Watching the Wheels

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #18: License to Kill (1989)

The James Bond Project #19: GoldenEye (1995)

April 15, 2025April 15, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 8 Comments

April 15, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

GoldenEye (1995, directed by Martin Campbell)

The first Bond film in the fourth decade of the 007 franchise is something of a synthesis of all the previous EON Production films and a fair send-off for EON producer Cubby Broccoli, who died five months after its release. After a long six year gap, while Eon dragged Timothy Dalton into development hell, Bond was back with Pierce Brosnan as the new British MI-6 commander. GoldenEye fused License to Kill’s vengeful 007 with the smarmy, Casanova Bond of the past. The first Bond film not to be based on an Ian Fleming story is a sweeping tale that presents Bond with his first post-Cold War conflict and was tailor-made for 90s audiences who were getting used to the widescreen violence in films like Natural Born Killers.

Brosnan, who had been offered the role before Dalton, comes in a more upper crust English, but also more boyish, Bond who has parachuted into a third-wave feminist world. This disconnect is magnified by the new M, now played by Dame Judi Dench. The new M states a clear opinion on the archetype that is Bond, James Bond. “I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War, whose boyish charms are wasted on me,” she tells him. Welcome to the 90s, James. We still have Desmond Llewelyn as Q to link us to the Bond cannon. This installment’s Bond “girl” is Swedish model and actress Izabella Scorupco, who forces a rough Russian accent. Also trying to be Russian (or Georgian) is “sadistic lust murderer” Xenia Onatopp (There’s the names we love in these films), played by Famke Janssen (soon to be Jean Grey in the X-Men films).

GoldenEye starts with a flashback to the Cold War days with 007 and 006 on a mission in the Soviet Union where 006 (played by the great Sean Bean) is killed. Bond blames himself, setting up the revenge redux. After an epic scene where James dives into a falling plane (This is the first Bond film to use CGI), we flash forward to the present where new Russia is losing track of its shit and we’re off. The scene where James is chasing the rogue Russian general through the streets in St. Petersburg in a giant Russian tank was classic 007 thrills on the big screen. I remember watching it in the Lloyd Center Cinema and thinking it was the wildest thing filmmakers could cock up for a James Bond movie.

This installment gives us plenty of Bond staples fans crave. There’s Bond in a tux, playing baccarat, there’s Bond in the Caribbean, there’s the double entendre quips (none very clever), and thousands of bullets fired at our James with nary a scratch. The film also features some epic stunts, including a record setting bungee jump off a Russian (actually Swiss) dam that has to be seen to believed. Brosnan plays Bond closer to Moore than Connery and his bourgeois demeanor adds to the “Man out of place” element that makes this film kinda fun. Cubby Broccoli’s daughter, Barbara, took over the production as her father’s health failed, so some of the gender commentary may have been here doing.

Let’s see how GoldenEye fares in our feminist matrix.

Driver of Action – New Bond, new star. Q and his lab techs show up for comedic effect. There’s a new CIA agent, Jack Wade, to help out (Joe Don Baker is back!) because Felix is still legless from the shark. The new post-communist Russia really plays the support role. In the gap between Yeltsin and Putin, it presented a blank slate to the world, where the need for secret agents might be a thing of the past. But this film rests purely on the shoulders of Remington Steele star Pierce Brosnan.

Role of Violence – There’s a lot of slaughter in GoldenEye, largely due to Bond’s use of machine guns. I had to ask ChatGBT the body count because I lost track. AI reports James killed 47 people in the film, mostly Russian soldiers. (Wasn’t the Cold War over?) There’s also some weird violent sexual scenes with Xenia Onatopp (we’re to believe that violence is her kink) and a scene where 007 knocks her unconscious.

Vulnerability – For the first time in a Bond film, we learn that James’ parents were killed in a mountain climbing accident when he was a boy. But there’s no sense that this plays a role in his present psyche. It’s just presented as a factoid to contrast the story that 006’s parents were killed by Stalin. There’s no James in love and only a mild sense of guilt that 006’s death might be his fault.

Sexual Potency – Here’s the James Bond rule of three. 1) Caroline – An MI-6 psychologist, sent to evaluate James, gets seduced by our agent who has a bottle of bubbly in the glovebox. He’s going to let her give him, “a very thorough evaluation.” Wink. 2) Xenia Onatopp – It’s more fighting than sex. James is taken aback by her biting his lip and drawing blood. Her death (pulled into a tree by a helicopter) is also played as sexual but in 2025 seems just weird. 3) Natalya Simonova (played by Izabella Scorupco), a Russian computer programmer, is Bond’s “love” interest/damsel in distress in the film. He forcibly kisses her and then suddenly they’re a romantic couple. (This quasi-rape trope seems all too common in 007 flicks.)

It should be mentioned that Bond’s relationship with Moneypenny (now played by Samantha Bond) is firmly located in 90s feminist positions. She’s not having any of James’ “charm” offensive. Bond: “What would I do without you?” Moneypenny : “As far as I can remember James, you’ve never had me.” Bond: “Hope springs eternal.” Moneypenny: “This sort of behavior could qualify as sexual harassment.” Finally.

Connection – Brosnan plays Bond detached, as we have come to expect. There’s a hint of a back story between 006 and 007 that might have been nice to know about. As is expected, he and Natalya end the film together, not in a boat but in a Cuban meadow. They think they’re alone, but there is some coitus interruptus from the United States Marines, so they’ll have to save their victory sex for another day, or never. There’s no real chemistry between these two so the door is open for Bond’s next “girl.”

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 5

Summary The opening title sequence of GoldenEye, with women smashing hammers and sickles to a song written by U2 (and sung by Tina Turner) locates the film in a new era. The Cold War was the golden era of the Flemming novels and the platform for Bond’s good vs. evil adventures. Now New Bond is forced (again?) to find his relevance. Is he a 90s-action hero, right up there with Arnold Schwarzenegger, or a washed-up antique who has lost his cultural relevance? His elevated violence and philandering may be intended as a middle finger to the politically correct shifts in cinema.

The tech in GoldenEye is a co-star along with lots of product placement. (Welcome to the new global market place.) IBM is featured front and center (and a great scene where a young Alan Cumming gets an “email”). The Aston Martin is replaced with a BMW, fully loaded with Q’s gadgets. “You have a license to kill, not to break the traffic laws,” Q tells an impish Bond. GoldenEye also gives us that most central staple of Bond Baddie accessories, the underground lair, hidden below a lake, from where a deadly satellite is controlled. Its explosive destruction is everything that Bond fans buy movie tickets to see.

GoldenEye premiered on November 13, 1995 at Radio City Music Hall, as the war in Yugoslavia, the largest hot war resulting from the end of the Cold War, was reaching its peak. The direction of Martin Campbell and the production of Barbara Broccoli (with Judi Dench’s M) represented a chance to reboot the franchise in a world without the Soviet Union. What issues would MI-6 confront as the 20th century closed? With the help of CGI, the promise of epic stunts and a horny agents would be a part of it.

Next: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

The James Bond Project #17: The Living Daylights (1987)

The James Bond Project #16: A View to a Kill (1985)

The James Bond Project #15: Never Say Never Again (1983)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #17: The Living Daylights (1987)

The James Bond Project #18: License to Kill (1989)

April 8, 2025April 8, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 10 Comments

April 8, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

License to Kill (1989, directed by John Glen)

Timothy Dalton’s Dark Bond is back for the second and final time in this revenge film that calls itself a James Bond movie. Maybe Eon Productions thought gangsta rap fans in 1989 wanted a 007 who was closer to Scarface than the guy in Goldfinger. License to Kill sees Bond go rogue from MI-6 as he goes after the guy who kidnapped his friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter, and fed him to a shark (after killing his wife). There’s no time for snarky quips here. James is out for blood.

