After a long(ish) gap, Bond is back!
The Spy Who Loved Me is the 1977 entry into the Series and yet another Roger Moore Film. I'm pumped!
With a three-year gap between Films, did much change?
Well, we have a new Director- although he did do You Only Live Twice with Connery- and 2 new Writers. Supposedly Tom Mankiewicz did an uncredited rewrite.
In short, this is NOT based on the Book whatsoever and was compiled from a composite of various Screenplays and tweaked when rights weren't available.
We wouldn't get SPECTRE again until, well, Spectre with Daniel Craig.
This would turn out to be the final Film by French Cinematographer Claude Renoir (not the painter) as well.
The Plot involves a crazy rich guy (in both senses of the phrase) and a Plot that manages to unite Britain and Russia. It also introduces one of- if not the- the most famous Bond Villain Henchmen ever in Jaws.
This Film has a few Jaws connections, it seems, from this Character to using a shark and even...Albert R. Broccoli turning Steven Spielberg down when he offered to Direct?!?
That's real (according to Wikipedia)!
Will this Bond Film return things to glory? To find out, read on...
We get a big Intro that does a number of notable things.
There's a parallel Scene with Bond leaving his lady and Barbara Bach leaving her man.
Said man is the lead person pursuing Bond down the slopes and gets killed.
He's a crazy rich guy who is leveraging a tech for tracking submarines as part of his evil plan.
To check off an
Austin Powers box, he drops a lady in a shark tank to kill her.
He has two main Henchmen- Jaws and the burly guy from Dr. Phibes Rises Again (the 2nd greatest Film of all time).
Anyone who has seen the blueprints to the device must die!
Moore and Bach are also separately sent to find just that, meeting up with a source in Egypt.
They aren't combative, but they aren't working together...until Jaws tries to kill them both.
They get away and keep pursuing the tech while slowly falling in love.
Like the Title!
Jaws, of course, shows up to kill him on the train a la Live and Let Die.
I guess he's early for his Show Up at the Finale to kill Bond, since he misses it.
This is a Bond Film and we need implausible, but amazing technology.
In this case, Bond and Bach are pursued by the bad guys on the road by a bike, some cars and a helicopter (flown by Caroline Munro!)!
Bond drives into the Ocean and the car turns into a submarine...kind of.
They end up on a Submarine together when the Brits and Russia agree to join forces.
Things get complicated when she learns that Bond killed her man (who was played by the guy who nearly took Moore's job).
On the bad guy's ship, a shootout/fight breaks out.
Bond uses science (he does?!?) to ride a bomb to take out the blast shield to stop the evil plan.
Jaws and Bond have one last face-off (pre-finale) and he uses a big-ass magnet to drag Jaws into the water. He fights the shark, so Jaws vs. Jaws?
This is after Bond took out Stromberg.
Bond and Bach escape Stromberg's Base (Atlantis) before the Navy destroys it.
They get away in an escape pod (naturally) and their vehicle is brought in by both sides.
Bond makes a sex pun and the Film ends.
A big improvement over the last Film- sorry, Scaramanga.
This one feels like a fully formed Script and it all flows together tonally. There are silly moments- like how Jaws can rip doors off of cars and can't die- and it doesn't fight against the Film's tone.
The Plot is pretty silly, but treated seriously. So, when the bizarre stuff happens, you accept it.
After Bond's 27th death quip, you're in it to win it.
Moore said that this was his favorite Bond and, yeah, I can see that. It doesn't have That Boat Chase, but it is damn good.
This one feels like a big, grand Bond Adventure.
Thankfully, this one brought Bond back to the big time and we got lots more of these Films. It's crazy to think what life would be like without it.
Speaking of things that life would be different without, is this a rip-off of the
Jaws Intro?
Next up, a little diversion to a Parody Film which is topical again. Has this one aged as well fine wine or Surge Cola? Stay tuned...
