Thunderball in Review

In contrast to the earlier Bond Movies, "Thunderball" is as massive as its ballistic title. In both production and box office terms, this was the first epic of the series. Trading tux for snorkel, Connery was by this time inseparable from the Bond persona.

The plot itself is simple. SPECTRE pinch a couple of atom bombs and hold NATO to ransom. The 00 agents are put on the case, leading 007 to the Bahamas. Beautiful European women such as former Miss France, Claudine Auger (Domino) and ruthless Italian Luciana Paluzzi (Fiona Volpe) abound. Italy provides the super-villain too, in the shape of Adolfo Celi as a thuggish Emilio Largo.

Much that was later lampooned is featured here. SPECTRE really do wipe out unsatisfactory agents with exploding chairs. Emilio Largo really does have a shark-infested swimming pool. Throw in jetpacks, detachable cruise ships and some fun down at the health farm and the template is complete. A classic Bond film that wants for nothing but a trim.

(Nick Hilditch)

The fourth James Bond epic. Write your reviews for Thunderball in this thread.

Thunderball (1965) - 8.5/10
Sean Connery’s best Bond performance comes in Thunderball. Don’t get me wrong: from Dr. No to this film, he was spot on, but his Thunderball performance always stood above the rest for some reason. His mannerisms and lines (“Wait until you get to my teeth”) are delivered with stark perfection. Most of the supporting cast is strong too with a special nod going to Luciana Paluzzi’s femme fetal Fiona Volpe. Domino is only slightly less interesting, but still a good Bond girl nonetheless. Largo is a fine villain, and hey an eyepatch can make anyone look evil, right? In terms of plot, Thunderball is fairly standard with the topic being nuclear blackmail. But the investigation type of style Thunderball takes makes it quite interesting. The underwater scenes are actually very well shot and while the last underwater battle goes on for a little too long, a fist fight on a runaway yacht brings the energy right back in. Once again, a strong outing from Connery and the gang.

Its currently on the telly - the first ten minutes of this film makes everyone involved a god.

Escpecailly Maurice Binder. 4 minutes of perfection that made him a legend.

Fantastic fun and now firmly settled at n°3 all time for me. Might someday even push DN of n°2...

My next viewing of TB will be this Friday or Saturday night. Really looking forward to it.

They planned to make this the first James Bond film, but I think there were budgetary problems so they filmed Dr. No instead.

The Danger Man colour episode Shinda Shima ripped this off slightly by having Drake lead his cohorts by swimming through the sea before taking on the bad guys at their lair.

Just found this:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cHscv3uNC_M/TWp8DWco-8I/AAAAAAAAC9M/UM2HPDoSyXs/s1600/robert%2Bmcginnis%2Bunused%2Bthunderball%2Bart.jpg

THUNDERJAMMIN', with artwork by Robert McGinnis. Connery burns in hell, and still gets gash.

That gun he's holding... least subtle phallic imagery ever.

Watched TB last night. First time since July 30, 2016. A long drought. Outside of the naff PTS, which is quickly redeemed by Tom Jones, John Barrry and Maurice Binder, this is a really terrific film. It has an undercurrent of menace like no other Bond film, although SP actually has some of that, too. Interesting that there is virtually no dialogue in the final quarter of the film.

In my last rewatch I finally noticed just how much the tone goes back on the right setting watching right after GF. From the PTS alone you know Young is back and so is the inherent danger in every scene-in spite of the more relaxed pacing and island rhythms of the narrative. While it is the film where the series truly became the franchise and had "everything and the kitchen sink" it all matters in ways where GF is glib almost. In TB every punch matters and lands with meaning. Every fight could go wrong, Bond bleeds and 007 faces death at the point of a pistol again as in FRWL in a far more in your face manner than the entire Oddjob fight. While the Fort Knox fight is iconic/amazing/astounding/incredible-it is in a completely different manner that shows how the series was ingrained in the Young style to begin with. Bond is not in the same type of danger in the gold vault because the audience knows he will get out of it somehow-but how?
Whereas immediately thereafter in TB the emphasis is put back on not only the "how will Bond escape" but "CAN he possibly escape?!"
I say all this and will adore both men's work forever but the shifts between fun and drama that are the seesaw the series rests on are represented by the differing styles of these two geniuses.

