This is one of my favourite Bond films ever, along with Live And Let Die and From Russia With Love. Unlike most Bond films, these are not dependent on gadgetry.
There’s plenty of action in this too - the Blofeld sequence at the start is highly entertaining, breathtaking and comical at the same time. I do remember reading somewhere that Stromberg, the villain in The Spy Who Loved Me, was originally planned to be Blofeld, but was changed due to a legal dispute. Certainly, thinking about it now, Stromberg’s booby-traps are comparable to those of Blofeld.
As for the main story -it has a properly involved storyline. I was surprised to read that the McGuffin of the ATAC device wasn’t created until quite some way into the writing process. Without wishing to give too much away, this has a feature that most Bond films lack - a real twist in the plot. First Bond has to find the man who killed the Havelocks, one Hector Gonzales, then when Gonzales is killed, he has to identify and chase up the man who paid him, Emille Leopold Locque, and then find the man who is paying Locque, which gets him embroiled in a feud between two Greek businessmen. Ultimately, his search for the ATAC takes him to a mountain hideout and a very exciting climax.
If I had to pick one fault with it, I’d say the Italian segment goes on a little too long. But otherwise it’s great.
This is a unique Bond film on many levels:
- It’s the only Bond film not to feature M. The reason for this is that Bernard Lee, who had played the role in all previous films, died just as they started filming this one, so in tribute, they didn’t recast him for this film, they said he was on leave, and had his deputy do the briefing. The new M, Robert Brown, would debut in the next film.
- It’s the only Bond film where the singer of the theme tune appears in the title sequence singing it. Sheena Easton, yes, that makes sense. There’s a lot of pretty girls make their way into these title sequences, she qualifies.
- I think it’s the only time Bond ever rejects a woman’s advances outright - in the form of Bibi. Of course, she was a bit young for him!
- It’s one of very few films where Q doesn’t give Bond a huge array of gadgets at the start. Q’s main role here is in the identigraph sequence where they put together Locque’s face.
Speaking of Locque, he actually doesn’t utter a word in the film until his death scene - same as Oddjob in Goldfinger. Michael Gothard, who played Locque, played a similarly quiet and moody role, Felton the jailer, in The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers back in the 1970s. (He had a few more lines there though.) And is it just me or does Locque look a bit like Stewart Copeland, the drummer in The Police?
Another quiet henchman in this film, Apostis, the man who Bond has to fight on the mountain, is played by Jack Klaff, who had a small part as one of the pilots in Star Wars episode 4 A New Hope, and who I know best as the audio reader of one of Alistair MacLean’s finest novels, “Night Without End”.
), the under water and mountain climbing scenes. It’s hard to pick a favourite scene but if I had to I would probably say the mountain climbing scene or the car chase with the yellow Citroen.