OK, I've got to get the Bond thing out of my system but I don't want to drag it out for two weeks. This is a blog about comics, for Chrissake. Plus, the whole 'best Bond scene' thing has been done to death. Still, I must obey my Inner Master and write these posts. So I'm just going to power through these and not write a huge frickin' essay on each Bondian moment. Let's work through this together, you and me. We can do this!
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The kooky snowball fight at Piz Gloria at the end is crazy funny. They speed up the film and have dwarfs come out and throw snowballs and there's a spunky dog that catches the snowballs and it is hilariously hilarious. Put this wacky movie on your NetFlix list now!
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The kooky snowball fight at Piz Gloria at the end is crazy funny. They speed up the film and have dwarfs come out and throw snowballs and there's a spunky dog that catches the snowballs and it is hilariously hilarious. Put this wacky movie on your NetFlix list now!
Ha, I kid. I kid because I love. There is no wacky snowball fight, alas.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the better Bond films - you actually emotionally invest with him as a character, which is kind of rare in the series, to be honest. It's well written, but Lazenby is stiff an uncharismatic in his only appearance as James Bond. He works the fight scenes well, though. The climactic battle between Bond and Blofeld on a speeding bobsled at the end is truly Bondian. I mean, Telly Savales? Runaway bobsled? Sign me up for that shit.
6. Goldeneye
There's an excellent little moment in Goldeneye that is very Bondian. Near the end of the film, Bond plants explosive charges in the secret enemy base while enemy gunmen hunt him.* Ricochets are flying everywhere. A bullet strikes nearby Bond's head and instead of flinching, he just sort of moves his head away as if he was being bothered by a fly. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? I couldn't find a picture of it. If I remember, they used that little bit in the trailers for the movie because it's so damn Bondian. 7. For Your Eyes Only
My favorite Roger Moore Bond film - hell, my favorite Roger Moore film of all time** - is For Your Eyes Only. This was the first Bond movie I saw in the theater in 1981 and it made a big impression on Young Dave. It was just the right mix of humor and intrigue and action and disco music, and it is chalk full of Bondian moments.
You know, there's also a moment in the movie when Bond is startled by a pigeon whilst climbing. Birds frequently jump out of nowhere in Bond movies. If I had the time or energy I would edit together a compilation of all the times James Bond has been startled by birds, or at the very least every time birds make a sudden, unexpected appearance in the film. Anyway, I bet there would be a lot.
Right, let's get to the Bondian moment. I'm supposed to be quick about these.
Bond and Topol (who we loved in Fiddler on the Roof and Flash Gordon, two movies that perfectly describe my marriage***) lead an attack on evil smuggler Kristatos's dockside warehouse. There's a big fight, and the assassin Emile Locque, who killed just about everyone who gets within 20 feet of Bond, flees in his car. Bond huffs up numerous flights of stairs and cuts off the escaping vehicle at the top of a cliff. Bond shoots, he scores, and the car slides part way off the cliff.
Bond approaches Locques car, which is barely hanging on to the crumbling rock face. "You shot my homey," Bond says. "Y'all gotsta die." Well, maybe not those exact words, but something to that effect...
...and then he kicks the car off the cliff.
It's a rare moment of cold-bloodedness (I don't think that's a word) by Roger Moore's Bond, and rumor has it that Moore complained to director John Glen that he thought the bit was too cruel, but was ultimately convinced to do it.
Young Dave circa 1981 was blown away by the whole kicking-the-car-off-the-cliff gag. I think it's a fantastic scene and is truly Bondian.
8. The Spy Who Loved Me
Speaking of cold-blooded, here's the scene I mentioned in a previous post, where James Bond casually knocks a bad guy to his death. I know that I am comitting heresy by ranking For Your Eyes Only in front of The Spy Who Loved Me, but there it is.
* I had this wrong, originally. I wrote that the Bondian moment in question took place in Russia in the middle of the movie, when it clearly took place in Cuba at the end of the movie. My thanks to DLB readers Patrick and 1em for pointing this out and humiliating me.****
** Aside from the film Ffolkes aka North Sea Hijack with Tony Perkins. Awesome.
***I mean that in the best possible way.
**** Kidding.
20 comments:
I totally remember that bit in Goldeneye, although it doesn't take place in the archives... it's towards the end in 006's Cuban radio telescope hideout of doom. Bond is setting an explosive mine at the time, making it doubly badass.
