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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 1, 2020 6:09:53 GMT -5
I loved all the Bond movies he starred in with the exception of Never say Never again. I really enjoy Diamonds are forever , it might be the movie with the most intentional laughs. Let's not forget Bambi and Thumper.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 1, 2020 23:39:56 GMT -5
I loved all the Bond movies he starred in with the exception of Never say Never again. I really enjoy Diamonds are forever , it might be the movie with the most intentional laughs. Let's not forget Bambi and Thumper. Ah, yes; fat Bond, with bad toupee. I enjoy the movie; but, Sean did it for a truckload of money and the end result kind of shows it. Then again, that was Eon's motivation for making it; so, I don't blame Sean for sticking it to them. It signaled that we were in complete cartoon land with the series. The most ridiculous idea was everyone seemed to have heard of Bond. A world-famous secret agent? Even the CIA isn't that inept! Connery once told Christopher Reeve that Tom Mankiewicz was the one who turned Bond into a farce, with his jokey script and cautioned him with working with him, in the Superman series (where he did work on the script). Still, I love Jimmy Dean in that thing. Bert Saxby? Tell him he's fired!
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 2, 2020 5:05:21 GMT -5
They begged Connery to do the movie because of the lackluster performance of the previous movie that started George Lazenby. That’s show biz. I loved all the quips in this movie. " That's the second time I smelled that cologne, and both times I smelled a rat".
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 2, 2020 13:24:26 GMT -5
I saw Never Say Never at the theater but I had no Bond understanding. It was a group choice. I don't remember anything much about it, it was what you did so you could get others to put up with Sgt. Benjamin or the Incredible Shrinking Woman. I think For Your Eyes Only, Never, The Octagon and even The Nude Bomb all kind of got blended together in my memory. ![:-/](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/undecided.png)
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 3, 2020 0:09:51 GMT -5
I saw Never Say Never at the theater but I had no Bond understanding. It was a group choice. I don't remember anything much about it, it was what you did so you could get others to put up with Sgt. Benjamin or the Incredible Shrinking Woman. I think For Your Eyes Only, Never, The Octagon and even The Nude Bomb all kind of got blended together in my memory. ![:-/](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/undecided.png) Well, one out of three....... I always found For Your Eyes Only to be the best of Roger Moore's, from a story standpoint. He was a bit overly long in the tooth, by that point, but didn't look quite as ancient as in View to a Kill. Hate the version of the Bond theme in that one, which was too disco-y, in a timeframe where disco was pretty much dead. The Sheena Easton theme was pretty good, though and her biggest hit. Never Say Never Again was just a retread of Thunderball. It all derived from Kevin McClory's lawsuit over that film. He had been partnered with Ian Fleming to create a Bond film, before the Eon films, called James Bond of the Secret service and Longitude 78 Degrees West (alternatively). He wrote a screenplay, which is the basic plot; but, it was never filmed. Fleming turned it into the novel Thunderball and McClory sued. There were variances and McClory ended up with the screen rights and Fleming the literary rights. McClory was named a producer, in a deal to due a film version of Thunderball. They also got the rights to use SPECTRE and Blofeld in the films, for a period of time. McClory had been trying to produce a new version of his script, called Warhead, through the mid-70s and into the 80s, before it finally got done as Never Say Never Again, which came out the same summer as Octopussy. He was still peddling a rival series for some time, which Sony had the rights for, before they ended up buying MGM and got the complete Bond rights. McClory was the reason you didn't see SPECTRE or Blofeld again, after Diamonds Are Forever, apart from the unnamed bald enemy in the opening teaser of For Your Eyes Only, who is, obviously, meant to be Blofeld. At one point, The Spy Who Loved Me had a script that started out with a new generation of SPECTRE killing off the old one; but, the idea was abandoned and they ended up cobbling together a script from elements of Thunderball and You Only Live Twice. I was introduced to the Bond films by ABC TV, when they started airing them, in the 70s. Moonraker was the first I saw in the theaters; I saw every one from For Your Eyes Only to The World is Not Enough, in theaters, plus Casino Royale (the Craig one). I skipped Die Another Day because I didn't care much for The World is Not Enough (parts of it; but, not the whole of it) and Die just looked cliched and stupid. I loved Pierce Brosnan's performance as Bond; but didn't care for most of the scripts, apart from Goldeneye. Too much writing by committee, too much product placement, too many pointless stunts. He also didn't get the cream of the villains, Goldeneye being the exception. Love Connery's, love On Her Majesty's Secret Service (and feel that George Lazenby is way better than he gets credited), love most of Moore (though I still feel that he is just Simon Templar masquerading as Bond, after the real one is killed) and was pretty happy with Dalton on Living Daylights. Don't care for 80% of License to Kill, but Dalton is fine (weak villain, cut and pasted script, sub-par stunts). Not a fan of Craig's films, though not because of his portrayal; just feel they are repetitive, downbeat, and lacking in style. Bond should be fun. If I want morose, I will watch the Bourne films. Bond is a fantasy, not a 9/11 metaphor.
