
is forced to chew on a compressed gas pellet. Rather than spit it out,
Kananga pops his eyes in astonishment as his whole body inflates, he then
soars to the ceiling accompanied by a comedy noise, and explodes.
Unconvincing, to say the least.
SPACE LASER BATTLE
Imaginary Moonraker production meeting: “I say, this film Star
Wars is doing rather well. And, did you see that the Americans have got
a space shuttle thingy? Why don’t we send James Bond into space, where we
can have a laser battle that looks as if it’s been drawn on with crayons?”
THE TARZAN YELL
Bond has escaped into the Indian jungle, pursued by Octopussy’s limp
baddie Louis Jourdan. How to avoid the tigers, snakes and swamps? The first
with a Barbara Woodhouse “Sit!”, the second with “Hiss off!” and the third
by swinging from creepers, yodelling like Tarzan. Now that’s
secret agenting!
Octopussy: Opening
sequence
SEX WITH MONEYPENNY
The point of Moneypenny’s relationship with Bond is that it remains
unconsummated. Watching her squirm with pleasure in Die Another Day
as she enjoys an intimate encounter with 007 via virtual reality specs is as
wrong as spying on your parents. John Cleese’s R, another woeful
misjudgment, interrupts.
Your Comments
Order By: