Deathmatch 2022: Sideswipes - September 30

I found the same thing, and was also surprised at it. My hardwired select-DAF-option response was short-circuited. I could have gone with GF for the reasons laid out by SAF–it truly is a film where Bond has to improvise–sometimes well, and sometimes not so well.

As for DAF, “And countink…” is just one more dollop of absurdism on the sundae that is DAF.

But in the end, I went with OP as well. It is my favorite scene in the movie–in fact, my favorite scene in the post-MR MooreBond films.

3 Likes

For September 26:

Favourite snow-based chase. Haven’t included bits in the pre-titles of GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies or No TIme to Die - snow / snowing, but chase element perhaps minimal? Or at least different to the spirit of the below. Perhaps.

  • OHMSS
  • The Spy who Loved Me
  • For Your Eyes Only
  • A View to a Kill
  • The World is Not Enough
  • Die Another Day - cars
  • Die Another Day - speedster

0 voters

1 Like

I agree with your criteria Jim.

Having said that, my vote went to For Your Eyes Only. It’s just a great chase scene beginning with the ski jump, darting through trees, and jumping onto and off a dining table, topped by Bond on skis and Kriegler on a motorcycle racing down the bobsled run behind a bobsled. It’s all well done and perfectly accompanied by Bill Conti’s great Runaway tune.

Isn’t there is a snow chase in SPECTRE?

1 Like

Arg! You are quite right, although Arg! is the usual sound I make whenever Spectre hoves into the subconscious.

OK - with apologies to all

Spectre - had it been listed above, would it change your vote?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

2 Likes

On the main question, my vote goes to OHMSS. From a technical standpoint, it is an astonishing achievement for 1969 thanks to the stunt team and the innovative camerawork of Johnny Jordan and Willy Bogner. From a script standpoint, it’s more important to the plot than any other ski sequence, and the only one to carry over from Fleming’s original text. And by the criteria of a “chase” it is the most true to the word: in a lot of movies a “chase” just means “both parties are moving quickly,” but in OHMSS Bond is literally fleeing for his life, and the stakes are keenly felt. When Lazenby chokes out an opponent with his ski, looking terrified that the guy will let out a sound to give his position away, it’s one of the best bits in the film: if Lazenby has a “strength” as Bond it’s in his ability to make him seem human and less than bullet-proof, and this scene is a great example.

Seriously, the only thing more awesome than the action in this sequence – a good portion of it with Bond on one ski – is the knowledge that Bogner is matching it all and backwards to get it on film. Holy crap.

re: The Spectre sequence, while it’s marginally closer to the definition of “ski chase” than the scenes you’ve already excluded from GE, TND and NTTD, it is not a “ski chase” in the spirit of the other candidates on this list. Bond manages, essentially, a semi-controlled crash of the plane, but it doesn’t “chase” anything so much as blunder along by chance. An apt metaphor perhaps for the film itself.

5 Likes

Hear, hear! Point made! Great arguments on all fronts, but especially for the critical narrative nature of the ski chase in OHMSS. In my view it is the absolute pinnacle of snow-based sequences out of the entire series.

“He had lots of guts!”

I wonder why they never attempted such a ski sequence in the Craig era. It should be possible to do even more outrageous stunts, with no back projection etc.

They only gave him cold weather environment in the film were he broken his leg*

*remind me to post a picture of the “clockwork thing” you have to wear with that injury.

1 Like

I do have a question regarding the snow-based chase in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Is it the first ski chase which Bond spends much of his time on one ski while trying to escape the SPECTRE skiers? Is it the second ski chase where Bond and Tracy are fleeing Blofeld and his goons? Or is it at the end of the film when Bond chases Blofeld first on foot and then by bobsled?

I assume you mean the first one although OHMSS has three chases. :grinning:

1 Like

It’s possible there was a ski sequence in QoS and I just missed it because of the editing. Rumor has it there was a boat chase in that one, too.

4 Likes

Fair enough - meant the first one, although correction acknowledged.

For September 28

Sometimes they’ve put him in daft disguises (clown, gorilla, kilt, “Japanese”, duck-on-his-head, tremendously unconvincing actor massively out of his depth (1969, 1995-2002)), but what’s the most 'orrible everyday garb in which the Eon film series has made Bond walk, run, jump, swim, ski etc? Accepting that fashion is of its time, etc. - but still, there have to be standards.

Despite Leiter’s desparately unrequited flirtatious statement that “On you, everything looks good” (you’re still not getting a kiss, Felix; give up), Bond’s been put in some wretched stuff over the many, many years.

I ask this as someone whose appearance has been likened to a lot of old chicken livers swilling around a binbag. That might also have been an observation about the smell.

