A Woman Watches Bond: A View To A Kill
Roger Moore’s denouement Bond outing. Less double takes, more violence. Though be that as it may, we still have a double take with a bottle of alcohol and that other staple, the police car chase and a pile-up. Better still we have Christopher Walken as a terrifically unhinged villain Zorin and his fearsome sidekick Grace Jones aka May Day. Not to mention the screaming of Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts).
Thrillingly the movie begins with a chase across the ice, leading to Bond leaping into a disguised submarine and full steam ahead! Topically then set in Paris, France, Bond infiltrates Zorin’s lavish Versailles fantasy palace as a potential race horse buyer. (And a nosey one at that — as he’s really after Zorin Industries microchips, found on a dead British agent). This all means that Moneypenny, M and co all get to go to the races first in a My Fair Lady moment! Playing to Moore’s strengths, he skis and horse rides with aplomb — less successfully being eyed up by women young enough to be his grand-daughters and in a forced liaison with May Day.
Snooping around, Bond discovers that Zorin has paid Stacey Sutton an enormous cheque and goes to find out why. She’s a state geologist keeping an eye on what Zorin is doing pumping water in around the earthquake fault lines near to Silicon Valley. He also wants to buy her shares — and perhaps her silence.
In another nice running touch, Gogol turns up to see what Zorin is up to and to monitor Bond. Everyone’s watching everyone! Meanwhile, that other arch dapper spy Steed aka Patrick Macnee as Sir Godfrey Tibbett snoops around the stables and takes a deadly trip to the car wash. His arrival to save Bond is really tragic — for the car is now being chauffeured by his murderer. Before this, there’s some great double act comedy between these two as he becomes treated as Bond’s valet and Bond leaves a tape running of him snobbishly berating him Fleming Bond style — for hours! Enabling him to suss the place out and double up as a handyman. Though rather than handily forcing yet another woman to kiss him until she gives in, or disturb her sleep, this Bond is into consent and respect, paving the way for the Dalton and Craig eras.
Less nice is the strange entertainment before Bond destroys Paris — a whistling woman and her butterflies. Art and Avant Garde moments are hijacked by Team Zorin through May Day who in a disguise upstages everyone, murders Bond’s source and ruins a nice meal, as well as creating Lepidopterophobia all round. However it does lead to an iconically shot chase up and round the Eiffel Tower, Bond stealing a pursuit taxi, which becomes more and more demolished, before ruining a pleasant boat-based wedding reception! May Day is always one step ahead — she leaps from the Tower to parachute away. She dodges Bond’s ever decreasing car to zip away in a speed boat. She gets to laugh manically with Zorin, though she doesn’t ger everything her own way sent by Zorin to attend to Bond personally. (Sadly her calming powers of persuasion only work on horses not psychopaths who want to take over the world).
Oozing glamour and grit, Bond and Stacey disguise themselves as Zorin’s workers to see what is going on. Whilst not quite as elaborate as the villain bases of the Connery era — we have basically flooded mines; there’s a nice Feminist Bond moment as Stacey has kept her heels on. Which are duly noted — and leads to Bond’s comment about ‘women’s lib!’ Intelligent enough to read maps and track Zorin, Stacey is not clever enough to change her shoes! And she goes down hill from then on.
Confronting her boss with what Zorin is up to, she gets sacked and then Bond and Stacey are about to be shot and framed for the murder of her boss in a flaming city hall. Only they escape by climbing up a lift shaft — in heels. Unfortunately Stacey loses her mind now and literally can’t stop screaming or kicking her heels (and all the time she is still in those heels). Perhaps this is fear for her bouffanty (and probably highly hair sprayed) 1980’s big hair turning her into a flambe. One moment she can smack a historic vase of her Grand-daddy’s ashes over a bad guy’s head, the next she screams and screams and can’t climb or do anything to save herself. Unlikely given she’s a geological surveyor. Whilst I get her terror of being trapped in a flaming lift shaft and abandoned to a horrible fate, she also just stops thinking — leaping onto the safety line Bond offers too soon and nearly puling them both over.
