Octopussy

Octopussy

For Your Eyes Only was a divisive film in my group of friends - they found it tedious and frustrating, whereas I appreciated the return of a semi-realistic tone to the franchise and truly believe that just a few missteps derail it from being a great film (though they are pretty big missteps, to be fair).  Roger Moore's next film Octopussy ended up being even more divisive - only this time, it is my friends and me against pretty much the rest of the world!

A British secret service agent is murdered, dressed as a clown and carrying a fake faberge egg (basically a very fancy, jeweled egg).  It's all very peculiar, so James Bond is sent in to investigate. Of course, his sleuthing introduces him to a whole gaggle of villains, including exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) and his right hand man Gobinda (Kabir Bedi), as well as a circus run by a mysterious and dangerous woman named Octopussy (Maud Adams).  Leaping from London to India to Germany, Bond has to discover why these villains need something as rare as a faberge egg and how that all connects to a renegade Russian general named Orlov (Steven Berkoff), who wants to ignite the Cold War into a hot one.

A lot of people point to Octopussy as an example of all that is wrong with the Roger Moore years. And they point to very specific things - silly gadgets (alligator submarine, anyone?), unbelievable action (that silly fight in the Indian market), and ridiculous jokes (there is a Tarzan yell that is frankly unforgivable).  Plus, Roger Moore is looking too old to be wooing such young women and throwing punches.  He looks more likely to throw his back out.

I can't defend against any of these points.  These specific moments are indeed bad, and Roger Moore is starting to look a bit long in the tooth.  But if are trying to find an example of over-the-top Bond shenanigans that go too far, then look no further than Moonraker.  After that space epic, the Bond films actually came back down to Earth and became more realistic.  Octopussy has these absurd and ridiculous moments, but they are only moments.  For the most part, this is more of a Cold War thriller that tonally is feels like it has more in common with Goldfinger and Thunderball than Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

There is a lot to like here.  The pre-credits scene is terrific. The villains - especially Jourdan and Berkoff, are chewing scenery like they were told they'd never get a chance to act again, and they are both very entertaining.  Roger Moore is looking a bit old, but I think he is still able to hold his own. As for the Bond girl, the producers were wise to cast Maud Adams (in her second Bond film after Man with the Golden Gun). Though 13-years younger than Moore, she exhibits a maturity and authority that makes her the perfect romantic partner for an aging super spy.  I actually think she is the best Bond girl of the entire Roger Moore run.

Also, John Barry makes a stunning return to the franchise and delivers another brilliant score.  The stunts are exciting, much of the humor actually is funny, and some of the gadgets are actually pretty cool (buzzsaw yoyo? Hell yes!).  Octopussy also presents what is easily one of the most tense moments of the Roger Moore run, when Bond has to get to diffuse a nuclear bomb in the circus. It's just a terrific scene.

I don't love Octopussy, but I think it is woefully underrated.  It's a worthy entry to the franchise and is way better than its reputation. I was pleased that my group of friends agreed.  We just don't get it. Why all the hate?

I think it must be that damn Tarzan yell.


RANKINGS:

This one is tough. There is a lot I don't like in Octopussy, but large portions of it work really quite well.  And it is hard for me to ignore the nostalgia factor, as much as I want to.  Octopussy was probably the first Bond film I saw, and it was on a constant rotation in my house growing up. Despite the fact that most people put it near the bottom, I'm putting it firmly in the middle.  The big question is which side of For Your Eyes Only should it be on?  When both films are good, I think Octopussy might be better. When both films are bad, well, they are equally bad.  So I think that gives Octopussy the slight edge - and yes, I know I just made a big deal about For Your Eyes Only having the potential to be Moore's best Bond film.  But the reality is I think Octopussy is just a little bit better.

1. Thunderball
2. From Russia With Love
3. Goldfinger
4. The Spy Who Loved Me
5. Dr. No
6. Octopussy
7. For Your Eyes Only
8. Live and Let Die
9. Man with the Golden Gun
10. Diamonds are Forever
11. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
12. Moonraker
13. You Only Live Twice


BEST LINE:
This is an easy one, even if it is just a one word line of dialogue. It's all in Louis Jourdan's seedy and scenery chewing delivery: "Octopussy."