  • Blue onesie poolside horror (Goldfinger)
  • Grey assault pyjamas (You Only Live Twice)
  • Ruffled dress shirt (OHMSS)
  • Chocolate brown suit (Diamonds are Forever)
  • Pink tie, tied a few inches too short (Diamonds are Forever)
  • Pastel blue safari suit (Live and Let Die)
  • Mud-green safari suit (The Man with the Golden Gun)
  • Retina-molesting sports jacket (The Man with the Golden Gun)
  • Bright yellow ski suit, for stealth work (The Spy who Loved Me)
  • Flares seemingly made from windsocks (The Spy who Loved Me)
  • Yellow rubber space suit (Moonraker)
  • Yellow rubber space suit repurposed as a diving suit (For Your Eyes Only)
  • Beige safari suit (Octopussy)
  • Ski suit with lovely furry trimming to disguise stuntman’s face (A View to a Kill)
  • White-piped black tracksuit fathoms beneath his dignity (A View to a Kill)
  • Formless late-1980s casual and formal wear (Licence to Kill)
  • Pullover his gran knitted him, and a smashing cravat (GoldenEye)
  • Suits several sizes too small for him (Skyfall, Spectre)
  • Collarless white shirt (No Time to Die)
  • Something else not on this list

0 voters

Ones that nearly made the cut (the poll has a limit fo 20 options)

Salior cap, From Russia with Love
Brown golf garb with bright orange shirt, OHMSS
Monogrammed dressing gown, Live and Let Die
Blue/black (or is it yellow/white? Let Twitter decide) casual “shirt”, Die Another Day

Debateables

The red shirt (Octopussy) - although more a disguise than a choice. Amazing how a red shirt of someone several dinners thinner than him, fits.

Kilt, etc. (OHMSS) - a disguise. Not a very good one, but a disguise.

Taliban-chic - again, a disguise.

1 Like

You missed TND with Brosnan as a child wearing his dads tux.

97 style needs to meet 12 style and realise there’s a happy medium.

3 Likes

I went with flares, partnered with Bond 77 it can’t help but make me expect Bond to start covering Abba…
image

3 Likes

My choices are:

The gray assault pajamas in You Only Live Twice – I don’t quite know what it is, but it just doesn’t look right. Maybe it’s the color. A different shade would have been better. However, I think black would have made more sense because it’s a more stealthy color (and cooler looking) and because Bond and Tanaka didn’t know they would be infiltrating a brightly lit hollowed out volcano where the gray would be harder to see than black.

The pink tie tied a few inches too short in Diamonds Are Forever – I have no problem with the color, only the length–or lack thereof–of the tie. It’s ridiculously short and should never been allowed to be shown on film at that horrible length.

Suits several sizes too small for him in Skyfall and SPECTRE – Bond is supposed to have style and too tight fitting clothes is not that. Had the suits fitted appropriately, they would not make my list as they would be perfectly respectable. As it is, their ill-fittingness is too noticeable and distracting.

Something else not on this list – I’m not a big fan of the collarless white shirt in No Time To Die, but it will get a pass from me on this poll. However, Bond’s suspenders from NTTD will make my list. Bond doesn’t wear suspenders and he doesn’t look right in them–particularly without a jacket. It makes it look like they are there just to keep his pants up. I think they only made him wear the suspenders so he could tuck the stupid doll in them. :roll_eyes:

By the way Jim, for some reason I was not able to vote in the poll. I don’t know if I hit the wrong button or what, but it won’t let me correct or make my vote.

2 Likes

I wanted to say the blue towel thing, but Connery wears it very well. Even the pink tie is forgivable, but Daltons wardrobe is a disgrace.

I want to make it obligatory for any new actor in a screen test for Bond to wear the blue towel thing.

If he can pull that off he must be Bond.

2 Likes

Another vote for the grey assault outfit from YOLT. The most unflattering get-up ever (man boobs anyone?). Everything else is a reflection of its time. The assault pyjamas a reflection from a carnival mirror.

Appalling…

The amazing thing about the gray assault pajamas is that he wore them – and a fairly clunky set of suction cups – under his Japanese fisherman outfit, just in case he happened to stumble across an enormous steel-walled fortress he’d have to climb down into.

This is another hard one for me as there are so many worthy candidates. I’m going to give a pass to Craig’s multiple suits from the PeeWee Herman Collection because you didn’t specify any one in particular, but if you had pointed to that god-awful brown sportcoat and slacks he wears to Blofenhauser’s crater HQ in Spectre, that would have been a strong contender. Besides just being fugly it manages to be the only outfit in the Craig era that makes Daniel look like he’s going to fat.

I tend to be more forgiving than most towards Roger’s outfits because I remember the 1970s and I know how much restraint he showed. Through the cold lens of 21st century eyes, some of his outfits can seem nutty, but compared to what a lot of men were wearing (or even what he himself wore on The Persuaders), Roger’s ensembles showed considerable good taste. That said, that plaid jacket in TMWTGG is brutal. I always imagine Mannix saying, “Okay, that one’s a bit much.”

My vote would probably have to go to the pink tie outfit in DAF, which together with the flabby physique and “wobby toupee du jour” makes Bond look more clownish even than he does in big shoes and a rubber nose in OP.

Honorable mention to LTK for phoning it in completely and buying Bond’s full wardrobe off the rack at K-Mart.

4 Likes