License To Kill brings the action closer to home, primarily Key West, Florida, a bit of Bahamas, and a fictional country called the Republic of Isthmus (that’s actually Mexico). Even M and Moneypenny’s London scene was shot in Mexico to save money. David Hedison, who played Felix Leiter in Live and Let Die, is back in the role 16 years later. Carey Lowell, who went on to fame on TV’s Law & Order, was this installment’s Bond “girl.” The object of Bond’s obsession is drug lord Franz Sanchez, expertly played by Robert Davi, who will always be Jake Fratelli from The Goonies, to me. His sidekick is played by a very young Benicio del Toro. The score was by the brilliant Michael Kamen, who had just done the music for Die Hard.

The last of Bond film of the 1980s was also a fond farewell of sorts. It was the final film produced by Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, who had produced every Eon Bond film since Dr. No in 1962. It was the last Bond directed by John Glen, who had filmed all five 007 films of the eighties. It was the last Bond project of screenwriter Richard Maibaum, whose work goes back to Dr. No. It was also the last film appearance of Robert Brown (M since Octopussy) and the final film of Maurice Binder, who had designed the iconic opening title sequences of every Bond film since 1962.

Even though License to Kill may have been an end of era, there will still plenty of reminders of the staples of the franchise, primarily sharks and Q. Desmond Llewelyn’s Q gets more screen time than in any Bond film to date. Like James, Q goes rogue and arrives in Isthmus to help 007 with his revenge fantasy. Like Batman’s butler Albert, he’s not afraid to be right in the action. And because the action returns to America, we see more African-American actors, including DEA Agent Hawkins (played by Die Hard’s Grand L. Bush) and CIA aid Sharkey (played by pro football player Frank McRae).

The Dark Bond of License to Kill is a bit more unhinged than in The Living Daylights, so let’s do the analysis.

Driver of Action – While LTK is formed around Bond’s revenge plot, he does share the screen. Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), his femme fatale is less fem and more fatal. She’s a shotgun toting ex-Army pilot who never plays the damsel in distress. In fact, she saves James more than once. Bond even says, “Yes, sir!” to her at one point because she’s clearly in charge.

Role of Violence – License to Kill takes the title literally. This film is a blood bath. Bond kills at least a dozen people, some in gruesome ways. He throws a renegade DEA agent into a shark tank and watches him get gobbled up by a Great White. He rigs a diving pressure chamber on boat and watches as a drug trafficker explodes inside it, his head inflating like a balloon. In the final act of revenge, he sets Sanchez on fire with the lighter Felix gave him at the wedding. It’s supposed to feel cathartic, but it just feels sadistic.

Vulnerability – We don’t get the “Is Bond in love?” question from the last installment. More like, “Has Bond lost his mind?” as he resigns from MI-6 to go after Sanchez. There is a scene at the wedding where Felix mentions to his bride that Bond was briefly married where we get a glimpse into James’ trauma, but this 007 is hard as nails.

Sexual Potency – Dalton’s Bond is still low key swinging through the AIDS epidemic, but he’s a bit more Id-drivien than The Living Daylights. First of all, there is no scene with 007 and Moneypenny in LTK, so that banter is left on the table. His relationship with Pam is more equal than previous films. (She demands to be called “Ms.” Kennedy, while playing his accomplice). They share there first kiss on a small boat (!) in the Bahamas and the scene fades as the go below deck, implying some seafaring hanky panky. He also has a fling with Sanchez’s girlfriend, Lupe Lamora (played by model Talisa Soto, who went to be Johnny Depp’s love interest in Don Juan DeMarco). Pam’s jealousy about the James-Lupe link is played for laughs, because, you know, he’s James Bond. (When Lupe tells Q, “I love James so much,” Q’s eye roll tells the whole 27-year story.)

Connection – The fact that 007 is attending Felix’s wedding as the best man is a solid implication that these men have formed a tight bond over the many years. And the fact that he throws his career out the window to go after Leiter’s attacker is evidence of his loyalty to his CIA friend (or maybe a reflection of the trauma Bond suffered when Blofeld killed his own wife shortly after their wedding). James’ connection to Pam seems more transactional (unlike his tie to Kara Milovy in the previous film). At the end of the film, he does choose her over Lupe and they end the film, fully clothed, in a pool, kissing (They’ve already checked boat sex off the Bond to-do list), but there is no sense this relationship is going anywhere.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 5

Summary

While the hyper-violent vengeance theme doesn’t feel very “Bond,” there are plenty of 007 hallmarks here, including underwater battles with frogmen, Bond hanging off of planes, Bond gambling in his tux, and even a completely random attack by ninjas (in Mexico). We even get a nod to Blofeld when an obscured man is holding a cat at Hemingway’s house in Key West. (It’s just M.) And there is a great theme song by the fabulous Gladys Knight. The stunts are epic with plenty of massive explosions, and a comedic appearance from Wayne Newton as a televangelist fronting for the cocaine traffickers. (You know this was a comment on the PTL scandal that dominated the media in the 1980s.)

Dark Bond pays lip service to the changing gender rolls. When Pam asks why she has to play the roll of James’ “administrative assistant” when the arrive in Isthmus, and not the other way around, James says, “We’re south of the border. It’s a man’s world.” Carey Lowell is certainly a more masculine Bond girl than we’ve seen in the past (still with plunging necklines), but this isn’t exactly a feminist film. And Bond’s sadistic use of violence erases any enlightenment our James may have experienced over the decades.

License to Kill premiered on June 13, 1989, a month after Panamanian President Manuel Noriega staged a coup to retain power in his banana republic. Similarities between Noriega and Robert Davi’s Franz Sanchez, with regard to both physical looks and cocaine connections, were commented on when the film was released. The film generated less income than previous films, perhaps reflecting its divergence from the Eon Productions formula. There was to be a third Dalton Bond film called Property of a Lady, to be released in 1991, but studio contract conflicts got in the way and we would not see a new Bond film, and a new Bond, until the mid-1990s.

Next: GoldenEye (1995)

The James Bond Project #16: A View to a Kill (1985)

The James Bond Project #15: Never Say Never Again (1983)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #16: A View to a Kill (1985)

The James Bond Project #17: The Living Daylights (1987)

April 6, 2025April 6, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 12 Comments

April 6, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

The Living Daylights (1987, directed by John Glen)

This new James Bond is quite new and old at the same time. Eon producer Cubby Broccoli had been after Timothy Dalton to play Bond since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In 1967, Dalton felt he was too young for the role. Now, at 41, he was the right age. With Roger Moore retired, there were several considerations for the new Bond, including Superman (and American) Christoper Reeve, Sam Neil, and Mel Gibson. Irishman Pierce Brosnan was offered the job but was under contract to the TV show Remington Steele. Broccoli’s wife, Dana, pushed to bring back Dalton to the role and she got her wish.

Besides being a “Bond-in-waiting” for 20 years, Dalton went back to the source material, Fleming’s 007 novels, to rediscover a less campy Bond, constantly living on the edge of death. His performance in The Living Daylights feels drastically different than Moore’s, less cartoonish. There are some over-the-top action scenes, like escaping Russians by sledding down a mountain, with his female accomplice, in a cello case, but the horniness and quips are dialed way back. (Although, the “He got the boot” line was classic Bond.)

The movie was the last Bond film to be scored by John Barry, with a Duran Duran-inspired theme song by A-Ha and, for the first time, a closing song by The Pretenders. TLD’s Bond “girl” was British actress Maryam d’Abo, cousin of Olivia d’Abo, from The Wonder Years. The film also introduced a new Moneypenny, played by Caroline Bliss. Desmond Llewelyn is still there as Q and, boy, does he have the gadgets in this installment.

