THE SPY WHO LOVED ME - Your three favourite scenes

No 'end credits' answers.

1. Looking for Jaws.
There is something intriguing about Bond in a dinner jacket with a Bond girl walking through Egyptian ruins and looking for a bizarre villain. And of course, being a Lewis Gilbert film, the colours are striking and the photography very fluid. Unfortunately it's after this point where it loses it's traction and only really picks up again in Sardinia.

2. "All those feathers and he still can't fly"
The car chase in this is fantastic. Awesomely shot and when Bond 77 kicks in, it gets even better. How can you top that? Throw in a chopper! How can we make that better? Throw in a smoking female pilot! But you know, we've had lots of car chases before… How about we continue the chase in water? Sure! And it works! And Moore has two great lines in this. The feathers one and "ever get the feeling somebody doesn't like you?"

3. Mojave Club
I really dig the stuff here - everything works: the set, Bond and Anya's conversation, meeting Max Kalba, the music, the dancers and Kalba's death. It's when Jaws is actually terrifying.

Special mention of course to the PTS.

Also want to mention the scene where Anya confronts Bond about killing her partner. It's a great scene on paper, and the dynamic is really interesting, but I can't help but think what that scene would be like if Connery did the scene with a better actress. It had the potential to be something, and possibly one of the best scenes of the franchise, but Bach, and well, Moore, really hold it back.

I saw TSWLM at this long-defunct firetrap. The queue went right down the hill.



Nowadays, alas, I find it unwatchable like so many Bond films. Anyway, this clip encompasses my three favourite seens as opposed to scenes:




1: Naomi's tits
2. Roger's smirk
3. Naomi's wink

TSWLM has great sets and a playful sense of adventure, all of which is largely absent from today's Bond films. Not to mention Derek Meddings. Hey, maybe I should make another attempt at sitting through the bluray sometime.

1. Ride to Atlantis
The whole chase is great but in particular I love that it continues underwater plus Marvin Hamlisch's music is particularly pleasing.

2. "What a helpful chap."
I love scenes where Bond shows his darker side especially when it's Roger Moore. Gives me a chuckle every time.

3. Battles aboard The Liparus
A pretty epic battle while a touch close to the one from YOLT even so much as having steel shutters to shield the baddies but still a lot of fun nonetheless.

Fieldman's #2 + special mention and S&Q's #3.

Coincidentally, all the scenes accompanied by 'Bond 77'.

1) Bond and Anya in the hotel room.

Say what we will of Ms Bach (Mrs Starr I suppose), it's a good scene for the utter seriousness it becomes. Bond quite brazenly perhaps but uncaringly using the cigarette lighter of her dead lover and the two careers these spies have coming together. There's even something in her, when the mission is over you die line.

2) Capture of the Wayne/escape of the Wayne

cheekily slapping these together. Incredible use of models and effects (as with the departure of the Ranger and Potemkin, the sight of the sub leaving the tanker looks like an actual sub), rare sense of tension brought in by the music and involving navy-know-how. One thing I noticed this latest viewing, was that when the bridge collapses as the Wayne moves off, you see bodies bounce on it. So right down to miniature, you had depiction of the dead.

3) Bond and Anya in the casino

Rare moment of a weak spot for Moore's Bond. The mention of Tracy. There is also their first proper meeting.

honourable mentions to the ski jump, the titles and pyramid briefing.

It's not just Anya in your first choice that I'm not sure about. It's Moore as well. Shadows of Connery, Dalton and Brosnan all doing a much better job. Imagine the scene played out as such:

Connery and Bianchi/Palazzi
Dalton and Faye Dunaway
Brosnan and Scorupco...


I do like Bond and Anya much better at the casino, if I'm honest.

And the titles? I forgot to mention this in the other thread: LALD's titles are one of the more original, imo, and strikingly effective with the song. Spy's is perhaps the most generic. Fascinated that someone who doesn't usually watch the titles rates it as one of the film's best scenes!

I disagree. The titles on Spy are one of Binder's very engaged efforts and represent a new style he would use for the rest of his titles through LTK. He had a habit of producing titles that were either inspired or sedate and Spy has a lot of firsts: first use of Roger onscreen and going to a silhouetted version that acts out story elements, first title in scope since DAF, debut of the new style of silhouetted nudes, more invasive use of background color etc.
A woman doing gymnastics on the barrel of a giant Luger generic?
I love the delayed appearance of the title word for word. A great dramatic moment.

There's far too many to name just three. Most of my favorites are small bits of character or transitional moments.
Wrecked in the desert-The cylinder head gasket-Bond of Arabia-Night boat: the deadpan humor and flippancy of the Bond v XXX battle is melting and the in joke of using the Lawrence of Arabia theme is actually beautiful and introduced me to the theme as a child because it was the most beautiful moment I had ever seen on a screen. Then this segues beautifully into the boat scene where you have Bond studying the microfilm at dusk with the absolutely incredible Hamlisch cue which is my most wished for inclusion on an expanded CD before the attempt at a tryst with Anya that shows Bond's failings.

Lotus chase-Underwater ride-Beach emergence. Brilliant fast moving photography that shows off the Esprit moving at speed. Perfect editing and music usage. Builds then fades the ramps up again then fades again and then you get the helicopter chase leading into the dramatic reveal of Wet Nellie. Bond is at his most debonair and here he finally displays that at least for one moment he is the superior agent over XXX. This is absolutely one of Roger's finest moments in the whole series from the one liners to the reactions to even the little glances. To this day I still for the life of me cannot do that iconic nod of the head to an adversary at speed. And there is a great deal of plot and character that occurs here in ways that modern films find impossible to do in an action sequence.
"James that motorcycle.." --"has been following us for the last mile." Shifts gears, loud engine roar. And the best line in the film: "Ever get the feeling someone doesn't like you?"
Then after everything and Naomi is dispatched we have a beautiful sedate moment underwater that leads into spying on Atlantis before having a nice battle with the great gag of XXX knowing Nellie's secrets because of stealing the blueprints...and then the grace note...managing to surface but doing so by driving onto the populated beach as if nothing was out of the ordinary. It is without question the single coolest moment in the entire series despite the ridiculousness of it all. It's just barely possible and not too outlandish, plus the air is just debonair enough to become cool instead of silly as in the Bondola two years later. Hamlisch pulls out the Bond theme for one of his few uses in the score which makes the impact all the more badass, we have the first and best version of our favorite unbelieving drinker and the finale of Roger dropping the fish out the window.

Which leads into the hotel scene. To this day when I enter a room dramatically I sometimes hear that Hamlisch transitional cue in my head. This is one of the finest dramatic scenes in the series and is played perfectly. Gilbert realized wisely the scene needs to breathe and lets the performances carry the emotion which is quite uncommon since the early days. There is a reason why Roger and Gilbert and many other point to this scene. It's absolutely spot on and the shining example along with the OP Orlov train car confrontation that Roger was always so damn good and so damn perfect that one takes it for granted.

The hotel room scene here and the train scene with Orlov in OP are poles apart in terms of focus. Rog nails it in '83, which is all the more baffling considering he admitted he couldn't get remember the dialogue and had to film it line by line. There just seems to be a lack of conviction in the performances in this scene. Maybe Berkoff acting opposite Moore brought out the stronger performance instead of non-actor Bach - even Gilbert admitted to growing frustrated with Bach's talent (or lack of).

Spy's titles has its moments but it still feels less striking and visually engaging than the likes of TB, YOLT, LALD, AVTAK, TLD... And pales in comparison to Brownjohn's efforts in FRWL and GF, and Kleinman has always down exceptional work (despite bringing a topless Craig into Spectre's).