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I feel Connery's attitude to the film comes across well in this image... |
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Cast: Sean Connery (James Bond), Akiko Wakabayashi (Aki),
Mie Hama (Kissy Suzuki), Tetsurō Tamba (Tiger Tanaka), Teru Shimada (Mr.
Osato), Karin Dor (Helga Brandt/No. 11), Donald Pleasence (Ernst Stavro Blofeld),
Bernard Lee (M), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Charles
Gray (Dikko Henderson)
James Bond films: always fun, even when not that good. You Only Live Twice is probably the
prime example. For many, many reasons, it isn’t actually very good but still
remains strangely enjoyable just because, well hell, it’s Bond.
Anyway YOLT
revolves around naughty super villains SPECTRE nabbing US and USSR space
missions, hoping to provoke a nuclear war between the two superpowers.
Apparently they will profit handsomely from this – but how they see that
happening in a nuclear wasteland isn’t clear. Anyway, James Bond (Sean Connery)
fakes his own death and heads to Japan to investigate. Events peddle around
Japan for ages, giving filmgoers the chance for some vicarious sight-seeing,
before culminating in an all-out attack by Bond and a gang of ninjas on the
hollowed-out volcano base of SPECTRE chief Blofield (Donald Pleasance).
YOLT is the moment
Bond started to head full tilt towards the Moore-era of overblown, fantasy
silliness. The plot is total bobbins (despite being repeated in The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker etc.) with
both Russians and the US naturally continuing to suspect each other, even when
each side loses a spacecraft (though I did like the fact that the actual
astronauts together in captivity are shown to have far more in common than
not). There is no logical reason for them to behave like this, even at the
heart of the Cold War.
There is plenty of other nonsense here. Bond’s death is
faked early doors for no reason (only the hopeless SPECTRE is in any way
fooled). Bond meanders around Japan with even less subtlety than usual, with a
series of clashes, fights and chases that make little real narrative sense at
all. Later, again for no reason, (and almost unbelievable to watch today) he disguises himself as a Japanese man (PC alert
ahoy, as Bond cuts his hair with a bowl and tans his skin. At least he doesn’t
tape his eyelids back…). He also finds a kindred spirit in Tiger Tanaka, both
of them treating a host of female servants as a shopping list for rumpy-pumpy.
As per many Bond films, the franchise clambers on top of a
current fashion to feel hip and cool (but actually manages to feel fusty and
stuffy). This time it’s the samurai craze, as Bond joins a sword-swinging, ninja
training school. Yes, you read that right. But of course Bond also needs to get
married before the attack: again why? His wife is of course offed seconds
later, and Connery just about manages to look put out at this coitus interruptus (more on Connery
later…)
SPECTRE themselves are hilariously incompetent. They are
hoodwinked like children by Bond’s ludicrous faked death. They practically signpost
their location by bumping off anyone who gets within about five miles of the
place. Later, poor Blofield not only carefully talks Bond through the
self-destruct button for his rocket, he also lets Bond take back his clearly
gadget-concealing smoking case, blows away two sidekicks (one right in front of
Bond) rather than eliminate Bond himself, then caps it all with sending the
base itself to kingdom come. SPECTRE’s agents are equally useless, with Brandt
too attracted to Bond to finish him off (and then deciding to tie him up in a
plane, detonate a grenade in it and then parachute out to leave the plane to crash
with Bond in it – needless to say Bond lands the plane with ease).
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The terrific volcano set |
The volcano base, however, is a triumph of production design
– it’s staggering to think that everything you see on screen was built for
real. It’s huge and iconic – and the battle scene between the aforementioned
ninjas and SPECTRE goons that fills the final act of the film is hugely
exciting, despite almost every single thing making virtually no sense.
Incidentally the final battle’s structure is lifted almost completely for a
similar sequence in The Spy Who Loved Me.
The problem is that everything else leading up to this feels
like all involved are going through the motions – as if there wasn’t really
anything fresh left to do or say in the Bond-verse. Need a glamourous location.
Never been to Japan have we? Need some scuffles – not sure we‘ve done a roof
top fight in long shot, let’s chuck that in. How about we kill Bond off for a
few seconds – yeah never done that before. A super gadget needed? Bring on
suitcase-assembled helicopter, Little Nellie. The final reveal of Blofeld is
fun, but when you come back to watching the film you realise he’s as bland and
identikit as Largo or Dr No – a pompous windbag who fucks everything up.
Stumbling through all this is a clearly bored Sean Connery. By
this time, Connery was sick of the part (“I’ve always hated that damned James
Bond, I’d like to kill him” he was to later say), and money was the only thing
tempting him back. Connery coasts through the whole movie with the air of a man
who would rather be anywhere else. There is no sparkle at all, just a weary
going through the paces. He can barely raise a smirk, let alone a glimmer of
interest in the events around him.
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Bond turns Japanese. No they really did do this. |
It’s the atmosphere of the whole film. Roald Dahl (yes that
Roald Dahl) did the script – but he felt the book was pretty awful (one of
Fleming’s duller efforts) so spiced it up with some new content. Problem was
the suits basically demanded a certain quota of set pieces and a certain number
of Bond girls. Trying to deviate from this template too much was far too
difficult a challenge. Lewis Gilbert’s direction is professional but pretty uninspired:
it sums up the whole movie.
Most of the acting is pretty non-descript. Donald Pleasance
at least deserves some credit for making Blofield’s appearance iconic and for
doing a nice line of whispering menace. Charles Gray is pretty good fun as a
camp British contact (“That’s stirred, not shaken. Is that right?”) – though
SPECTRE (true to form) confirm all his suspicions by knocking him off after
less than minute or two on screen. Everyone else blends into one.
So, anyway, YOLT
is really nothing special – a tired entry into a tired franchise, with an all
too obviously disillusioned star and action beats that largely feel like
retreads of things we’ve seen before (done better) in the series. But yet, but
yet… Somehow enough of the old Bond magic keeps you watching. Sure Connery is
indifferent and the action more a travelogue than a thriller – but the final
sequence is exciting, Blofeld (for all his ineptitude) makes a decent enough
villain, and while no-one really gets het-up about it, the stakes do feel
fairly high. Stretches of the film are dull – but others work very well. You
may only watch twice, but it will be fun enough.
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