Despite Dalton’s more toned down Bond, there are still plenty of franchise tropes, including the obligatory bikini-clad women by the pool scene, Russian assassins on skis chasing James down a mountain, Bond in his tux, and more rounds of ammunition fired at Bond than anyone could count. We have multiple locations in the eastern hemisphere, including Afghanistan after the 1979 Russian invasion. In 1987, the Mujahideen were still considered the good guys, before they birthed the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

The Living Daylights, in many ways, feels very different. Let’s put it into our review machine.

Driver of Action – It makes sense that when introducing a new Bond, you’d spend your screen time on the star. Some old friends show up, like M and CIA agent Felix Leiter, but they just pop in to move the story along. There is a fun subplot with renegade Russian General Georgi Koskov (played by Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé, who was so good in The Prince of Tides) that feels like it could have been a great film on its own. But here we are getting to know this James, and he’s not the previous James.

Role of Violence – Dalton’s Bond is more serious than previous incarnations and so is his use of violence. He kills about 10 bad guys in the film, most notably Koskov’s henchman, Nekros, who he drops from a plane over Afghanistan by cutting his bootstraps. There’s a lot of gunfire and, while James never gets a nick, he blows away plenty (mostly Russian) dudes.

There is a scene where Bond rips a nightgown off a woman to distract a KGB agent. Seems like a gratuitous excuse to give the audience a brief boob shot.

Vulnerability – Is our James in love? His relationship with Kara (Maryam d’Abo) seems genuine. It begins when doesn’t kill her as she appears to attempt an assassination of a KGB asset and he get’s shit from another 00 agent. He also seems somewhat traumatized when that other 00 agent gets murdered with a sliding glass door.

Sexual Potency – This isn’t your father’s James Bond. It’s very possible that James doesn’t have sex with anybody in TLD. First of all, his banter with Moneypenny is chilled out. When she suggests he come over to listen to her “Manilow collection,” he looks at her like he wants to barf.

The film centers around his partnership with Kara. He pretends to be a friend of Koskov, who is her boyfriend. When they check into a hotel in Vienna, the concierge, with a wink, says, “Your usual suite, Mr. Bond?” Instead, he asks for a suite with separate bedrooms. They end up kissing on a giant ferris wheel. (I rode that ride in Vienna in 1991!) She resists, and creepy Bond says, “Don’t think, just let it happen.” It might be implied that they hook up after that, but we never see it. Same thing when they are in Afghanistan. He tells her she is beautiful and they kiss. No morning after scenes, as we’ve come to expect.

Connection – There is some banter with Saunders, the 00 agent who gets killed helping him track Koskov. He’s detached from his other MI-6 colleagues, including the aging Q. But his affection for Kara seems genuine. “To us,” he toasts, after she makes him a martini (shaken, not stirred, and poisoned). The film doesn’t end with them having sex in a boat, but James surprising her backstage after her symphony performance, with a kiss. Will Kara Milovy return in the next film?

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 2

Summary

There are nods to Bond of old. In the opening action sequence, James after an epic battle on the Rock of Gibraltar, is parachuting over the Mediterranean. A bikini-clad woman on a yacht is on the phone complaining to a friend, “It’s all so boring here, Margo – there’s nothing but playboys and tennis pros. If only I could find a real man.” Then 007 crashes through the yacht canopy, right on cue. It’s implied that she’s found her man for a few hours. But after that, it’s all Bond, more grounded in his work than we’ve seen.

007 fans might have been disappointed by the absence of Lothario Bond (by 1987, AIDS was a full blown crisis), but they got more than they bargained for in gadgets (a ghetto “blaster”!), especially with the return of the Aston Martin. Q has loaded this car with more gadgets than Speed Racer’s Mach 5, including a jet engine. Q urges caution, “It’s just had a new coat of paint!” But we know James. The locations are also a real treat, including Czechoslovakia, Tangiers and Afghanistan (filmed in Morocco). There’s a scene of James riding across the desert on horseback with the Mujahideen that looks like a scene from Lawrence of Arabia. Glorious.

Dalton’s playing of Bond with more of an edge was well received. Maybe, by the late 80s it was time to tweak the formula. The Living Daylights premiered in London on June 29, 1987, two weeks after Ronald Reagan, standing in Berlin, said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” The growing detente between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. is referenced the film as a motive for the renegade KGB agents. There’s also a goofy villain arms dealer in the movie, played by Joe Don Baker, that seems very Reagan-era. While retaining some James of old (“Forget the ladies for once, Bond,” Saunders tells him as he spots Kara through his opera glasses), we get a more serious, less flamboyant 007 in this film. Will this be the new Bond?

Next: License to Kill (1989)

The James Bond Project #15: Never Say Never Again (1983)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #16: A View to a Kill (1985)

March 18, 2025March 19, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 12 Comments

March 18, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

A View to a Kill (1985, directed by John Glen)

One last time into the breach, with Roger Moore. Probably the most famous thing about A View to a Kill was the theme song that shot Duran Duran to #1 and gave them a Golden Globe award. Eon coaxed Moore, 57, into doing “just one more” Bond film. He apparently was more than reluctant, especially when learning that he was older than his co-star Tanya Robert’s mother. Unlike Never Say Never Again (1983), the film makes zero references to Commander Bond’s age. Instead we get improbable fights on top of the Golden Gate Bridge with an ax wielding Christopher Walken. No sharks, but Walken and Grace Jones, both completely maniacal, are entertaining enough.

The casting of AVTAK is pretty eighties. Casting Christopher Walken as this episode’s evil capitalist is a delight (although the part was originally offered to David Bowie, and then Sting). There’s a part where Walken is trying to escape in his personal blimp where he screams, “More power!” and I just heard cowbell in my head. This episode’s Bond “girl” is former Charlie’s Angel Tanya Roberts, fast off her acting magnum opus, Beastmaster. The role was intended for Priscilla Presley, but Presley had a conflict due to her role on Dallas. (A pause here to imagine the scenes with David Bowie and Priscilla Presley. What could have been.) This was also the final time we would see Lois Maxwell, 58, in the perennial role of Miss Moneypenny, there from the very start in 1962.

The plot of A View to a Kill is pretty thin. Walker’s character, Max Zorin, wants to destroy Silicon Valley with a manmade earthquake so he can corner the microchip market. (These evil capitalists tend to spend massive amounts of capital on the plots to maybe make a little more capital. Maybe they should just invest in government bonds.) He’s the product of a Nazi genetic experiment, so he’s a bit kooky. He has a girlfriend, who is also assassin, played my great music star Grace Jones as May Day. Jones would release her brilliant album, Slave to the Rhythm, later that year. There’s the usual globe hopping. A ski-chase in Siberia where James skis on one ski (last time it was with one ski pole) and invents snowboarding. There’s a spectacular base jump off the Eiffel Tower that ends with 007 driving half a car along the Seine and then (literally) crashing a wedding party. And there’s James scuba diving in the dirty San Francisco Bay, almost getting sucked into an intake tube. The sexual double entendres are dialed back ( “A little restless but I got off eventually”), but director John Glen knows how to ramp up the Saturday matinee action. The chase scene through the streets of San Francisco with Roberts driving a hook and ladder fire truck and the senior Moore swinging from the ladder is one for the ages.

For Roger Moore’s final James Bond (1973 – 1985), lets put him through the wringer on more time.

Driver of Action – The film really has two parts. The first involves Zorin’s horse selling business in France. Here, Bond shares the story with Sir Godfrey Tibbett, an MI-6 agent who is also a horse trainer (played by another Avengers alumni, Patrick Macnee). The second part of the story front-actions Stacey Sutton, Roberts’ character, who is a geologist whose father’s oil company was bought by Zorin. In both we get (very thin) backstories, but it does feel like Moore “shares” the story.

