The film industry recession of the late 60s and relative disappointment of On Her Majesty's Secret Service shook the faith of United Artists, who offered Sean Connery the keys to the bank if he'd return to the role of James Bond. It worked, and the movie was a hit - which doesn't change the fact it's not that good, and Connery gives his weakest performance as Bond to date.
It had only been a few years but Connery looked a lot older and heavier with his least convincing toupee; he lacks sophistication and lumbers around like an aging football player gone slightly to seed. He also looks not very happy to be there.
It's a pity because I was looking for some emotional stuff from Bond in the wake of his wife's death in the previous film; they could have borrowed from the opening chapter of the book You Only Live Twice and have a boozing Bond, shattered and on the verge of collapse. But instead there's a mostly unmemorable pre-credit sequence where Bond tracks down Blofeld, then kills him in an unexciting fight scene.
I say "mostly unmemorable" because there are some good gimmicks and bits in it - someone saying "hit me" before being hit, and a woman being strangled in her bikini. And to be fair Diamonds Are Forever has a few good bits - funny lines, little gimmicky moments like the fake fingerprints. But as a narrative whole it's a failure.
The story isn't much - Bond follows a diamond smuggling trail from Amsterdam to Las Vegas, which involves him going undercover as a smuggler. Undercover stories almost always work but the script throws away opportunities wholesale - there's no real stakes (emotional or life and death) if Tiffany Case realises Bond was a liar, and Bond always has this massive support crew nearby to help him out.
No doubt worried about the low key drama that was unfolding, the screenwriters then throw in a third act plot about the diamonds being used by Blofeld to create a ray gun which feels uncooked and stupid, plus a twist with Blofeld pretending to be a reclusive billionaire, which is actually a great idea, but really badly done.
So much of this is stupid - instead of killing Bond, Blofeld arranges for him to be taken out to the desert alive to be left for dead (I recognise the baddies not killing Bond was a regular feature of the series but this movie pushes it to ridiculous proportions Blofeld kidnaps Tiffany Case for absolutely no good reason; Bofeld lets Bond come on board the oil rig and doesn't kill him at the end; Bond goes to Whyte's house on his own for no good reason when Felix Leiter is there as well.
I am admittedly biased here because I don't like my Bond films to be overly American and this is the most American Bond yet. The old stylish 60s look is gone, with too many ugly shirts and cars, the two girls Bond beds are American (and noisily so too), the character actors are over familiar American gangster types, Vegas in the day looks too tacky, there's the least memorable Felix Leiter yet. And I couldn't help feeling Blofeld didn't belong in America.
Jill St John is pretty and spunky, has a good character name, looks good in a bikini and wrapped in that white fur, but lacks spark, bravery and a sense of danger/death; also she is far too dim, especially her shenanigans at the end with the tape. It's a shame they couldn't have kept some of the man-hating, wounded-bird aspect to Tiffany's character from the novel - it would have given her somewhere to go dramatically and been more interesting than the mercenary, wise-cracking ditz here... but clearly by the way the filmmakers avoided Bond having any trauma in the fall out from his wife's death they didn't want to create a Bond film with any emotional depth. It's a real shame because the direct follow up to On Her Majesty's Secret Service should have had some depth.
Plenty O'Toole has spectacular cleavage, a funny stunt fall into a pool and a tragic end that doesn't make too much sense if you think about and she's too jokey for us to care much what happens to her. But at least she's better than Jimmy Dean's Willard Whyte, who is appalling - I can't believe the filmmakers miscast so badly; he's meant to be this recluse a la Howard Hughes, which could have been a marvellous creepy, intriguing character but and instead they have this jokey well adjusted Texan who always seems to be on the toilet. Not for one moment do you believe he is a reclusive billionaire; a hick moronic Texas oilman lately but not some mogul. To make things worse he takes part in the helicopter attack on the oil rig at the end - get stuffed! He is not Draco. In the pantheon of "Bond allies" in the series, Dean's Willard Whyte would rank right down the bottom.
The moon buggy chase and following car chase through Vegas is dull as is the final battle on an oil rig (oil rigs are never as exciting as I think they'll be - they look so great but they never seem to result in any decent action ssequences). I enjoyed the circus and funeral parlour scenes and there's a decent fight in an elevator between Bond and Peter Franks (an attempt to reprise the Red Grant fight on the train in From Russia with Love) - but it might have meant more had we gotten to know the character of Peter Franks first.
Charles Gray is an absolutely dreadful Blofeld; not only is he a whimp he seems bored most of the time, and monumentally uninterested in his own plan. Donald Pleasance's Blofeld at least had ambition and scope, Telly Savalas' was human and genuinely tough - Grey is just dull. There is absolutely no tension between him and Bond over Tracey's death from the previous film, which would have given this a massive lift; Blofeld is a moron, a pushover and an all-round unworthy opponent. It's a disgraceful treatment of one of the great Bond villains.
Okay some good things: I liked multiple Blofelds, Bambi and Thumper are entertaining henchwomen, Bruce Glover and Putter Smith are fun as the two gay killers. Shirley Bassey sings a first rate theme song and fans will enjoy Shane Rimmer popping up as one of Whyte's assistants. But I was surprised how awful this was. Dull, unexotic, lacking any sort of logic.
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