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The Spy Who Loved Me: World domination.
= 5 stars
Starring Roger Moore, Barbara Bach
Directed by Lewis Gilbert
Amazon link
Roger Moore (James Bond)
Barbara Bach (Major Anya Amasova)
The Spy Who Loved Me is easily the best Roger Moore Bond outing. It evokes From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball - my favorite of the Sean Connery Bond adventures, but adds new elements that keep things varied, entertaining, and in a few spots, surpasses the earlier Bonds.
In this spy adventure, the arch enemy is Karl Stromberg (Curd Jurgens), the world’s richest man, who steals nuclear armed submarines from the British and the Russians. Bond (Roger Moore) voyages to Egypt where he finds Soviet agent Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) and are nearly killed by the seven-foot tall, metal-mouthed evil henchman Jaws (Richard Kiel). They eventually make their way to Sardinia, and Stromberg’s secret underwater base, which looks like a robot out of a Godzilla movie. Anyhow, Stromberg wants to use the nuclear missiles to blow up Moscow and Manhattan, starting World War III, after which the population of his underwater base will take over the world.
As for the typical Bond film elements: Bond has a pretty slick car which transforms into a submarine, complete with its own sea-to-air missile which naturally is used at a key moment.
The opening of The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the most audacious ever. Following a ski chase, Bond flies right over a cliff to certain death, only to open a parachute as he plummets down - remember, this was before CGI.
The excitement continues. Another area where the film outdoes others is its evil henchman: Jaws. Other Bond movies had their scary, evil sidekicks before (Odd Job, Number Two, Nick Nack) but never the likes of Jaws (Richard Kiel). This guy is seven feet tall with a metal mouth, tears apart a car with his bare hands, and chomps both people and Thunderball-esque sharks. He’s so cruelly cool that an easy death would have been disrespectful, and so Jaws would make another appearance in Moonraker (the only Bond henchman to appear in more than one film).
The female Bond lady Anya Amasova is also of a different breed; a bit reminiscent of the Russian element in From Russia With Love (there’s even a scene on a train) except taken further. Amasova is a peer that Bond must cooperate with for his survival, instead of the usual dreamy-eyed women that Bond usually beds and abandons.
Lastly, I must mention the theme song Nobody Does It Better, sung by Carly Simon, which breaks from Bond tradition in that it’s a ballad and isn’t named after the title of the film. All the Bond songs up until this point were active, exciting tunes meant to evoke explosions, espionage, and tense emotions. Instead, The Spy Who Loved Me features a wistful song that highlights the romantic side of Bond.
IMDB: The Spy Who Loved Me
Wikipedia: The Spy Who Loved Me
Categories: 5 Star Movies, General, James Bond, Movies :: Tags: ::
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[...] 004. The Spy Who Loved Me [...]
Roger Moore was good in this one. He still can’t carry off a fight scene for toffee, but he seems a lot more likeable, and genuinely appears ‘involved’ in the general plot. The main title theme was a good one, too. Not at all to one’s own personal taste in music, but in context as a Bond theme, one of the best. Unfortunately, like Bond in the bad blue-screen shots which assault the pre-credit sequence’s believability, we’re off downhill from there. Jaws wasn’t scary enough. What was wrong with doing a wee in-joke like introducing him bit-by-bit, a la the shark in the Spielberg movie? Way scarier than seeing him all at once. Barbara Bach sure was one hot tamale to look at, but acting was all too evidently beyond her capability. Then again, maybe she simply thought that essaying ‘Russian’ was equal to ‘talking zombie with a well dodgy accent’. Evidently the director did. Same old ‘mad scientist/would-be dictator with a superweapon and a secret base’ plot from back in the day, too. We got a little of that dear ‘ol Bond Film Racism as well, with the painful ‘Lawrence Of Arabia’ references and white people painted brown dancing in a bizzare ‘Dervish’ manner at an Egyptian nightspot which apparently hosts only Caucasian guests. Listen out for the toe-curlingly approximated ‘Moslem singing’ just before you get there, too. Oh, and towards the end, note the evil submarine crew in the campy red uniforms. They just can’t get enough of that pink blusher and lipstick. Oh well, it’s Stromberg’s operation and if he wants his sub crew to look like the Pet Shop Boys, then nobody’s going to argue. One reads the books, goes scanning the blogsites and emerges with the widely-held opinion that this was the best Moore Bond movie. Heven’t seen them all, but yes, that is true so far. Moore was good, but little else about it was.