Role of Violence – Bond doesn’t really use his license to kill in 1985. He even winces and grabs his hand after punching a henchman in the face. Where the violence comes from is Walken’s character who laughs and smiles as he machine-guns hundreds of his own workers to death. It’s the first bloodbath in a Bond film and it’s jarring. But he IS the product of a Nazi experiment, so…

Vulnerability – Bond does seem genuinely bothered when Tibbett is murdered (by May Day), saying, “Killing Tibbett was mistake” to Zorin. He’s not as bothered when CIA ally Chuck Lee is murdered (also by May Day). Side note: You’d think that MI-6 and CIA agents would know to ALWAYS look in the backseat of the car before getting in. Moore’s Bond is always zipped up tight. He finishes the series as he started in Live and Let Die, stay calm and don’t give a damn.

Sexual Potency – Here’s where the formula comes through – The Eon promise of three + women bedded per film. The opening sequence ends with 007 in a submarine disguised as an iceberg driven by a beautiful blonde. We assume she’s MI-6, but she could be just a local submarine/iceberg driver. James tells her, “Be a good girl and put her on automatic.” Cue Duran Duran song. Bond also has some rough sex with Grace Jones character in France. Then, in SF, he hooks up with sexy KGB agent Pola Ivanova in a hot tub. (The part was written as Major Anya Amasova, but Barbara Bach declined to reprise her role from Live and Let Die.) “Would you like it harder?” He asks as he rubs her back. Then in the film’s closing scene that first zooms in on a bowl with the word “pussy” on it (the cat’s bowl), he bags Stacey in the shower of her house, with Creepy Q watching via his new robot, reporting to M that, “He’s just cleaning up a few details.” I guess since the film started with Bond boning on a boat, they’d let him finish (for once) on land.

Connection – One might hope that Bond approaching 60 would develop attachments to other human beings. He seems even less invested in his MI-6 colleagues, including Moneypenny and Q, than ever. They are just background scenery. You’d think that since Moore was leaving the series after a dozen years (as was Lois Maxwell after 23 years), the screenwriters would have added some sentimentality to the story. Nope. Moore plays Bond as unconnected as ever, fading into the sunset as a caricature of the lonely man.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 3

Summary

A View to a Kill could have been grand send off for Sir Roger Moore, but Moore himself disliked the film. “I was horrified on the last Bond I did. Whole slews of sequences where Christopher Walken was machine-gunning hundreds of people. I said ‘That wasn’t Bond, those weren’t Bond films.’ It stopped being what they were all about. You didn’t dwell on the blood and the brains spewing all over the place.” We do get some Bond staples, like 007 in a tux and white dinner jacket. There’s not an underground lair, but there is a giant mine cave that’s basically an underground lair. (And I’d like to go back in time and inform Eon Productions that there are SHARKS in San Francisco Bay.)

There are some hints of progress. Women’s names start to pop up in the credits, including casting and unit manager. Producer Cubby Broccoli’s daughter, Barbara Broccoli, had been a Bond assistant director since Octopussy. Bond doesn’t immediately bed Stacey, even after two bottles of wine. He tucks her in and then sleeps in the chair with a shotgun in his lap. (That’s a good grandpa.) When a henchman spots Stacey’s heels on the mine sight, undercover James quips, “It’s women’s lib. They’re taking over the Teamsters.” While we are yet to get a lead female villain, Grace Jones as the bad guy’s #2 is pretty powerful (even if she’s played with a bit of a “black animal” trope).

Side Note 1: This the 16th Bond film I’ve watched in this series and I’ve seen hundreds of rounds of ammunition fired at our James. Maybe thousands. Never has a bullet come close to him. If MI-6 has the technology to make bullets go around their agents, they should tell us!

Side Note 2: I’ve long said that I ever win Powerball, I will first buy a personal blimp. A View to a Kill makes me believe that is possible.

A View to a Kill premiered in San Francisco on May 22, 1985, as cans of New Coke were hitting the shelves. Maybe the world was ready for a change but not sure what that change should be. Near the end of the film, Bond gets a meddle from the KGB for taking out Zorin, the joke being that the Soviets get their technology intel from Silicone Vally. The film was released a year before glasnost came to the USSR. Maybe 007 knew something we didn’t. I’ll leave Moore’s line as horny Bond to close this chapter. “On a mission I am expected to sacrifice myself.” Oh, James.

Next: The Living Daylights (1987)

The James Bond Project #15: Never Say Never Again (1983)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #14: Octopussy

The James Bond Project #15: Never Say Never Again

March 16, 2025March 16, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 13 Comments

March 16, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

Never Say Never Again (1983, directed by Irvin Kershner)

Never Say Never Again has everything you want in a James Bond film; exotic locations and women, Blofeld, cool gadgets, stolen nukes, double entendres, sharks, and Sean Connery. After completing Diamonds are Forever in 1971 and saying he would never play 007 again, Connery was lured back into the role by producers Kevin McClory and Jack Schwartzman. Connery, at 52, was still younger than his Eon Productions counterpart Roger Moore, but the non-canonical Bond film, Connery’s last, would poke fun at the aging agent while still delivering classic Bond tropes.

The return of Ernst Blofeld and his white cat, who were killed off in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, serves to remind us that we are not in the official BCU (Bond Cinematic Universe). It does however bring back SPECTRE and the thrill of an evil global plot. Blofeld (played by Max von Sydow) directs billionaire businessman and SPECTRE Number 1 Maximillian Largo (played by Klaus Maria Brandauer, who seems to have greatly inspired Elon Musk) to hijack some Navy nukes to extort the world. Sexy assassin SPECTRE Number 12 Fatima Blush is played by Playboy model Barbara Carrera, who passed up a role in Octopussy to work in a Connery Bond film. NSNA’s Bond “girl” was played by Kim Basinger, in the role that launched her career. While NSNA has a less polished feel than the Eon catalog, Irvin Kershner, director of the 1980 blockbuster The Empire Strikes Back, gave the film a tight pace as 007 hops around the world.

The film gives us a younger, more bureaucracy-bound M, and a Q who complains about the bureaucracy. When Bond enters Q’s lab, Q says, “Good to see you, Mr. Bond. Things’ve been awfully dull ’round here. Bureaucrats running the whole place. Everything done by the book. Can’t make a decision unless the computer gives you the go-ahead. Now you’re on this. I hope we’re going to have some gratuitous sex and violence!” And we get that and more, including a return to the Bahamas and the film debut of Mr. Bean’s Rowan Atkinson as Nigel Small-Fawcett.

While not in the “official” 007 catalog, let’s analyze it for fun.

Driver of Action – If you’ve got Sir Sean Connery, you might as well let him drive the whole damn film. From the first jungle battle scene to the last underwater fight scene, this is a James Bond film. We do get the return of CIA agent Felix Leiter (this time played by former San Francisco 49er Bernie Casy) who shows up 57 minutes into the film, but he’s in the usual minor support role. There are no real storylines that compete with the spectacle of 007.

Role of Violence – In the opening scene Bond kills a bunch of dudes with varying means (including a blowdart), but it’s revealed to be a training exercise. He does kill a would-be assassin with his urine (don’t ask) and later blows up Fatima Blush, leaving her smoking high heels on the ground. Old Bond fights a lot but you get the feeling that he’s just not cut out for the fisticuffs anymore.

Vulnerability – Much is made in the start of the film about James advanced age. He laments that M doesn’t have much use for “double O’s” anymore and that he’s “teaching not doing.” M sends him to a health farm to get fit and get rid of his “free radicals,” accusing him of, “too many dry Martinis.” Bond being Bond dutifully goes but smuggles in Beluga caviar, quails eggs, vodka, and foie gras.

Sexual Potency – Sean Connery fans paid for Classic Bond, so the women needed be laid out like a buffet. While the banter with Ms. Moneypenny is tepid (James: Still here, Moneypenny? You should be in bed. Moneypenny: James, we both should be!), James does bed four women in the film. The first is the chiropractor at the health farm, Nurse Patricia Fearing. Then he gets busy with Fatima Blush, on a boat in Nassau. (James: You’re marvelously well equipped. Fatima: Thank you, James. So are you.) Then he’s in the sack with some unnamed woman he met on a fishing boat. Finally, he ends up making sweet love to Kim Basinger’s character, Domino, on a Navy Submarine. In 1983 the AIDS epidemic was still largely confined to gay and IV subcultures, so this was probably our James’ last hurrah.