The naff-ness you mention in the PTS is the producers saying like: "we have to have something to top the GF PTS. Everybody loved that how can we top it-go do something like that but bigger!"

Undercurrent of menace. That's a great description and I love it! I've said on other threads as well on here but I'd say the Young films are also the only ones with a really tangible sexual element to them. There's a fierce kind of sensuality that only happens in the three Young films and nowhere else in the series. The most erotic moment in the series is either the bridal suite in FRWL or in TB where Fiona grips the bars of the bed.

Barry's piano score, which makes brilliant use of the piano in lower registers, is the key to the menace. Additionally, the superbly cast Celi and his eye-patch, Fiona, the only frightening villainess in the series, and the imagery of spears, harpoons and tridents associated with underwater combat, give the menace a fillip. As for specific scenes, the SPECTRE meeting and Largo's murder of Derval in the Vulcan, are sinister and brutal in the extreme.

And, yes, there is "fierce sensuality" in TB, in no small part thanks to Fiona who should indeed be locked in a cage. Preferably, with me!

I've made the argument for years that TB is quite possibly Barry's masterpiece. It's between TB, YOLT, OHMSS, DAF and TLD.
But on TB he didn't merely score a film-he scored as if for an epic film but yet wasn't afraid to score the literal hell out of even the small moments.

TB is so powerful I forever associate it with water itself. Every swimming pool for me was a way to hear the sound effects and Barry's score whilst having my own internal re-enactments of the film in my head. I would even get my younger sisters to take the place of the SPECTRE frogmen and fail miserably to get them to move correctly in sequence.
It is without a doubt the definitive water picture in every way-even moreso than JAWS or even 20,000 LEAGUES.

hegottheboot wrote:

I've made the argument for years that TB is quite possibly Barry's masterpiece. It's between TB, YOLT, OHMSS, DAF and TLD.
But on TB he didn't merely score a film-he scored as if for an epic film but yet wasn't afraid to score the literal hell out of even the small moments.

TB is so powerful I forever associate it with water itself. Every swimming pool for me was a way to hear the sound effects and Barry's score whilst having my own internal re-enactments of the film in my head. I would even get my younger sisters to take the place of the SPECTRE frogmen and fail miserably to get them to move correctly in sequence.
It is without a doubt the definitive water picture in every way-even moreso than JAWS or even 20,000 LEAGUES.

Water movies--now there's an interesting topic, and one I'd never considered before. Open Water qualifies, but that film is so sadistic and depressing that I've only seen it once and won't see it again. If rivers count as water--and I don't see why they wouldn't--then you have to consider Deliverance, which is simply one of the greatest films ever made. And I have to mention The Poseidon Adventure, which scared the bloody hell out of me when I saw it on the boob toob as a young nipper back about '72. But, yes, TB has to be in consideration for being the most definitive water film.

If rivers count I would go with Aguirre the Wrath of God.

the deep...

The Abyss (1989)

Waterworld

Leviathan 1989

The Big Blue

Sarai wrote:

If rivers count I would go with Aguirre the Wrath of God.

the deep...

The Abyss (1989)

Waterworld

Leviathan 1989

The Big Blue

Someone has excellent taste.

It's making me smile just seeing that picture. I would put it in my top 5 if not my favorite movie ever...it's just really hard to think of better.

Aguirre is great. And along similar lines, Apocalypse Now.