TRIVIA:
1983 was the year that Kevin McClory was supposed to get his payback.  After decades of litigation, he finally got the rights to the James Bond story "Thunderball" which he had co-written with Ian Fleming in the 1950s.  He also won the rights to SPECTRE and Bond's arch nemesis Ernst Blofeld. And now he was finally going to get to work on producing his own Bond film - even if it was going to be technically a remake of 1965's Thunderball.  McClory even managed a huge coup when he convinced Sean Connery to return to the iconic role that had made him a star.  The new Bond film, called Never Say Never Again as a joke about Connery's refusal to play Bond ever again, was going to come out the same summer as Eon's Octopussy.  It was going to be a battle of the Bonds.  For Roger Moore and Sean Connery, who were good friends, it was a friendly competition.  But there was bad blood between Team McClory-Connery and Team Broccoli.  And I wouldn't be surprised if both sides were out for blood.

And sure enough, the allure of Sean Connery returning to the role made waves at the box office.  The film grossed $55 million in 1983, which is pretty impressive.  Of course, Octopussy grossed $67 million.  Sure, everyone knows that Connery is the best Bond, but let's never forget that when the two actors went head-to-head, Roger Moore won the fight!

MVP:
This one is tricky. Roger Moore is good as usual, though he is definitely starting to show his age. Maud Adams is terrific as the title character, and John Barry gave us his last truly great Bond score. But ultimately, I think the winner has to be the Acrostar - one of the coolest vehicles of the franchise, probably just behind the Aston Martin in Goldfinger and the Lotus in The Spy Who Loved Me.  The Acrostar is the tiny jet that Bond uses in the beginning of the film to take on the Cuban military. Super sleek and insanely fast, this mini jet is just amazingly cool.  I wanted one when I was 8...and I kinda still want one today.  It's just pretty damn awesome.

Man with the Golden Gun

Man with the Golden Gun

Man with the Golden Gun hurts.  That's probably the best way to put it.  Roger Moore's second outing as James Bond isn't awful (though there is a lot that is awful in it), but it should have been so much better.  There is so much potential here.  It could have - no, it should have been one of the great films of the franchise.  But unfortunately, it just doesn't come together.

That fact also makes Man with the Golden Gun a bit hard to review because so much of the film veers from good to bad and then back again (sometimes within the same scene).  This extends even to the plot.  Francisco Scaramanga is the world's greatest assassin, who uses a golden gun as his weapon of choice.  He charges $1 million a shot - which is all he ever needs to get the job done.  And it seems as if he has now set his sites on James Bond, sending a golden bullet to MI6 headquarters as a warning that he is targeting the British super spy.  Now Bond has to find out why before he is assassinated. That's an interesting plot, and not the type of story you ordinarily see in a Bond film.  Unfortunately, there is also a nonsense storyline about Scaramanga's solar powered super laser weapon that he plans to sell off to the highest bidder, a story device that is obviously shoehorned in because the studio wanted the villain's plan to be more grand while also taking advantage of the energy crisis impacting most of the world at that time.  The laser weapon is silly, and doesn't make any sense - Scaramanga is an isolated, refined man who does not like attention.  He prides himself on his secrecy.  So the fact that he is also a mad scientist who has created a laser weapon which he plans to very publicly auction off to the world's countries just doesn't make a lick of sense.

The film wastes a lot of time on this storyline - time that would have been better spent developing one of the major ideas of the film - that Bond and Scaramanga are two sides of the same coin.  A slight nudge in either direction, and you could easily believe that Bond and Scaramanga could be on the same side.  Bond is also the only man Scaramanga respects and perhaps even fears.  And this invigorates him; indeed the thought of competing against Bond is the only thing that breaks Scaramanga out of his quiet, stiff upper class stoicism.  It's a fascinating character dynamic...which sounds a whole lot more interesting in this paragraph than in the movie because the movie doesn't go there.   It certainly HINTS at it, and acknowledges it once with one short dialogue exchange at the end, but it never does anything with it.  Such potential wasted!