Connection – In this film we see James Bond wrestling with his age, but still not willing to let his guard down and open up. There is a glimpse at the end. Since two “boat sex” encounters were ticked off in the film, Never Say Never Again ends with James and Domino back in the Bahamas. Domino brings him a fruity drink instead of his martini. He moans and she says, “You’ll never give up your old habits, James.” He replies, “No, you’re wrong. Those days are over.” Is he ready to settle down with the girl from Athens, GA? The film ends with Connery winking at the camera.

Toxic Masculinity Score: 5

Never Say Never Again comes with plenty of Bond cliches, including watches with lasers, a pool full of bikini clad babes, James in a tux, and all his “Is that about sex? quips. (“Going down, one should always be relaxed.”) As a non-Eon film, the score and the theme song suck. But the rocket motorcycle chase in Nice, France and the scene with the sharks (Are those frickin’ lasers on their heads?) are pretty awesome. The film drags a bit with Connery’s lethargy and there is a really weird scene of Bond and Domino dancing a tango after he beats her boyfriend at a video game that seems way too eighties.

Bond as the sexual conquerer is also paired with his role of the rescuer of women. Domino is tied up on an auction block to be sold as a slave in North Africa. James literally rides in on a horse to save the damsel in distress. Fortunately, she saves him later in the film by shooting a speargun into her former lover as he’s about to kill Bond. There’s also the scene where he kills Fatima after commenting on her “hatred of men.” Seemed misogynistic to this viewer.

Never Say Never Again premiered in the U.S. on October 7, 1983, just four months after Octopussy and sold fewer tickets. There had been some talk about bringing Connery back in for a new series of Bond films to rival the Eon franchise, but you could tell that the Scotsman’s heart just wasn’t in it. Connery would go on to star in iconic eighties films like Highlander, The Name of the Rose, and The Untouchables, and leave 007 behind on some boat with some random damsel in distress.

Next: A View to a Kill (1985)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only

The James Bond Project #14: Octopussy

February 27, 2025February 27, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 15 Comments

February 27, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

Octopussy (1983, directed by John Glen)

Fifteen years after the Beatles went to India, Britain’s second biggest export headed to the Asian subcontinent. It wasn’t to study meditation, but to fight the Cold War with an army of fembots. Octopussy sees our man Bond caught up in a conspiracy that includes fake Faberge eggs and loose nukes. Star Roger Moore had wanted to retire after For Your Eyes Only, feeling he was to old to play Bond, but word that Sean Connery was returning to play Bond in a non-Eon Productions film had worried producers that Bond-in-Waiting Timothy Dalton (and a few other potential contenders) would not be ready to compete with the O.G. 007.

The result is a film that tries to capture the Bond magic with a middle-age spy who has more lines on his face than stinging lines of dialogue. There are challenging scenes of Bond swinging from vine to vine with a dubbed in Tarzan yell, Bond fighting a henchman on top of a flying airplane, and Bond fighting two henchmen on top of a moving train (a scene that almost killed another stuntman). Watching this film made me wonder if they had Ibuprofen in the 1980s. Producers brought back Maud Adams, who had played Andrea Anders The Man with the Golden Gun. It made sense to have a slightly older Bond “girl” in the title role. This was Bond for aging Baby Boomers.

The film primarily takes place in India and East Germany, with a fun intro scene in some random Latin America country that has Bond flying a cool one-man plane out of the back of truck being chased by some banana republic types. We have a new M, played by Robert Brown. Desmond Llewelyn is back as Q and this time he’s got tons of gadgets for James to play with (including one Bond uses to zoom in on an MI-6 worker’s cleavage). James is back in his white dinner jacket and tux and there he is riding a horse through the jungle and crossing a river inside an alligator submarine. (Someone should have told filmmakers that India has crocodiles, not alligators.)

Octopussy is Bond in a holding pattern but let’s discuss it anyway.

Driver of Action – Bond is back on his own. We do get a lot of Q. There’s a local agent named Vijay, but he’s not long for this world. There’s a real missed opportunity to tell the story of Octopussy (Maud Adams) who has created an island of misfit women in India who are also (how?) circus performers in East Germany. I’d love some Octopussy fan fiction because that would be a great story. But later in the film, James raids the bad guy’s compound with Octopussy’s all female army of circus warriors in their Electra Woman costumes and it’s glorious. Why did it take 21 years to get Bond to lead an army of fembots in an invasion of an evil-doers lair??? Oh, and Bond arrives in a Union Jack hot air balloon! I’m serious!

Role of Violence – Old Bond is pretty good at killing henchmen, including some rogue Soviet soldiers. That’s about it.

Vulnerability – Bond’s wall is way up with a few weird exceptions. There’s a moment that he laments that thousands of innocent people will be killed if the renegade Russian General Orlav detonates an A-bomb in Berlin. There’s a scene where James, desperate to save the world, can’t get a ride to the circus to defuse the bomb. Cars full of young people laugh at the old man desperately trying to hitchhike. 007 seems supremely uncool in his manic state. There’s also a bizarre sequence of James dressed as a clown trying to tell everyone there’s a nuclear bomb about to go off and they just laugh at him. Sad clown Bond must have been hard on 007’s ego.

Sexual Potency – It’s interesting watching this Bond age. There’s a scene in Moneypenny’s office where he perks up at seeing her new assistant, Miss Penelope Smallbone. (These names are such a crack.) There’s a great interchange where Moneypenny calls him on the carpet for his leering:

Bond: What can I say, Miss Moneypenny, except to say that she is – as attractive and, eh – as charming…

Moneypenny: As I used to be?

Bond: I didn’t say that.

Moneypenny: You’re such a flatterer, James.

Bond: Oh, Moneypenny, you know there never has been and, there never will be, anybody but you.

Moneypenny: So, you’ve told me.

The bedding three women per film quota is waning by 1983. James does sleep with Magda, who is kind of a double henchwoman to two bosses (played by Kristina Wayborn, Miss Sweden 1970). And, of course, he sleeps with Octopussy, after forcibly grabbing her. She resists and then relents as all women do. “Oh, James,” she says, falling into her bed in a scene that seems like a mirror of the same encounter between the two in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Connection – Bond’s connection to Octopussy is uber-flimsy. Even though the actors have a previous relationship, there is zero chemistry. Regardless, as is required by international law they end the film in a bed in a boat. (I literally laughed out loud.) This time the boat is a slave galley rowed by Octopussy’s army of circus ladies. Where they are rowing to, we don’t know. James is in her bed and has been injured in a crazy stunt (dem bones) and she says, “I wish you weren’t in such a weakened condition.” Then he breaks loose of his leg brace and amorously grabs her. “James!” The end and yawn.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 3

Octopussy gets points for having an army of bad ass women fighting evil henchmen and having a Bond “girl” that’s only 18 years younger than our James. But there are some tired tropes. James sleeping with Magda seems pro forma. There’s a scene where Octopussy gets slapped by the bad guy that could be cut and pasted from a half dozen other Bond films. And there’s a hotel pool populated by bikini-clad babes that seems like a now required sequence. But we do get 007 in the casino, this time playing backgammon. (OK, grandpa.)

India looks great in this film. There’s an exciting Tuk Tuk chase scene in the streets of Udaipur and plenty of elephants, tigers, cobras, and spiders to let you know we’re not in London anymore. The Berlin scenes were shot in Britain and look it. It was great having John Barry back to do the film score after the super cheesy CHIPs music Bill Conti provided for For Your Eyes Only. But Octopussy never really gets off the ground with much peril or charm.

