Nor a more coveted gadget than the Bell jetpack. Spectre (2015)įirstly, it’s important to understand that there has never been, nor ever will be, a better name for a yacht than Disco Volante. But it failed (relative to previous outings) at the box office and Lazenby (no thesp, to be honest) was axed. Everything about OHMSS is different, from the stripped-down, gadget-free, sticking-to-the-source-novel approach of new director Peter Hunt to the Australian ex-chocolate model, George Lazenby as 007 and even a brief breaking of the fourth wall when Lazenby remarks with a glance to camera, “This never happened to the other fella.” It has the best-ever Bond tune in Louis Armstrong’s 'We Have All The Time In The World', a superior plot featuring a search for Blofeld and averting biological disaster and visual style and panache to spare. So when Bond’s new wife, Tracy (the excellent Diana Rigg) is bumped off by Irma Bunt, it’s a rare emotional gut punch in a series where tales of the unexpected are at a premium. Bond movies have many virtues, but given the tight formula and franchise demands, dramatic surprises are not high on that list. But the film critic Roger Ebert probably nailed it when he called it “a definitive example of what can happen when everybody working on a film goes simultaneously berserk”. But that needs to be set against a nonsensical plot featuring David Niven as Sir James Bond and a host of stars – among them Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and Ursula Andress – impersonating 007 and indulging in madcap adventures, culminating in a nuclear explosion. In its defence it did earn an Oscar nomination for Bacharach and David’s beautiful The Look Of Love. It is best understood as an unholy mess, although, incredibly, it was also a hit. The original Casino Royale – not to be confused under any circumstances with the Daniel Craig version – was produced outside the official Bond franchise by the enigmatic lawyer-agent Charles Feldman, who had acquired the film rights to the novel years earlier and then spotted an opportunity to cash in.

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