*/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras B+
starring Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Topol, Julian Glover
screenplay by Richard Maibum and Michael G. Wilson
directed by John Glen

by Ian Pugh Already something of a dinosaur in a season that saw Indiana Jones explode onto the cinematic landscape, For Your Eyes Only was the first 007 film that found Roger Moore looking too old to be a roguish, oversexed secret agent. Having played Bond four times previously over the course of eight years, it was readily apparent that Moore aged well, better than most–which clearly accounted for his longevity in the role. I have to wonder, then, if his suddenly-elderly appearance here is a reflection of the fact that he’s so clearly out of his element. He found his footing in the part once the powers-that-be realized he could succeed where Connery had failed: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker were overblown and more than a little silly, but they were legitimized in part by their star’s sly grin and complete comfort in tackling the largest, most preposterous schemes possible–something to which the admirably analog Connery could never entirely adjust. For Your Eyes Only was intended to bring the series back to its down-and-dirty roots, but it only managed to remind that Moore was a square peg unfit for the round hole his predecessor occupied.

**½/**** Image B+ Sound B Extras A-
starring Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Clifton James
screenplay by Tom Mankiewicz, based on the novel by Ian Fleming
directed by Guy Hamilton

by Ian Pugh As a young teenager and budding cinephile, I owned all the Bond films on VHS. I remember watching Live and Let Die more often than any of the others, probably because–crushes on Jane Seymour notwithstanding–as a viewer without any working sense of social context, it was the easiest film of the series just to sit back and enjoy. No Cold War scenarios requiring global perspective, no long-standing rivalries requiring explanation; Thunderball perfected the infamous Bond formula to dubious ends, but this is the entry that endeared you to its simplicity. In his first turn in the role, Roger Moore’s easygoing charm was a better fit for the youngest 007 neophytes than the rough, brutish Connery–and, despite being mired in a hopelessly dated ’70s landscape, the action sequences are sharply directed and tightly edited. In fact, they’d assure that the film would hold up pretty well today for more adult sensibilities…that is, if its script didn’t revolve around James Bond fighting every single black person in the Western hemisphere.

**/**** Image C+ Sound A Extras B+
starring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi
screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins,
based on the novel by Ian Fleming
directed by Terence Young

by Ian Pugh Thunderball is far from the worst Bond film–you’d be hard-pressed to even label it outright bad–but it may be the entry in this venerated series most worthy of contempt for its concerted, ultimately successful effort to formulize its hero’s adventures. After the grim uncertainty of From Russia with Love and the classic iconography of Goldfinger, Thunderball is more than content to let a suddenly-enormous budget ($9M compared to Goldfinger‘s $3M) carry it far, far over-the-top with ludicrous underwater battles and pieces of gadgetry that become full-blown set-pieces in and of themselves. (That jet-pack sequence must have been astonishing in 1965, but it comes from a different cinematic world entirely–and, maddeningly, the filmmakers bend over backwards to accommodate it.) It’s not too difficult to understand such a lopsided reliance on special effects, however, considering that Thunderball‘s premise is far too slim to accommodate its bloated 130-minute running time: SPECTRE hijacks a NATO bomber jet and threatens to detonate its nuclear warheads in a major city in America or Great Britain unless both governments pay a hefty ransom. Heading the operation is Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), a sinister something-or-other calling the shots out of the Bahamas. Bond travels to Nassau to contact “Domino” Derval (Claudine Auger), Largo’s mistress and sister of the missing jet’s pilot, and persuades her to help.