Watching MR again last night I took note of the sequence where Jaws is carried away by the Mardi Gras crowd. In reality that wouldn’t be enough to stop him from returning again quickly. But Bond and Manuela stand there calmly. As you say, different times. The film intended for him to be gone so he was - until the next sequence.
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Rio did awake his romantic instincts. And who knows what happened in that night…
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You can pre order it on Amazon, release date 24 february 2025.
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Received the blu ray half an hour ago. Great to have this one!
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I came across this interview with Sir Roger for TSWLM. It has the following delicious quote from Sir Roger: “The British put their best secret agent on it…they couldn’t get Sean Connery so they got me!” (around the 7:35 mark)
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I was browsing the 007 Store and saw one of the few things worth purchasing: a t-shirt that says Roger Moore is James Bond. I thought what the heck, it’s a true statement and it’s still summer here.
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Isn’t it saying “as James Bond” instead of “is James Bond”?
Oddly cursed when they put IS JAMES BOND on the poster., it always ends up their last film.
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Was showing my youngest TSWLM today, he enjoyed it because “its goofy”
Welcome to 70’s James Bond.
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I look forward to his response to MR.
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That’s great. Roger’s films are the best to show a younger audience to try and kickstart a fandom. There’s plenty of gadgets and I like that they’re playful. If they’re just military tech the magic disappears.
That’s what the Moore era was: magic. Underwater cars and boats disguised as icebergs were the norm. Detractors say Moore’s run went overboard but there’s no doubt in my mind that too much realism turns Bond into a generic thriller.
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Agreed!
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I’ve been focused on Octopussy lately. It’s a successful blend of the fantastical elements of The Spy Who Loved Me/Moonraker and the grounded aspects of For Your Eyes Only. His age works really well and is an asset rather than a disadvantage. It’s the end result of Bond’s years worth of experience winning against the odds. The Faberge egg auction is the controlled chaos of a master gambler who correctly judges his enemy and pushes him to the limit. This is again on show against Khan’s rigged dice. These scenes never get old.
There’s vulnerability in there too. Regular people speeding away from Bond in the middle of nowhere conveys a sense of powerlessness and reality in a way few Bond films manage. With no gadgets it’s just him on his own with everything at stake. The clown disguise works in a similar way. There’s frustration in being dressed in the least convincing disguise possible to get people to listen to you about a nuclear bomb. A fantastic film that does a lot right.
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Totally agree. And Roger Moore’s scene with Steven Berkoff as Orlov is some of his best dramatic acting in the series as well.
Octopussy is arguably the most underrated film in the series.
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And really, after the excitement for Connery’s return in NSNA overshadowed the really poor result, the so much superior film.
Unfortunately, the critics had it out for Moore back then and ridiculed him and the film while praising NSNA.
So much for zeitgeist and mob mentality.
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V happy to see some Octopussy love! It gets so much right, skillfully blending ludicrous Bond fantasy with a contemporary and grounded threat. The action slaps too. Lastly, I think Louis Jourdan’s Kamal Khan is a fantastic villain: I never quite get why he performs so badly in deathmatches.
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That was a weird thing to live through. People were so excited about Connery coming back that NSNA didn’t really need a marketing campaign at all: Connery was the marketing campaign, and Connery ultimately was the one thing making the film itself work, to the extent it did. But he was enough: critics who’d been waiting for years for his return fell all over themselves gushing praise.
It’s not like there was nothing to like about NSNA, but IMO any assessment even halfway based on objectivity would find it at best no better than the average EON entry and plainly derivative of same. Once you get past the acknowledgement of Bond’s age – which is pretty much a non-issue after the first 20 minutes or so – it falls into the usual formula, only on a fraction of the budget. The only thing “special” about the film was “the return of the king,” which is after all not even a diegetic element but a factor the 1983 audience brought into the cinema with them. And while I might’ve expected the likes of 007 Magazine to swoon like a bobbysoxer at a Sinatra concert, it was truly odd to see it from the likes of, say, Gene Siskel. Proof that critics are as prone to getting caught up in a cultural moment as anyone else. It’s obvious the reason NSNA is less cherished now than in ‘83 is because “you had to be there.” Outside the cultural moment in which it was released, it has to be evaluated on its own merits. And it ain’t great.
I obviously preferred Octopussy but I’m not sure I’d call it an entirely successful blend of TWSLM/MR excess and FYEO groundedness. At the time I thought it was a marriage of styles that didn’t quite come together. It felt like the OTT elements were a case of EON hedging its bets against the competition by throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I wonder if it would’ve hewn closer to the FYEO path if it hadn’t been trying to “out-Bond” NSNA in every way possible.
That said, Roger is still at the height of his powers and gives us many great moments, as cited upthread. I will always wish he signed off with OP.
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I hope Sir Roger was able to move his head in the next moment.
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I hope he did.
I purchased the magazine because of an article in it by Gordon Gow on Orson Welles that I wanted. It was serendipity that Sir Roger was on the cover. I had hoped their might be an article about the film as well, but there was just a picture spread. By this point, Films and Filming had become increasing devoted to the visual.
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