A View To A Kill appreciation thread

I wrote this in 2000, when my website (007Forever) did a 15-year anniversary celebration/retrospective of A VIEW TO A KILL. I've updated it slightly. There are some really interesting reviews of the film from that time quoted here:

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In today’s Internet era, where everyone who has an opinion about something has a forum in which to share it, opinions on James Bond are a dime a dozen. But in 1985, we the little people, the regular movie going audience, had little choice but to read and accept the opinion of ego deficient cretins (otherwise known as professional film critics). They were the only game in town, they had a stranglehold on print and television media, and boy did they ever use it to throttle the latest James Bond epic: A VIEW TO A KILL! Condemnation of this film was nearly unanimous.

The most bizarre and out-of-left-field critique of the film came from Bond and Beyond: The Political Career of a Popular Hero (no relation to the wonderful message board BOND AND BEYOND), written by Tony Bennett and Janet Woolacott. Here, Ms. Woolacott’s strident feminist tendencies and anti-Bond sympathies come to light with this remark: "May Day’s death, to put it bluntly, expresses the pious hope that both the women’s and black liberation movements might take themselves off somewhere into the California desert and blow themselves up."

David Edelstein of The Village Voice took a less abrasive, but no less critical, view of the film: "After the virtuoso opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-which featured Harrison Ford in a tuxedo, and which out-Bonded Bond-how can audiences accept these artless crack-ups and flaccid fisticuffs? Long, long ago, James Bond films had an edge. They were adventure stories told in elegant shorthand-all sleek, ironic, amoral thrills. When Roger Moore lumbered aboard in 1973, they went from the snazziest thrill machines to the flabbiest; they lost their silkiness, their irony and their zip. They went for cheap yucks suddenly-not just bad puns, but slapstick chases and Smokey and the Bandit stuff with sputtering sheriffs….A VIEW TO A KILL is pure tedium."

Janet Maslin in The New York Times called the film "entirely forgettable" and "less than dynamic". Janet even managed to get in a few cutting remarks about Roger Moore’s age: "The effort involved in keeping Roger Moore’s 007 impervious to age, changing times or sheer deja-vu seems overwhelming."

Jack Kroll of Newsweek, May 27 1985. p. 74, said: In his seventh film as James Bond, Roger Moore seems tired out. A VIEW TO A KILL succumbs to all the cliches and conventions associated with its forerunners but lacks the spirit to compete. Hollywood Bond productions have come to sacrifice urbanity for exotic stunts and fast action. With the exception of an ingenious plot idea and the unconventional beauty Grace Jones as the Amazonian May Day, the film comes off as an insipid foil for a couple of brilliant stunt sequences. ….There are shots in A View to a Kill that make your heart go out to Roger Moore. In his seventh movie as James Bond, Rog is looking less like a chap with a license to kill than a gent with an application to retire. Moore is an extremely engaging fellow and an admirable professional, but when he turns on that famous quizzical smile, his facial muscles look as if they’re lifting weights."

Jet Magazine, June 24 1985. p. 56-8 chose to focus much of its attention on the interracial aspect of the film: "Grace Jones, described as "bizarre, beautiful, masculine, and feminine," steals the show in her second film, the latest James Bond feature, A VIEW TO A KILL. A former fashion model and disco artist, Jones plays Christopher Walken`s accomplice, May Day. The two plan to destroy Silicon Valley to gain control of the hightech industry. Bond`s mission is to stop them. May Day is a woman who commits murder and makes love with the same degree of passion. The stunning Jones, who designed many of her own costumes for the film, had the chance to display her skills as a kick boxer, as well as her skills as a seductress. Despite the film industry`s traditional caution in dealing with interracial intimacy, Jones transcends race in her passionate scenes with two white men."

Ralph Novak of People Weekly, June 17 1985. p. 16 said: "James Bond just isn`t what he used to be. Roger Moore, who portrays 007 once again in this film, is fifty-seven. His face shows a few wrinkles and some of the bounce has vanished from his step. The movie`s script appears about as tired as Moore does. A lackluster opening sequence is borrowed almost wholesale from The Spy Who Loved Me, and the film`s main action scene doesn`t measure up to those from other Bond films. Singer Grace Jones turns in a good performance as a villain, but the movie`s other actors don`t help the film any. Tanya Roberts plays Bond`s love interest with a thick New York accent and struggles with any line over three words long. Christopher Walken is a tad too laid-back in his role as the main villain. Maybe it`s time for producer Albert Broccoli to find a young 007, Jr."

Time, June 10 1985. p. 83 said: "A VIEW TO A KILL is the fourteenth James Bond film, the seventh starring Roger Moore. Written by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson and directed by John Glen, the story begins with a familiar ski chase. From there, the plot moves on to pit Bond against villain Christopher Walken who wants to blow up the San Andreas Fault, so Silicon Valley will be swallowed up and he can control the microchip market. Grace Jones plays Bond`s bizarre femme fatale in this stale film."

VARIETY - MAY 22, 1985

A VIEW TO A KILL (BRITISH-COLOR) Lackluster 007 epic should earn okay b.o. Hollywood, May 21.

There is hardly a red-blooded American boy whose pulse isn`t quicker by the familiar strains of the James Bond theme and the first sight of the hero cocking a gun at any enemy coming his way. Unfortunately, A View to a Kill," the 16th outing for the Ian Fleming characters, doesn`t keep the adrenaline pumping, exposing the inherent weaknesses of the genre.

Trading on the Bond name, outlook is good for initial business, but momentum is likely to falter, just as the production does. The potential for cinematic thrills and chills, what with glamourous locations, beautiful women and exotic locations, is still there, but in "A View to a Kill" it`s the execution that`s lacking. A traditionally big Bond opening, this time a daring chase through the Alps, gets the film off to a promising start but proves one of the film`s few highlights as it slowly slips into tedium. Basic problem is on the script level with the intricate plot never offering the mindless menace necessary to propel the plot.

First third of the pic is devoted to introduction of characters in a horse-fixing subplot that has no real bearing on the main action. Bond`s adversary this time is the international industrialist Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) and his love-hate interest, May Day (Grace Jones). Bond tangles with them at their regal horse sale and uncovers a profitable scheme in which microchips are surgically implanted in the horse to assure an easy victory. Horse business is moderately entertaining, particularly when Patrick Macnee is on screen as Bond`s chauffeur accomplice.

Action, however, jumps abruptly to San Francisco to reveal Zorin`s true motives. He`s hatching some master plan to pump water from the sea into the San Andreas fault causing a major earthquake, destroying the Silicon Valley and leaving him with the world`s microchip monopoly. Film sags badly in the San Francisco section when it should be soaring, partially due to Bond`s joining forces with American geologist Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts). Try as you might to believe it, Roberts has little credibility as a woman of science.

