Terence Young – Movie Musings

The most memorable moment of Thunderball – and it happens in the first few minutes

Director: Terence Young

Cast: Sean Connery (James Bond), Claudine Auger (Domino), Adolfo Celi (Emilio Largo), Luciana Paluzzi (Fiona Volpe), Rik Van Nutter (Felix Leiter), Guy Doleman (Count Lippe), Molly Peters (Patricia Fearing), Martine Beswick (Paula Caplan), Bernard Lee (M), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Roland Culver (Home Secretary), Paul Stassino (Francois Derval/Angelo Palazzi)

By 1965 no one bigger than James Bond – and the films had to reflect that. Thunderball had more money spent on it than all the previous Bond films put together. I suppose you can see that on the screen, but it doesn’t change the fact I’ve always found Thunderball one of the most meh of all Bond films. I always fail to get really engaged in it, and it’s stuffed with the sort of high-blown set-pieces where it feels the producers were so pleased at the possibility of doing something, they never stopped to think if there was an actual reason to do it.

Thunderball’s plot is the first example of what would become a pretty standard Bond trope: the swiping of nuclear missiles by criminals to hold the world to ransom (the principle would be repeated again in You Only Live Twice, Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker). In this case it’s Spectre agent Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), who steals a British nuke-carrying jet and demands £100 million ransom to return it. All the 00 agents are scrambled, but of course James Bond (Sean Connery) has the only lead – helped by the fact he was staying at the same health farm where the hijacker was being surgically altered to replace the jet’s pilot. Bond heads to the Bahamas to follow his lead, the pilot’s sister Domino (Claudine Auger) – only to find out she’s Largo’s girl! Will Bond get those missiles in time and dodge sharks, heavies, red-headed femme fatales and deadly street parades?

Well of course. After all, Nobody Does It Better. Thunderball is big, expensive and has several high-octane fights. But it’s also strangely slow and ponderous, takes ages to get started and has the distinct whiff of everyone going through the motions. Compared to Goldfinger and From Russia with Love there is a noticeable lack of spark and wit. All the invention seems to have gone into some of the gadgets – look Bond has a jet pack! – and none into the script which presents a series of plug-and-play characters and a plot set-up that lacks any real sense of quirk.

It also doesn’t help that what feels like vast reams of the film are filmed underwater. The producers were obviously thrilled by the invention of underwater cameras, so were eager to throw as many action sequences down there as possible. Problem is an underwater action sequence is devoid of sound and, due to the breathing apparatus, it’s nearly impossible to see anyone’s face. All this makes for some slow-paced action sequences where it’s rather hard to tell what’s going on and who is on what side.

The score tries to compensate for this by hammering up the musical intensity. Everything in the film is trying desperately to tell you this is thrilling, but you eventually realise all you are really watching are a group of wet-suit clad stuntmen moving slowly around trying to hit each other. All this in a silence only broken by the occasional ‘dead’ character floating away in a burst of despairing oxygen bubbles. Nothing that happens underwater in Thunderball sticks in the mind, for all the money spend on it.

But that’s kind of the case for the whole film. It’s a huge spectacle, but also one of the hardest Bonds to recall. The opening sequence is overshadowed by Bond’s brief escape via jet pack (where does he get it from? How does he find the time to put it on when he’s being chased? Don’t ask) but is still a witty bit of fun as Bond works out that the widow at the Spectre agent’s funeral he’s observing, is in fact the widow in disguise. But the film from here takes a very long time to get going again, with Bond pottering around a health farm. The investigation into the missiles is cursory even by Bond standards, and the only sequence that really stands out is Bond limping bleeding through a street party and using the femme fatale as a human shield.

It’s all very competently, if rather lifelessly, directed and looks great. The sight of Largo’s boat splitting into two and one part zooming away is still impressive. Sharks get a healthy workout – sharks in Bond films are always about twenty seconds away from ripping people apart. But it’s all got an air of duty about it. Its a massive box-ticking exercise. It doesn’t even have a proper ending: Bond and Domino are literally air-lifted away without a word a few seconds after Largo’s death, as if the scriptwriters hit their page count and didn’t bother putting anything else down (future films would not miss up the chance for a bit of double entendre laced shagging while waiting for rescue).

Sean Connery looks like he might have had enough (this was his fourth Bond film in about four years), heading towards the autopilot that would become even more pronounced in You Only Live Twice. There are sparks of the old cheek and charm – and he does the final fight scene with a physical viciousness that I don’t think he displayed in any other film – but his mind is elsewhere. Not much comes from the rest of the cast, almost exclusively made up of European actors all-too-clearly dubbed. Largo is the most non-descript Bond villain on record, Domino a character so forgettable the scriptwriters don’t even remember to have Bond sleep with her. Luciana Paluzzi makes the best impression as the femme fatale Fiona Volpe (although she later claimed she was never taken seriously as an actress again).

Thunderball is reasonably entertaining, but it’s the most missable background playing of all the Bond films. There is nothing in here that really stands out, no moment that dominates the clip shows, nothing that you can put your finger on that makes it really unique. It’s not even terrible like some of the other films. It’s dominated by dull underwater sequences and has a cast of largely forgettable characters. It’s a film made to order but with no love.

Bond sets out his stall in series opener Dr No.