I totally agree. Ffolkes is an awesome movie, Roger Moore's high point (aside from The Saint, of course.)
let me preface this by saying i loved CASINO ROYALE, but i am noticing that reviewers referred to it as the darkest Bond film. This may be heresy to some, but LICENSE TO KILL is pretty damn dark and pretty damn good. Dave, what's your take on the second Dalton flick? Also, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is dope! my first theatrical Bond as well (apparently i experienced SPY WHO LOVED ME in the womb).
Well Dave after constant Bond proding moments, I convinced my wife to go see Casino Royale. It kicked much ass, and my wife even agreed, which is amazing cause thats like the pope condoning gay marriage (that would be good for Guy Gardner and Mr. Miracle I guess).
Its ok to take a small break from comics to discuss the truly awesome.
What Patrick said: the vaguely-irritated head-twitch is during the gun battle at the Aricebo installation. And yes, that is very nearly the absolute definitive Bond moment. I'd been waiting for you to mention it.
I'm also waiting, no doubt in vain, for a mention of Dalton's moment in "The Living Daylights" after his contact gets killed in Berlin. The look on his face as the balloon pops is kind of scary. There's a stone-cold berserker in there, and you get to see him just for a second. Of course, the script sabotages him by not having an immediate followthrough ass-kicking, but hey.
-1em
See, I would have sworn I was the only person who knew about Ffolkes....
Ffolkes was as big an influence on me when i was a kid as the early Bond flicks were. One of the scenes from Ffolkes that sticks with me even now is the scene where the hippy-looking dude with the beard is forced to drink the coffee that he knows is full of poison. Freaked me out. Inspired (i was 13 or 14) I would write my own spy thrillers, each of which would involve the forced suicide of one of the good guys, to bring a level of true grit to the adventure.
The moment you mention from Goldeneye is memorable in large part because it's really the only truly Bondian moment in the whole movie. I remember telling people at the time that while I liked Goldeneye, it felt more like a Remington Steele episode writ large than a Bond movie... with the sole exception of that one scene, which was enough to give me hope for the future of the franchise
I thought the scene in GoldenEye where Bond, after destroying half of St. Petersburg with a tank, pops his head out, surveys the damage and the direction the bad guys are going in, looks around, and straightens his tie was majorly Bondian.
Roger Moore's best movie moment after Ffolkes and Bond? His panicked non-phone call to Stewie in Family Guy: The Movie. Not only it is one of the most gut-busting moments in a film that runs out of them after 45 minutes, you've got to admire Moore having the guts letting the writers imply he slept with a one year old.
I remember Ffolkes from when HBO was the repository for all the forgotten movies of the world like "Super Fuzz" and "The Beastmaster." I think they call it something different when it's on TV now because otherwise people have no idea what it's about.
The follow-up one-liner from that scene in FYEO was pretty cool, too. "Had no head for heights."
I think my favourite moment in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is during the opening scene - when the car skreetches away, on a sandy beach.
For those of you who haven't seen it, the trailer for Goldeneye is up on YouTube. The "head move" that Dave mentions is at 0:48.
And it RULES.
"** Aside from the film Ffolkes aka North Sea Hijack with Tony Perkins. Awesome."
I was so young the first time I saw Ffolkes I felt sure that my impression of it as super-awesomeness was a misremembering.
Then I saw it again a few years ago and was blown away by how it was even better than I remembered.
I must have seen Ffolkes half a dozen times on cable back in the early '80s.
"I suppose you're one of those people who does the Times crossword puzzle in ten minutes."
"I have never taken ten minutes."
Loved that moment in GOLDENEYE. Also, the fight on the antennae with Trevelyan was particularly well choreographed, and pretty brutal.
Count me among the people that saw Ffolkes approximately 79 times back when HBO showed it every third movie. Glad to see I wasn't the only one.
Yes, yes, YES! I totally agree with your choices, Dave. Such great moments.
Big hell yes on Ffolkes, not only the highwater mark for Moore, but a damn good role for Anthony Perkins as well...
nice
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