Her delivery of lines like "I`d sell everything and live in a tent before I`d give," makes the obvious laughable. While Bond pics have always traded heavily on the camp value of its characters, "A View to a Kill" almost attacks the humor, practically winking at the audience with every move. Director John Glen, who previously directed "For Your Eyes Only," has not found the right balance between action and humor to make the production dangerous fun. Walken, too, the product of a mad Nazi scientist`s genetic experiments, is a bit wimpy by Bond villain standards. With hair colored an unnaturally yellow he seems more effete than deadly.

As his assistant, Grace Jones is a successful updating of the Jaws-type villain. Jones just oozes `80s style and gets to parade in a number of sensation outfits (designed by Emma Porteous) giving a hard but alluring edge to her character. As for Roger Moore, making his seventh appearance as Bond, he is right about half the time, he still has the suave and cool for the part, but on occasion he looks a bit old for the part and his coy womanizing seems dated when he does. Other instances when the film strives to stake its claim to the rock video audience backfire and miscalculate the appeal of the material.

Opening credit sequence in MTV style is downright bizarre and title song by Duran Duran will certainly not go down as one of the classic Bond tunes. [Hmmm...Editors.] With all of its limitations, production still remains a sumptuous feast to look at. Shot in Panavision by Alan Hume, exotic locations such as the Eiffel Tower, San Francisco Bay and Zorin`s French chateau are rendered beautifully. Climax hanging over the Golden Gate Bridge is chillingly real thanks to the miniature artists and effects people (supervised by John Richardson). Production design by Peter Lamont is first rate.

THE WASHINGTON POST - MAY 24, 1985

At the finale of "A View to a Kill," James Bond (Roger Moore) dangles from a blimp, an almost painfully appropriate metaphor for the adventure series that is now bloated, slow moving and at the end of its rope. It`s not double-oh-seven anymore, but double-oh-seventy, the best argument yet for the mandatory retirement age. Bond`s adversary here is Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), a renegade KGB agent turned billionaire industrialist, who, in league with his lover/bodyguard May Day (Grace Jones), is plotting to corner the microchip market by destroying Silicon Valley.

Why is Zorin so evil, you ask? It turns out that he was "created" in the Nazi concentration camps by a Mengele figure experimenting with steroids on pregnant women. Most of the children died; those who didn`t survived with extraordinary intelligence and more than a touch of psychopathy. Bond first grows suspicious when one of Zorin`s horses, despite its inferior bloodlines, wins a major race at Ascot. Masquerading as James St. John Smythe, he attends a horse auction at Zorin`s Versailles-like estate, where he meets Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), an heiress fallen victim to Zorin`s aggressive mergers and acquisitions practices.

"A View to a Kill" is nothing if not thorough - it rolls nazism, communism and merger mania into one. In between, the movie follows the usual Bond formula, except the gadgets are a cut less ingenious, the women a notch below stunning, the puns and double-entendres something besides clever. "I`m happiest in the saddle," says Zorin. "A fellow sportsman," says Bond. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. There is some magnificent stunt work, which only underscores how inadequate Moore has become.

Moore isn`t just long in the tooth - he`s got tusks, and what looks like an eye job has given him the pie-eyed blankness of a zombie. He`s not believable anymore in the action sequences, even less so in the romantic scenes - it`s like watching women fall all over Gabby Hayes. And unlike "Never Say Never Again," which made a theme out of Sean Connery`s over-the-hilleries, "A View to a Kill" never acknowledges Moore`s age.

We`re just supposed to take him at face value, and once again, the pound has declined. Jones looks terrific - with her powerful spindly limbs and hard polished skull, she`s a large, splendid driver ant - but the minute she opens her mouth, all the air goes out of her performance. She`s an icon, not an actress. And Roberts is an absolute howl as Stacey. When Bond fills her in on Zorin`s plans, she brays, "dat`s incredibewee dangerous!" and flounces off in a pink nightie. She is, by the way, an expert geologist. Walken wears a blond wig, a formidable contraption that lifts from his baldness in a simian sweep - he looks like Dr Zaius and talks like Joey Bishop. He`s trying to send up the material, but at this late date, Bond has moved beyond camp into irrelevance.

THE NEW YORKER - JUNE 03, 1985

NEW YORKER June 3, 1985
Pauline Kael

THE James Bond series has had its bummers, but nothing before in the class of "A View to a Kill."

You go to a Bond picture expecting some style or, at least, some flash, some lift; you don`t expect the dumb police-car crashes you get here. You do see some ingenious daredevil feats, but they`re crowded together and, the way they`re set up, they don`t give you the irresponsible, giddy tingle you`re hoping for. The movie is set mostly in Chantilly, Paris, and San Francisco, and it`s full of bodies and vehicles diving, exploding, going up in flames.

Christopher Walken is the chief villain; the ultra-blond psychopathic product of a Nazi doctor`s experiments, he mows people down casually, his expression jaded. And the director, John Glen, stages the slaughter scenes so apathetically that the picture itself seems dissociated. (I don`t think I`ve ever seen another movie in which race horses were mistreated and the director failed to work up any indignation. If Glen has any emotions about what he puts on the screen, he keeps them to himself.) All that keeps "A View to a Kill" going is that it needs to reach a certain heft to fit into the series.

As the villainess, Grace Jones, of the flat-top haircut and the stylized look of African sculpture, is indifferently good-humoured the way Jane Russell used to be, and much too flaccid, and as the Bond heroine Tanya Roberts (who has a disconcerting resemblance to Isabelle Adjani) is totally lacking in intensity - she goes from one life-threatening situation to another looking vaguely put out.

About the most that can be said for Roger Moore, in his seventh go-round as Bond, is that he keeps his nose to the grindstone, permitting himself no expression except a faint bemusement. It used to be that we could count on Bond to deliver a few zingers, but this time the script (by Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson) barely manages a little facetiousness.

The film does come up with one visual zinger: in the small role of Jenny Flex, a stunning young model named Alison Doody comes up with a curvy walk that`s like sex on wheels.



MACLEANS - JUNE 10, 1985

A VIEW TO A KILL
Directed by John Glen

Of all the modern formulas in the movie industry, the James Bond series is among the most pleasurable and durable. Lavish with their budgets, the producers also bring a great deal of craft, wit and a sense of fun to the films. Agent 007 is like an old friend whom an audience meets for drinks every two years or so; he regales them with tall tales, winking all the time. The 15th and newest Bond epic, A View to a Kill, is an especially satisfying encounter.

As Bond, Roger Moore takes on a brilliant but psychotic Russian named Zorin (Christopher Walken) and his lethal assistant, May Day, played by the astonishingly muscular and sleek Grace Jones. The villain`s plan, as in most Bond films, is nothing less ambitious than the takeover of the world, which he plans to do by controlling the international microchip market. Because 80 percent of the world`s microchip production comes from California`s silicon valley, Zorin simply has to close up the San Andreas fault with an explosion and bury the valley under a massive flood. Opening with a breathtaking ski chase in Siberia.

