"A SPECTRE at Your Shoulder" (1965-2020)

Seems we had no anniversary thread so bear with me.

Apropos from nothing I chose TB.

This appears to be where the tightness of the first three films shifts towards epic. But Hilly, they go to Jamaica in Dr No, Turkey in FRWL and so on and so forth....yes, but Bond appears to stretch his legs in some senses.

Connery seems here to start to loose interest.

This being said, Barry (the true JB!) kicks into gear. If he felt he had to make up for Lazenby in OHMSS, did he kick into a higher gear for a disinterested Connery? Who cares.

The interplay here is fantastic ("I don't think you should've opened that car door by yourself!")

As I've said before the way the Bond theme is here is incredible. A sheer urgency, frantic even. I don't think until VTAK (and the fight at Stacey's) does it match.

Though OP was the first I remember entirely from childhood, TB is one perhaps next to OHMSS, that I remember large bits of. My dad was probably a little annoyed that I saw JB on the coffin and started to say whatever.

See Craig this is how a DB5 works...what?

But this being said it segues into a title sequence so intrinsically linked with Spy Hard that it is hard for me to take it seriously.

Plus, though songs rarely make sense: "Strikes like Thunderball!" A) it's lightning that strikes...

come Hilly...

I like Jones, he did alright (didn't he faint?) but it is not a favourite, so sue me.

So Young is back but even four films in and three years, Bond seems to have taken huge leaps on.

I do like the Paris street scene, the office stuff. What are the odds though that SPECTRE holds its major meetings beneath Largo's base?

Though Dr No could've started parody, TB pushes into overdrive. The set though is great even if the British chap is somewhat stereotypical.

But here we go, Shrublands. Hell 007, you can't do half this today

The traction thingy seems the negative version of what takes Virgil Tracy to Thunderbird 2 in Thunderbirds.

Let's be honest it looks...weird...once he gets going

Ah the days when hands pressed against glass was racy. Is this what the NTTD director whatshisname thought of when calling Connery's Bond a rapist? Bugger it, so to speak, I'll press on with film

This was the same year of IPCRESS which Doleman had more to do in but does well here. Two years later he plays the first No.2 in Prisoner.

Fiona might be a villain but hang some headlights on her.

I still find it odd if not funny that the double only covers his mouth a good second after he zaps the real chap. As if he hadn't been told that he was shooting poisonous gas.

However, Fiona within moments reveals herself to be a villain. What a villain. Long red hair, big t----and lovely earlobes...

To me TB has weird lighting. Take Fiona's intro for example and the shot of 'Duval's car driving to the gates. Looks...well...someone can help

But here we go the bloody Vulcan! Relatively new still in '65 it was the driving force of Britain's likely response to a nuke attack. Fleming fictionalised in the book but seeing the Vulcan here thrills. Though tempered by a docu I saw once about the Cold War where a veteran pilot said that in '62, during the Missile Crisis, he told his wife to take the children up to Scotland and stay there. None of the V-crews expected to return. Certainly not to a free Britain.
This being said, what is incredible about the Vulcan, is that the one time they were used in war, was the Falklands in 1982 and using conventional bombs after hasty hours of work.

As with these early films, great model work.

And just like that a bunch of RAF chaps are killed.

Aha it's Jack Gwillim. Oh Hilly he appears too much in the 'one or more' Bond alum thread but he has a few lines, more than sodding Butler. However, Gwillim was a naval chap during the war, rising to the rank of commander. As a matelot must've faintly annoyed playing a RAF chap.

For '65 the crash sequence is bloody well done. Always liked the touch of underwater runway lights. Plus the fake Duval lowering the landing gear. I always marvel at Meddngs' work. Someone posted a pic today on twitter, circa 1995 I think, of Meddings surrounded by models he used in the films and some are bloody small. His work with Anderson still marvels and so I say now, genius.

Colour me dense, but I feel for the fake Duval here. Not only has he been stuck in his seat but he's murdered.

Now, as I see the sub, I picture dear Peter Hunt in some room, cigarette drooping, sweat dribbling from his brow thinking: "How the hell do I shorten it?"

