James Bond in cinema through the summer

General General Movie Discussion
21

I agree the “suicide” angle doesn’t quite work for Rigg, but then it isn’t really played up all that much, either. The beach and casino scenes establish that she has a self-destructive streak, but she never really comes across as despondent or “broken” and it’s not entirely clear she’s supposed to, unlike her literary counterpart.

We “know” she’s trying to drown herself at the beach, but as filmed, is it really all that apparent? Would we know it if we hadn’t read the book? Based on what Bond sees through the scope, she could just as easily be out for a wade, or a swim, with the only “tragedy” being she’s about to ruin a nice frock. I’ve even seen someone interpret it as her trying to escape Draco’s flunkies (who remain somehow invisible to Bond, and us, until one appears out of thin air with a gun to Bond’s head).

Saving a “bird with a wing down” fits with literary Bond, who seems to picture himself as some sort of romantic hero swooping in to rescue damsels, only to fall hard for them and watch the relationship fall apart when the adventure’s over and it becomes necessary to try and maintain a real relationship in the drab light of daily reality. In taht sense, Tracy is the ultimate challenge, the most messed up of the messed up damsels, so far gone it takes a proposal to pull her out of it. But it doesn’t fit the movie Bond nearly as well (at least the pre-Roger version) as that version of Bond seems to care little if at all for the women he “saves” more or less as a side project while he completes his missions. One gets the impression with Connery that if any of the girls had been just a little more difficult or troublesome to save, he’d just as soon have left them behind to fend for themselves. So to trot out a psychologically damaged, needy, suicidal wreck like the literary Tracy in OHMSS and expect Bond to fall for her would not have worked. Arguably even less so with Lazenby, whose Bond has a more chipper, spirited attitude than Connery’s: I can’t see him going for a “Debby Downer” when he’s got his pick of so many healthy, fun-loving females to choose from.

Plus, as frought as the series already is on the “male chauvanist” front, imagine if Bond was played as the big, strong hero here to save the fragile, weak-minded female and the tragedy was not from lost love but a failure to fill the role of macho savior? There are vestiges of that intent in lines like Draco’s “she needs a man…” but it often feels like whomever it is people are discussing when she’s not around is not at all the Tracy we see played by Dame Diana. And thank goodness.

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22

Indeed.

Having the strong Bond save the borderline traumatised Tracy from suicidal tendencies comes across at the very least as dangerous amateur therapy or outright foolhardiness. Bond either irresponsibly ties a bruised and troubled victim to his own fate - or himself to an ongoing case he cannot hope to heal simply because he has got neither the means nor the abilities it would take.

“…she would let him live his dangerous life…”*

No, definitely not! She’d freak out like any wife if her husband came home on a stretcher, with holes in places where there aren’t supposed to be holes in human anatomy. And we’re not even talking about lipstick on his collar or cases where M sends him off to indulge Russian cypher clerks.

The whole idea of Bond marrying Tracy (as described by Fleming) is totally bonkers. That’s why Fleming killed her off, he was perfectly aware what marriage would mean for the fantasy life Bond lead. And he wasn’t prepared to write a series of kitchen sink - rather liqueur cabinet - dramas about how this would turn out. Would have probably meant to write closer to home than he was comfortable with…

*or words to that effect; I haven’t got my copy handy

23

While I am enjoying the discourse on what I will soon be enjoying on the big screen, a small point.

Bond popped a gunmetal cigarette case in the leaves of the book. I think it was that, that stopped the bullet. The book was just to hide it from view, wasn’t it?

24

A yes, The Mask of Dimitrios and the gunmetal cigarette case. Though the really unbelievable element is here why Grant doesn’t go for a head shot instead of the one ‘through the heart’ that wouldn’t be very likely in a suicide, especially with a small calibre gun.

