Does anyone think that Connery never had a good one after his first 3?

Connery is my favorite Bond, but it seems to me that he never had a good one after Goldfinger, unfortunately. Does anyone else think so, or no?

Thunderball is just as good as DN, FRWL and GF. And after that, at their very worst, YOLT and DAF are middle of the road.

I won't include NSNA since it isn't official.

Just because NSNA is not made by the same company, that doesn't make it worth excluding, does it?  That's like saying that The Seven Percent Solution should not count as a Sherlock Holmes because it wasn't part of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes Series.

Or that's like saying the 70s King Kong does not count as a King Kong movie, because it was made by Paramount and not Universal.

Thunderball, I always thought the villain and girl were very flat, and never really took off.  I also noticed on a recent viewing that during the big battle at the end, they kept randomly cutting to shots of sea creatures, and it just felt awkward for a big final battle.  It was sea creature product placement I guess.

YOLT, has a much better villain but I found the two Japanese women to be flat, and underdeveloped.  I also feel the movie got way too bogged down in culture, with things like the bathing, the wedding, and turning Bond Japanese.  Too much unnecessary culture elements, instead of focusing on the mission plot, like other Bond movies do.

DAF, has some good parts sprinkled throughout, as does NSNA, but they both suffer from very low budget action and special effects sequences, I think. But of course, just my opinion :).

Well, some of the elements that tickle in a James Bond film are omitted from NSNA because of its not being an official entry.

Domino might seem flat because of the dubbing work but when she looks like Claudine Auger, I'm not sure it really matters. But even then, some of the very best scenes in that film are because of the sharp dialogue and banter between Bond and her, such as that poolside scene and their dance. Celi has quite the presence so I don't believe Largo is flat at all. Much more threatening than some of the current array of villains we've had, including the 467 faceless muppets we get in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

Lol sea creature product placement. The intercutting with marine life helps create a character out of the location, and certainly doesn't detract from the danger of that final battle. In fact, it enhances it.

You're not wrong about YOLT's through line being held hostage to style and culture, but sometimes it's a strength for the film, and somehow it still manages to be iconic because of it. And if you view DAF as a comedy and not as an spy thriller/adventure film, it works very well.

It's all subjective at the end of the day, but Connery's presence alone helps elevate his lesser films - YOLT, DAF and if we must, NSNA - far above the material might deserve, and further, they're much more palatable than 3/4 movies of the current era.

Oh okay.  Well I keep trying to let Auger's beauty carry me through the whole movie but I guess with the dubbing, I can't.  But I feel that the dialogue was very routine, throughout a lot of the movie.  But would it really be the dubbing that takes away from her, because Honey Rider was dubbed but it didn't bother me with her, in comparison.

I never really found Celi to be threatening though, I guess that's just me.

I guess with the cutting to sea creatures in TB, during a shootout, perhaps a comparison would be Moonraker, where you have a similar shootout in space where you have a large team shooting against another team but in space instead of underwater.  If during this shootout, they decided to cut a shot of the moon, a shot of a star, a shot of a meteor, a shot of a comet, etc, wouldn't that have felt overdone, or is that not a fair comparison?

Some Bond movies I enjoy even though they are silly and over the top, like OP, MR, and DAD, but I find that the action scenes are well done and make the comedy more fun, where as DAF has poor action scenes in comparison.  But maybe I need to look at it as an all out comedy comedy, and not care about the action at all?

He was great in TB, poor in YOLT, and average in DAF. I think KKBB said as much.

Yes, in terms of his performances, he is indeed great in TB, YOLT is his weakest effort because the boredom is noticeable at times (but he still has his moments), and with DAF there's a new energy to him because he recognises he's in a comedy. He's got something different to do.

I've had a long held personal theory that the first performance is usually the best or most energetic because the nervous energy is there and the whole focus is on the actor. Once the second and later films come around they tend to start focusing on other things since the actor is now proven and this is really not such a good idea because the focus should be on Bond anyway.

