Octopussy’s Most Dangerous Game escape I gave good idea poorly executed.
But, for the most part I don’t find it poorly executed. It’s generally pretty good, but it’s got just a couple of moments that take you out of the film that ruin the suspense of the scene for the most part.
The first of those is the “Sit!” dialogue when Bond gives an order to the tiger. It’s just stupid. I know there was a British lady at the time famous for instructing animals with that type of delivery, but it had no place here–and certainly no wild animal would obey it. What would have been better is Bond coming around the corner only to find himself face to face with one of Khan’s lackeys aiming his gun at him. But before the man can shoot or call out to Khan that he’s found 007, the tiger leaps out of the bush and mauls him thereby letting Bond escape.
The other poor moment is the notorious Tarzan yell. Now first off, I don’t believe Bond, himself, does the Tarzan yell, as that would be completely idiotic to draw attention to yourself when you’re trying to get away unseen. Rather, I believe it is a sound effect inserted in post production much like the slide whistle during the Astro-spiral jump in The Man With The Golden Gun. The problem is that a lot, if not most, people don’t see it that way and think Bond is making the yell. The producers should have just let Bond swing from vine to vine without the sound effect. Everyone would have gotten the reference without it.
Other than those two things, the sequence works perfectly fine for me, and is capped off perfectly with Khan’s line, “Mr. Bond is indeed a very rare breed. Soon to be made extinct.”
As a 14 year old watching this in the cinema I recognized the Tarzan yell, of course, from my childhood days with Tarzan on the TV, so I smiled and did not think too much about it. As for „Sit“, in Germany it did not have the reference, it just was funny that Bond talked to a tiger as if it were a dog.
Today, I know the reference and that this was still the era for Moore Bond sending itself up while taking some things very seriously, a mix which can be irritating for some audiences expecting to only get one tone.
In the end, Bond in a clown disguise stopping a nuclear bomb is such a deliciously edgy and tense scene, it absolutely justifies the whole film for me, even if the (studio) fight at the palace afterwards with an air balloon is as silly as the back projection of Moore on top of a plane/train.
The bomb defusing scene seems like a strong encapsulation for Moore’s Bond and how a chunk of the audience perceive him. Thought to me a flippant clown but underneath the makeup he’s very much a serious and capable operator. I think that makes the scene even more meaningful.
The Union Jack balloon is silly, but I love it. Especially as a callback to the parachute opening in TSWLM. Bond sliding down the stairs, shooting the guards and then the newel post is a classic too. It’s moments like that which seperate these movies from the typical Hollywood blockbusters.
Good idea, poorly executed. I’m not a fan of “outside” references in any Bond film - Thatcher impersonators, Tarzan yells or TV dog trainers. Add to that Lawrence of Arabia, the Beach Boys, or Elmer Bernstein musical cues.
Basically, I’m a misery-guts.
But in all seriousness, I’m fine with the films that live within their own reality (even Fleming shouting out Ursula Andress in OHMSS is a bit much for me). So with that, I’ve never had an issue with Bond dressed as a clown. It’s completely within the reality of the film and story-telling balance to the opening of the plot.
Another interesting one. Though done to death by now, the premise of “The Most Dangerous Game” remains a corker, and I think the idea of putting Bond up against natural threats as formidable as his human adversaries is under-utilized overall (DN even left out the giant squid!), so kudos to OP for going in a novel direction. BUT…somehow it always feels to me like that helicopter that drops Bond off to meet Vijay is more like a time machine to an India of the past, with fakirs on beds of nails, rope-climbing tricks, street bazaars, beggars, etc., and having Khan’s castle surrounded by wild animals adds to that odd, “what year is this anyway?” feeling. I’m not of Indian descent so I can’t pretend to be offended by the way the country’s portrayed and maybe it’s not a big deal (even with the “curry” line) but to me that whole part of the movie feels at best like a trip in the Tardis and at worst like a Benny Hill skit full of “Indian” tropes. Either way, it’s a left turn out of normal “Bond film” territory, and disorienting.
In terms of execution, the tiger hunt starts off awkwardly with Roger seeming to have some real difficulty struggling out of his “death shroud” to scare off the ignorant locals with his “Booga booga” act, then we get “Sit-TAH!” and “Hiss Off” and the Weissmuller imitation, and let’s face it, running was never Roger’s forte. I do love the payoff with Rog’s “No ma’am, I’m on the economy tour,” but on the whole I think if we were going to get a “Bond versus nature” scenario, it could have gone better.
At some point, I’d like to see a plot that puts Bond in a harsh natural setting where he has to survive in ingenius and creative ways; we know he’s an A-1 urban warrior and master of technology, but it would be cool to see him have to persevere using more primitive survival skills. In that sense, OP is a weak stab so for this one I’m going with “good idea, poorly executed.”
I agree it’s a little unclear with the body bag scene, but in that case, I think Bond IS making the noise in an effort to further scare Khan’s men into running away or be frozen in fear over his “reanimation” thereby giving him more time to escape.
I don’t like the outside musical cues either except for one–the theme from The Magnificent Seven which was used in Moonraker. That one I can buy and enjoy and it seems fairly appropriate with 007 on horseback.
I don’t need Bond confronted with real life, which incidentally is a good thing since to date he never has been. Even the Craig entries which put on the pretense of being more grounded have a grasp of physics and human limitations on par with a Marvel movie.
I’m just saying part of the appeal of Classic Bond to me is that he visits places out of reach to some of us due to distance, funds or both. The early films engendered a wanderlust in me and I’m sure millions of others who eventually made it a point to visit some of the places shown. But while, for example, the Japan scenes in YOLT feature a traditional wedding in a quaint fishing village that seems untouched by time, they also include views of modern Japan with traffic, skyscrapers, neon signs, etc. So if that film makes me want to go to Japan, I’ll arrive to find something similar. But if I go to India asking where are the snake charmers and coal-walkers, I’m not sure I’ll get a pleasant response.
