Movie Moan - More, Much Moore, Roger Moore
Wed, July 18, 2012 As promised, it's Movie Moan's second Bond-A-Thon special where just Jamie and Phil cuddle up on the couch to spew out their own passionate musings on another three classic James Bond movies.
This week, the Roger Moore years:
5:55 mins 'Live And Let Die' (1973)- Watch as Yaphet Kotto inflates multiple times on a loop, Bond pulls his most dickish move ever to get a girl into bed, and the entire state of Louisiana is shown for what it truly is. It's the first, and mercifully only, Blaxploitation Bond film.
31:05 mins - 'Moonraker' (1979)- From London to California to Venice to Rio to Amazonia to OUTER SPAAAAAAAAACE, this is the Bond that holds nothing back and for whom money is truly no object. It's the 'Cleopatra' of Bond films except......y'know watchable.
53:55 mins - 'A View To A Kill' (1985)- Please don't say it's the worst film in the series, you'll break Phil's heart. But we do try and make a serious case that this one only narrowly misses the mark and write a love letter to one of Bond's best baddies, Max Zorin.
Reader Comments (4)
Hey guys,
That was a fun stroll down memory lane. I just wanted to add my 2 cents about these movies.
LIVE AND LET DIE: I completely understand why Jamie would hate this one. It is somewhat racist, or at least condescending to African-Americans, and very mocking of Southerners. But I still think it's one of the better Bond movies (out of 20-odd ones I'd put it in the top 10 at like....10). A lot of it has to do with how it flirts with mysticism without ever becoming a complete joke. I actually think Jane Seymour is great as Solitaire and her relationship with Bond is interesting in how cruel he is to her and how he uses her, but the movie neither hides he's a bastard or just treats her as arm candy. She's important to the plot and as Phil says, it comes down to a strange, creepy misogynistic love triangle. It also has some cool images like the "funerals" in New Orleans, Bond's escape from crocodiles and the Baron character.
MOONRAKER: I'm kind of shocked to see you both go so easy on this movie. It is pretty much a scene-for-scene remake of The Spy Who Loved Me, except it does everything worse. While TSWLM is a charming, breezy Moore romp (his best and one of the best Bond movies in the series), MR is the garish, ugly remake of it. If Batman Forever was good, this would be its Batman & Robin follow-up. Even the ending you guys praise is horrible. The end of TSWLM leaves us grinning as Bond is at his cheekiest. MR left me groaning at how awful those lines were and it didn't help that the actress who plays the CIA version of Barbara Bach's character clearly had no interest being there. She looked bored in the movie, but who can blame her? I'll concede Drax is better than the Stromberg character, but both plots are asinine and the real driving villany in TSWLM is Jaws who is kind of scary. In MR, he's Wylie Coyote except it's not funny, much like the movie.
A VIEW TO A KILL: Pretty much agree with you guys. A silly, terrible movie and Moore is far too old (though it leaves his scenes with his 20-something companions with a lot of unintentional hilarity). Still, Christopher Walken is glorious as a scene-stealing ham of a villain.
For your next Bond-a-thon, I recommend if you're doing Dalton, go in order and do the two Dalton movies and then end on GoldenEye. See how Bond evolved (or almost died) in the late '80s and was reinvented for the post-Cold War world in the 1990s. Or, three movie that could be really interesting to contrast are On Her Majesty's Secret Service, The World is Not Enough and Casino Royale.
Those are some good ideas there Raine. The only problem is that we've already covered License to Kill and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Just look up our Bond-A-Thon show from last year.
But we'll get to 'The Living Daylights' I promise.
Moonraker should have a special place in heart of many Australians growing up in the eighties to mid nineties. I've no idea why it is so, but they must have given away the repeat rights for a buck. Or just forgotten that page in the contract. I don't know But it was constantly on Aus TV when I was a kid. Not even as a "movie " in prime time. Any time, day or night, you might bump into it. It was the go-to thing they grabbed when something went awry as well: Cricket test finished a day early? Moonraker Tennis rained out for a few hours? Moonraker. It's 10:30 and we've run out of re-runs of Silk Stalkings!: Moonraker.
I've never particularly sought it out, rented it or seen it in the cinema but I've seen Moonraker more times than all the other Bond's put together.
