As far as we know, Connery's exit from Bond-age came from....1. His steadily deteriorating relationship with producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli....Connery wanted to be an equal partner in the Bond spoils, they wouldn't hear of it....2. Connery's treatment by the Japanese press, who hounded him relentlessly throughout the location filming.....3. The final coffin nail, United Artists ad campaign, proudly trumpeting "Sean Connery IS James Bond". looking like a malicious attempt to throw cold water on Connery's aspirations for challenging acting roles beyond Bond.
So "You Only Live Twice" became sort of a farewell to the First Golden Era of the Bond movies and the BQ fondly remembers the following......
Ken Adam's Volcano....forever a one-of-a-kind milestone from the master production designer....building a giant free-standing set so huge that no mere soundstage could contain it. Even Adam himself realized the sheer craziness of it.......but up it went, with its monorail, helipad, rocket launching gantry and vast spaces for minions to race around in.....
Roald Dahl....what an off-the-wall choice for a Bond screenwriter....but amazingly, he delivers a script that becomes a blueprint for future Bonds......always ending with Bond leading an army of good guy commandos on an all out assault of the villain's lair....("The Spy Who Loved Me" is a blatant remake of "You Only Live Twice", merely substituting the rocket that swallows space capsules with an oil tanker that swallows submarines...) And Dahl still manages to sneak in his perverse humor.....(Connery's line about a company executive who fell into a pulverizer..."He gained great face with the company")
Karin Dor We don't understand why this ravishingly beautiful German actress didn't become a huge star, especially after her two memorable death sequences......her drop into the piranha pool in this film and her grand demise in Hitchcock's "Topaz", shot dead and sinking to the floor with her red robe billowing out like a pool of blood......(the only memorable moment in the entire film)
Donald Pleasence's Blofeld and his scaredy-cat.... another weird choice but forever enshrined as what an international nemesis should look like (and decades later, destined for parody as Mike Meyer's Dr. Evil) In retrospect, the producers might have given Donald the same apple cart to stand on that Alan Ladd and other diminutive actors made use of. At the first showing we attended in 1967, the sight of Pleasence craning his neck upward to threaten the foot taller Connery provoked some unintended chuckles. And let's give it up for the Blofeld's poor cat, clawing at Pleasence's shoulder in sheer terror when the explosions kick off........no retakes, what a feline trouper.
Connery Versus The Rock's Pop-Pop.....one of our most favorite Bond fights.....watching Connery flung around Ken Adam's ultra-modern office set by Peter Fanene Maivia, none other than the grandfather of Dwayne Johnson.....we're guessing the Rock would be just as pissed if some British guy started battering him with a leather couch.....
Mie Hama and Akiko Wakabayashi .....we already knew they were too cute for words, having seen them together in "King Kong Versus Godzilla".... and.of course the film used dubbed voices to cover their limited ability to mouth English dialogue. Technically, they starred in a Woody Allen comedy, "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" in which he re-dubbed one of their cheesy Japanese imitation Bond films with his own Mad Libs gags.....(with one of the girls admiring herself in a mirror (don't ask us which one), muttering, "Boy....am I a piece...")
When Sean Connery and Mie Hama scrambled into their rescue life raft, we waved goodbye to the first iconic five films of the Bond filmography.....and the last of the films that brought the entire world of movie audiences together as one globe-spanning fan base, so much so that theaters had to stay open around the clock to cope with the crowds. Bond films would go on, even a few with Connery, but they'd never quite match the anticipatory excitement of the original quintet. For us, a shaken-not-stirred 5 stars (****) a 50th Anniversary FIND OF FINDS....
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