Part of me wants to see the uncut version.

The inside of the Volante is an early version of Wavekrest let's be real.

I do love the Volante, in any other world she'd be a Thunderbirds vessel.

I'm skipping the car sequence.

Now as sets go, this one is bewildering. Why Hilly? Well, this is meant to be Whitehall and yet such is the scope and look it feels more Versailles. Cinematically it works I suppose but I find it a little jarring.

Though Bond is pulling a fast one, as it were, it tickles that he's sat with this RAF chap and says but sir, I should go to the Bahamas not bloody Canada and the RAF chap seems faintly sympathetic.

Must be the only time Penny gets caught by M saying something she shouldn't.

Crazy though how many of the cast are no longer with us.

Now, here's Paula, a lady I did a thread on. I always thought she was SIS but CIA or SIS, she's Paula.

She looked alright in the day.

Claudine Auger was something else.

"Wait until you get to my teeth"

At first it's classic Bond needling ("SPECTRE at your shoulder") but then feels he's pushing ("It's your SPECTRE against mine").

If Fleming or Bond did anything great, it's casino scenes.

Bond knows everything so when she talks about brother there is an element of "you sneaky bastard". But then in the secret service, one can't be nice.

One little bit I like that is a classic Young touch is the receptionist looking longingly after Bond.

For its faults, I love Bond tracking past events playing the cassette and so on.

Bond at least has the good sense to knock Felix before he reveals all. Fucking idiot. You're Leiter, why would you start off by "Well hello 007"!?

Now, somehow, over the years, I've grown to like this Leiter.

But, I've said about the early films had use of actors of the day and TB is a great example. Ronald Adam and Reginald Beckwith. In fact I believe this was Beckwith's last film.

Hello, this is Bahamas Harbour thingy, someone's been letting off grenades.

What are the odds that Bond is picked up by the bad girl?

Back proj or not, Connery looking bored or not, he does well enough as the speedometer creeps. Some great lines though. Bond wise to Fiona taking him to his hotel and "some men don't like to be taken for a ride."

Funny, usually a dubbed actor feels jarring. Yet Largo still conveys this threat.

Villain or not what a great moment with Largo taunting Vargas.

My God, Dom had great legs.

Hllly!

"Seems terribly difficult" and casually shoots

C'mon Paula, get out of this fix.

So, Bond sneaks about, gets into Largo's place.

Something about how he just looks at Paula's body and is off.

As a kid the shark bit bothered in that, well it's a shark. Plus Bond seemingly not being able to escape

Now, I'd be a little chuffed to find a busty redhead in my bath but I'm not Bond thankfully

Bond is not stupid ("as if it was intented!")

The bed scene is lessened by my recalling that the world's press were he snapping about.

For the finality of things Barry's music has a certain way about it as Bond is caught ("and she hears heavenly choir singing)

Only Bond, perhaps, could use a drunk as a means of escape.

As I say, as a child TB's excerpts lasted. I remember Bond running down a street and using a toilet to sort himself out. How though, can we forget the 007 theme?

Personally, I don't think until OHMSS when Bond reaches the cow shed, Bond is so terrified (or even remotely worried) of being caught or killed as he is here.

He's surrounded but unlike OHMSS, he snares a beautiful young woman who bitches about Bond's wife. Credit to Bond to try and make light ("do you come here often?")

Now, this is one of Barry's greatest moments. How one bit fades, the other grows...

"She's just dead!"

Ruddy nora, Gwillim's still here

Ronald Adam is great with what he has. This is an actor who started in the 1930s and by now is past his sell by date.

Poor Dom: "That's why you made love to me"

But Bond is a swift convincer

This perhaps is where the film crawls and even Hunt can't help.

It plods, oh look it's Bond Largo...

But here we go, we step up.

Long shots, location, Barry....

Suddenly, or so it seems, we lose track. Folk are dying, being hit etc

Kind of lost interest

I love the 007 Theme but it kind of loses itself here.

But whatchya, the Royal Navy is here and about to do it the old fashioned way!

The ship in question is HMS Rothesay which had the pennant number 107. Some bright spark thouht let's cover the 1 and say 007, apparently Connery and Auger went aboard.