Unfortunately, the whole movie plays this way.  You have one of the very worst Bond girls in Britt Ekland's inept Miss Goodnight and one of the most intriguing in Maud Adams' Andrea.  You have some dark encounters (like Bond's separate interrogations of Scaramanga's arms dealer and Andrea) and some bizarre elements (like Scaramanga's flying car and fun-house death trap).  Bond films can be gritty and they can be absurd.  I don't think I've seen one that tries to mix the two like this, forcing the film into two tones that are completely at odds with each other.  So the movie as a whole just never really works.

I know this all sounds bad.  But I have to stress that there is a lot to like here, and it is definitely worth seeing because the elements that work are quite good.  Scaramanga and Bond's cat and mouse game is excellent, Andrea's storyline gives us one of the better twists of the entire franchise, and we even get a random and quite bad karate scene which is obviously in the movie to cash in on the martial arts craze sweeping theaters and doesn't make a lick of sense, but still manages to be entertaining at the same time.  And I of course need to mention the acting of Christopher Lee and Roger Moore, who play off each other really well.  Lee, who was a cousin of Ian Fleming, makes a superb Scaramanga. He is every bit Bond's equal and the fact that he is not James Bond's greatest enemy has nothing to do with Christopher Lee's performance and everything to do with bad storytelling!  

The movie also manages to do one other thing quite well.  Live and Let Die is a better film, but it can't survive the presence of Sheriff J.W. Pepper who drags the entire film down with him.  Well, J.W. Pepper was so inexplicably popular (WHY?!?!?!??!) that they brought him back for Man with the Golden Gun.  He is conveniently vacationing in Thailand and bumps into Bond during a car chase.  And once again he is the worst thing about the movie.  But Man with the Golden Gun pulls off the impossible; it survives his presence.

And that is pretty remarkable.


RANKINGS
It's interesting.  I put this film right up next to Live and Let Die, which is almost its polar opposite.  Live and Let Die, when you think about it, is pretty stupid, but it works for long stretches. Whereas Man with the Golden Gun should be so good, and just continues to let you down throughout the film's runtime.  But the film's potential and its good qualities are too intriguing for me put it too far down on the list.  I'd put it right in the middle, under Live and Let Die and above Diamonds are Forever.

So here are the rankings:

1. Thunderball
2. From Russia With Love
3. Goldfinger
4. Dr. No
5. Live and Let Die
6. Man with the Golden Gun
7. Diamonds are Forever
8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
9. You Only Live Twice

BEST LINE: 

James Bond: I mean, sir, who would pay a million dollars to have me killed?
M: Jealous husbands!  Outraged chefs!  Humiliated tailors!  The list is endless!

TRIVIA: 
Man with the Golden Gun is important for another reason.  It was the last film co-produced by Harry Saltzman.  Saltzman and Broccoli's relationship had been souring over the course of the production and by the end of it, Saltzman (saddled with mounting debts) was forced to sell his stake in the franchise.  Among the many disagreements between Saltzman and Broccoli was whether or not to include a scene featuring an elephant stampede.  Broccoli and the production staff balked, but Saltzman continued looking into it.  He discovered in his research that elephants require a specific type of shoe for their feet when they are running on hard surfaces.

Months later, while filming in Thailand, Broccoli got a call that his 2,600 pairs of elephant shoes were ready (!!!).  Saltzman apparently ordered them, thinking he'd be able to convince everyone to include the scene.  When that didn't happen, I suppose he forgot to cancel the order.  Broccoli was incensed and refused to pay the shoemaker.  So far as I know, I don't think Eon has paid him back even to this day.


MVP:

I know you expect me to go with Christopher Lee.  And while Lee is terrific actor (and has won my MVP award in the past), he is not in serious contention for the award in Man with the Golden Gun.  Nope, the choice is really easy for this one.  I present you with this YouTube clip.  Be warned, you may want to consider watching this with no sound because the dialogue and corkscrew effect almost ruin what is...The. Greatest. Car. Stunt. Ever.

Yep, no special effects there.  That is a real car with a real driver in the first stunt ever conceived with a computer program.  The stunt team wasn't sure if it was even going to work.  They unbelievably got the stunt right on the first try.  When the director suggested they get a second take, the crew absolutely refused.

Shame about that damn corkscrew sound...still, that stunt gets my MVP!