Why DAF feels different to other Bond films
MilleniumForce
LondonPosts: 1,214MI6 Agent
I don't know if anyone else does, but I feel as though DAF has a different feel to it than the others. There are a few elements from DAF that have not been repeated in the series, or just feel odd in the film. Here's some:
- The PTS. We don't see Bond, just a POV of him beating up a few people. I know it's to build up for Connery returning, but I feel it's different to the others, and I don't feel it works for Bond. However, it would suit as a opening sequence to an Austin Powers sequel due to the people he meets and some of what he says.
- Characters talking over a scene they're not in. I know it's done in OHMSS, but Lazenby had quite a good narration voice. But here it seems a bit strange. We have them talking about the diamond smuggling whilst we actually see this. It's like in a heist movie where the plan is being told whilst it's happening. It also leads to something strange. When the narration does end, we have the scene with Wint and Kidd. And then...were back to Bond and the others having the same conversation.
- The way Bond hangs up on Q. It's quite cartoonish, just having the phone lying on the bed with Bond gone. It's not something he'd rush for, like he does when Silva escapes. This is just Franks. We've never seen him, he's not that big of a villain...but the way the scene goes, you would have thought Blofeld had escaped!
- Bond doesn't get a break. This is something that's weird to explain. Bond switches his ID with Franks in Amsterdam. He arrives in Vegas as Franks, he's taken to the crematorium as Franks....he seems to be going on for a while. I know it's stupid, but it just bugs me. I know it's not impossible, but it just feels like it goes on for too long.
- Cheap effects. We're talking DAD quality effects here.
- The PTS. We don't see Bond, just a POV of him beating up a few people. I know it's to build up for Connery returning, but I feel it's different to the others, and I don't feel it works for Bond. However, it would suit as a opening sequence to an Austin Powers sequel due to the people he meets and some of what he says.
- Characters talking over a scene they're not in. I know it's done in OHMSS, but Lazenby had quite a good narration voice. But here it seems a bit strange. We have them talking about the diamond smuggling whilst we actually see this. It's like in a heist movie where the plan is being told whilst it's happening. It also leads to something strange. When the narration does end, we have the scene with Wint and Kidd. And then...were back to Bond and the others having the same conversation.
- The way Bond hangs up on Q. It's quite cartoonish, just having the phone lying on the bed with Bond gone. It's not something he'd rush for, like he does when Silva escapes. This is just Franks. We've never seen him, he's not that big of a villain...but the way the scene goes, you would have thought Blofeld had escaped!
- Bond doesn't get a break. This is something that's weird to explain. Bond switches his ID with Franks in Amsterdam. He arrives in Vegas as Franks, he's taken to the crematorium as Franks....he seems to be going on for a while. I know it's stupid, but it just bugs me. I know it's not impossible, but it just feels like it goes on for too long.
- Cheap effects. We're talking DAD quality effects here.
1.LTK 2.AVTAK 3.OP 4.FYEO 5.TND 6.LALD 7.GE 8.GF 9.TSWLM 10.SPECTRE 11.SF 12.MR 13.YOLT 14.TLD 15.CR (06) 16.TMWTGG 17.TB 18.FRWL 19.TWINE 20.OHMSS 21.DAF 22.DAD 23.QoS 24.NSNA 25.DN 26.CR (67)
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Bond ? or would it have been far less camp and full of jokes ?, maybe that was the direction they
were going in, anyway ?
Yes, we do.
Yes, we have.
I've always wondered how he would have tried to keep a British Accent up.
This recalls how Bond left Moneypenny on the phone in Thunderball, so this isn't limited to DAF. It's pretty urgent. If Franks got to Tiffany before Bond could stop him, his whole cover and plan would have been ruined. Franks was the only villain in the story Bond knew of at the time, so why shouldn't it be a big deal? Plus, we saw him earlier in the film when he is arrested after leaving his car. Remember, Bond thinks he killed Blofeld in the PTS.
I think the film would have been the same, whether they got John Gavin or if Lazenby stayed on.
The PCS of FYEO was created with a possible new actor in mind, because Sir Roger was in two minds about coming back. Hence seeing Tracy's grave, and a certain bald white cat carrying no good who gets shafted. Or stacked.
In the same way, certain comedy elements, most notably the flying carpet bit were dropped from TLD and the drama tightened up to make the film more fitting to Mr Dalton. When each actor has been cast, the story has been altered to fit the actor.
I suspect they tried to make DAF a bit lighter not necessarily just to accommodate Sir Sean, who handles the comedy well, but the lighter theatrical twists of Charles Grey as a much feyer Blofeld, and Putter Smith and Bruce Greenwood's almost gleeful turns as Wint & Kidd. It always puzzled me that as a gay couple, neither Wint nor Kidd said or did anything to suggest Bond pushed their buttons. - Though Kidd does comment on how lovely Tiffany C is. The whole film has a slightly sureal quality to it, and it does come between OHMSS, one of the more serious films, and LALD, which feels contemporary in spite of all that creepy voodoo stuff. - DAF is almost whimsically jovial from scene to scene compared to either of them, as though the characters see whats going on as "a jolly romp." That feeling / impression is not lessened with Bond playing wrecking ball with the baddie towards the end!
I think Pussy has a new crate of Claranet at the SABS. - Bombe Surprise for pud anyone?
In speaking parts, yes. On screen, no.
With that said, without the early intervention from the Secret Service the world powers would have eventually been confronted with Blofeld’s threat, so it seems all of Bond’s early efforts lead to Blofeld’s secret HQ off and neutralizing that threat.
Anyway out of the land of conjecture...
DAF, LALD and TMWTGG all have a similar feeling to them. I can imagine the Vegas Cop being Pepper very easily...
