I’m fond of Charles Grey in general and the death of fake Blofeld opener does a neat job of convincing us he’s dead as a parrot.
The Franks fight pulls no punches - one of the rare occasions (along with Grant and Odd Job) where Connery-Bond met his match…almost.
Tiffany Case is good value; there’s some great one liners and Wink & Kidd are among the very best - probably the creepiest - henchmen in the series.
But when we reach that oil rig and the ‘mayhem’ begins it’s as though the writers ran out of paper and thought they’d just make up the ending from there: Bish, bash, bosh, end credits. You know you’ve got a problem when the traditional epilogue dispatching of henchmen is more fun than the whole of the preceding finale. Very poor indeed.
Well, you know that the finale was botched by a premature explosion…
Apart from that, I agree absolutely: DAF has lots of entertaining elements and still is one of those Bond films I liked much better than I thought in retrospect.
I’ve always thought Connery’s performance in DAF is massively superior to the one he gave in YOLT. There’s a level of playfulness, interspersed with sheer control of his surroundings that’s a joy to watch.
And with Elrod House featured, together with the stunning WW penthouse, it’s a beautiful film to look at, with Ken Adam at the top of his game. Sean nonchalantly walking onto the lift and then using his piton gun to gain access to the penthouse is one of my top 5 effortlessly cool Bond moments… and then we get the “Right idea Mr Bond… But wrong pussy” pay off. What more could anyone want?!
Connery is playing Bond in a third way ( discount YOLT as you can see his frustration on screen, I would suggest it’s Sean Connery speaking lines from a script and not playing a character) Bond of DN and FRWL is markedly different in character than Bond of Goldfinger and Thunderball , the characterization different again in DAF. There is no way the Bond of Doctor No would take kiss himself against a wall…
I love DAF up until it gets to the oil rig, then I switch off , it has a witty script and is a great movie to listen to.
Good point well made… but… that’s only 20 minutes in a 2 hour film. And Mr Wint and Mr Kidd’s final go at Bond on the ship is well worth putting up with the underwhelming oil rig assault for. Oh, and I will freely admit that the 3 explosions caused by the satellite are by far the worst special effects in the series… at least until cgi tidal waves hit our screens!
I tend to look away or cover my eyes when any of these appear onscreen.
And I’ll never forget the moment when I first saw the tidal wave in cinema. I sunk deeper and deeper in my seat and my only thought was “Good that no one around knows that your a guy from a Bond fan site…”
I don’t really mind dawn raid. However, I do have a problem with everyone just falling down and playing dead. When the gas was tested the men choked and coughed before dying. But then again the pilots were in the air so maybe just falling down was fine.
And the UK only introduced 12 in 89, I still wonder, with some…more risqué?..aspects of Bond, it still managed to avoid a higher rating, and indeed kept them on home video (mostly-Goldeneye and Casino Royale both jumped to 15 in the UK, and others jumped to 12 in Ireland)