This is the same situation later on the Golden Gate Bridge, when she’s tottering about on top of it! However, she does do everything Bond does, but in heels! Having survived oblivion in the mines, she and Bond run towards each other — only for her to be snatched up into Zorin’s airship. I have no idea why she wouldn’t notice a large looming shadow coming over her, be unable to hear it or look behind her. Perhaps her ‘80’s hair was simply too big! Nor do I get why Zorin wants Stacey given a) how much she screams b) what a liability she is — which he will discover to his cost c) how much of a pest she’s been. Surely he’d just dispatch her as he passed by to really get at Bond — and get rid of her investigations in one swoop…
In a prouder Stacey moment, she gets to drive the firetruck in heels pursued by police with Bond crawling around on its ladder. Though she still screams! And she’s already done dangling over the flaming life shaft from a bit of hose (screaming) in her heels, and a fireman’s lift all the way down the city hall on a ladder!
And there’s Fiona Fullerton being briefly Russian — rushin’ in, seducing Bond, swiping a tape — only to be double, even triple crossed!
Much is made of Zorin’s indoctrinated Nazi past and his creator/father/physician Dr. Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray) seems to come along with him. He was never tried for war crimes due to being snatched by the KGB. Max Zorin is one of a number of children who were genetically experimented upon by the Doctor in the womb — creating superhumans, but also emotionally and ethically damaged beings. The vicious shooting of his workers in the water made me reflect on Nazi atrocities, such as The Shoes on the Danube Bank (Cipők a Duna-parton), where Jewish victims were slaughtered at the edge of the water, their bodies falling in and being washed away. Out of sight, out of mind presumably. Or those who were lined up along pits they had forcibly dug and massacred. Zorin’s defected from the East and seems to have embraced capitalism wholeheartedly — but can we really trust him? Or is his aim to be the sole supplier of microchips for the whole more of a Nazification one way policy?
Somehow Stacey smacks down her handler (not screaming, back to smart again). Then she leaps (impressively) from a moving airship — in heels. Tottering about on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, Zorin tries to take out Bond before falling to his death. Enraged, his father/creator/physician has a go — only to get blown to smithereens!
May Day gets a prouder moment — heroically sacrificing herself to get the bomb blown up and enable others to get away, as well as realising that Zorin didn’t care for her. Who knows what happens to Zorin’s creepy equestrian themed friends? (Another Moore-era trope — the villain always has a gaggle of scarily groomed women alongside him, This one has a Connery era groan worthy name, Jenny Flex).
Q had a creepy snoopy robot moment (though his C5 meet K9 style robot is sweetly innocent looking), finding what Bond is up to You’d think he’d have learnt to stop looking by now and just create breadcrumbs instead.
Walken makes a terrific and compelling villain, even when the movie can’t resist throwing in some Kung Fu, to scoop up those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle vibes. Jenny Flex (Alison Doody) will have her revenge on Bonds everywhere in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Grace Jones looks wonderful and behaves magnificently and brings some real pathos to her last hurrah as May Day, saving her former enemy — and the world. I hadn’t considered the impact of World War Two (and perhaps revenge for Dresden, as well as hatred of Communism) on Maz Zorin’s character. An intriguing time as the Cold War is beginning to thaw at this time. Loved Gogol (Walter Gotell) turning up at the end — with a medal for Bond. I wish they’d bring this character back — he’s great! Missing is Sheriff Pepper — as is Bond… Until tracked by Q… But forget about that, enjoy the score — with the punch Duran Duran title track re-appearing throughout, and the name of the film even being mentioned by the villains! And Moore’s wardrobe, he continues to wear a range of great jackets and smooth dinner suits.
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@Images used to illustrate the film are from 007.com