:v
Visually:
1) This Bond isn't filmed in the bright, warm technicolor tones of previous Bond films but instead has a more muted, early 1970s palette, which the next two films would share.
2) The clothes and hairstyles aren't as conservative. There are the requisite big sideburns, and Bond gets to wear more patterns and earth tones. Check out the plaid sportcoat he wears later in the film, for instance.
3) This movie has more graphic violence, including blood, than previous Bond films. It also has more suggestions of nudity, including the brief topless moment and Tiffany Case's bottom cleavage.
Tone
1) For lack of a better term, this Bond film is kinky. I'd say it goes even beyond camp. There are constant iterations of, at the time, "out there" sexuality -- homosexuality, cross-dressing, S & M. A cut scene with Connery and St. John comes closer to full nudity than even more recent Bond films.
2) The stereotypes are even more one-dimensional. Everything from the brightly smiling "darkies" in Africa to the Italian mobsters to the American redneck cops. Earlier Bonds had their types, especially with Asians, but these are to the point of caricature. The moment with the lady turning into a gorilla is especially offensive, though I will say as a child of the 1970s, not uncommon.
3) The humor is clearly meant to be adult, but at the same time, it's more juvenile. Instead of "Red fish with wine. That should have told me something" or even "Something big has come up," we get "Blow it out your pants" or "Named after your father, perhaps?" For all the guff Roger Moore has to take, that last line in particular seems like something his Bond would say, and it predates him. Truly, the only characters who get some sophistication are Wynt and Kidd.
4) The violence is more cruel. One could argue that Bond sealing Count Lippe in the sauna or the spider left in Bond's bed were mean, but here, we watch a man die agonizingly of a scorpion bite, see a drowned little old lady, watch a helicopter explode into the desert, see a man dispatched with scalpels, watch a Blofeld double boiled, watch another Blofeld double succumb to an exploding piton, and so forth. It's not just the suggestion of cruelty but actual on screen cruelty.
Music
1) This is probably John Barry's most ethereal score for a Bond film. A lot of films of the early 1970s had a kind of sad but sophisticated soundtrack. Gone is the big brass of films like Goldfinger and Thunderball, and even the action and lushness of soundtracks like You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This film for the most part sounds mysterious in an almost haunting kind of way, though there are moments where it reminds viewers of previous scores. But this may be why 007 -- which I like -- seems a bit out of place in the movie, with a jaunty sense of adventure the rest of the soundtrack ignores.
2) Sometimes the music is less musically but more tonal. Barry has done this with other films, but not so much with Bond films.
Acting
1) Connery is clearly older and fatter than we've seen him before. He looks better or worse depending on the scene, but combined with a kind of lethargy, doesn't seem to bring his A game to the role. He's still good -- he's Connery -- but so many of the canards about his Bond can probably be traced to this film, where he gives his least nuanced performance in the role.
2) Some of the supporting characters are played or dubbed by actors of dubious ability. Lana Wood, who is rather stunning to look at, nonetheless sounds terrible -- the voice delivery is on par with Talisa Soto. Norman Burton's Felix Leiter sounds better, but he's terribly miscast and probably only so because he's shorter and stouter than Connery. To me, this is the first time in the series where the rest of the cast seems rather haphazardly assembled, as the Bond series tended to do an excellent job with its supporting players.
2) Charles Gray's Blofeld s definitely not the same guy on the boat in Dr. No or even skiing after Bond in the last film. I like him, and I don't have a problem with his sounding British, as he seems like a bloviating CEO type, but it is a very different interpretation than we've seen before.
Special Effects
1) The special effects have a kind of pared-down quality that was not unusual for the early 1970s, despite milestones like 2001: A Space Odyssey.
2) At the same time, though, the actual special effects sequences are not particularly imaginative in concept. We get moments like the dish expanding on the satellite or the explosions on the oil rig -- very conventional compared to, I don't know, a spaceship swallowing up another spaceship or a helicopter using a magnet to hijack a car.
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Where do we see kids previously? Not doubting you, just can't think of examples.
There are kids in OHMSS at the wedding.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
In a nutshell, that's what makes DAF feel different from the rest. It is OTT camp and of all the Bond movies that take place in America, this is the hokiest, in terms of how Americans were portrayed, even more so than the OTT American urban drama that would take place in the next movie.
And at the Junkanoo in TB.
1) they were the first Bond films of the 70's
2) they were both written by Tom Mankiewicz
Films changed fairly fundamentally from the 60's / 70's. The feelgood factor of the 60's, which spilled over into films and was fed by the films, was long gone by 1971 and the focus was on grittier, darker - and quirkier - pictures. I think DAF and LALD reflect this. They're both much more urban than other Bond films. They're much more tongue in cheek than previous Bonds (acknowledging the fact that by 1971 it was much harder to be straight faced about a super cool superhero saving the world) and the stories started to reflect more "real" threats than world domination (diamond smuggling, drug running and with TMWTGG the energy crisis).
with the failure of TMWTGG and Harry Saltzman's departure Cubby Broccoli changed the format to focus on large scale, set piece driven adventure. I'd argue that the 3 Mankiewicz films were the last three to contain any great sense of intrigue in Bond films. That's partly why they appeal to fans. They're a bit different
And in the circus in OP...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
As well as writing the Scripts for DAF,LALD and TMWTGG, didn't tom mankiewicz also assist on TSWLM as well?
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
AJB007 Favorite Film Rankings
Pros and Cons Compendium (50 Years)
Diamonds are Forever, for lack of a better term, also feels "middle aged" in tone, as though acknowledging that Bond is not the youthful guy of even four years earlier.