With Sean he's perfect in DN/FRWL but I'd argue starting on GF the tone and focus starts to shift a bit. He's more relaxed in GF but I can't help but feel it's missing that great connection he had with Young on the first two. However getting to do Marnie and other things in between plus having prior experience with Hamilton before and having the prior two under his belt provides for a remarkable confidence. With TB the focus is all on "MAKE IT BIG AND GET IT OUT BY XMAS DAMMIT!" which is the main issue. The script could have been locked down tighter and Hunt should have had more time on the editing. Everyone was under the gun and it shows a bit. But it's still great and Sean is arguably more effective because Young returns and so does the level of immediate danger. But I think the "has to be epic" scale of the film detracts from its overall effectiveness and there has always seemed to be a disconnect that exploded on YOLT.
YOLT has these problems to the nth degree. Sean is not bad at all-nor is he bored. He's simply lost amongst the furniture as if people forgot to ever check on him. Lewis Gilbert had his hands full taking on the mammoth production and shooting in 60's Japan so again I think everyone took Sean for granted-plus the script was made to order around the formula of TB which doesn't help. It's all about spectacle over character which is unfortunate and I think Sean knew the die had already been cast but soldiered on one more time. His best moments in the film are the small ones such as some of one liners, retorts at Blofeld, fun bits with Tiger and Aki and my personal favorite "Shiameshe vodka?"
But overall it gives this effect that he's barely there right down to some of the line readings being almost machine like.

On DAF he has a ball. He realized it was a different approach and must've found the wicked humor and time away liberating. Though it must have been a tense set reports seem to indicate he tried to keep everyone in good spirits and do EON a favor since they were viewed as being in a bit of a hole. In the film he has an energy that I don't think had quite been there since GF and sometimes you see a dash of the gleam in his eyes that really hadn't been there fully since FRWL.

On an acting standpoint I think the overall effectiveness of the lead performance is something like this:
DN/FRWL/GF/DAF/TB/YOLT

I agree - Connery's best performance is DN (and best overall in the series), followed by FRWL. I'd say:

DN
FRWL
TB
GF
DAF
YOLT.

I like his reaction to Aki's death. Because it gives him something to do. He has to juggle knowing the poison was intended for him and the girl is dead because of it, grieve for her, and weigh it all against the impending war he needs to avert.

Yes, Connery's weakest performance is still a lot better than what's to come later, such as Moore in TSWLM, Craig in SP.

Hey, I resent that! Roger is perfect in Spy. The only and I mean ONLY off bit is the closeup in the boat after 007 and Anya have their clinch and Roger has that sort of faraway look when saying "the thought would never cross my mind"-but I chalk that up to maybe it being him bracing for the smoke shot into his eyes. It just always looked off for that split second.
Otherwise he is so remarkably assured on screen that it is revelatory. My favorite non-verbal moment as a kid was his leaving of XXX in the Mojaba Club with the empty drink excuse then the reverse tracking shot pulling back to show 007 moving in time with the club music's pace to see what Kalba is up to.

Oh okay. And when I say that Connery never had a good Bond movie after Goldfinger, I wasn't of course saying it was because of his performance, I was going by the quality of the films and scripts.

hegottheboot wrote:

Hey, I resent that! Roger is perfect in Spy. The only and I mean ONLY off bit is the closeup in the boat after 007 and Anya have their clinch and Roger has that sort of faraway look when saying "the thought would never cross my mind"-but I chalk that up to maybe it being him bracing for the smoke shot into his eyes. It just always looked off for that split second.
Otherwise he is so remarkably assured on screen that it is revelatory. My favorite non-verbal moment as a kid was his leaving of XXX in the Mojaba Club with the empty drink excuse then the reverse tracking shot pulling back to show 007 moving in time with the club music's pace to see what Kalba is up to.

The Mojave Club sequence is indeed excellent and Moore is on fine form there, but on the whole it's a bit too frivolous and at other times, just weak. I can only imagine what a stronger actor (Connery? Dalton? Brosnan?) could have done in that hotel scene with Anya.

Dalton would have iced it. That steely glint at the mention of Tracy.