A View to a Kill is the fastest Bond picture yet. Its pace has the precision of a Swiss watch and the momentum of a greyhound on the track. There is a spectacular chase up and down the Eiffel Tower and through Paris streets, which Bond finishes in a severed car on just two wheels. But none of the action prepares the viewer for the heart-stopping climax with Zorin`s dirigible tangled in the cables on top of San Francisco`s Golden Gate Bridge. For all its similarities to earlier episode - deadly villains and gorgeous women - A View to a Kill is a little different.

It is less gadget-ridden, and Bond relies more on old-fashioned know-how: trapped underwater in a car, he escapes and breathes through the tire valve while waiting for his would-be assassins to leave. The world`s technological advances have caught up with Bond, but they never render him obsolete. The Bond movies operate on a level much deeper than their dazzling surfaces: they represent assurance in a world laden with global anxiety. And not only does goodness win out, it does so with style and humour. The movies are fantasies of idealism in which even the hero`s sins are turned into delicious double entendres. "Did you sleep well?" asks Zorin. "A little restlessly," replies Bond after a night in May Day`s arms. "But I finally got off."

Their comic-book characters, the good ones that is, are especially alluring - dashing, talented and impervious to danger. Most of all, Bond is a gentleman - a chivalrous knight who has time-travelled. When he saves the "good girl" of A View to a Kill and holds her in his arms on top of the Golden Gate, it is a sublime romantic gesture. It is true that Roger Moore is showing his age (57) in the role, but there are plenty of tunes left in his violin. James Bond is still a virtuoso, with a licence to thrill. -LAWRENCE O`TOOLE

MAGILL'S SURVEY OF CINEMA - JUNE 15, 1985

One of the least ironic in the James Bond series, A VIEW TO A KILL takes 007 (Roger Moore) from Ascot, Paris, and Chantilly to San Francisco as he pursues Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), a villainous international microchip industrialist, and his fierce bodyguard, May Day (Grace Jones). Having survived several near-fatal encounters with Zorin`s henchmen, Bond succeeds in obstructing the industrialist`s plan to dynamite the San Andreas fault and flood Silicon Valley so that he can gain control over the world`s microchip production. In a suspenseful finale which takes place at the Golden Gate Bridge, Bond blasts Zorin in his zeppelin.

Summary: The pleasure which viewers take in familiar forms is the very basis of a genre film`s survival, yet the most interesting among them-- Westerns and musicals, for example--are also characterized by their capacity to reflect cultural shifts and social changes. In comparison, the James Bond films are defined by a carefully synthesized and carefully protected formula; nothing about them changes. Deciding who best embodies the mythic essence of Fleming`s hero, Sean Connery, George Lazenby, or Roger Moore, has been only one of two major sources of variation that the Bond films have offered since the series began with DR. NO (1962). The other variation has been a shift in tone: from straight and serious to parodic and absurd. The tone in A VIEW TO A KILL, however, is serious. In keeping with this mode, the prologue finds 007 (Roger Moore), in a display of bravado, skiing on an Alaskan snowfield, a squadron of Soviet soldiers to snatch an innocent-looking locket from the neck of an unknown corpse. Reminiscent of the opening sequence of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977), the last-second rescue comes from an ice floe that pops open to reveal a Union Jack flying submarine, navigated by a captain in white mink overalls. No matter how predictable, even this opening sequence rewards the audience immediately with its impeccable editing (the film`s director, John Glen, has edited several earlier Bonds) and with its striking use of color against a white background (a common visual heritage from the pop-graphic style of the 1960`s).

Following the prologue, viewers find themselves in the London headquarters of Secret Service, where M (Robert Brown) and his staff fill one another in on a new superchip that was found in the locket of that corpse, which as it turns out was the body of a Russian. Everything indicates that this new technological miracle comes from the hands of a mysterious industrialist of international origins, one Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). Much to the regret of Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), only James Bond can find Zorin`s chips.

The search begins at the Ascot horse races, where the abnormally blond Zorin is sighted along with his right-hand woman, the stunning and ferocious May Day (Grace Jones), a black martial arts and logistics expert who sports leather-hooded outfits and six-inch heels. Then in Paris, while Bond is having dinner with the unpleasant Inspector Aubergine (Jean Rougerie), in an elegant restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, May Day attacks. Dressed in wasp-patterned yellow and black leotards, she uses a fishing rod of sorts, impaling on its fly Bond` s dinner partner, who is lecherously watching a woman perform a butterfly dance onstage. Like a spider, May Day then vanishes down the tower and escapes with the help of a parachute glider, which crashes onto a wedding party aboard a bateau-mouche in the middle of the Seine. It is in sequences such as these that the Bond films are at their most engaging: The insect motif (the fly casting, wasp, butterfly, and so on), insignificant as it may be for the film`s overall structure, tightens up the little episode; the gags are exotic in an inventive way, built more on wit than violence (pace Inspector Aubergine), and the stunts, carried out in the middle of Paris, make one admire not only their performers but also the film`s producer, Albert Broccoli, who managed to arrange all of this. Later on, the San Francisco City Hall and the Golden Gate Bridge, notoriously off-limits for commercial filming, are similarly granted this "location-as-star" treatment, lending almost the old-fashioned authenticity of a travelogue to this high-tech fairy tale.

The search for Zorin`s chips leads from Paris to an exquisite Chantilly chateau, where the villain is auctioning off some of his supernormal race horses. Here, Bond, succeeds in penetrating Zorin`s secret stable- laboratory and discovers that the superchip, with its ability to enhance the performances of living organisms to the capacity of a robot, is part of a worldwide biotechnological conspiracy. In the process of his search, Bond arouses Zorin`s suspicion, and even Bond`s strategically motivated seduction of May Day does not prevent a subsequent manhunt on horseback, at the end of which he is almost killed. As is customary for the Bond megavillain, Zorin`s monstrously perfect features make it clear that he is essentially nonhuman, a creature representing not simply an opposing political system but a threat to mankind. A child produced by Nazi genetic engineering experiments during World War II and bred to perfection in the U.S.S.R., Zorin has broken loose from his ideological commitments to his KGB supervisors and is now preparing to attack and monopolize the world`s microchip industry. Traveling in a zeppelin, Zorin, May Day, and their evil crew move on to San Francisco. Bond catches up with them, first competing with, and later helped by, the beautiful geologist and heiress Stacy Sutton (Tanya Roberts).

