Are the villains effective?
Bond Beginner
When it comes to villains in the Connery era, there is no villain greater than Connery himself.
Bond-era Sean Connery looks like Sam Neill if Sam Neill were a jock with a terry cloth fetish and a history of sex crimes. He is, to put it mildly, a complete maniac and I spent the entirety of these films fearing for the safety of anyone in the same room as him. His strong-arm energy is especially unhinged and unsympathetic in Goldfinger when he “seduces” Pussy Galore. Another notable dick-out and dangerous moment is in the cold open for Diamonds are Forever, where he assaults multiple visible minorities and strangles a woman with her own bikini top less than two minutes into the runtime. Connery’s Bond is more preoccupied with appealing to a male fantasy than a female one. Which, while not inherently villainous, celebrates a certain kind of anxious machismo hellbent on punching and fucking everything that isn’t tied down. It’s a lot.
I was, to my shock and dismay, pretty underwhelmed by the films’ canonical villains. Dr. No is serious, polite, and dull, and that’s kind of the precedent for all of SPECTRE’s big bads. Their eccentricities are never really enough to compensate for the fact that they lack personality and a motive more complicated than “blow up the world: profit.” It’s all business. And it’s boring. The quirky henchmen are a fun diversion, but their oddity only accentuates the dullness of their superiors. It’s one thing to have a shoddy plan, but to have a shoddy motive doesn’t give the viewer a lot to work with.
A quick side note: the return of Charles Gray to the franchise as Blofeld (after we just saw him as Henderson in You Only Live Twice) is so ridiculous that I have to stan. The man’s face is the size of the moon, did they think we would not notice? Maybe they should bring him back as a CGI puppet in No Time to Die as a third unrelated character to create an unholy trifecta.
Bond Veteran
In these early movies, Blofeld is bad guy supreme, and I gotta admit that I do love him. His cat; his outlandish plots; his personal vendetta against Bond. He’s fun. I like that each actor brings something new to the role. Blofeld aside, I think the villains in these movies work for the most part. Ian Fleming knew how to write schemers and scoundrels, and I find them to be adapted well to the big screen. But I always find myself enjoying henchmen over big bads. Odd Job, Red Grant, and, hell, even Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd — these are my reprobates of choice.
I also think it’s integral to the enjoyment of a Bond movie to not think too much about what the villain’s plan is. Most of the plots are ridiculous and have more holes than Swiss cheese. It’s not about what bad news they bad guys are brewing up; it’s about how Bond is gonna stop them. Great villains come and great villains go, I personally think a fun time can be had either way.
Which film will you re-visit first?
Bond Beginner
To be blunt and controversial: I have no reason to revisit Dr. No or Goldfinger. They are what they are and for me, that ain’t much. You Only Live Twice is barely worth talking about as it is an affront to moral and artistic taste. The only note I took during the whole film was “how many James Bond movies end with him in an inflatable raft with the promise of open-water sex.” The film is a meandering, drunken stumble through casual racism that takes an interesting premise (an evil third party gaslighting two adversarial space-racing powers) and sours it with pacing issues, a dearth of stakes, and zero personality. I’d be offended if I weren’t fast asleep.
I enjoyed Thunderball largely because I scuba dive, putting me in the top percentile of “people who will enjoy Thunderball.” Did I have problems with this movie? Yeah, sure I wasn’t super hot on Bond blackmailing a spa technician for sex and the wanton disregard for the sanctity of marine life wasn’t great. But, overall: Meg can have a little antiquated scuba, as a treat. It took me three tries to get through Diamonds are Forever because I kept getting tension headaches from furrowing my brow in disbelief that this film was released in theaters. To put it gently, the film feels like something that Blofeld commissioned as an attack on Bond’s character. But, as someone who isn’t particularly charmed by Connery-Bond, I must admit, it’s kinda fun. Diamonds are Forever has Bond’s sociopathy creep out of the subtext swamp: he’s a woman-beater, a snob, a smart-ass, and the film lets him fly his freak flag at his own expense. While it’s 100 percent trash, Diamonds are Forever is so-bad-it’s good trash, so I will grant it amnesty.
But for all its camp charms, Diamonds is not the film I’m liable to revisit. That honor goes to From Russia With Love, objectively the best film of the era and the only entry in Connery’s tenure that gets a passing grade for emotional investment.
Bond Veteran
I have a lot of love for Goldfinger and Dr. No, and a newfound degree of appreciation for You Only Live Twice, but during this rewatch, From Russia With Love really did it for me. There’s something about the brutal fights between Connery and Robert Shaw that are unmatched by a lot of other films. The Connery era isn’t my comfort food — we’ll get to that in a couple of weeks — but it is an acquired taste that, when I’m craving it, does deliver. I have a feeling that next time I have a hankering for some classic brute force Bond, From Russia With Love is the one I’ll turn to.
Related Topics: Bondathon, James Bond
