A Woman Watches Bond: For Your Eyes Only
Continuing with strong female leads, this is also a Bond with style, ethics and less sleaze than some of the previous Roger Moore offerings. Less swooning and more ski-ing! (and a really great wardrobe on Moore, including a stylish suede jacket).
All of our submarines are missing is the premise of John Glen’s 1981 movie. We get the lovely interplay between Cold War East and West, with Bond being sent into action directly by a Minister because M is away. Unexpectedly it interlinks back to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as Bond goes to lay flowers on his wife’s grave. It’s a really tender scene — before the shooting starts! Bond is then attacked by a plane by Blofeld, left to nosedive into oblivion by a parachuting crew exit. Only he seizes control of it and preposterously/thrillingly appears to drop a wheelchair bound Blofeld into an industrial chimney. Revenge is sweet — even if the Bond is completely different!
A fishing boat hiding a whole information centre, the St Georges, is unexpectedly sunk after trawling in an ancient mine — and before the plucky British crew can blow up the secret they’re concealing. The ATAC they’re guarding is stolen, which could give the holder power over all Polaris submarines. The scene where the submariners drown is genuinely horrible and moving.
We then see a sunlit scene as Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) returns onboard with gifts for her parents and food for the crew. Only the archeological scene is not tranquil for long — they’re raked by gunfire and both her parents murdered before her eyes. Melina and Bond will next encounter each other at a very ‘80’s pool-side party where everyone is spandexed and bouffanted to the enth degree. It’s like a mash up of a Roxy Music video and Olivia Newton John’s Physical. Whilst the guard is distracted by snogging a Roxy Music video extra, Bond sneaks in — only to encounter crossbow bolts unexpectedly. A blunt instrument, Melina just wants to kill everyone involved with the death of her family — no questions asked.
This Bond thinks with his head, and is at his most suave and debonair, maybe until Octopussy. This emotional Bond even buys flowers as a cover! Unlike previous movies, Roger Moore’s age is considered here — he doesn’t leap into bed with an incredibly young and naive woman. Though maybe he doesn’t want his cover blown with her favourable uncle/sugar daddy. Nor is he a cad as in his earlier Bond movies — he cares and shows concern for Melina, protecting her from death by motorbike assassin in a ski resort. He won’t let her shoot everything, instead he wants to make like Judi Dench’s M and ask some questions first. She has to trust him and go away — only she doesn’t, popping up in the background at the casino later. (Even after they’ve escaped downhill in her battered Citroen 2CV through olive groves).
The resistance background, of former allies now gone separate ways into enmity, along with the Dove motif, is fascinating — and still very recent history when the short stories were written. Julian Glover plays a suave villain/evil ‘uncle’ Kristatos, urbane-ing up to Bond in fine dining connoisseurship, debonairness and etiquette. (Maybe making up for losing out to Moore for the Bond role). Whilst he appears to be a poised ally and a terribly civil uncle, he turns out not be all that he seems. And his connections with East Germany are closer than everyone anticipates.
Gosh, Charles Dance is in the mix too as one of Kristatos’s henchmen, Claus. The camera (like its later Bond) makes the most of his steely blue eyes.
Playing with Moore’s own skills as a skier and the popularity of Winter Olympics, this Bond skis, toboggans, slaloms, and sleighs. All the while pursued by the Dove’s evil winter sports henchmen — and the emotionless, almost Aryan, East German Eric Kriegler (John Wyman). Bibi (Lynn-Holly Johnson), when not besotted inappropriately by Bond — who is younger than her ‘uncle’, is panting over Eric — who completes ignores her. I’m not sure why she keeps pursuing him — Bond is a much better bet! Admiring Bibi’s figure skating (ahem), Bond is then the unforeseen puck in an ice hockey match — leading to victory and comedy gold as they shoot and he scores.
Although set-up as a creepy Irma Blunt character, I do like Bibi’s trainer. In the end, as a former athlete herself, there’s a big hint at industry and generational #MeToo-ism. The coach worries about Bibi not having a sponsor to get her to the Olympics, and the implication is that she’ll only get this by ‘pleasing’ her ‘uncle’. Although brusquely barking out lines, there’s some real compassion here, at the experiences of elite sportswomen and what they have to go through. But her coach is also very protective of Bibi and her skating dreams, looking out for her — especially when her ‘uncle’ turns bad and super controlling at the end.
Divertingly Bond has an age-appropriate romance here, though unfortunately with Columbo’s mistress, Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris). Their scenes together have real charm. Her tragic death in an ambush on the beach masterminded by Kristatos is reminiscent of Tracy’s death in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and provides a really emotional point in all the ATAC focused action.
When not being pursued on ice or snow, Bond (with Melina) dives to the wreckage of the St Georges to locate the ATAC — only to be captured by Kristatos and summarily executed… Though he and Melina will escape being dragged to their deaths across shark-infested coral by some nifty rope work.
In the battle for ownership (and control) of the ATAC and the world, Bond ends up tensely climbing to the top of a mountain where the evil uncle has his sophisticated base/evil lair, aka St Cyril’s, an abandoned monastery. (And convenient helicopter landing space). In a new twist for Bond, not matched again until The Living Daylights, he’s under threat as his ropes and holding points are severed, leaving him dangling at extreme height in stomach-churning peril. Melina and Columbo (Topol!) follow tradition by treating this as a spectator sport and waiting to see if it is Bond whose fallen to his death. It is not — he’s made it (and crossbows/guns in hand, they can follow him). All this leads to a showdown between Bond, Melina and Columbo to see who can kill Kristatos first. Bond deals with the ATAC — and Gogol (Walter Gotell) lives to Cold War another day, turning up to spirit the ATAC away, only to watch what Bond does with it…
Comprehensively, this feels much more like a Dalton Bond movie from Bond kicking a villain’s car over the edge to the ascent up the mountain side. Whilst channeling it’s Second World War revenge theme, it’s only the gags in the hockey to the death match and some double takes that keep you grounded in Moore ironic Bond territory. Even the double take pigeon is a more traumatic disturbed pigeon flying into Bond’s face — as he climbs up the mountainside!
Then in true Monty Python fashion, just so we all know where we are, there’s Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister) on the phone to a very not dead parrot…Oh James!
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