The idea is of course to make it all happen in a country where the USSR has an influence on parts of the press and scandal headlines would drown out the facts quickly. But still, it seems like an odd idea to hope Grant will be good on his word and really shoot him through the heart when the book is in the way and Grant’s own book gun might not really be that powerful. Its first shot only smashed Bond’s watch, so the impact on a male adult body, clothed and physically fit, is not at all guaranteed to penetrate the heart.

Had Grant, like Goldfinger later would announce, shot Bond through the eye…

25

If it had been connerys bond finally settling down and getting married after 5 movies and 7 years on screen,the audience may have felt a lot more sympathetic to the character

26

There seem to be two major schools of thought regarding this, at least with fans. One side argues the absence of Connery was what killed OHMSS’ success dead in its tracks. People wanted to see Connery as Bond, no mannequin from Australia nobody had heard of before. This certainly was the opinion of many critics and casual fans at the time - and may still be the ‘consensus’ of a kind amongst more casual fans today.

The other side - often the fans coming from the literary side of Bond - argues Lazenby’s lack of experience was just what the story about Bond falling in love and tragically losing his wife needed. Here people often mention Connery’s performance in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE as argument against him.

Personally, I have to admit that Connery, assumptions about his hypothetical performance in OHMSS aside, never played a role that convinced me he was more than casually involved romantically. Even MARNIE, where his character goes to great lengths to solve the mystery of Marnie’s trauma, does not really give the impression his Mark Rutland is blinded by love. To the contrary, he’s seeing clearer than any other character in that film.

So on balance I’m not convinced the story would have worked better with Connery - though it’s probably safe to say the financial success would have been bigger.

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27

Not sure I agree with that. For the life of me, I can’t imagine Connery’s Bond “selling” the romance angle of OHMSS. As far as that goes, I’m hard pressed to recall any Connery movie, Bond or otherwise, that featured a heartfelt romance (maybe “Robin and Marian”? But only maybe). It’s arguable that if Sean had been in harness for OHMSS it would’ve been an entirely different film from start to finish.

Lazenby’s newness actually works to the film’s advantage here in that for all we know, maybe this James Bond could fall in love. What he lacks in acting chops he makes up for at times (especially in the romance) with a certain guileless sincerity. The only thing that might’ve worked better was the bit where he tosses his hat to poor old Moneypenny as a “consolation prize”. That gesture would’ve carried more weight if the two actors had a history.

Sometimes it almost feels like they deliberately took a “Connery break” to say, “Oh yeah, there was this one time James Bond was really in love, and he had his heart broken. But since we can never make that work with Sean, we’ll dramatize it with this stand-in.”

All that said, much of the “love of my life” stuff doesn’t hold water given Bond’s sex romps at Piz Gloria, so in the end Tracy’s death is mostly something to mourn on behalf of us viewers rather than for Bond himself. She pretty much steals the film. I’m reminded of the story Roger recorded in his “James Bond Diary”, where a producer friend of Cubby Broccoli viewed a screening of OHMSS and told Cubby, “You should have saved her and killed him.”

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28

A lot of this does symbolise the films duel (or dual, both work in the context) nature, trying so hard to be different with one hand whilst going “no, honestly, it’s the same guy as Connery!!!” with the other. Its a film at war with itself, though to it’s credit, the film mostly gets away with it.

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29

I kind of wish there were less “nods” to the earlier films, since certain plot elements make it impossible for several of them to have happened. For instance, even forgetting that Bond and Blofeld just met two years ago, it doesn’t make sense that SPECTRE could tell Red Grant how to spot James Bond in 1962 but the head of SPECTRE doesn’t know him on sight 7 years later. (Even just in terms of the film’s internal continuity, it doesn’t make sense for Bond to be in what the script paints as a years-long grudge match with Blofeld without either knowing the other immediately).

I enjoy OHMSS the way I enjoyed CR: as an “alternate take” on Bond, as if 1969 (or 2006) was the first time EON decided, “Hey, why don’t we adapt a Fleming novel to screen?” and they started from scratch with no baggage in tow. Whenever we do get links to the earlier films, it’s just a reminder of how very much things do NOT fit together.

