Favorite office scene with Bernard Lee as M ?

Firemass

From Dr. No thru Moonraker which is your favorite office scene with Bernard Lee ? They're all great and Lee is excellent in all of them, so which factors contribute to making one stand out from the rest?

(is LALD the only one not to feature Bond in M's office?)

At the moment by favorite is from Moonraker for the following reasons:

1. Last screen appearance from Lee makes this one extra special
2. Rather than Bond being an expert on the topic, Bond replies ,"Only what I read in the papers, sir"
3. Presence of Q in the office.
4. Hi-tech video monitor of the space shuttle crash sight is cool.
5. Testing out the wrist dart gun. "oh thank you!"
6. Flashbacks to this scene during centrifuge trainer

I have a feeling YOLT and OHMSS will be popular choices here.

hehadlotsofguts

In OHMSS when M says that Bond has had enough time to take down Blofeld and he stops Bond in his tracks when he tries to explain himself. ("That's all, that's all!")

Thunderpussy

Yes, I love his screen time in OHMSS with Bond " Strange thing snobbery "
and love the black tie meal in Goldfinger, with a mention for the start of DAF
I really like him rolling his eyes. )

MooseWithFleas

Firemass wrote:

From Dr. No thru Moonraker which is your favorite office scene with Bernard Lee ? They're all great and Lee is excellent in all of them, so which factors contribute to making one stand out from the rest?

(is LALD the only one not to feature Bond in M's office?)

At the moment by favorite is from Moonraker for the following reasons:

1. Last screen appearance from Lee makes this one extra special
2. Rather than Bond being an expert on the topic, Bond replies ,"Only what I read in the papers, sir"
3. Presence of Q in the office.
4. Hi-tech video monitor of the space shuttle crash sight is cool.
5. Testing out the wrist dart gun. "oh thank you!"
6. Flashbacks to this scene during centrifuge trainer

I have a feeling YOLT and OHMSS will be popular choices here.

I agree with you on Moonraker. When Drax outsmarts Bond when Bond, M, and Grey are investigating the laboratory, the result is Bond being ordered off the assignment. Then M and Bond have a moment where they covertly plan a "vacation" to Rio for him. That was a nice moment that showed the partnership between the two.

Le Samourai

"Give me your gun. Yes, I thought so...this damn Beretta again. I have told you about this before."

Mister Greene

Dr. No for sure to see SC walk into his office like he was being called in by his dad to get a talking too. Made you believe he was the man in charge, definatly the best

Fatsnbul

Everything about the YOLT scene.

Sherbrook

Not in the office, but in LALD when M announces that agent Baines was killed in the Caribbean

Bond- "I quite liked Baines, we shared the same bootmaker"

M- "Yes, quite"

Sir Hillary Bray

The late scene in OHMSS is my favorite. We have never seen M so weary, so deflated. His incredulous "when he retires into private life" comment about Blofeld is said with a bone-dry sarcasm we never see any other time. Bernard Lee is fantastic throughout this film.

Firemass -- Great topic and excellent argument for the Moonraker scene. I had forgotten about Bond's "only what I read in the papers" comment.

Peppermill

Maybe not my favorite but one I really like because it is so different are the scenes in TMWTGG. In the first scene he is not giving Bond an asignment but taking him off of one. In the scene on the wreck of the ship he is so fed up with 007 and Q it is really funny. "O shut up Q!"

DEFIANT 74205

My favourite was when he was giving Bond a dressing down in Goldfinger. Really showed him who's boss. No one gave Bond a dressing down the way Bernard Lee did.

"This isn't a personal vendetta, 007. It's an assignment like any other, and if you can't treat it as such, coldly and objectively, then 008 can replace you. You've hardly distinguished yourself, have you? You were to observe Mr Goldfinger, not borrow his girlfriend! Instead of that, Goldfinger goes off to Europe, and it's only by the grace of God, your friend Leiter and my intervention at the British embassy in Washington that you're not in the custody of the Miami Beach police!"

BIG TAM

I always like M's retort to Bond's question as to who would want to pay a million dollars to have him killed - "Jealous husbands, ourtaged chefs, humiliated tailors. The list is endless!"

Best bit of Bernie Lee dry wit for me is in LALD after Bond spends an age making a simple cup of coffee with his new-fangled espresso machine - "Is that all it does?"

My fave Bond/M scenes are those in FRWL, GF, OHMSS, LALD & TMWTGG. I also think the Bond/M/Freddie Gray scene with Drax in MR is priceless.

Blackleiter

DEFIANT 74205 wrote:

My favourite was when he was giving Bond a dressing down in Goldfinger. Really showed him who's boss. No one gave Bond a dressing down the way Bernard Lee did.

"This isn't a personal vendetta, 007. It's an assignment like any other, and if you can't treat it as such, coldly and objectively, then 008 can replace you. You've hardly distinguished yourself, have you? You were to observe Mr Goldfinger, not borrow his girlfriend! Instead of that, Goldfinger goes off to Europe, and it's only by the grace of God, your friend Leiter and my intervention at the British embassy in Washington that you're not in the custody of the Miami Beach police!"

You stole my pick! ) It's a great one and another piece of the mosaic that makes Goldfinger the quintessential Bond film for me.