Michael Lonsdale feels like a 'That guy' to me as a result. A 'That guy' because of one film! It's terribly unfair to his career. I do have to laugh every time he turns up as a soft spoken mastermind type in things like Ronin and Munich though.
LIVE AND LET DIE: My favorite Bond film. Everybody knows these days that Bond is invincible, but I think as a writer you want to at least put him in the most fish-out-water milieu imaginable to give the film some tension and conflict. And how much more of a contrast could you achieve than to place the fashionable, clean, erudite, living-the-good-life Roger Moore Bond into down and dirty, rough and tumble Harlem. It makes for a great contrast, because you know Moore's version of Bond is not safe there. I just love the idea of his Bond trying to navigate the mean streets of Harlem.
Having said that, that's just the first third of the film. Sure, you could point out the stereotyping of the bad guys as African Americans, but it's inherent to the source material, and Fleming's novel was even more degrading. (I haven't listened to this episode yet -- I promise to get to it -- and I don't know if you mentioned it in the show, but Fleming's novel has a particular chapter title which is especially heinous, for example). I think it helps that there are a couple African American characters who are "good" -- the Harlem cop and Rosie. I guess you could argue that Rosie is a "spooked" character, but all in all, I feel that this film is only as racist as any other blaxploitation film. The racism just stands out like a sore thumb contrasted against Bond; but again, that contrast is what give this film its verve, imo. Otherwise, it would be bland and flavorless -- an attempt to whitewash Harlem so as to be politically correct, when in fact the blaxploitation counterparts of the day were anything but.
As for J.W. Pepper, he's hilarious. The bumbling cop is a stereotype that goes way back, so what of it? I love the mixing of the extended boat chase with the comedic relief of J.W. Pepper. The stereotypes just don't bother me in this one. I think they're "knowing" stereotypes, FWIW. I like Baron Samedi's transcendence of Bond (I really wish they would have acted on that idea to give him his own movie outside the Bond universe -- and the fact that he lives on in the final scene is perfect!), I find Yaphet Kotto's performance terrifyingly intense, I think Solitaire's mystical powers along with Samedi's as well are intriguing, because they are something Bond can't eliminate with a Walther PPK or a snarky punchline (instead, he has to use his other male-based power to dethrone Solitaire ;0)), I love the score by George Martin (have the album on CD), I like the settings of N.O. and Harlem, etc. etc. I could go on and on. :) My only regret is Q doesn't show up to give Bond his gadgets, and Bond just happens to be able to use the motorized blade on his watch to escape from assured death at the film's climax. It's quite a contrived escape. Also, the film's action and stunts are a little lacking in number (but I must mention the alligator stunt however unrealistic it is). Still, these are nitpicks.
I love LIVE AND LET DIE, but admittedly it is of its time, and I think you have to appreciate the surrounding blaxploitation context and be willing to accept the fact that Moore was still finding his way as Bond.
MOONRAKER: This one has that "everything and the kitchen sink" feel. It's incredibly big budgeted but bloated and as a result unsubtle and silly. I think it's hollow to the core, but it's nevertheless watchable and enjoyable as a big budget trifle. I imagine a cartoon Bond movie would be like this one.
A VIEW TO A KILL: This was the first Bond film I ever saw and having watched it innumerable times during my formative years, I've kind of been inculcated to like it. Bond is geriatric, and Tonya Roberts is horrible, but I love Walken's unpredictable performance, Grace Jones' equally shadowy character (and if we're going to knock Live and Let Die's racism, I think we should give credit for the interracial romance between Zoren and Mayday without the film being proudly showy about it or begging for positive credit), and I love John Barry's hard-edged score. I think the stunts are impressive and well conceived, and, ultimately, the Goldfinger script template this one uses is a proven success. Really, the only weak links for me, again, are Bond being too old to believably still hold a double-O license, and, in keeping with Bond's old age, his related creepy generation gap romance with Tonya Roberts. Those are major points of contention one can have with this film, so if the viewer can't get past them, I can understand why A VIEW TO A KILL would be dead on arrival for some viewers. But for me, since I first saw this at a young age and had no other reference point for Bond, it doesn't bother me, and I like this one, warts and all. In contrast, LIVE AND LET DIE has no major warts.
Can't wait to listen to this show. Thanks, guys.