Apocalypse Now was always an interesting experience for me because it's a movie I don't like but kept watching over and over again. I must have seen it 10 times over the years and for some reason could never form an opinion on it in my own mind or even say if I liked it or not. Ask me one day if I liked it and I would say yes, ask me another day and no. Very odd and I can't say I have ever felt that way about a movie before. I mean if I like a movie I do and if not I move on like any semi normal person but I would keep coming back to Apocalypse Now as time passed. When I pictured individual scenes in my mind thinking back I would always think I did indeed like it...I must have and there is so much to enjoy.
 All the obvious scenes like the surfing and Captain Kilgore, the Playboy girls scene would always draw me back.I shouldn't even like the opening with "The Doors-The End" as I dislike the rock music in movie scenes deal but I do like it here. I find the movie very slow and boring in a very good way as well. For me it doesn't feel like tension is building as they work their way down the river, it just sort of feels like it is sitting there and doing very little...and again I like that. Das Boot is like that too for me. It's very long, very boring but in the best possible way. Seven Samurai is one of my favorite movies and all technical genius aside it's the pace I really dig.It gives my mind space and time to think. So as time passed I began to think I must like Apocalypse Now but no, and it took me way too long to figure it out why that was.

 It's the end or the last 40 minutes of the movie or so. It's as soon as Kurtz shows up this goes from a great 9/10 movie experiencing for me to a total zero.The movie just comes to a grinding halt with one of the most boring performances I have ever seen and suddenly the movie feels like it will never end. All that sort of build up and curiosity about Kurtz for that? To me it feels like the director didn't really know what to do at the end and it must have been improvised but it's a serious let down. And scenes like him reading from "The Hollow Men" just feel so forced, cliche and extremely hammy. I don't know if it's just the writing, Brando, both I don't know but I can't stand the entire ending which is too bad considering how much I liked the rest. I can't think of another movie where the wheels come off at the end like that and ruin the whole thing for me.

Sarai wrote:

Apocalypse Now was always an interesting experience for me because it's a movie I don't like but kept watching over and over again. I must have seen it 10 times over the years and for some reason could never form an opinion on it in my own mind or even say if I liked it or not. Ask me one day if I liked it and I would say yes, ask me another day and no. Very odd and I can't say I have ever felt that way about a movie before. I mean if I like a movie I do and if not I move on like any semi normal person but I would keep coming back to Apocalypse Now as time passed. When I pictured individual scenes in my mind thinking back I would always think I did indeed like it...I must have and there is so much to enjoy.
 All the obvious scenes like the surfing and Captain Kilgore, the Playboy girls scene would always draw me back.I shouldn't even like the opening with "The Doors-The End" as I dislike the rock music in movie scenes deal but I do like it here. I find the movie very slow and boring in a very good way as well. For me it doesn't feel like tension is building as they work their way down the river, it just sort of feels like it is sitting there and doing very little...and again I like that. Das Boot is like that too for me. It's very long, very boring but in the best possible way. Seven Samurai is one of my favorite movies and all technical genius aside it's the pace I really dig.It gives my mind space and time to think. So as time passed I began to think I must like Apocalypse Now but no, and it took me way too long to figure it out why that was.

 It's the end or the last 40 minutes of the movie or so. It's as soon as Kurtz shows up this goes from a great 9/10 movie experiencing for me to a total zero.The movie just comes to a grinding halt with one of the most boring performances I have ever seen and suddenly the movie feels like it will never end. All that sort of build up and curiosity about Kurtz for that? To me it feels like the director didn't really know what to do at the end and it must have been improvised but it's a serious let down. And scenes like him reading from "The Hollow Men" just feel so forced, cliche and extremely hammy. I don't know if it's just the writing, Brando, both I don't know but I can't stand the entire ending which is too bad considering how much I liked the rest. I can't think of another movie where the wheels come off at the end like that and ruin the whole thing for me.

Yeah, I feel the same way about "Herbie the Lovebug."

No love for Herbie?

Well, the wheels came off at the end...

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Well, the wheels came off at the end...

Sarai wrote:

It's making me smile just seeing that picture. I would put it in my top 5 if not my favorite movie ever...it's just really hard to think of better.

I would watch Herzog direct traffic.