This film begins promisingly enough, with Sir Sean Connery back as Bond, on 'holiday', travelling the world looking for Blofeld by beating up SPECTRE agents. Although he is tacitly after revenge for Blofeld murdering his wife Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secrety Service, there is no reference to her here. He finds his nemesis played by yet another actor, Charles Grey, who interprets the role in a similar way to Telly Savalas in the previous movie, ie loud and annoying, and lacking the insane, quietly sinister menace of the Donald Pleasance version. Ernst Stavros Blofeld ultimately loses all credibility in this film when we see him escape from the casino in drag. Blofeld's plan this time is to launch a diamond-enhanced satellite capable of destrying cities from orbit. With this he plans to auction nuclear supremacy to the highest-bidding country. Unaware of all this M sends 007 to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling operation by replacing smuggler Peter Franks. To be honest, Connery's a bit past here, he's lost the edge he used to have.. Also, when he swaps IDs with Franks, Tiffany Case recognises the name James Bond, which is just silly. This story marks Blofeld's final appearance in the series, due to legal action by Thunderball Producer Kevin McClory. He believed that the franchise would not be able to continue without the recurring villain. In fact, by this stage it could only be improved by it. It's a shame, then, that 007's final battle with his nemesis , is not a face-to-face confrontation. Bond kills Blofeld by swinging his submarine on a crane and smashing it agianst a building. I want to know what happened to SPECTRE Island and all the "greatest brains in the world" that Dr. No claimed worked for SPECTRE. Perhaps they realised that Blofeld had become crap and kicked him out. In many ways this movie is where the rot started to set in. When the silly, camp humour first began to detract from the sheer style and verve of the early films. Bond's fight in the lift with the real Peter Franks is frankly embarassing. A trained assassin, Bod surely shouldn't have this much trouble killing an unarmed man from behind. The choreography looks non-existent as they stumble around desperately. A disappointing farewell to the (official) Bond series for Connery. |
| DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER 1971 |
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