Director: Terence Young

Cast: Sean Connery (James Bond), Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder), Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), Jack Lord (Felix Leiter), Bernard Lee (M), Anthony Dawson (Professor Dent), John Kitzmiller (Quarrel), Zena Marshall (Miss Taro), Eunice Grayson (Sylvia Trench), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny)

It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when the launch of James Bond novel was nothing more than a little B-picture event – rather than the major cultural landmark it has now become. But James Bond started off as a slightly higher budget B-movie of a character largely unknown to those who don’t read spy fiction.

After the murder of a British agent in Jamaica, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to investigate. Arriving in Jamaica, Bond quickly finds himself the target of a series of increasingly outlandish attempts to take his life: from a fake embassy driver to a series of assassins pretending to be blind and a sinister geology professor. Eventually, Bond detects the hands (forgive the pun) of Dr No (Joseph Wiseman), who is experimenting with radioactivity on a nearby island.

What is striking is how much of the Bond-movie formula is in place here right from the start – or rather, how much the style and tone established here fitted so naturally with the source material and character, meaning it would be used repeatedly throughout the rest of the series. Most striking of course are the music cues, all perfect and immediately cool. Is it any wonder that no-one has felt the need to change the James Bond Theme since? But it’s not just that: Bond’s flirtation with Moneypenny and cheeky-protégé exchanges with M? Check. Exotic locales, car chases, shoot ups and wise cracks over dead bodies? Check. The villain being a suavely charming wannabe upper-class type with a creepy deformity, a vague plan and a ridiculously overblown layer? Check. Wave after wave of heavies attempting to bump Bond off with overblown schemes? Check. The villain monologing rather than killing Bond? Check. It’s all there – the formula was in place, and would remain for the next 60 years.

Of course, it probably wouldn’t have worked without getting the casting of Bond himself right – which they certainly did with Connery. Not exactly a conventional choice for a character Fleming imagined as a mixture of Noel Coward, Cary Grant, David Niven and Christopher Lee, Connery brought to it the earthy violence, the roughness and sense of danger that made you believe he could not only merrily kill a room full of goons, but that he would hardly break a sweat doing it. The film’s writers downplayed the self-doubt, anxiety and fear that Fleming’s book-Bond often displayed, repositioning the character as a serenely cool and charismatic superspy, with Connery granting him an additional charm and sex appeal all rooted in his charisma as a performer. He’s magnetic here – whippet thin, dryly deadpan and ruthlessly violent. He established completely the template the character would follow through the next five actors.

What’s interesting watching this film is how close it is to being a one-man movie cum character study. Bond’s principle love interest, Honey Ryder, doesn’t appear until half way through the film and Dr No himself doesn’t pop up until the final act. Felix Leiter has just a few bare scenes. Instead, the focus is front and centre on Bond himself, and Connery’s perfect mix of suave sophisticate and brutal remorseless brawler. The character’s comfort with sex and violence (often close together) is in every scene – Bond sleeps with at least four women, flirts with a couple more, ruthlessly offs a wave of heavies sent by No, and cold bloodedly guns down defenceless doofus Professor Dent. Perhaps fitting for a film that promoted itself as “the FIRST James Bond film”, it wants us to understand (and above all, enjoy the company of) this guy, with the hope that we will sign up for multiple movies to come (which of course we did).

As a standalone film, Doctor No makes a pretty good fist of things. Its plot avoids a clumsy “Bond: Origins” story, instead throwing us straight into events (despite being the first Bond film, it could basically be watched in any order with Connery’s other Bonds – only his first discovery of SPECTRE has any bearing on the timeline). Its plot is certainly a lot more stodgy and wordy than later films would be – but the balance is Bond actually gets to do quite a bit of investigating. The pace is kept up, even if (as noted) most of the film’s principle characters don’t appear until late in the film.

The rather low budget is clear in the rather rudimentary car chases (back screen projection ahoy!) and fights, which rely heavily on sped-up film to get their impact across. I suspect most of the money went on the glamourous Jamaican location, but that does look fantastic under Ted Moore’s photography.

The film does though have a certain mastery in its direction, not least in the introduction of its leading characters. The introduction of Bond himself (held off for the best part of 10 minutes) is a lovely example: a camera tracks into a casino, settling on a table before craning up to reveal the lady Bond is playing against. A medium shot of the same table: Bond’s hands can be seen but nothing else. The camera focuses on the lady again and tracks back over Bond’s shoulders – we see the outline of his neck. Several shots of his hands follow flipping over cards – finally he speaks (“I admire your courage Miss uh –“ being the character’s immortal first onscreen words). She retorts and then the camera finally jump cuts to Connery nonchantly lighting a cigarette with practised cool – while the Bond theme gently underplays, swelling throughout the rest of the scene. From here now we cut to Connery’s face every few seconds. It’s a masterful building of tension and aura. Similar skill is also of course shown in the later entrance of Ursula Andress’ Honey Ryder.

Dr No is an extremely enjoyable B-movie, which successfully sets up the tropes that would play out so well in future Bond movies. Ken Adams’ imposing set design for Dr No’s secret base set the tone for the sort of futuristic locations Bond would find himself in, and would only grow in imagination as the film series expanded. It’s not just the visuals – the tone of the series is pretty much there straight away, and if the plot is not always the most gripping and the action not always the most compelling, that would only develop as the series got more and more money pumped its way. Indeed the follow-up, From Russia with Love, would build perfectly on many of the concepts and ideas introduced in this film. Dr No is not in the top 10 best Bond films, but it continues to reward and entertain – and for starting such a huge ball rolling so confidently, it deserves plenty of praise.