For a film I recently ranked last in my overall rankings, I’m actually a fan of DAF. It has Shirley Bassey, John Barry and Ken Adam, which is one of the dream teams. Connery plays Bond as a super relaxed veteran who exists in a world that became weirder with every passing year following his experience on Crab Key. He’s not the Bond of DN/FRWL anymore, and that’s okay. He’s seen a lot and isn’t terribly phased by it anymore. I’d keep DAF and FYEO exactly as they are. Their imperfections are what make them unique. When I’m ever in that mood, they’re there.
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Not all Bond films are created equal but at the end of the day it’s still Bond!
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December 4:
My first impression of DAF & FYEO was influenced by their predecessors.
Back in the day (oh, not that story again…), cinemas from time to time showed older Bond films chronologically, week after week. And after being introduced to Bond via TSWLM during its first run I persuaded (whined into submission) my parents to take me to one film after the other.
I do remember being a bit disappointed by OHMSS since it wasn’t the usual adventure fun with the other Bond, this Connery guy (whose first name in Germany was often mispronounced, even in the trailers, as SEEN). So I was eager to see SEEN back in the role in DAF. But the movie, despite being funny at times, did not really entertain me as much back then. It took place in Las Vegas for most of the time, there wasn’t a lot of spectacular action, and - heck - even my James Bond book “Die James Bond-Filme” by Michael Scheingraber had already stated that the film was not as good. Damn. Still, it was a Bond movie. But I was happy to see Roger Moore take over the following week. I was 9 years old, I think.
Through the years I began to appreciate DAF more. I still love the way Connery steps onto the roof of the elevator. I think his confrontation with Blofeld, with the doubles and the cat, is fantastic. I like Tiffany Case in the first half of the film. And I think John Barry’s score is one of the best in his entire career. But I agree with the argument that the film really only hangs together by one thread: Connery. (As I know now: Schorn, not Seen). Imagine DAF as the first film of a new actor (Lazenby?) and it all would have ended right there. Even Roger Moore would have not been able to turn this around at that time. Connery, however, dominates the proceedings by at least projecting amusement and fun. Maybe the fact that he is back already created so much good will that he just had to glide through all the silliness, knowing full well that audiences would love him no matter what.
DAF definitely threw out the seriousness of OHMSS, returned to the over-the-top-ness of YOLT and doubled down on it. As if EON knew, “Well, we don’t have Japan, we don’t have hollowed out volcanoes this time, and we don’t know what we will do when Connery is gone - let’s just improvise and throw every idea at the wall, and yes, there are no bad ideas here. Or good ones. Just ideas.” In that regard, DAF is the most relaxed Bond film ever made. Almost fatalistic in its swagger to shrug off any accusation that its plot and set pieces are weak. It struts along like a Vegas tourist with supposedly unlimited amounts of cash in its sagging trousers, smiling because he knows he will win. Or should.
But, thank Schorn, not only it entertains, it also rescued Bond for the masses and set up a new template: the ironic spectacle. Probably the best gift Connery could give to EON and to Roger Moore.
FYEO is a different beast. But coming after the double-whammy of TSWLM and MR (which I both adored and still do, yep, I have matured so much) I do remember being a little disappointed that there was no Jaws anymore. Or big fights in tankers or in space.
But there was Roger Moore. And the action truly was exciting. The many different locations were magnificent. And since one of them was the Greek island Corfu I myself felt very Bondian, since my family and I had recently traveled there during summer vacation. I rated it my third favorite Bond back then (I was 12). During the following years I began to appreciate it more for being, well, not Lewis Gilbert-ian. But I also noticed how long certain sequences felt (especially the submarine fight). Strange, since this was John Glen’s first as a director. Shouldn´t he have noticed, as an expert editor? Well, it was a different time then, pre-MTV, I guess.
I haven´t seen FYEO in a long time. But I always remember very fondly the summer vacation on Corfu when I cut out every little article out of the late-delivered newspapers there, announcing this new Bond film. The one with the SCANDALOUS (for 1981) poster with MooreBond standing dwarfed between a woman’s legs (which in Germany did not get dressed in longer hot pants). I remember my grandmother buying me the soundtrack album with that cover, and she was very ashamed buying it and then handing it out to me. My parents, thankfully, had no problem with it. And I… well… I actually was more interested in looking at all the depicted scenes from the movie. Weird. I was 12 after all. Of course, I may have blocked any other use from my memory.