Octopussy premiered in London June 6, 1983, the week that the UK’s Conservative party, led by Maggie Thatcher, was re-elected in a landslide. At the time, I was living in a part of London called Brixton, famous for its riots against Thatcher and the very conservative world of Commander Bond. Prince Charles and Lady Diana were at the premiere while I was probably at some little punk rock club nearby. Moore’s Bond in this film seemed to be even more removed from the world he inhabited. Roger would have one more chance to make James Bond relevant. But first he’d have to contend with the return of a certain Scotsman to the role.

Next: Never Say Never Again (1983)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #13: For Your Eyes Only

February 23, 2025February 23, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 15 Comments

February 23, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

For Your Eyes Only (1981, directed by John Glen)

The third decade of Bond! After the silly sci-fi spectacle of Moonraker, producer Cubby Broccoli wanted to get 007 back to basics for the first Bond of the 1980s. While there is no underground lair, there’s plenty of other Bond staples, like assassins on skis, James in his tux at the baccarat table, underwater battles, and sharks. First time director John Glen, who had edited several Bond films before this, was brought in to bring James back to earth with a plot that was back to spy vs. spy and less reliant on tech (much to the chagrin of Q who seems at his limit with 007 snark).

A 54-year-old Roger Moore (who seems a bit out of breath in a few scenes) is paired with this round’s Bond “girl,” 25-year old French actress Carole Bouquet. Her character, Melina Havelock, is the daughter of marine archeologists who are killed because the KGB is trying to retrieve some British spy technology from the bottom of the Mediterranean. This launches her into the role of sidekick as she tells Bond, “I don’t expect you to understand, you’re English, but I’m half Greek, and Greek women like Elektra always avenge their loved ones!”

By 1981, we have established the tradition of the opening action scene being completely over the top. This one starts James at the grave of his wife, Tracy and ends with Bond captured in a remote controlled helicopter controlled by none other than Blofeld! (and his white pussy cat, presumably not the same one from Diamonds Are Forever). The scenes with the helicopter (with 007 hanging on for dear life) careening over London are eighties epic. The comic death of Blofeld was a long time coming and apparently meant as an FU to the producer of Thunderball, who claimed ownership of the Blofeld name.

For Your Eyes Only gives 007 fans the tropes they crave and, unlike Moonraker, has aged well. Moore’s Bond flirts with the problematic nature of his Lothario reputation while still throwing a solid punch. The quips are dialed back and much of the action is movie candy for the widescreen. For the first time the opening credits reveal females in roles like “production manager” and “continuity,” where previously women were relegated to costumes and make-up. Maybe some of these women whispered in filmmakers’ ears not to make Bond such a dick.

Let’s plug FYEO into our analysis.

Driver of Action – This is Moore’s Bond, but early in the film he is rescued by Melina and her crossbow, although in the mad escape car chase he does ask, “Mind if I drive?” Later in the film he is assisted by Milos Columbo, a pistachio-eating smuggler, and his band of thieves. No CIA help here, M (Bernard Lee) died of cancer before his scenes could be filmed, and Q was inserted merely for comic value. This James Bond is completely capable of solving all problems and escaping all sticky situations.

Role of Violence – There is a great relief of seeing 007 finally kill Blofeld, the man who had his wife killed, by dumping him and his electric wheelchair down an industrial smokestack on the Southside of the Thames. (We don’t know who got custody of the cat.) There are a bunch of henchmen killed, connected to various parts of the plot to get the spyware to the KGB. The most spectacular death is a henchmen in a deep diving suit, looking very robotic, who is blown up inside a sunken English trawler. Boom.

Vulnerability – Credit is given for reminding Bond fans that he was (briefly) married and she died in his arms. It was the only real glimpse we ever got into James the man. The epitaph on her tombstone is, “We have all the time in the world,” his last words to her in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Early in the film, Bond is captured by Cuban hitman Hector Gonzales and rescued by Melina. He seems a bit confused that he suddenly is the damsel in distress, but, like Jesus, he ultimately takes the wheel.

Sexual Potency – Here’s where we start to get a bit of a shift. Bond does not seem to be leering or sexually flirtatious with Melina, 29 years his junior. And between Bond and Moneypenny, the old spark is back, perhaps because they actors are now close in age (both were born in 1927!). Moneypenny, knowing Bond is about to arrive at MI-6 HQ, applies her makeup as James’ hat flies to the hatrack. “Moneypenny, a feast for my eyes,” James says, kissing her on the lips. “What about the rest of you?” she asks. “Well, I was going to get around to that.” There’s the old James Bond we love.

Another character is figure skater Bibi Dahl, played real life figure skater Lynn-Holly Johnson. She has a girl-like crush on Bond and climbs, naked, into his bed. In a shocking turn of events, he rejects her. “You get your clothes on and I’ll buy you an ice cream,” he says trying to kick her out of his room as she plants a kiss on him. Bond does sleep with the Countess Von Schlaf (played by Cassandra Harris, wife of future Bond Pierce Brosnan). The scene feels a bit like, “Oh, this is a Bond film, he needs to bed SOMEBODY.” But like a lot of James’ one night stands, she is killed by some bad guys shortly after bed with Bond. (Death by dune buggy.) And, as if a contractual obligation, James sleeps with Milena at the end of the film. (Can’t let the fans down.) But Bond ’81 seems noticeably less horny. Maybe he was worried about Blofeld’s cat.

Connection – Even though the the plot is pleasingly complex (for a Bond film), 007 is just here to get the job done. There is zero emotional connection. Even Q seems to get on his wick. Milena is strikingly beautiful but she seems to be just a pawn in his plan to stop the KGB from getting this thing (that looks like cheap lighting board). That’s why it’s a bit of a shock that the film ends with them in bed together (ON A BOAT!). Her neglige slides off and she tells James, “For your eyes only.” Roll credits.

Toxic Masculinity Scale: 2

FYEO has some boffo Bond moments. James and Milena in a mini-sub battling another mini-sub under the Mediterranean is pretty damn cool. The scene where 54-year-old Bond is scaling an Alpine cliff in Northern Italy while a henchmen is trying to dislodge the pitons holding his rope is pretty edge of the seat. And there’s a wild ski chase sequence in a bobsled track (that led to the actual death of a stuntman). There’s also some light comedy regarding Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. “She’ll have our guts for garters,” the Minister of Defense says. The film ends with Thatcher (perfectly played by Scottish comedian Janet Brown) trying to congratulate Bond over the phone but actually talking to Milena’s parrot, who repeatedly says, “Give us a kiss.”

The misogyny in this 007 chapter seems to be dialed back a little. Bibi, the pigtailed ice skater, gets slapped by two men, but not by our hero. Gonzales’ Spanish villa is basically a swimming pool surrounded by bikini-clad women and KGB boss, General Gogal, has a secretary who appears to also be his young mistress. Posters for the movie featured Bond framed by woman’s bare legs, meant to attract male eyeballs. But for 1981, the year Porky’s came out, that all seems rather tame. It offers promise that 80s Bond can deliver the action that fans love with out the adjacent sexism.

For Your Eyes Only Premiered June 24, 1981 putting in direct competition with the Bill Murray film, Stripes. Aided by the popular theme song, sung by Sheena Easton, the film was second highest grossing Bond film (after Moonraker). Long, at 127 minutes, the film attempted to bring the grit back to 007 and find a place for the British spy in the new decade after 20 years of carving out the formula. Can Moore’s Bond age gracefully?

