A drug smuggling operation in South Africa has the British government concerned, so they send James Bond (Sean Connery) in to investigate. The adventure begins in Holland, where Bond is sent to follow and then take over the persona of a drug smuggler by the name of Peter Franks. Bond then teams up with a Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) to move the diamonds into the United States, where he tracks the diamonds first to Los Angeles and eventually into Las Vegas where he uncovers a nefarious plot by his evil archnemesis Ernst Stavros Blofeld (Charles Gray).
This is my favorite Sean Connery Bond film, which was unfortunately his 6th and last role for the James Bond franchise, though he did return later to play an unofficial Bond role in “Never Say Never Again.” It has everything you expect to see in a “great” James Bond film. It has a fantastic plot involving a very evil guy doing naughty things with laser weapons in space. It has several great action sequences, including a car chase through the Las Vegas Strip with a very cool looking red Ford Mustang. It has beautiful women throughout the movie, including the aforementioned Jill St. John and Lana Ward as Plenty O’Toole. It has good character actors as well, especially one of my favorite regulars, Desmond Llewelyn, who plays “Q” the gadget guy in most of the movies in the Bond franchise.
One of the qualities of a classic Bond film is that it never takes itself too seriously. There is plenty of humor here (with the usual corny play on words) that balances the considerable amount of action. It also has good music by the film composer John Barry, who won five Oscars for his music and did most of the soundtracks for the James Bond films. This movie is highly recommended for anyone who likes a good action movie.
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This is not my favorite Connery movie, but then I dislike the comedic aspects of the franchise (and thus would like to pretend most of the Roger Moore movies simply did not happen).
I think the best thing about the movie is the reclusive Howard Hughes-type character that Bond gets to ally with. It’s a nice cultural thing that places the movie within its time period in a good way (as opposed to, say, Grace Jones, which was pure 80s stunt casting). The Vegas car chase is nice too, if only to see the strip at that period.
Did you like the book this was based on? Tiffany Case is a more interesting character in the book (IMO), but then the films always seem to make the women even more one-dimensional.
I have always felt sort of bad for George Lazenby, who played Bond in the film prior to this one. Connery was basically determined never to play Bond again (unless there was significantly more $ coming his way), so the studio auditioned others and picked Lazenby, who was a much different sort of Bond, though very likable.
Then, following the release of that movie (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), Connery let it be known he might be willing to come back to the franchise for a little less $ than he’d suggested before, and they dumped Lazenby, only to be dumped by Connery yet again right after this one was released. And in stepped Roger Moore (shiver).