Surviving a suction pipe accident under a Zorin oil rig in the San Francisco Bay and then a spectacular city hall fire, Bond and Stacy uncover, just in time, Zorin`s demonic plan to reactivate the San Andreas fault through a series of enormous explosions. This, in turn, would devastate and flood the Silicon Valley industries and guarantee Zorin, Inc., complete control of the world`s microchip output. The mandatory large-scale showdown follows, taking place in a labyrinthine old silver mine located below the San Andreas lake, which is also Stacy`s beloved ancestral home. The sequence carries allusions to Fritz Lang`s subterranean masterpiece METROPOLIS (1927) and to the wild mine rides in Steven Spielberg`s INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984). When May Day finally realizes the magnitude of Zorin`s diabolical plot, as well as his completely cynical attitude toward her, she shifts allegiance and throws her considerable body power behind Bond and Stacy`s efforts to prevent the catastrophe, sacrificing her life in the process. Zorin and his skeleton crew flee again in the blimp, taking Stacy as hostage, but Bond hangs on to one of the mooring ropes (metaphorically keeping taut the suspenseful plot line). The aircraft becomes trapped in the structure of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Bond not only saves Stacy but also rids the world of yet another megalomaniac when, cleverly relying on some basic laws of physics, he brings about the explosion of the high-tech wizard and his zeppelin.

Per the film`s formula, Bond proceeds to shun delightfully his civic responsibilities by hiding out in Stacy`s shower, avoiding not only M`s phone congratulations but also the KGB`s (which is grateful to Bond for having preserved Silicon Valley intact for yet another generation of Soviet industrial espionage). The main attraction of A VIEW TO A KILL is undoubtedly the irresistible Grace Jones. Graceful, fast, resourceful, and a little perverse, May Day finally seems to be the female alter ego Bond has been looking for since the death of his wife in ON HER MAJESTY`S SECRET SERVICE (1969); like her, she, too, must die so as to allow 007 to proceed unhindered to further adventures. It is typical that Bond`s love interest here has a degree in a hard science, but she remains as incompetent and witless as she is cute. A VIEW TO A KILL signals where the next major hurdle for 007 will emerge. The technology in which villains such as Zorin deal to achieve world control is so utterly impersonal that Bond`s old-fashioned craftiness and general education (even when amplified by Q`s special gadgets) may soon become obsolete. As long as he can count on encountering his enemies in falling elevators or burning ships, Bond is all right. In a world of data banks, video screens, and artificial intelligence, Bond will either have to "upgrade" to a full-time science-fiction hero or else withdraw to the sidelines, watching it all, amused, over a dry martini.

Perhaps the most damaging criticism came from none other than Sean Connery himself: "Bond should be played by an actor 35, 33 years old. I’m too old. Roger’s too old, too!"

But audiences had the last laugh. Box office was solid if not spectacular and the grosses were hefty enough that Roger was still a contender for the role when pre-production began on THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS in late 1985. Had he wanted the role, he probably could have held on to it for an inconceivable 8th time, but wisely he chose to resign himself from the running in a letter to Cubby Broccoli in Decemb

I received permission to reproduce an on-the-set article from American Cinematographer Magazine, which took a look at the filming of A VIEW TO A KILL in downtown San Francisco. One note of interest was that originally there was meant to be a "cable-car chase" in down town San Fran. I haven't read the rough drafts of AVTAK, only the shooting script (the one that contains Q's snooping device that pisses on a guard dog and a filmed sequence of fishermen protesting Zorin's oil pumping station that was deleted from the theatrical print), but I imagine that the "cable-car chase" sequence was what became the fire truck sequence.

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Set on the southern anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco`s Vista Point is a perennial tourist spot, but Ned Kopp is not a tourist, and he was not enjoying the view. Kopp, whose company handled the San Francisco logistics for A View to a Kill, was alarmed; the equipment hadn`t arrived at the location. "Well, we`re on a tight schedule," a considerably calmer Kopp explained later, "a little bit because of weather, and a little bit because of the number of people involved. We had all kinds of maps, schedules, plans - all colour coded, and the people we probably paid the least attention to were the US guys - particularly the locals, San Franciscans, because everybody knows where the Golden Gate Bridge is - I can`t imagine anyone who wouldn`t. "Now the Golden Gate has a south end and a north end, which probably most people know. By the dumbest accident, the equipment ended up on the wrong end. So here`s the whole crew - all the UK guys, everybody who should not know where to be - all in exactly the right place, and more than a small group was at the other parking lot on the north side." Fortunately, the Golden Gate can be crossed in a matter of minutes, so after a brief scramble, the trucks were directed to the proper site.

In that time, Kopp wasn`t the only one having anxiety attacks: "During that short period of time, the fog was coming in, and the UK people were getting very, very concerned that they were in the wrong place." Learning fast, he made the incident and object lesson: "That happened to us on the first day, and after that, everybody got maps - even if they said they lived on the Golden Gate Bridge." For Kopp and Nancy Giebink, who together form the core of Ned Kopp & Co., that was the beginning of a punishing, 21-day, $5 million dollar shooting schedule that saw them working around the clock for the entire shoot. The schedule - including five days of shooting 24 hours a day, with as many as four units filming at the same time - provided ample proof of Murphy`s Law. In addition to signing checks, Kopp and company`s responsibilities lie in the area generally referred to as "below the line" (i.e., variable with time). These assignments include below the line producing and packaging (i.e. the gathering of production personnel, including technicians, location scouts and managers, unit coordinators, etc), plus production management - all invisible to the viewer, but indispensable to the producer and director.

Although A View to a Kill was their first Bond picture, Kopp and Giebink brought formidable credits with them, having recently worked on Shoot the Moon, The Right Stuff, and just having wrapped Birdy, on which Kopp was the associate producer. Speculating on his involvement, he felt the two Alan Parker films (Shoot the Moon and Birdy) may have tipped the scales in his favour since both Parker and Eon Productions (the Bond Production Company) are based at Pinewood Studios outside London. In the fall of 1983, a full year before the San Francisco shooting, Kopp and Giebink held their first meetings with the Bond company. Heavily involved in preparing Birdy - then only two months from the start of production - their schedules didn`t permit a great deal of contact with the UK visitors, leaving much of the location scouting to associates Rory Enke, and Steph Benseman. After a week of scouting, and additional meetings, the Bond team left the Bay Area without having made a firm decision, in part because, at that time, a finished script didn`t even exist. While some general story ideas had been agreed upon, the final screenplay would be tailored to the specific locations selected; as a result, the location scouting took on far greater importance than in most other productions. Many months later, it would have a tremendous effect on Kopp`s work.

