Thunderball (1965)

April 11, 2020

Thunderball (1965)

Connery "bends the knee"

To me, “Thunderball” (1965) is always fun escapist entertainment. This is to me what James Bond once really symbolized and favors what I have felt Moore’s own Bond series in the 70s continued: beautiful, fetching women (on both sides of Bond, opposing and assisting him), exotic locales (Bahamas and France, with some usual English settings), a memorable heavy (with an eyepath even, always in white suits, and his chill attitude never much wavers…he’s a cool customer), Spectre still trying to use kidnapped bombs from opposing countries they will to blackmail (a NATO jet carrying two atomic bombs is commandeered by a paid plant who went through training and plastic surgery to favor a Major he ultimately replaces and eventually is killed by Spectre for trying to blackmail them for more money), sharks (this time in the film villain’s pool on his Palmyra ranch, used to feed on folks that are deemed disposable), fisticuffs (Bond engages in a good opening fight with a Spectre agent who faked his death and was dressed as a woman attending his own funeral, Bond in underwater scuba gear has a strong knife and harpoon engagement with Spectre henchmen as a combination of agents fight it out with Spectre forces, and Bond has a fine row with Aldofo Celi’s Largo, Spectre #2 and a few of his guards on a ship going at high speed as little islands must be dodged), and Bond “evasive maneuvers” (he has to avoid a cold-blooded Paluzzi’s delicious Fiona and her Spectre muscle in a Mardi Gras like parade (the Junkaroo) and street local shindig, avoiding gunfire at all times, invading Largo’s Palmyra compound as he seems surrounded including a neat escape through a tunnel in the swimming pool as he must avoid sharks, an underwater photo mission where he must somehow dodge grenades and fool Largo’s men who are in a boat after him, the aforementioned underwater fight between scuba geared agents on both sides, and early at a therapy / spa nearly dead while locked in a stretching table).

Celi makes for a ice-water-in-his-veins Largo, even (it is insinuated) sexually assaulting Domino while on his boat out of vengeance for her siding with Bond, not batting an eyelash when a member of Spectre is electric shocked in a chair during a meeting with Blofeld (with his white cat, of course, and face hidden by a wall), and allowing Bond to tour his compound all the while knowing he’s a secret agent needing out of the way. His equal is Fiona, more than okay with bedding guys she plans to kill, even telling Bond at the Mardi Gras that he might as well give up as her men won’t let him go nowhere (her overconfidence, more than anything, is her undoing). When Fiona tries to ridicule Bond for his ego after Bond tells her that she was only in his bed for “Queen and Country”, it is an insight into her personality…guys come and go but Spectre (she wears an octopus ring that is the organization’s symbol) is her main love. There’s a good example of her stone-cold mindset when lighting a cigarette after Bond is held captive, in their car as his demise is planned imminently. She also has a cool sequence when Bond is allowed in her car as Fiona drives him to their hotel going past 100 miles an hour…he’s uneasy while her ease and comfort never changes. Domino (Claudine Auger), as the sister of the Major killed early in the film because he’s a pilot on a jet Spectre needs to down in the water for the bombs, eventually is the “prize possession” (mentioned as “protected” by Largo) of Largo, as Bond earns her trust when he follows up on a lead that informs them both that her brother is dead. I’m not the biggest fan of all the underwater combat because it does get confusing as bodies sort of tangle with each other, but I don’t think anyone does as good a job as Bond filmmakers in this department. And you always get these nifty underwater contraptions that help move bombs or are used to travel from one place to another and you get that aplenty in “Thunderball”.

I sort or did that “the James Bond films that tie together” viewing theme since the first film of my “Bond cycle” was “Never Say Never Again” (1983). Essentially (except for an aging Connery coming out of retirement, moving through a training program obstacle course at the beginning instead of combating a rival agent dressed as a female mourning in black), “Thunderball” and NSNA are quite close in plot because of McClory’s connection to both, so “Thunderball” was obviously on my mind after my “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and “For Your Eyes Only” recent viewings (well half viewing in the case of OHMSS), so I couldn’t help choose it as the fourth film in the cycle. The Connery-Lazenby-Moore era have films that I often spend an afternoon watching. Not just an entire viewing from start to finish but breaks and intermissions involved to prolong the experience…these used to be “events” and I see why. Connery at the spa seducing a therapist, or Connery escaping Spectre henchmen through the use of a flying jetpack, or Connery tending to Auger’s “fish poison foot”; Bond is busy and gets things done! 4/5