Again, I don’t want to give the impression I sat watching OP and thinking, “This is grossly unfair to India,” in 1983 or last week. But by the time we get to Kamal’s palace it feels like we’ve wandered into a movie about a 19th century hero like Alan Quartermain, and when the guns come out, it feels like they ought to be flintlocks.
For Kananga’s death, I voted “bad idea, badly executed.” They’re already in the water with a shark on the prowl and Kananga’s movements are more panicked than Bond’s, so let the shark take him. The inflating pellet (shell?) is certainly a novel mode of death, but there’s no way that fate could have been convincingly depicted on screen in an all-ages release, and what we got was silly and gross at the same time. Yaphet Kotto makes a great villain, but he’s retroactively reduced to a cartoon character by this Tom-and-Jerry exit.
All that said, as I kid I thought it was hilarious when Kananga inflated the sofa and sent Whisper tumbling to the floor, and there’s no need for that sequence if it’s not to set up Kananga’s demise.
Maaayybee I’d settle for a middle ground where we see Kananga start to inflate before Bond turns away and we hear the bang. But floating to the ceiling is a step too far, and not what would happen to the intended target, an actual shark. Of course if you acknowledge reality at all, Bond and Solitaire should look like Carrie at the prom.
I don’t think it’s the worst idea and as for execution, it is what it is - 1973! For the time, a decent enough special effect that just hasn’t aged well. The villain demise should be a “moment” whether it be DN unable to grip, the brutality of the train fight, or Largo getting it it from his mistress.
From a dramatic viewpoint, I prefer Kanaga’s inflation to the underwhelming climactic confrontations (and I get it, the character isn’t dead but still…) of both YOLT and DAF.
In my view, it is more of a case of what element of real life have been used to construct the reel fantasy.
As @David_M points out, to whatever degree the India of OP is a fantasy, it was constructed from real life tropes of Indian life, and carried the social relations of those tropes into the film. Additionally, without any specific indication otherwise, those tropes have been endorsed through their selection–they are the “India” that the filmmakers wanted the audience to see.
DAF takes another approach, where Hamilton set his camera down, and filmed locations as they existed in 1971–Circus Circus; The Strip; the Elrod House; Amsterdam and its canals; an oil rig. Fantasy elements are mixed in with these real elements to create the fantasy world of DAF, but the fantasy world is buttressed by the real elements (and Hamilton’s jaundiced take on American culture).
But the idea is, IMO: what will entertain the audience more, a realistic depiction or the fantasy they are familiar with.
Was the depiction of India full of (racist) tropes? Yes. But in a way “Temple of Doom” in 1984, one year later, also was. Not maliciously so, I believe. The concept was to use what was used before to establish familiarity.
We agree that a fantasy depiction may entertain more, but I believe a fantasy’s use of racist trope(s) makes it unworkable (and I am not sure you would not agree as well).
The intent may not have been malicious, but the trope was in-and-of-itself malicious, and this is where the problem lies. Audiences are engaging with the tropes, and only with intentions if they listen to the commentary track on their Blu-ray.
Agreed, but you poison the concept when you use a racist trope to manifest the concept. I do not see a convincing argument for employing a racist trope, even if its use will establish a high level of familiarity. For me, it is a case of fouling one’s own artistic nest.
I did enjoy OP and Temple of Doom, even if I knew back then as a 14-year old that India is nothing like that.
Why? Because I even then recognized that both were fantasy, a construct for entertainment.
Does that mean I find racist tropes entertaining? As long as they stay in their entertainment world?
Apparently, I do. Just as I find tropes about German Nazis in Indiana Jones movies or even Bond films entertaining. I know they are not the real thing and they work as villains I find scary and detestable.
Does that mean I internalized all the racist stereotypes within those tropes and secretly see people from India like that?
No. I see the difference between a genre film and reality clearly.
Does every film, even genre films have to present people realistically, with every shade of their character?
I don’t think so. Stereotypes and clichés are even, IMO, unavoidable because you only have a little time to establish characters in a movie. Even the British secret agent James Bond only consists of stereotypes and tropes. And that’s fine with me because I don’t think this character is meant to be anything else but the good guy in a fairy tale, basically.
In the end, every character in a film or a book is constructed from quickly established tropes.
Temple of Doom gets more of a pass for me because it’s set in 1936, which is as remote to me as 1886. Indy lives not only in the past but in a make-believe past where we still believed it was possible to discover a lost civilization if we went deep enough into a jungle. Maybe as it turns out we really couldn’t, but pulp fiction of the era thought we could, and the conceit of Indy is that we as the audience are living in the past as the movie unspools, just as surely as Indy is. He believes there are lost worlds, we believe there are lost worlds, so we end up in lost worlds. For me, the stunts in the Indy films work for the same reason; as improbable as they are, as ridiculous as it is that his hat stays on, that’s part of the charm: the films exist on a meta level as homages to old-time serials that know they’re homages to old-time movie serials. Plus there’s the constant presence of the supernatural throughout, so any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.
Having said that, Temple of Doom is a terrible film so that’s about the only sense in which it gets a pass from me, and yes, if you want to look for examples of offensive racism, it certainly takes the cake, with the locals reduced to superstitious, backwards yokels eating monkey brains and live snakes (although Kamal does enjoy his stuffed sheep’s head).
Again, my problem with OP’s India – and I quite enjoy the film – isn’t that it’s offensive so much as that it feels disconnected even from Bond’s normal reality. It’s like someone took an old script, crossed out “Quartermain” or “Flashman” or “Dr Jones” or even “Tarzan” and pencilled in “Bond.”