Birdy kept them busy well into August, when they moved over to A View to a Kill. Meanwhile, location scouting for the Bond movie continued at various sites around the world, the script remaining changeable. Six months later, a major accident had a huge impact on the San Franciscans` efforts. On June 27 a disastrous fire swept through the Bond sound stage at Pinewood, fed by exploding gas cylinders that had been used to fuel some campfires on a large forest set for Ridley Scott`s Legend, the blaze leveled the structure. Even though the Bond company had not actually planned to use the stage, the repercussions for A View to a Kill were enormous. Because the labor force at Pinewood is a permanent fixture that isn`t normally expanded with freelancers, the workers who otherwise would have been available to the Bond movie were withheld for the completion of Legend. Along with the shortage of labor, the designers now found themselves also confronted with a shortage of stage space of the planning and building of sets, putting a further crimp into the schedule of a picture that still did not have a locked down script.

Just over a month later, with Birdy wrapped, Kopp flew to London for a week of meetings on the Bond picture. Based on the scripts he had been sent and conversations with the principals involved, he had a general idea of the schedule that would be required. "Originally, they were going to shoot in the US and London at the same time," he said. "They would shoot their first unit in London and they would have a second unit shooting plates, establishing shots, and things here. That second unit would then shoot dialog here with Roger Moore, Tanya Roberts and a few other people, then the principals would go back and the second unit would complete the chase. "So they`d send one foreign crew here, we would then hire another crew - or two, as necessary - and that group would then do everything. "At that time, we were planning on normal days. Normal being maybe 12-hour shoot days with an hour to get there, and an hour to get away - roughly 14 hours. That would be a week or so of first unit and a couple of weeks of second unit - chase stuff. It was about 15 days, and then probably a week or so of plates, backgrounds, pass-bys, and establishing shots - nothing with people, just all pretty pictures of the Bay Area. "That would all start around the end of September and go for three to five weeks. As it turned out, we went three weeks, because we went around the clock."

Arriving in London in the first week of August, Kopp visited the production in progress. "They were already shooting first unit on the stage at Pinewood, so they`d been building sets for that for about a month or so. They were also shooting in Paris and they were either finishing up or still shooting in Iceland. "As I understand it, they`d started shooting in Iceland before they even had a finished script, but they had to do it, because that was the time of year when the glacier was going to do this, and the snow was going to do that... a lot of things were going to happen that they had to get going on." Although some script changes were still being made by this time, the story was - more or less - settled, but unlike most projects, Kopp found more information in the storyboards, since they contained the action sequences that would not be changed.

Reading the script and looking at drawings, he realized that his work would play a major part in shaping the picture itself. "When I first read the script it said "a cable car chase,"" he remembered. "Well, the only time you could clear a cable car run - that is, shooting on the tracks - would be once the cable cars closed down. "You wouldn`t have a prayer of going to Muni (S.F. public transit) and saying, "Hi, we want to shoot on a Saturday afternoon, at the height of the tourist season, and we`ll just shut down your cable cars, and we`re going to control them for two or three days." "But you do have a chance if you go to them and say, "We would like to do a cable car chase. It feels like it`s prestigious for San Francisco, and it`s going to show the cable cars in their best light. It`s going to show San Francisco in a very positive way, and we shoot it after you close down at night, from 12:30-1am to 4:30-5am, in the timespan of four or five hours, and instead of shooting it all in a day or two, we shoot it over three or four nights, do you see any problems with that?" Well, then the resistance is far less than even suggesting shooting it during the day." Because of the logistics involved, Kopp made it clear that the stunt work - the bulk of the San Francisco shooting - would have to be filmed at night. This then had a "trickle down" effect that limited where the shooting could take place. "At one time - I wasn`t involved in it - Remy Julienne, the French stunt coordinator; Arthur Wooster, the second unit director; and Peter Lamont, the designer, came to San Francisco - on their own - and scouted, and they found places that they really loved for doing the chase. They found Broadway Hill, Divisadero, Filbert - all in Pacific Heights, where the Bullitt chase happened." In addition to being one of the hilliest areas in San Francisco, Pacific Heights is one of the wealthiest and most established, with wide avenues and stately mansions. "When I went to Paris, and Remy showed me the photos of where they talked about a chase, I said, "well, you won`t have a prayer. We couldn`t possibly use that area. I think we could get you some pass-bys. I think you could get the fire engine coming down some of the hills and some police cars following it, but we`re not going to be able to block that off and tie up the area crashing cars." "Then they asked when and what we could do, and I said, "we can control this at night, and do that at night..." which immediately ruled out Pacific Heights, because you can`t control it during the day, plus it`s residential, and you can`t be there after ten at night. If you got a waiver of any kind, then you could maybe be there to 10:30 or 11 o`clock - but then you`re dead. The police department stays pretty tight to that curfew - you can`t be in those neighbourhoods before seven in the morning. So as we saw what they said they wanted to do, we then tried to direct them toward the times of day and areas we felt we could clear."

As scripted, the fire engine-led car chase began near city hall, further supporting the argument for night shooting. "You can never close Market Street (the main thoroughfare through downtown San Francisco)," Kopp explained. "City policy is you can never block streets. But if you go there at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 o`clock in the morning, the buses are no longer running like they were - there`s one every half-hour or 45 minutes; the taxi-cabs are not busy. There`s much less traffic. "Downtown San Francisco is not a residential area, so if you stay away from the hotels then you can pretty well smash and crash and bang cars all night long and never interfere with the police or the fire department or whatever," Kopp says. By the middle of September, matters had become so impacted that 24-hour shooting was the only solution. Still feeling the consequences of the fire, the production was forced into shuttling between the stages in London and various international locations just to keep shooting. "They went from Paris to Chantilly," Kopp explained. "They then went back to London for two weeks, and then they came to the us. While they were in London, they had to shoot those particular sets - and finish with them, so that they could take them down. Then, during the San Francisco shooting, they`d build more sets."

What made the marathon approach acceptable was that it had little impact on the budget. "These were always separate units," Kopp said. "Now whether the separate units were in a line, or whether they all happened to be at the same time, 24 hours, didn`t really affect the numbers an awful lot. The day crews shooting the plates were going to cost so much, and the fact that we had a day crew shooting dialog at the same time we had a day crew shooting plates, at the same time we had a night crew shooting chase... all of those were budgeted by themselves, so it really didn`t change the cost." What it did change, though, was the entire preparation for the movie. "What we did that first week is in effect, three different movies. It would be like you were prepping for three separate, complete, totally different operations. Three different crews, three different packages of equipment, three different cameras - each unit had two or three cameras in their unit, so we had nine to twelve cameras with VistaVision and separate odd pieces of equipment." But while the budget may not have been affected, the production office, which had been set up in whirlwind fashion in early August, was. (In fact, the Bond office went up in less than two days. Kopp returned from London on a Saturday, joined Giebink and their staff in closing Birdy`s San Jose office on Sunday, and Monday morning they were already answering the Bond phone calls in San Francisco.)