Next: Octopussy (1983)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

The James Bond Project #12: Moonraker (1979)

February 7, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 15 Comments

February 7, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

Moonraker (1979, directed by Lewis Gilbert)

Bond in space! For Your Eyes Only was supposed to be the last 007 of the ‘70s, but due to the popularity of Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the sci fi genre, Eon Productions decided to launch James into orbit. For the last time, Lewis Gilbert directed an expansive epic action adventure that starts with Bond falling through the sky without a parachute and ends with him floating in space with this episode’s Bond “girl.” The story is that Steven Spielberg offered to direct Moonraker after he wrapped up Close Encounters, but producer Cubby Broccoli wanted to stick with Gilbert. One can only imagine what THAT film would have looked like. Instead we get a camp romp that pleased Bond fans but looks pretty silly now.

Moonraker sees Roger Moore closing in on 50 but bringing some svelte bona fides to an older Bond. Hair and makeup prop him up nicely. Bond is up against another evil industrialist, this time its rocket designer Hugo Drax (played by Michael Lonsdale, who looks way too much like Peter Dinklage in this movie). Drax, like the megalomaniac in the last movie, wants to kill all the people on earth and then repopulate the planet with his master race of humans who are hanging out in his space ark. Bernard Lee makes his final appearance as M, the role he played since the first Bond film in 1962. Bond is aided by CIA agent/astronaut Dr. Holly Goodhead (Woot! There it is!). Goodhead is played by Lois Chiles, who delivers every line like she’s loaded on valium. Even when everyone on Earth is about to die, her voice remains in the “Gee, what should I wear to work?” range. Maybe Chiles was trying to play against the sexist “hysterical female” archetype, but women are allowed to have emotions. Oh, and Jaws (Richard Kiel) is back and he’s in love.

As we’ve come to expect, Bond does some globetrotting before he leaves the globe. Moonraker takes him to California, Venice, Italy, and Brazil. There’s a boat chase in the canals of Venice, that’s played for comedy (and is really dumb) and there’s a boat chase on the Amazon (that’s pretty cool). In the film, Drax has built a fleet of space shuttles to launch from his underground lair (Yes!) in the Amazon. The real space shuttle wouldn’t be launched by NASA for another two years, on April 12, 1981. That gave movie goers in 1979 a glimpse into what the 80s might look like.

Moonraker premiered in London on June 26, 1979, a week after President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II agreement in Vienna, bringing cold war tensions down a few notches. The film was United Artists widest opening picture and highest grossing of the Bond franchise to that point. There was no hit theme song this time. Shirley Bassey was brought back in after Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, and Kate Bush (!) passed. At the end of the seventies, Bond’s philandering was becoming tired, leaving audiences wondering if the franchise would survive into the 1980s.

Let’s drop Moonraker into our analysis matrix.

Driver of Action – As we’ve established, the Moore Bond films firmly place James in the driver seat, typically with the female spy sidekick who he can also sleep with. Dr. Goodhead doesn’t drive much of the story in Moonraker, and, like, the last film, needs to be rescued from the bad guy. Even though she’s a CIA agent AND an astronaut, James is still running the operation. We do get the team of M, Q, Moneypenny, and (now) the Defense Minister wedged in to help the ludicrous plot move along.

Role of Violence – 007 has a pretty low bodycount in this film. He shoots a would-be assassin out of a tree while pheasant hunting and, other than killing Drax at the end, that’s about it. There is a crazy climactic space battle with lasers when, somehow, a battalion of U.S. soldiers are crammed into the cargo bay of a space shuttle and then attack Drax’s space station. (I’m guessing this is where Trump got his idea for a U.S. Space Force.) Not sure where all the laser guns were in 1979, but Bond doesn’t really engage in any of the violence (like in the last film when he was mowing suckers down). Maybe older Bond has lost his taste for blood.

Vulnerability – Moore’s Bond is a robot. When he discovers Goodhead alive in Drax’s underground lair (beneath a shuttle that’s about to lift off), he says “Thank God you’re safe.” That’s it.

Sexual Potency – I could write a dissertation on this one. The FDA wouldn’t introduce Viagra until 1998 and one wonders if the mad scientists at Pfizer dreamed of a drug that would give men Bond boners. 007 is MI-6’s heat seeking missile. He’s rapacious. There isn’t a skirt he won’t chase, except for Miss Moneypenny, who is now matronly and completely off Bond’s radar. (How I miss their banter.) Speaking of Moneypenny, at the start of the film M asks her if 007 is back from his mission. “He’s on his last leg, sir,” she replies. The next shot is Bond’s hand on a flight attendants bare leg. “Any higher Mr. Bond and my ears will pop,” she says. (Of course she’s a double agent and Bond is sent flying out of the plane without a parachute, leading to one of the greatest action stunts in movie history.)

Bond may have failed at getting her knickers down, but you can’t keep a good Double O down. He makes passes at every woman under 40 that passes his field of vision. He would have made the moves on Drax’s hench-women, but he had to wrestle a giant anaconda. Shit happens. He does end up in bed with Corinne Dufour, Drax’s personal pilot, played by The Story of O’s Corinne Cléry. (She is killed by dogs for her transgression.) He also beds his MI-6 contact in Rio, Manuela. In his hotel room, she bares her leg and James asks, “How do you kill 5 hours in Rio if you don’t Samba?” Then he unties her frock. James meets Dr. Goodhead in California at Drax’s compound, but then again in Venice where he realizes she is CIA. He seduces her into bed and makes the case that she should team up, but she slips away in the morning. The film ends with Bond and Goodhead having sex in zero gravity onboard a Space Shuttle. As is the gag now, the MI-6 brass is watching and M asks what Bond is doing. Q replies, “I believe he is attempting re-entry, sir.” Thank you and goodnight.

There also a side story worth commenting on. The monstrous Jaws is “redeemed” by falling in love in Rio. He’s a giant and she’s tiny with braided pigtails and glasses, dressed like a farm girl with heaving cleavage. Next to him, she looks like a child and I think that’s the point. She doesn’t speak, only stares lovingly her 7 foot 2 man. When Jaws realizes there’s no room for him and “Dolly” in Drax’s fascist utopia, he helps Bond to thwart the evil plot. The odd pair then open a bottle of champaign as the space lair is destroyed. The whole thing is icky.

Connection – Again, Moore’s Bond is a man untethered to anyone. There’s a scene where he’s riding a horse in Brazil looking like a gaucho. It’s an obvious nod to Clint Eastwood, the penultimate seventies model of masculinity, the high plains drifter. His connection to Goodhead is wafer thin. In the obligatory coitus end scene, James and Holly are having space sex and she says, “Take me ’round the world one more time.” He drolly replies, “Why not?” Boring sex is boring.

Summary Moonraker is so broad and silly it’s just a romp at this point. The countless henchmen scientists in their yellow jumpsuits, the martial arts attack by Drax’s Asian manservant in a glass museum that destroys dozens of priceless artifacts, escaping the bad guy in a Carnival celebration (Thunderball redux), pretending to be weightless by moving slowly, it’s all in good fun. But the fact that Moore and Chiles seem so completely bored by the script drags down the campiness of Bond ’79. And Jaws and his child bride may have delighted young fans in the Carter era, but it just seems kind of sad now.

These seventies 007 movies have consistently missed an easy opportunity to be a part of the decade where feminism went mainstream. Most of them attempted to pair James up with a female spy that could have been his equal or even taught him a few things. Instead they played the role to attract the male gaze and be yet another notch on James’ bedpost. Yawn. Will things be different in the third decade of our hero?

Next: For Your Eyes Only (1981)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)

The James Bond Project #10: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

The James Bond Project #11: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

February 6, 2025 ~ Randy Blazak ~ 17 Comments

February 5, 2025

This series is intended to evaluate each product of the James Bond film franchise through a feminist lens, and the relevance of the Bond archetype to shifting ideas of masculinity in the 2020s.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977, directed by Lewis Gilbert)

This was the first Bond film I saw in the theater. My dad took my little brother and I to see the PG-rated Spy Who Loved Me the summer of ’77. I was 13 and what I remember most was the brief glimpse of Barbara Bach’s (or her body double’s) right breast in the submarine shower scene. I was 13, OK? But The Spy Who Loved Me was a return to form after the limp Man with the Golden Gun in 1974. It had all your musts, including oodles of cool gadgets from Q, Bond in his tux and bad girls in bikinis, scores of henchmen willing to die for a megalomaniac, and sharks. My absolute favorite part of the film when I was a kid (besides the boob) was the Lotus Esprit that turned into a submarine, complete with missiles. I thought that was the coolest thing on earth and dreamed of a submarine car of my own. Ironically, in 2013 actual megalomaniac supervillain Elon Musk bought the film’s Lotus for £616,000 in hopes of turning it into a workable submarine. (Like most of his crazy ideas, he failed.)