I say this as I can't find pictures.

Bit as with TND I love the good ol' Andrew going hell for leather, blazing away.

It fizzles. But Hilly how can it fizzle?

I just give up. I love TB, I've kicked it up my rankings but here we lose a bit.

What doesn't help is the sped up film, I'm sure it's Hunt trying to speed things along but still.

Thank God for a brunette

And here's a B-17

Let's admire how Dom watches Bond mess about with the life saving stuff

Oh I miss the old days

Thank you chaps.

Good work, Hilly. As far as palate cleansers after NTTD go, you could do a lot worse than TB.

Thanks, it helped somewhat following on from NTTD. Reminding myself of the good ol' days. Had it been the original version before Hunt got going with it, I might still be reviewing it even now.

Nice writeup as usual. Love the random Bond fan musings.

Those two shots you point out have always looked off. The film still doesn't have a reference grade transfer. Fiona's first appearance has a reddish tint on older releases which looks better. The bit of Angelo/Derval arriving at the base has always been a bit dark and the day for night printing on the Vulcan takeoff and air scenes has been done differently on each transfer. Ted Moore outdid himself on TB in making an ultra sharp expensive looking scope film.

Meddings was a genius but he didn't come in until LALD's climax. Here it was John Stears and the effects team. I too love the underwater lights effect and the whole sequence is fantastic. Only the model plane sinking gives it away a tad.

For me this may be Barry's finest Bond score overall. It has everything. It is his first true Bond epic and it has the frenetic energy of FRWL and GF.

From the first sequence you feel the return of Young and the danger/intensity levels have returned after GF. Only problem is the slower feel and the everything plus the "kitchen sink" mentality. Peter Hunt started using wipes here too and changed his style. It took me years to realize but this is the start of what became his approach on OHMSS. He very much bases his direction of that film on TB.

Agreed on Barry's score. It is perfect, and, I dare say, underrated. It is the most ominous score in perhaps the most menacing Bond film.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Agreed on Barry's score. It is perfect, and, I dare say, underrated. It is the most ominous score in perhaps the most menacing Bond film.

Indeed, truly unforgettable:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Agreed on Barry's score. It is perfect, and, I dare say, underrated. It is the most ominous score in perhaps the most menacing Bond film.

I've been mostly about melody in my filmmusic choices, but in recent years have gotten more intrigued with a greater variety of cues, due in large part to listening to Barry scores all the way through instead of skipping around on them. The fact TB has got two very different musical moments of Bond in peril (more than that really) with the traction table and the underwater grenades that aren't as melodic as, say, the Fiona confronts Bond after sex scene, points up what you say.

The tonal shifts in early Bond really help with the sudden mood changes, like when fun&games in GF give way to darkness as Tilly gets killed. Some Bond films that have mood shifts without benefit of music cues feel awkward or wrong to me ... SPY's odd bit with Bond spending 4 bullets on Stromberg has seemed really grotesque to me right from day one, and I've always though that the right bit of score might have let them wallpaper over the seeming viciousness of the extended kill. You could have taken it down to three bullets (still too much IMO) and jump-cut the rounds being fired to the three moments in the first eleven notes of an old gunbarrel cue and taken Bond from the room on a quick note of vengeance rather than the odd extended sadism that it plays like to me. The way they cut away from Moore before he fires is also very odd, but that might have been because he blinked when firing.

My default for Bond menace is still the melodic 'Chopper: sic chick from Emanuelle' scene from MOONRAKER. Shows how you can score against type/tradition without taking things into parody like so much of Kubrick's bold choices.

I still get tremendous visual inspiration from listening to Barry and Goldsmith cues (and Williams and Bernstein too, plus scores ranging from BLUE THUNDER to the unused (I think) Christopher Young work on INVADERS FROM MARS.) A year or so back, I came up with a whole Fleming/DAF-inspired steam train chase while listening to the FRWL 007/007 takes the Lector cues, which made me really miss how melody could sustain and enhance action in modern Bond films. I mean, SPECTRE's world's biggest explosion is like nothing, because it isn't really a sequence that builds, just a moment that isn't properly dramatic. When you're hanging a big moment on a single gunshot, you'd better plan it out, like when QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER shows how long a bullet takes to get to target. Much better to have a sustained scene of chaos like the gypsy fight. In fact, now that I'm thinking of it, maybe I'll try tracking 007 against the hotel explosion stuff in QUANTUM and see if anything there clicks.

hegottheboot wrote:

Nice writeup as usual. Love the random Bond fan musings.

