PROS
- first complete Barry score, including the 007 Theme.
- The title toon plays one more time, now with words, when Bond finally enters, some 17 minutes into the film.
- Matt Monroe uses a bit more vibrato than Sinatra would, but otherwise has a very similar voice.
- First sexy credits
- Old world charm. Venice, Instanbul, vast underground reservoirs, gypsy camps, the Orient Express ... This film doesn't have the futuristic Ken Adam sets, instead its aesthetic is the complete opposite, with all the tactile textures of thousands of years of history underlying every step Bond makes.
- All that weight of history does suggest Bond is little more than a puppet, a bit player going through the predestined motions in a never-ending clash of east and west dating back to the time of the Romans.
- and on a related note: Bond's Bentley!
- SPECTRE
- Dr No only really spoke the word once, when he named his employer. It is in the first 16 minutes of this film we learn most of what we know of SPECTRE, and they come across as very scary. They are a vast operation with many employees and expensive real estate, yet the world does not suspect they exist, orchestrating events from behind the scenes.
- original Blofeld (Anthony Dawson, aka Profesor Dent) has hair (!) and a much more ominous voice (Eric Pohlman) than any later Blofeld except maybe Savalas. Klebb trembles in fear when he speaks to her.
- the Blofeld scenes actually play out some of the meeting room drama from Thunderball, two years before that film was made (specifically the death of the failed agent)
... did EON at this point assume that they would never get to make Thunderball , so they swiped the scenes establishing SPECTRE, as they had swiped the Casino introduction for Bond in the last picture? The establishing shot even shows Blofeld himself has an oversized yacht similar the Disco Volante.
- SPECTRE's plan makes more sense than whatever SMERSH were hoping to achieve in the book. By aggravating tensions between Britain and the USSR they hop to start World War III.
This adds a major level of complexity to Fleming's plot, and puts the Byzantine in Byzantium.
There is a lot of story in this one, a logical flow from beginning to end with many threads to keep track of, and the sense this is only a small part of a much larger ongoing drama. Makes Dr No seem like a sequence of episodic cliches in comparison.
- Gogol's here, and he still has hair! He's in a lot of scenes, and is bad! Red Grant jumps at his command, and Klebb fears him too.
- 53:08 : I just noticed this near subliminal shot this last viewing. I imagine it was an easy edit for teevee, but I've had the dvd well over a decade! Much more rewarding to hit pause here than the teasing decontamination scene of the previous movie.
- "I think my mouth is too big" "it's just the right size ... for me!!"
- gratuitous T & A:
1. The masseuse who struts to stage centre, before removing her shirt.
2. Kerim Bey's girlfriend, introduced with a lingering down-her-top camera angle.
3. ...and Leila! the belly dancer from the credits returns for a complete performance at the Gypsy camp (I once knew a girl called Leila but she didn't dance like that)
4. and of course the gypsy camp cat fight (and the implied threesome)
- they have really ramped up the sexy content since Dr No, which merely had one woman in a white bikini.
- You know Bond had to measure up to Tanya's expectations after he spent the night with the two gypsy girls? That is some Mojo!
- Moneypenny's face while M is listening to the tape.
She really does live vicariously through Bond's adventures, and knows exactly what he has to do for king and country!
- Desmond Llewellyn quietly lurking outside M's office, before M invite him in. He doesn't say much once in the office, and Bond and he don't banter, but he's already much more entertaining than the boring original Boothroyd in the previous film.
- Red Grant stalking Bond inside the train while Bond paces the platform. Shot ends with his reflection visible in the train's window. This is a good shot, must have been tricky to choreograph.
- Watch Tatiana's face when they sit down to dinner with Grant. Bond had just had a shout at her, when last seen together, so that may be why she is pouting, but I think she knows who Grant is and that something bad is about to happen and end her nice Western holiday.
CONS
- Complete Bond theme record plays one more time while he checks into the hotel room, and comes to an anticlimactic end when he calls the front desk. We just heard it five minutes ago when he was at the airport! Sure travel was exciting in 1963 but not that exciting!
- No Ken Adam sets, but the old world charm more than makes up for it, and some Adam sets might have undermined all that.
- "she should have kept her mouth shut": if EON could get Anita Ekberg for one film, why didn't they use her in a Bond film? imagine finding Anita Ekberg under the sheets in your hotel room!! oh my heart...
- I just realised I don't understand the business with the briefcases at the end: there's two of them! Where did Grant get his? Did he kill a British agent offscreen and steal his luggage, without telling the audience?
Anyway I don't believe such a disciplined killer would compromise his mission for a few gold sovereigns he could have stolen after his victim was safely dead.
- what does Tatiana really think is going on? Does she know Bond is going to be killed, or if not what does she think is the point of it all? I don't get her motivation in either version of the story.
- Extra action sequences at the end work perfectly in this film, but set a bad precedent for Casino Royale
- Gypsy girls don't tear each other clothes off. Actually, I'm quite satisfied with that scene as is, but I know Fleming complained, so if my buddy Ian Fleming sees that as a CON then so do I!