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Post by berkley on Nov 3, 2020 0:52:44 GMT -5
My experience with the Bond films is pretty similar to codystarbuck's - Moonraker was my first theatre Bond as well and I grew up seeing the earlier Moores on tv. Not sure how I missed The Spy Who Loved Me, as I would have been old enough to see it at the cinema, but I suppose we forget how small a window there was to catch movies back then - they played for a week, maybe two, and then were gone. As it happened,I never did see that one until just two or three years ago when it played at a local cinema here along with several other Moore and Connery Bond films. I think the first half or so is up there with the very best of the Moores but the last half or perhaps third is much weaker - and the big set-piece in the villain's hideout at the end has been done better in other Bonds.
Dalton should have one of the best Bobds but he never really clicked with me. On paper he fits the description in Fleming's books better than anyone else but on screen it doesn't come together for me. Similarly I tnink with Brosnan, though Ihaven't seen all his entries in the series - I would have predicted he'd make a great Bond, but it never quite panned out when put on film, to my mind. In both cases, though, much, perhaps all of the blame goes to the films and film-makers - directors, writers, and even costume designers and even hairstylists IMO failed to realise the potential of these actors to be the best Bonds they could be.
I don't mind the fact that the Craig Bonds go for a more serious tone - this too is closer to the books, which have been described as a combination of early 20th century British thriller (e.g. John Buchan) with American hardboiled (Fleming was a big fan of Raymond Chandler, among others). My critcism would be that apart from this change in tone (which isn't always convincing), they aren't much different, IOW not much better, than the Brosnans or the Daltons or the worst of the Moores.
I've recently re-read the first three Bonds and they really are up there with the best thrillers anyone's ever done. None of the films have come close to capturing the feel of the books, though the best of the Connery ones have come closest. Moonraker, the last one I finished, should be remade - actually all the Moore films could be re-done since they take little more than the title, villain, love interest, and setting from the novels and sometimes not even all of those. It's interesting in that it's more of a straight crime or police investigation story and takes place solely in England, and also the relationship with the female lead, who is very much a colleague, a police woman from Scotland Yard.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2020 3:21:27 GMT -5
I will still always say that the Bond movie I would want the most is the George Lazenby Diamonds Are Forever that has the ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the (not so) Cold Opening. Nevertheless, I still enjoy all the Bond movies and really loved discovering the Sean Connery ones that I had never seen until the 1988 rereleased VHS tapes. I even have a soft spot for Never Say Never Again.....at least it doesn't have the incredibly boring/slow underwater shots of Thunderball.
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Post by foxley on Nov 3, 2020 3:45:36 GMT -5
On looking over my list of favourite Connery films, I realised that I had left The First Great Train Robbery (with Donald Sutherland) off it.
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Post by junkmonkey on Nov 3, 2020 5:33:38 GMT -5
On looking over my list of favourite Connery films, I realised that I had left The First Great Train Robbery (with Donald Sutherland) off it. A favourite of mine too - though a long time since I've seen it. Apparently he did all his own (train top) stunt work for that film - and it had the utterly yummy Lesley-Anne Down in it too
I really do wonder why he accepted the part....
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Post by foxley on Nov 3, 2020 5:55:03 GMT -5
I love Donald Sutherland's rant in that film:
No! Oh, no! You pick me clean, you put me in a coffin with a rotten, stinking cat, and now you strip me bollock naked.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 3, 2020 8:42:13 GMT -5
Yeah, good film, apart from Sutherland's accent.
They destroyed a camera, in one shot, in that film. They had it mounted on a pillar or something like that and the train caught it as it went past.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 3, 2020 12:58:19 GMT -5
I can remember the opening of For Your Eyes Only pretty vividly on the big screen. That was very well done! The first half of Dr. No was cool too, with Connery, then there's that nutty island and a mad conqueror guy and I felt comics had done all that much better, sorry. I did sit through Moonraker once to see the Derek Meddings models, but it was too silly having fleets of space shuttles zapping each other with noisy lasers and dozens of space soldiers flying out of the cargo holds.
I guess we're really going off topic for a r.i.p. thread, but at least it doesn't seem like any other famous personages have passed the last day or so...
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Post by berkley on Nov 5, 2020 13:50:52 GMT -5
Ken Hensley, 75 years of age.
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Post by codystarbuck on Nov 7, 2020 0:48:12 GMT -5
I can remember the opening of For Your Eyes Only pretty vividly on the big screen. That was very well done! The first half of Dr. No was cool too, with Connery, then there's that nutty island and a mad conqueror guy and I felt comics had done all that much better, sorry. I did sit through Moonraker once to see the Derek Meddings models, but it was too silly having fleets of space shuttles zapping each other with noisy lasers and dozens of space soldiers flying out of the cargo holds. I guess we're really going off topic for a r.i.p. thread, but at least it doesn't seem like any other famous personages have passed the last day or so... Yeah' but, the Close Encounters notes on the security touchpad was a nice touch. Sadly, that was Bernard Lee's last go as M and he did not look well.
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Post by brianf on Nov 7, 2020 1:48:49 GMT -5
Ken Hensley, 75 years of age. I love his Uriah Heep stuff. While normally just the keyboardist / song writer in the band, he sang lead vocals / wrote LADY IN BLACK - one of my favorite songs
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