Those two shots you point out have always looked off. The film still doesn't have a reference grade transfer. Fiona's first appearance has a reddish tint on older releases which looks better. The bit of Angelo/Derval arriving at the base has always been a bit dark and the day for night printing on the Vulcan takeoff and air scenes has been done differently on each transfer. Ted Moore outdid himself on TB in making an ultra sharp expensive looking scope film.

Meddings was a genius but he didn't come in until LALD's climax. Here it was John Stears and the effects team. I too love the underwater lights effect and the whole sequence is fantastic. Only the model plane sinking gives it away a tad.

For me this may be Barry's finest Bond score overall. It has everything. It is his first true Bond epic and it has the frenetic energy of FRWL and GF.

From the first sequence you feel the return of Young and the danger/intensity levels have returned after GF. Only problem is the slower feel and the everything plus the "kitchen sink" mentality. Peter Hunt started using wipes here too and changed his style. It took me years to realize but this is the start of what became his approach on OHMSS. He very much bases his direction of that film on TB.

Thanks boots.

Some reason I figured it was Meddings here. Guess in '65 he was still doing Thunderbirds (and the Thunderbirds movies).

trevanian wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Agreed on Barry's score. It is perfect, and, I dare say, underrated. It is the most ominous score in perhaps the most menacing Bond film.

I've been mostly about melody in my filmmusic choices, but in recent years have gotten more intrigued with a greater variety of cues, due in large part to listening to Barry scores all the way through instead of skipping around on them. The fact TB has got two very different musical moments of Bond in peril (more than that really) with the traction table and the underwater grenades that aren't as melodic as, say, the Fiona confronts Bond after sex scene, points up what you say.

The tonal shifts in early Bond really help with the sudden mood changes, like when fun&games in GF give way to darkness as Tilly gets killed. Some Bond films that have mood shifts without benefit of music cues feel awkward or wrong to me ... SPY's odd bit with Bond spending 4 bullets on Stromberg has seemed really grotesque to me right from day one, and I've always though that the right bit of score might have let them wallpaper over the seeming viciousness of the extended kill. You could have taken it down to three bullets (still too much IMO) and jump-cut the rounds being fired to the three moments in the first eleven notes of an old gunbarrel cue and taken Bond from the room on a quick note of vengeance rather than the odd extended sadism that it plays like to me. The way they cut away from Moore before he fires is also very odd, but that might have been because he blinked when firing.

My default for Bond menace is still the melodic 'Chopper: sic chick from Emanuelle'  scene from MOONRAKER. Shows how you can score against type/tradition without taking things into parody like so much of Kubrick's bold choices.

I still get tremendous visual inspiration from listening to Barry and Goldsmith cues (and Williams and Bernstein too, plus scores ranging from BLUE THUNDER to the unused (I think) Christopher Young work on INVADERS FROM MARS.) A year or so back, I came up with a whole Fleming/DAF-inspired steam train chase while listening to the FRWL 007/007 takes the Lector cues, which made me really miss how melody could sustain and enhance action in modern Bond films. I mean, SPECTRE's world's biggest explosion is like nothing, because it isn't really a sequence that builds, just a moment that isn't properly dramatic. When you're hanging a big moment on a single gunshot, you'd better plan it out, like when QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER shows how long a bullet takes to get to target. Much better to have a sustained scene of chaos like the gypsy fight. In fact, now that I'm thinking of it, maybe I'll try tracking 007 against the hotel explosion stuff in QUANTUM and see if anything there clicks.

I saw Blue Thunder mentioned. Love that score. I saw the film a few times with my Dad as a kid and one bit that left and still leaves an impression is ADIOS JAFO.