If a long movie is well paced, it's not an issue. If all scenes are necessary and advance the plot forward, then a movie can be as long as it needs to be in order to effectively tell the story that it needs to tell. When a movie has extraneous scenes that don't advance the plot but merely provide spectacle, then there needs to be an edit in order to move things along. TB is a very, very good movie, but some of the scenes simply go on too long (especially the underwater battle at the end). It really needs to lose about 5 minutes total throughout the runtime, that's it.
This really is an excellent point!
In the main TB fulfills the above, but it does drag in some specific places and all of these are the underwater sequences: the kidnap of the bombs, Bond's foray to the Disco, the discovery of the Vulcan bomber, Bond's tepid solo fights during the final underwater battle. I enjoy the film a lot, it's one of my favourites, although i recognize it probably isn't one of the very best. What particularly annoys me is that while the spectacle drags and does nothing to propel the story, there are several scenes which make no sense what so-ever (Bond discovering Krist in his bath) or which fail to provide any explanation as to why they took place. Bond's first meeting with Domino is a good case as while it is amusing and we learn she lives on her 'guardian's' yacht, we don't know who her guardian is, what she's about or how Bond learns she's at the Nassau casino. Similarly Bond's invite to the Junkanoo and the scenes surrounding the chase lack focus and care; they need some explanation. Much of this is to do with a screenplay padded out to accommodate characters unnecessary to the plot (e.g. Krist, Paula).
...Bond's first meeting with Domino is a good case as while it is amusing and we learn she lives on her 'guardian's' yacht, we don't know who her guardian is, what she's about or how Bond learns she's at the Nassau casino...
I think this is basically the way Fleming wrote it, except Bond picked her up in a different manner (at the tobacconists?). But Fleming does not explain why he is picking up Domino, it becomes apparent from clues dropped in subsequent conversation. Bond has been prowling round Nassau a couple of days, has grown suspicious of this big yacht with all the secrecy, and has identified the girlfriend as his chance to insinuate himself. So he makes contact after this unseen detective work.
The film does complicate that by having Bond already know who Domino is before he even leaves London. Maybe in the film version he is simply starts by finding Domino and then looks at who she is hanging round with. Actually, that's simpler than the way Fleming wrote it.
It's not only the underwater scenes, it's that the storyline is unnecessarily complicated, especially in comparison to the book. Too many subplots and extra characters. The film might have worked better if Maibaum's 1961 screenplay had been used, but after Goldfinger the series was committed to excess. End result? Miles of footage filmed and dumped in Peter Hunt's lap, followed by a directive to slap the mass together into a film in time for the looming premiere.
Terence Young realized during post-production that "The underwater does not lend itself to a Bond picture. You cannot move somebody underwater at more than four miles an hour without his mask coming off." The underwater scenes were all filmed without sound, which made Peter Hunt groan "this is going to be terribly tedious," so Norman Wanstall, who was in charge of dubbing, created a rich variety of sounds to enliven the material, but during the final mix it was drowned out by Barry's score.
Comments
This really is an excellent point!
In the main TB fulfills the above, but it does drag in some specific places and all of these are the underwater sequences: the kidnap of the bombs, Bond's foray to the Disco, the discovery of the Vulcan bomber, Bond's tepid solo fights during the final underwater battle. I enjoy the film a lot, it's one of my favourites, although i recognize it probably isn't one of the very best. What particularly annoys me is that while the spectacle drags and does nothing to propel the story, there are several scenes which make no sense what so-ever (Bond discovering Krist in his bath) or which fail to provide any explanation as to why they took place. Bond's first meeting with Domino is a good case as while it is amusing and we learn she lives on her 'guardian's' yacht, we don't know who her guardian is, what she's about or how Bond learns she's at the Nassau casino. Similarly Bond's invite to the Junkanoo and the scenes surrounding the chase lack focus and care; they need some explanation. Much of this is to do with a screenplay padded out to accommodate characters unnecessary to the plot (e.g. Krist, Paula).
The film does complicate that by having Bond already know who Domino is before he even leaves London. Maybe in the film version he is simply starts by finding Domino and then looks at who she is hanging round with. Actually, that's simpler than the way Fleming wrote it.
Yes, and this ties in with her story about Players' cigarettes which she tells Bond later.
As we know, this was also shown in NSNA, but the scene was cut after filming and during re-writes replaced with the one in the spa
Terence Young realized during post-production that "The underwater does not lend itself to a Bond picture. You cannot move somebody underwater at more than four miles an hour without his mask coming off." The underwater scenes were all filmed without sound, which made Peter Hunt groan "this is going to be terribly tedious," so Norman Wanstall, who was in charge of dubbing, created a rich variety of sounds to enliven the material, but during the final mix it was drowned out by Barry's score.