Roger Moore definitely is getting his mojo back in his third installment in the Bond franchise. While his lines still fall a bit flat, he’s got Bond “girls” dripping from his arms. On top of the TSWLM list is Barbara Bach as KGB agent Anya Amasova, AKA Agent XXX (get it?). Bach was a model and Spaghetti Western actor who would next star in Caveman (1980) with her future husband, Beatle Ringo Starr. (Rumors were that Moore wanted Brigitte Bardot for the role.) As a sort of seventies Blofeld, this installment’s villain is wealthy industrialist Karl Stromberg, who wants to destroy the world so he can build a new world under the ocean. Stromberg is played by Curt Jürgens, who starred with Bardot in And God Created Woman in 1956. Added to the cast is Richard Kiel, who stars as the indestructible steel toothed giant, Jaws. The return of You Only Live Twice director Lewis Gilbert helped to bring some of the Connery-era swagger back to 007’s mission.

As is expected, the exotic locales splash across the screen. Bond riding a camel across the Egyptian desert and then chasing the bad guys through the Giza ruins was not filmed on an English set. It was there on sight, as were the scenes filmed on the Italian island of Sardinia. We return to some classic Bond tropes, like assassins on skis (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and underwater battles (Thunderball). There’s sexy one-liners (Her: But James, I need you! Him: So does England.) And sexist one-liners (James commenting on a woman in a bikini in a boat, in front of Anya, posing as his wife – “What a handsome craft. Such lovely lines.”) And while we don’t get an underground lair, we get an under WATER lair that serves its purpose.

The Spy Who Loved Me premiered in the United States on August 3, 1977, the same day that the Tandy Corporation debuted the first mass produced microcomputer, the TRS-80, forever changing popular culture and gadgets in James Bond movies. The film received mixed reviews but fared better than its predecessor. Boosted by a great theme song, sung by Carly Simon (and constantly on the radio the summer of 1977), the film was United Artists biggest grossing movie to date, but competed in theaters with the box office sensation that was Star Wars, putting it at #8 for the year (between The Deep and Oh, God!)

Let’s put The Spy Who Loved Me in our feminist evaluation machine.

Driver of Action – I’m getting the feeling that the formula for Moore’s Bond films are it’s just him. Even though he’s paired up with a Soviet spy, Anya Amosova, this isn’t a buddy film. She’s primarily sexy arm candy whom 007 has to rescue. (Although there is one scene in Egypt where she throws up her arms in a Charlies Angels karate pose that I thought was going to give us some Russian aggression, but no such luck.) James does not even have a support team. We get brief cameos by Q and Moneypenny, but this is just James.

Role of Violence – 007 kills some people in TSWLM. At the start of the film he shoots a Soviet agent (who is Anya’s boyfriend) with a rocket ski poll while skiing backwards. He drops one of Stromberg’s henchmen off a roof in Cairo, and then kills a half dozen more in a crazy car chase in Sardinia, including killing a bikini-clad helicopter pilot with a missile from his submerged Lotus. When the action moves to Stromberg’s tanker, which is being used to capture nuclear submarines, 007 with a machine gun goes on a rampage. There are literally bloodless corpses everywhere. Where’s the blood? And James shoots Stromberg multiple times in his underwater HQ.

Vulnerability – There is actually a mention of Bond being married in the film. Anya brings up that he was married and his wife was killed and he stops her from going any further. It was almost a moment of James the person. The break from James performing “007” was jarring but it only lasted for a split second and then it was back to Robot Bond.

Sexual Potency – This version of Bond wants to be as horizontal as possible. Miss Moneypenny might be too old for him in the late 70s, but every other women on the screen is fair game for his jacked up libido. To be fair, the film starts with a twist on the familiar theme. A man that looks like James is in bed with a beautiful woman when the phone rings. We learn that the woman is actually a Soviet agent, Anya Amosava, and the man is just a lover. Never fear, the very next scene is James in bed with a Russian woman in Austria. It’s a clever trick perhaps meant to say that women can play this game. James in Egypt meets a very white sheik who has a harem of beautiful women. When Bond is offered one of the women for the night he says it would be rude to refuse the offer. In Cairo, he meets another woman who is linked to a connection. He tries to seduce her but ends up using her body to block an assassin’s bullet. Oh well.

The rest of the film is about James and Anya, cold war enemies who have teamed up for some “Anglo Soviet cooperation” to stop this dude who is stealing submarines and wants to blow up the world. Bond can’t keep his hands off her and she may just be playing him by letting his hands and lips wander. But there is a scene on a train (You know, the scene on the train!) where Jaws attacks James and Anya and Bond tosses him out of the train window (We’ve seen this movie before) and Anya says, “You saved my life.” The sexy sax version of theme song swells up as James takes her in his arms. Later, the film ends with 007 and XXX getting busy in a preview of Glasnost ten years down the road.

Connection – This is a weird one. (Surprise.) The film is called The Spy Who Loved Me and theme song is sung by a female so it’s reasonable it’s about Anya being loved by James. In the film Stromberg says Bond is “in love with a Russian agent.” But it doesn’t seem like either are in love with anyone. Anya seems to forgive him after finding out he killed her boyfriend, but it doesn’t seem the least bit romantic. This is the aloof Bond of the seventies. Even Q and Moneypenny are kept at arm’s length. Regardless, the film ends with James and Anya bobbing in the ocean in a luxury escape pod, complete with a bed and a chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon ’52. The pod floats into a cruising British destroyer where M and the British Ministers of Defense peer in through the window to see the two spies in flagrante delicto. “Bond! What do you think you’re doing?” asks the defense minister. “Keeping the British end up, sir.” And scene.

Toxic Masculinity Score: 6

Summary Watching this movie took me right back to the summer of ’77. The underwater submarine car battling frog men with their own subs was bliss for a 13-year-old boy. Catching a glimpse of Bach’s boob while sitting next to my dad was both terrifying and titillating. (See what I did there?) No part of me questioned the silly logic of the plot. Now I look at through the lens of 48 years of media. Stromberg has hundreds of henchmen all in red suits, like they were the henchmen of Squid Games. I wondered, who made these suits? Did Stromberg buy in bulk? Are they one size fits all? And do these henchmen get benefits? They all seem to be willing to die for him (and they all do). There should at least be life insurance in their benefits package. And dental.

The Spy Who Love Me, through that modern lens, has a pretty dim view of women. Bach, a few years after the film, said as much, telling People Magazine in 1983 that in the film Bond, “is a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets.” Moore himself said much the same in the 1970s. “Bond, like myself, is a male chauvinist pig. All my life I’ve been trying to get women out of brassieres and pants.” At least Bond doesn’t smack any women in this film on his way to thwart the accelerationist doomsday plot of this episode’s mad genius. While the mushroom clouds over the Atlantic might dampen the joie de vivre of the cold warriors warming things up the film’s climax, were left wondering will the aging Commander Bond will run out of notches on his belt before producers run of out of Ian Fleming novels to film.

Next: Moonraker (1979)

The James Bond Project #8: Diamonds are Forever (1971)

The James Bond Project #7: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

The James Bond Project #6: You Only Live Twice (1967)

The James Bond Project #2: From Russia With Love (1963)