Kara Milovy in TLD isn’t exactly one of the most memorable Bond girls of all time, but her relationship with Bond takes on, for me anyway, more weight and import thanks to 007’s scaled-back bedhopping in that film. If they’d taken a similar route with OHMSS, the Bond/Tracy romance would’ve been even more effective. As it is, I can’t imagine Bond staying “faithful” for more than a couple weeks into the marriage. But on the upside, maybe while he was off rutting on some mission somewhere, Tracy could have hooked up with Sir Godfrey Tibbet. :slight_smile:

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30

True. Rutland is more enthralled with his possession of Marnie, rather than by any love for her. Hitchcock used Connery to brilliant effect to convey Rutland’s sense of entitlement. Think of the marital rape scene or how at the movie’s conclusion Rutland gloats about “the story I have to tell.” Not “we,” but “I.” By the end of the film, Marnie has lost the freedom she exulted in at the beginning. In many ways, MARNIE is a darker remake of VERTIGO

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31

I get that. However I prefer this over Goldeneye’s plane jump, or Quantum of Solace’s freefall. They have the benefit of technology but I wouldn’t say it makes the sequences in question any better.

I don’t necessarily see this as a negative. Bond is a rampant womaniser, living in the moment, and that behaviour is hard to shake. Someone like that doesn’t just stop. Romancing Tracy began as an obligation to please Draco. But feelings slowly developed, to the point he finally saw her as the prize, not the money. Would have Bond strayed during marriage? Probably. But when she ice skates to his rescue, he’s ready to leave that old life behind.

It’s easy to say it could have only been Lazenby, because he’s all we’ve ever known. But I do see his presence as beneficial. Sean and Roger could do emotion, but nonetheless, they’re more in the superhero mould. Lazenby was a blank canvass for this particular story. Is he wooden in parts? Yes. But he hits hard, looks the part and has one of the best Bond stories ever on his side. The formula is so strong that he couldn’t really fail. Anyone saying he was a dumpster fire is being melodramatic.

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32

Everyone knows a dummy when they see it, but I guess what’s funny to some, here, is the film’s absolute, unapologetic commitment to that dummy. “Yes, we used a dummy and it wasn’t a cheap one, so we’re using every frame we shot.” It’s funny in the way it was funny when Benny Hill parodied “The Avengers” with fight scenes using stuntmen who were very deliberately the wrong, height, weight and age to double for Steed.

I agree the scenes in GE and QOS are far worse, because they lack even that sense of ironic charm, or quaintness. They’re insincere about their fakery, if that makes sense; full of unearned self-confidence in how “clever” and “well-done” they are, close cousins to the tsunami surfing scene. At least dummies are practical effects: CGI is, and will always be, “cheating” in my book.

Here again I see Lazenby’s newness and generally youthful vibe working to the film’s advantage. His Bond comes off as a guy who’s “shopping around” for whatever fun and pleasure he can find with the opposite sex, and if that means taking advantage of a situation where he’s surrounded by a clinic full of sex-starved beauties from around the globe, why not? But with Tracy, he finds the whole package: beautiful, tough, resourceful, witty. She saves his hash in the village, drives and skiis as well as he does, and doesn’t cling to him when he needs his gun arm free. She’s obviously a catch, so on impulse he proposes. I don’t know that it would’ve worked as well with Connery’s more worldly, seasoned, even jaded Bond, whom we’d seen brave a thousand dangers already and treat women as disposable distractions. With Lazenby it’s “Aw yeah! GIRLS!!” whereas with Connery it’s more, “Woman, get over here and give me what I want, then hit the bricks.”

On the other hand, in theory a motivation for Bond to propose should be his weariness with the life he’s been leading; a desire to put it all behind him and grab a chance at happiness before he’s put out to pasture from the Double-O Section at 45 or, more likely, lowered into the ground sooner than that. Lazenby’s Bond is too young and fresh to sell that angle, despite the drawer full of souvenirs trying to tell us he’s a seasoned veteran.