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Day 4:
I saw DAF first run opening Saturday afternoon with my Dad at the age of 9. I remember at the time thinking something seemed off this time around. Why was it so funny? Watching it again on network television years later I remember during the car chase thinking it felt like an episode of The Rockford Files. It took me years to gain an appreciation for the movie on its own terms; now I love it for all of those anomalies. There is almost a sense of the producers and writers making it up as it goes along, greatly aided by Connery’s breezy relaxed performance.
I saw FYEO opening weekend on a date. It’s funny to watch it now and see that it still retains so much of the Moore/Bond qualities that I felt were missing in that viewing. It seemed like such a harder version of the character and I absolutely loved that. Kicking the car off he cliff after the long foot chase was downright revolutionary to me at the time. This felt more like the character I remembered from the earlier films. Don’t get me wrong, I had loved LALD, TMWTGG, TSWLM, and MR, but didn’t realize how much I missed a physical Bond who posed a threat. The cliff-scaling was another set-piece that just felt so old school and I ate it up. I watch it now after the Craig era and it seems tame by comparison.
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If I’m in the mood for a Roger Moore Bond movie, I’m actually better served by Diamonds Are Forever than I am by For Your Eyes Only. I admire it as a necessary and fairly well executed act of series maintenance, but as a Bond film 40 years later I find it to be one of the least interesting in the series.
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December 4: The first thing I learned about DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, long before actually seeing it at the theatre, was that one of my Bond bibles claimed it had premiered in time for Christmas 1971 - a Bond film for the Christmas holidays seemed totally out of the question to me. I was raised on Bond traditionally returning to the screen with the end of summer term and the first days of my summer hols. It’s always been this way for me - ‘always’ meaning 1977 and 1979. And it would forever go on this way - ‘forever’ meaning until 1989.
When I first actually saw DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER then I was firmly immersed in the Bond world by having seen most other films before. So the experience was at once one of completists satisfaction, finally ticking this off, and eagerly taking in its cabaret act in search for memorable parts of excitement. And there were a few, fisticuffs in a lift, Bond trapped in a smouldering coffin, walking his rat, fighting with blazing shish kebap and lethal ice bomb.
Altogether, it was fun but not as extraordinary fun as I was used to have when watching Bond. The many weird variations on the theme of ‘ironic Bond’ in a bizarre world (whose bizarreness in this case stemmed from being utterly real; too real, too devoid of redeeming qualities) I was yet too young to appreciate.
I’ve learned to see the film in a different light since, forgive its shortcomings and embrace the elements it got right. Evidently, it was ahead of its time - though that’s perhaps more due to times living down to DIAMONDS’ vision than the other way.
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY was exactly what I wanted in 1981, action and danger and cruelty in a vaguely Cold War-ish environment and much closer to what I had read in Fleming, especially the short stories that I used to read each summer vacation. I loved the action and ignored when it seemed to fit more into a Bud Spencer flick, as with the ice rink/hockey scene. This was the Bond I was looking for.
FOR YOUR EYES kept its place as a favourite of mine for quite some time. Inconsistencies didn’t faze me - until they did in the end. It seems, from my POV forty years onward, that some good ideas and scenes from Fleming were used up for too little dramatic gain. It wants to be a taut thriller - but it also doesn’t want to give up entirely on the fun ride of earlier films. Things happen, but the ‘why’ is at times absent, hidden in the stitches where the script married two stories.
Then again, there is plenty of atmosphere in this, a sense and sensuality of place. You could just about believe going on this trip around the Mediterranean - back then the staple holiday destination of western Europeans - and having a fun adventure while doing so. It would not always be so much fun in future years.
Will I revisit DIAMONDS and FOR YOUR EYES ONLY? Certainly. Maybe even this very year.
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December 4:
Diamonds Are Forever and For Your Eyes Only fall at very different ends of the Bond spectrum for me. I call DAF the first real misstep of the series. I get that the series was in a difficult place after Lazenby’s departure and maybe this is the best we could have hoped for but it was a real step-down in quality after OHMSS. This was where the goofy humour started to overtake things and the final confrontation with Blofeld, one that had been building for years, was immensely unsatisfying.
Maybe I need to re-evaluate. I’ll admit that unlike this other films we’ve discussed here I didn’t rewatch DAF, just didn’t have the time.
For Your Eyes Only on the other hand is one of my favourites. It was great to see the series come back to Earth after Moonraker for a more grounded story. The element I found most interesting about this film was that it showed General Gogol working against Bond. Despite being the head of the KGB he’d only been a ally to Bond previously so it was great to show how easily allegiances can change in the world of espionage.