Shooting around the clock meant the production office had to follow suit, as Giebink explained: "To keep the office open 24 hours a day, there were three production coordinators, and one of them would come in at 6 am, and work say, 6-6; the next one would come in around noon - it varied, 10 to noon, and then work `til 10 PM or midnight; and then the night shift would come in around 6 PM and go `til 6 am so that provided office coverage with the most people there during the late day, which is when most of the activity was going on." Having begun compiling the shooting schedule from the multi-colored screenplay and the storyboards, an even more complete picture began to emerge after they received an early schedule from Waye. This too presented new challenges, for not only was it in a format neither Kopp or Giebink had ever worked with before it also covered the whole movie. "We spent quite a bit of time going through their schedule just trying to pull out of it what pieces were going to be shot over here, because it was for the entire picture," Giebink related. "So that was a little confused, but eventually we took all the information and started stripping it out, and the way we boarded it was to take the three basic units and keep them on separate schedules."

Although the Bond movies are noted for their gadgetry, the making of the San Francisco schedule was accomplished in the same manner that has been the backbone of production scheduling for decades: carefully transferring the information - by hand - to thin, colored strips of cardboard and then arranging them on large production boards. But even with the London schedule and the script in hand, Giebink found the storyboards far more useful. "Although we all read the script diligently," she said, "in the end, all the shooting was based on the `boards. The first unit stuff was based on the script, because very little of that was `boarded out. But the second unit, the aerial unit, and the Golden Gate Bridge unit were all based on the storyboards, and so instead of numbering to the script, like we`d normally do, we numbered everything to the `boards. "Most heads of departments had sets of storyboards, and in a lot of ways it`s really very easy, because you make copies of them and do one frame per page, and you cross them off as you do them, instead of marking the script and keeping track of it that way. It`s almost like shooting a commercial. "Now for the second unit - and the third, aerial and plates - the directors of both of those had very specific shot lists as well. So first the "boards, and that`s how we did all the breakdown and the scheduling, and then the shot lists, which were even more detailed than the storyboards." No matter how careful the preparation, though, reality has a way of ruining even the very best planning, and given the first unit`s dramatically shortened availability, complications increased. Having a rough idea of the shooting schedule since spring, Kopp now began the laborious task of finalizing dates and locations. "So it`s now the first week or two in September," he related, "and you go to City Hall, and you start trying to make your arrangements. They are as accommodating as possible, but as careful as possible. And they say, "Okay, you can use City Hall," then they go and look at their calender, and you find out that the ninth, which is Tuesday, they have a reception in the rotunda for six or eight hundred people, and you`ve got it scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. ""You cannot use City Hall on Tuesday, the ninth." ""But Mr Moore is only going to be in California for eight days..." "Not only that, the crew is only going to be here for a certain amount of time, and you`ve got that schedule pretty absolute on that Monday and Tuesday, and they say you can`t shoot there on Tuesday. So now you have to move things around. We ended up shooting there on Monday and Wednesday. "Now it also got involved because another location said that we could only shoot there on Sunday - that was the mine over in Marin. Another location said we could only shoot there on Saturday - that was the interior of City Hall. So that took care of those days. Then the only day we could shoot at Japantown was on a Friday, so we really didn`t have a lot of choices as to how we could flop things around on the schedule."

Even while Kopp stood waiting for the equipment at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge things were still changing. "The jetty in Richmond was supposed to be later," Giebink remembered, "but a ship was due to come in, so we had to flop the whole schedule. I think we flopped it the night before we were going to shoot it. That was supposed to be on Wednesday, but we couldn`t have it Wednesday, so we brought it up to Monday, and then moved everything else. It just sort of dominoed back from there." Shooting with a firm schedule - without room for contingencies - is the cinematic equivalent of working without a net, and it was the cause for more than a small amount of stress. "We could only be at certain places on certain days," Kopp said. "Had we missed on some of those, had we had a camera malfunction, or an actor`s problem, or something, some of those locations we could not go back to until maybe a week later - which Roger Moore and the first unit couldn`t do. For instance, if we hadn`t finished at the mine on that Sunday, we couldn`t have been back on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday; we`d have had to wait another whole week. "Now that would mean we`d have had to keep all those people here with nothing for them to do for a week, so we had to hire enough crew to make sure we finished. This caused tremendous pressure on John Glen, the director."

A reflection of how frantic the pace became after shooting began was reflected in the UK crew`s timetable. Arriving from London on a Saturday, their second unit was shooting on Sunday. After a day`s rest, the first unit also began shooting, and Kopp and Giebink now found themselves not only dividing their time between the production office and the locations, but among the crews as well. In general, Kopp stayed with the first unit, while Giebink remained with the third unit (aerials), which was shooting at the same time. With the start of night stuntwork on the third day, the schedule became a full, twenty-four hour circus. After monitoring all the daylight filming, Kopp and Giebink would then make their way out to the second unit, shooting the chase that night. Giebink described their work schedule: "There would sometimes be a period of time from 2 to 4 in the morning when neither Ned nor I were in the office, because maybe one of us was taking a nap, and the other was on the set. Ideally, both of us would be around, because different problems come up, and one set of problems needs him and another set of problems needs me. So there was a period when we were only getting two or three hours of sleep in twenty-four." Keeping to the frantic schedule, the first unit and cast left San Francisco on a Tuesday afternoon and began shooting on the Pinewood stages the following Monday. Meanwhile, the second unit, which was shooting all the chase footage, was still in the US, facing 12 more nights of San Francisco filming. Still to be shot were the remainder of the City Hall fire, Bond (now a stunt double) hanging from a fire engine ladder and swinging through traffic, the engine being chased among the cable cars, and Bond`s escape by jumping the engine across a drawbridge. "We couldn`t go onto California Street with the cable cars until 1 am," Giebink explained. "So on those nights, we had to shoot other things, and then do the move. We tried hard to get onto California lots earlier than 1 am but in the end, the schedules couldn`t be changed.

"We had a scheme," she laughed, "where we were going to hire motorized cable cars and have them run Sacramento Street for the general public, and we could have California street, but the authorities didn`t think that was such a good idea. "That was probably the biggest scheduling restriction: how to get to and from California Street, because you didn`t want to be on the far side of two the night you had to make that move. So we shot around China Basin (about a mile and a half away), and then moved to the cable cars. We did that four nights. It`s a tough move, because you lose - you really lose - a couple of hours." In other situations, those few hours might not have mattered, but once again; the production was racing the clock. "We could only shoot the cable cars from one in the morning to five in the morning - four hours," Kopp said. "So that meant we had to find something to shoot at the beginning of the night, for four hours, make our move, somewhere in between there eat, shoot for four hours, and then get off the street before morning traffic started. So we shot other places in town the first part of the night. For instance, we shot up on Potero Hill a little bit - just some pass-bys, and some vistas of the bridge in the background and the fire truck going by, but those are residentials, and you can only be in those areas until ten o`clock at night. So we`d shoot those the first part of the night, then we`d shoot the cable cars. "The choice ended up being: did I want one crew to work an awful lot of overtime, or did I want a couple of crews to work pretty much straight time, and we ended up somewhere in the middle of that split. I had a crew coming in early and going home early, and a crew coming in later and going home late. We had to do that for four nights. The crew saved us; they were fantastic. "Now, not only does that involve personnel, but we had to find additional equipment: lighting, cranes, and cherry pickers. All the same cameras worked and some of the same lights; the same generators worked, because you just unplug them, drag them to the next place and plug them in again. But the lights are way up there on cranes and on roofs. People let us leave lights out on balconies, on fire escapes, and on rooftops, without much concern."