Lazenby does phenomenally well for a first-timer. I’m always reminded of Errol Flynn, another colorful character from the same area of the world who also faked his credentials to launch a screen career and land somehow in the starring role in a big-budget blockbuster. In Flynn’s case it was “Captain Blood,” and in that film there are scenes where he’s stiff and awkward and “stagey” and others where he’s relaxed and charismatic and masterful. You can watch him growing into a star in real time. OHMSS can be like that, with Lazenby painfully wooden in spots but brilliant in others. I only wish it could’ve been the beginning of a career full of wonderful stuff for Laz as it was for Flynn. But apparently as far as he came as an actor in a short time, he still had a long way to go as a person.

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33

I remember in the book , he tells Draco that he slept with a woman or was it women during his masquerade as sir Hillary,but still loved Tracey

34

To Lazenby’s…not credit but perhaps to give his behaviour some context; the showbiz in general is entirely an artificial affair where the glitz covers the ugly, smelly parts. Also, it was definitely a time when actors were somehow supposed to behave in a certain manner, like rock stars were supposed to trash hotel rooms and do drugs.

None of it is likely to endear - but for a young person, or somebody without the support to ground them, it’s probably not easy to tell the image apart from the real life, especially when they are still striving to get their career going. Lazenby firmly crashed his, but he’s neither alone nor can many people claim they’d have been less susceptible to the temptations had they been in his place.

And stories like Lazenby’s - Primadonna notions, lack of reason and sanity in counsel and management - happen every other day in the business, we just don’t hear about most.

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35

Yes, there’s youth to consider, and the unreality of life in the eye of the Bond storm in general. Plus Laz was blessed from birth with good looks and charimsa and things just had a way of naturally workng out in his favor, so from his point of view landing the Bond gig might have just seemed like the latest lucky break in a life that would never run out of lucky breaks.

Also, it’s easy now after 50+ years and six lead actors to look back and say, “How could anyone be dumb enough to walk away” but from the POV of many in 1969 it was anything but certain the series would survive into a second decade. It’s worth remembering lots and LOTS of people were saying, “without Connery it’ll never work,” so it’s not that far fetched Laz would take that to heart, milk the gig for what it was worth and then bail out before the (assumed) crash and burn. Yeah, he miscalculated – big time – but with a little perspective it’s not really THE craziest decision anyone ever made.

Plus I saw an interview with him from a couple years back where he basically admitted that he never did develop the commitment or drive to commit to acting totally, because it was too much work. Given that being in yoke to EON was – in those days – almost a form of indentured servitude, it wouldn’t have ended well for someone with that outlook, regardless.

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36

Absolutely. He could have been right and celebrated as the most daring and clever breakthrough actor ever.

Thankfully he wasn’t.

37

You know in a way I’m even grateful his career tanked after OHMSS. It adds to the film’s mystique as an oddball entry that fell sideways into our universe from an alternate reality. Since he isn’t really known as anything other than Bond, it’s easier to accept him in the role. When I think about it, I like every other Bond actor better in one or more of their non-Bond roles. With Laz, there’s none of that baggage. He’s Bond, then he isn’t, and he’s off the cultural radar forever.

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38

Yes,the irony is,he did not want to be typecast as James bond,and now that is all he is known for!

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39

Much darker

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40

I must confess - I never really believed the love between Bond and Tracy (in the movie). Nor her suicidal behavior. I accepted it as a given and necessity. Maybe that is due to socialization at a later time, maybe it just is one of the weaknesses of that story.

Or in Fleming‘s work per se. Let’s face it: Vesper falling in love with Bond is also hard to believe, given her situation.

Bond actually never had the time to really fall in love. He is more about infatuation and attraction. He is in love with himself, definitely, but his understanding of love is akin to a school boy‘s romantic thoughts - quick to come up and to be acted on but not in for the long haul.

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