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Agree. I don’t have a problem with things being more down to Earth, but I do find the overall package on the dull side. It doesn’t have the spark of Moore’s other entries. It’s not bad, but I don’t think it’s great, or anything approaching From Russia With Love territory. That said, the remote control helicopter sequence gets things off to a great start. And paying respects at Tracy’s grave is an all time great moment, no matter how small it is. What I do like about Bond is that when things go ‘dark’ or ‘realistic’ it’s never overbearingly so. Case in point the Dalton and Craig eras. And that’s also true with For Your Eyes Only. There’s always charm there.
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I can’t claim any particular attachment to DAF, but I do appreciate it for proving Bond could survive the 60s and transition to the 70s, even if it did so largely by playing it safe after the much bolder OHMSS. In doing so, it freed up LALD to take a few bold chances as well, giving Roger enough elbow room to make a fresh start without the pressure of having to pull audiences back to the fold with a retreat to the comfortable and expected. Which is to say, I think DAF performed an essential service to the series at a crucial moment, but artistically I consider it a sort of interegnum, a vacation from innovation.
Despite the fact that, due to circumstance more than mania, FYEO remains the only Bond film I’ve seen a whopping 5 times in its initial theatrical release (well, that’s “whopping” for me, anyway), I don’t have a tremendous attachment to it, either. On first viewing, I was a bit disoriented and yes, disappointed at what I regarded as a break from formula – no global threat, no fantastic hideaway for the villain, no climactic battle between opposing armies – but with each viewing, I came to like it more. It was in a way a test of whether a Moore era film could sink or swim without the crutches of sci-fi whiz-bang and spectacle, relying hugely on Roger’s personal charm to carry it. And on that level, I consider it a major success.
It also impressed me that Eon avoided staying the course set by “Spy” and “Moonraker” when both films had been hugely successful and both (yes even MR) were generally favorably reviewed. It was a declaration they had other priorities than just making money, something they would prove every now and then at other crucial moments, and usually when it was least expected.
Which is to say, I consider both films a bit of a “let’s take a step back.” Only in the case of DAF, I think of it as “back” to the tried-and-true and a cheaper budget, and with FYEO it’s “back” to the roots of the Eon series and Fleming’s works. So I give the edge to the latter film.
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What can I say?
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER–the film that saved the Bond franchise. The film that was a hit with audiences after two consecutive films in which interest declined. This thread doesn’t exist, since there would be no CBN, without the success (in multiple ways) of DAF.
I love all the comments, and am going to quote some to use as jumping off points.
Yes, and yet despite its oddness, it contains most all of the expected/required Bond film elements. The film certainly plugs into the zeitgeist off the 1970s the way previous films plugged into the zeitgeist of the 1960s (I wonder if a viewer’s distaste for the 1970s can contribute to a lack of love for DAF).
But even with all the usual components in place–villain, Bond girls, henchpeople–they behave in slightly off-kilter ways. We recognize that DAF is a Bond film, and yet . . . women with weapons in the opening credits (and wearing pants in the film itself), and a title song that gives both men and Bond short shrift.
As if he knows that GF Bond could not exist in the 1970s.
Exactly. He even tells M that he doesn’t think the mission is appropriate for their department (maybe that is why there is no scene in M’s office, and we get Moneypenny as a field operative). As SAF notes, it is Connery’s movie through and through, and his performance is perfectly suited for the film. It may not be a particular viewer’s concept of Bond, but that does not mean it is a bad performance.
And it worked beautifully. Also, I do not think the ideas were bad, as much as they were unsettling and anxiety-inducing. The confidence of the 1950s was gone, and the rebellious spirit of the 1960s had lost its bloom, leaving sourness in its wake. Las Vegas (does any other Bond movie spend three-quarters of its running time in one place?) was the perfect setting, possessing, as Jim put it, “an etiolated seediness.” But wasn’t that the 1970s? Does DAF fail for some people because while it followed the Bond template and plugged into the zeitgeist, it did so too well, giving us a Bond ultra-suited to the moment/era–not merely a tarnished Saint George, but an unhorsed one (a fascinating double bill would be DAF and Robert Bresson’s LANCELOT DU LAC, released three years later, and a film that disappointed many cinephiles since it did not behave like a Bresson film).
I think that is the key. On its own terms, DAF is a success. Guy Hamilton’s direction is fine (the film’s documentary quality is excellent), and his images–spared the Peter Hunt editing blender–are eloquent. Ken Adam’s work is superb (he worried that that his designs could not compete with the actual Las Vegas. There was no need for him to be concerned), and John Barry’s score is one of his best (I love how its appearance is delayed in certain scenes). As a work unto itself, the movie is excellent. It may not be to an individual viewer’s taste or meet their expectations, but it is not a failure on aesthetic grounds.
Eon’s Christmas miracle.
Once again, plugging into that zeitgeist too darn well.