While all the shooting was being done at night, Kopp and Giebink`s work hours were not significantly reduced. "Even when it was just down to the second unit, shooting nights, we wound up doing the same thing in hours, because a lot of the problems will happen at night, but all their solutions happen in the daytime, during business hours." Giebink said. "It`s tough to do all your business at 2 o`clock in the morning, so you`ve got to be up during the daytime. "But I don`t think physically you could do that schedule for more than the time we did it. Three or four weeks... it`s pretty tough on you physically." Kopp agreed, and said that the keys to surviving the ordeal were keeping the wrap date in sight, and having the right people. "I think it`s fairly easy if you can see the end, if it`s going to stop in a week," he said. "I think it`d be tougher if you think you might have to do that for three or four months, then I`m sure there would be a stress point, or give-up point, or a point where you couldn`t muddle through a plan. "When you have a group of people, you have to be able to yell at those people and have them yell back. And if they - or you - get too nervous because someone`s yelling, you`ve got the wrong group of people. Your success or failure is with each other." After shooting 21 days and spending $5 million dollars, the production wrapped. While openly admitting that luck played a factor in his company`s success, Kopp was justifiably proud of the job his group had done, and he summed everything up in seven magic words: "We finished on time, and on budget." Russell Ito is a free lance writer based in San Mateo, California. His other skills include production stills photography.

24Hours On A View To A Kill was reproduced with the expressed written permission of American Cinematographer Magazine. Any further reproduction, transmission or duplication without the consent of American Cinematographer is strictly prohibited. For more information on American Cinematographer, visit their website at: www.cinematographer.com

Heads up if you're a big AVTAK fan like me.

Quote :

JAMES BOND IN OUR SIGHTS: A CLOSE LOOK AT ‘A VIEW TO A KILL’
Written by Andrew McNess



Hardcover & Paperback: 124 pages
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (December 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1465382399
ISBN-13: 978-1465382399
From the back cover:
We know Dr. No. We know Goldfinger. But do we know A View to a Kill? The fourteenth official James Bond film, A View to a Kill marked Roger Moore’s final performance as Agent 007. However, the film’s intriguing, even subtle qualities have remained largely unrecognised since its 1985 release. In entertaining and thought-provoking fashion, author Andrew McNess shines a light on A View to a Kill, and argues we may well be overlooking one of the most interesting and engrossing evocations of the James Bond formula. James Bond in our Sights is a fascinating read for Bond fans and non-fans alike.

http://www.amazon.com/JAMES-BOND-OUR-SIGHTS-CLOSE/dp/1465382399/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324071928&sr=1-1

Thanks for doing this, Gravy. Mos' interestin'.

Thanks for posting, GS. I printed out some of these articles off your site and put them in my James Bond Movie Encyclopedia for safekeeping.

Sharky wrote:

Heads up if you're a big AVTAK fan like me.

Quote :

JAMES BOND IN OUR SIGHTS: A CLOSE LOOK AT ‘A VIEW TO A KILL’
Written by Andrew McNess



Hardcover & Paperback: 124 pages
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (December 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1465382399
ISBN-13: 978-1465382399
From the back cover:
We know Dr. No. We know Goldfinger. But do we know A View to a Kill? The fourteenth official James Bond film, A View to a Kill marked Roger Moore’s final performance as Agent 007. However, the film’s intriguing, even subtle qualities have remained largely unrecognised since its 1985 release. In entertaining and thought-provoking fashion, author Andrew McNess shines a light on A View to a Kill, and argues we may well be overlooking one of the most interesting and engrossing evocations of the James Bond formula. James Bond in our Sights is a fascinating read for Bond fans and non-fans alike.

http://www.amazon.com/JAMES-BOND-OUR-SIGHTS-CLOSE/dp/1465382399/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324071928&sr=1-1

Sounds interesting. Even though I rank AVTAK at #20 out of 22, it sounds like an enjoyable read.

What a pity my James Bond Bibliography thread was wiped off the face of the earth by MI6's self-inflicted tsyber-tsunami.

Sharky wrote:

Heads up if you're a big AVTAK fan like me.

Quote :

JAMES BOND IN OUR SIGHTS: A CLOSE LOOK AT ‘A VIEW TO A KILL’
Written by Andrew McNess



Hardcover & Paperback: 124 pages
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (December 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1465382399
ISBN-13: 978-1465382399
From the back cover:
We know Dr. No. We know Goldfinger. But do we know A View to a Kill? The fourteenth official James Bond film, A View to a Kill marked Roger Moore’s final performance as Agent 007. However, the film’s intriguing, even subtle qualities have remained largely unrecognised since its 1985 release. In entertaining and thought-provoking fashion, author Andrew McNess shines a light on A View to a Kill, and argues we may well be overlooking one of the most interesting and engrossing evocations of the James Bond formula. James Bond in our Sights is a fascinating read for Bond fans and non-fans alike.

http://www.amazon.com/JAMES-BOND-OUR-SIGHTS-CLOSE/dp/1465382399/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324071928&sr=1-1

A book about a Moore Bond film, and it has Connery on the front cover. GREAT JOB

Anyway, I never really cared for AVTAK. I liked Walken as Max Zorin, but that was just about it. I think if Moore was younger it would have been better.

TedHeath wrote:

Anyway, I never really cared for AVTAK. I liked Walken as Max Zorin, but that was just about it.

Not even John Barry's stunning score?

Sharky wrote:

TedHeath wrote:

Anyway, I never really cared for AVTAK. I liked Walken as Max Zorin, but that was just about it.

Not even John Barry's stunning score?

OH GOD I FORGOT I actually don't know how I didn't remember that. I've had this part stuck in my head for a few days;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=f98i7N8g9Pw#t=90s

TedHeath wrote:

I actually don't know how I didn't remember that. I've had this part stuck in my head for a few days;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=f98i7N8g9Pw#t=90s

Great action music from the late mastercomposer. It's too bad John Glen ruined it with the "California Girls" interruption. :shock:

Prince Kamal Khan wrote:

TedHeath wrote:

I actually don't know how I didn't remember that. I've had this part stuck in my head for a few days;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=f98i7N8g9Pw#t=90s

Great action music from the late mastercomposer. It's too bad John Glen ruined it with the "California Girls" interruption. :shock:

Actually, that decision ruined the entire PTS. And it could have been a pretty decent PTS.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Prince Kamal Khan wrote:

TedHeath wrote:

I actually don't know how I didn't remember that. I've had this part stuck in my head for a few days;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=f98i7N8g9Pw#t=90s

Great action music from the late mastercomposer. It's too bad John Glen ruined it with the "California Girls" interruption. :shock:

Actually, that decision ruined the entire PTS. And it could have been a pretty decent PTS.