DAF was terrifically of its time–and in being so, pointed to the (anxious) future that awaited its viewers–anxieties over the fluidity of identities; movements for equality/equity; the military-industrial complex; pink ties for men. The horrors, the horrors.
Having saved the day and ended the threat, Bond at the conclusion is on a cruise ship, with neither M nor some form of surveillance in sight. He has completely slipped the yoke of MI6, and also of audience expectations–he is not bedding or laying atop Tiffany, and seems amused rather than triumphant. In a way, this ending was the first death of James Bond.
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The vast majority of Dr No is in Jamaica (I’d still consider Crab Key to be Jamaica). You Only Live Twice is about 99% in Japan and most of Thunderball is set in the Bahamas.
December 4: DAF and FYEO are both oddities in the series and act as course corrections for their respective eras though in vastly different directions. DAF was a heavy lean into camp and inane fun, whilst FYEO is a down to earth spy adventure after the increasing absurdity of TSWLM and MR. Both have great things about them and not so great. DAF great: Shirley Bassey’s best Bond theme (Better than Goldfinger, yea I said it and I don’t like her Moonraker theme), Jill St John, the elevator fight, Wint and Kidd, Connery having much more fun than in YOLT. DAF not so great: didn’t continue the story from OHMSS, adaptation of a weak story, Tiffany Case is pale in comparison to her book counterpart, one of the series’ worst Felixes, Connery was way out of shape.
FYEO great: A great Cold War spy adventure, Melina Havelock is one of the best Bond ladies, some of the series’ best locales, Sheena Easton’s song, Locque’s death, rock climbing, low road chase, columbo, the casting of Cassandra Harris was what led to Pierce Brosnan becoming Bond. FYEO not great: the dated soundtrack, Bibi Dahl, Julian Glover wasted on a weak villain, Margaret Thatcher.
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December 5: Ken Adam, and perhaps most notably for Moonraker, can’t really believe he didn’t get an Oscar for all of that. Most recent film still shows they rely on his influence for it to “look Bond”.
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December 5: Most overlooked, yes, Ken Adam, but also John Barry whose Bond scores were as iconic as Williams‘ scores for Star Wars. And certainly Sean Connery‘s and Roger Moore‘s performances.
But award jurors still think that ACTING must be noticeable, and charme and lightness are easy to accomplish. See: Cary Grant.
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I was going to say Ken Adams for sure but I would say Connery deserved at least a nomination for his part in creating an enduring legend.
Tessa Prendergast for her iconic costume design on Doctor No.
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I agree with Barry and Adam. I think for a question like this you have to accept the Academy on their own terms, while this comment may come back to bite me one day, it has simply never been in the cards that the Academy would award the series in the Best Picture, Director of any of the acting categories. At the time it seemed like there was an outside chance that Casino Royale would be that year’s Fugitive\Black Panther “OK, this was pretty good for a blockbuster” film, but it didn’t happen.
Maybe the series deserved a Costume design nod at some point, but as there seems not to have been a single credit for Dr No, which set the series’ look, I am not quite sure where.
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I don’t really have much interest in the Oscars beyond quiz answers. It’s occasionally cool to see film I like get nominated but overall it’s just the industry giving itself a pat on the back every year.
Ironically I was going to make a point about enduring popularity by comparing Dr No to to the films that won from 1962. Turns out that best picture was Lawrence of Arabia and best actor was Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird. You win this round Academy.
BAFTAs do seem to have been a bit kinder to Bond in recent years with Casino Royale and Skyfall both racking up nominations. However despite more nominations Bond still has more Oscars than BAFTAs, even if Skyfall did take home Outstanding British Film.
Don’t really have much to add to the question though. The look, sound and style of Bond has endured and become more iconic than any of its contemporaries. I mean, does anyone talk about Best Costume Design (Color) winner The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm today? Didn’t think so.
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No, but it sounds good!
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December 5:
Everyone’s given the answer I’d have given: Adam and Barry. I would note, however, that each of them did win Oscars: Adam twice and Barry five times (!) plus Peter Lamont received 4 nominations and one statuette and John Stears and Derek Meddings each earned one as well, although for all of those gentlement recognition came for their non-Bond work. So the injustice isn’t so much to the artists per se (talent does sometimes get rewarded) as to the franchise in general, which gets little respect from the cliquish circle jerk that is the Academy Awards.
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Ask Stanley Kubrick… 
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It’s already been said, Ken Adam is the artist who designed Bond’s world. And here we see why it’s such a unique world with a skewed expressionist angle…
In such a world not all angles add up to 360 degrees. In such a world everything can happen. Maybe that was simply too out-there for the Academy.
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