Don't worry, if MGM really wanted to, they could go back and edit it. Like what George Lucas does, except this would actually be improving the film.

I love the American Bond girls. Tanya Roberts really does it for me. And I love her pussy too - get mind out of gutter - the four legged calico that sleeps on Rog's lap.

1. Jill St John

2. Tanya Roberts

3. Denise Richards

4. Lana Wood

"And Roberts is an absolute howl as Stacey. When Bond fills her in on Zorin`s plans, she brays, "dat`s incredibewee dangerous!" and flounces off in a pink nightie." Great scene!

"The film does come up with one visual zinger: in the small role of Jenny Flex, a stunning young model named Alison Doody comes up with a curvy walk that`s like sex on wheels." Another great scene.



"Perhaps the most damaging criticism came from none other than Sean Connery himself: "Bond should be played by an actor 35, 33 years old. I’m too old. Roger’s too old, too!"

This is true!!!!! I've been saying this for years. Stop casting 40 year olds as Bond. Sean knows of what he speaks.

Listen to Sean!!!

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Prince Kamal Khan wrote:

TedHeath wrote:

I actually don't know how I didn't remember that. I've had this part stuck in my head for a few days;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=f98i7N8g9Pw#t=90s

Great action music from the late mastercomposer. It's too bad John Glen ruined it with the "California Girls" interruption. :shock:

Actually, that decision ruined the entire PTS. And it could have been a pretty decent PTS.

Agreed. Even though it seemed like a recycling of TSWLM's PTS(ski chase involving Bond and the Russians) it's mostly well made. The bad thing is the interruption starts the film off on the wrong foot and it never fully recovers. It's one thing to have a funny music interlude in a lighter scene(like the "Magnificent Seven" theme in MR or "Lawrence of Arabia" in TSWLM) but those scenes were basically comical anyway. The intrusion of "California Girls" into the AVTAK ski chase is kind of like having a "funny musical interlude" interrupt the "Escape from Piz Gloria" ski chase in OHMSS or the PTS ski chase from TSWLM. Maybe Hunt and Gilbert just knew better about such things.

So gald I found this thread! I too am tired of all the hate AVTAK gets. It is my #3 favorite Bond movie and deserves tons of approval and praise. It's a shame that people only look at Roger's age as the crushing factor, when in reality, Roger provides us with one of his best performances full of legendary one liners, pun-filled dialogue in classic Roger style, confrontational and angry dialogue with Max Zorin, and every bit of Bond charm, elegance, and style that we would expect from a Bond movie. The soundtrack by John Barry rocks; it is easily one of his best and is a driving force for many of the action sequences. Max Zorin is the series second best main villain and carries the weight of all the other villains whom aren't as memorable as he is, except for May Day, who is a great henchwoman as well, until she turns good. The action might be weaker because of Roger's age, but the last thirty minutes of the film with the flooding of the mine, Zorin gunning down his workers, May Day's sacrifice, and Bond rescuing Stacey and fighting Zorin on the Golden Gate Bridge prove that AVTAK is one of the finest Bond movies ever made.

TedHeath wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Heads up if you're a big AVTAK fan like me.

Quote :

JAMES BOND IN OUR SIGHTS: A CLOSE LOOK AT ‘A VIEW TO A KILL’
Written by Andrew McNess



Hardcover & Paperback: 124 pages
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation (December 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1465382399
ISBN-13: 978-1465382399
From the back cover:
We know Dr. No. We know Goldfinger. But do we know A View to a Kill? The fourteenth official James Bond film, A View to a Kill marked Roger Moore’s final performance as Agent 007. However, the film’s intriguing, even subtle qualities have remained largely unrecognised since its 1985 release. In entertaining and thought-provoking fashion, author Andrew McNess shines a light on A View to a Kill, and argues we may well be overlooking one of the most interesting and engrossing evocations of the James Bond formula. James Bond in our Sights is a fascinating read for Bond fans and non-fans alike.

http://www.amazon.com/JAMES-BOND-OUR-SIGHTS-CLOSE/dp/1465382399/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324071928&sr=1-1

A book about a Moore Bond film, and it has Connery on the front cover. GREAT JOB

Anyway, I never really cared for AVTAK. I liked Walken as Max Zorin, but that was just about it. I think if Moore was younger it would have been better.

Maybe that was an original draft of the cover, because the Connery-esque figure is more like Moore.

I can't see all this hate (not in this thread, of course) for A view to a kill. I loved it. It only lacked some Bond's theme (just the car scene in Parigi featured it) but it was very good.

Tanya Roberts' Bond Girls is #2 on my personal top 10 list of Most Annoying Bond Girls of all times!!

j7wild wrote:

Tanya Roberts' Bond Girls is #2 on my personal top 10 list of Most Annoying Bond Girls of all times!!

Yeah, I couldn't stand both Stacey and May Day.

Walecs wrote:

j7wild wrote:

Tanya Roberts' Bond Girls is #2 on my personal top 10 list of Most Annoying Bond Girls of all times!!

Yeah, I couldn't stand both Stacey and May Day.

I'll admit that Stacey has an annoying voice and is there for a blonde bimbo approach, but her looks are just too stunning to throw her under the bus. As for May Day, I think she could have been better if not played by Grace Jones, who wasn't much of an actress except maybe the final scene where she sacrifices herself to save San Francisco.

Stacey at times sounds like a squealing pig who got stuck in the mud. Shes serves no purpose to the film whatsoever, and when Pola Ivanova is introduced, you go to yourself; "thank god we don't have to put up with that squealing idiot any...hey wait, where are you going??"
AVTAK was my second Bond, and almost all of the criticisms are true. It is tired, uninspired in places, and very underwhelming. However it suffered from major budget cuts and the team had gotten on to comfortable a path. Zorin is phenomenal and still relevant to today's world, even if his plot isn't the most interesting. May Day is an interesting idea, but little more than that-an idea of a character that is never developed. My major problem with the film is that it is just too low-key for a Bond adventure. Such things as the bits with Tibbett are gems, but not really the best fit for the Bond series.
Still, Barry's score is fantastic and very underrated. Those trailing guitar riffs really get me. The title song is one of the best, and so is the sound mix. Very punchy.
Too bad the film looks and feels so drab at times. But hey, I'll stick up and have for this movie anytime over NSNA or the recent atrocities.