I Am Funnier Than James Bond

James Bond is the one with the rep for the quick wit and suave urbanity. In fact, there's a lame computer-user somewhere out there who, when it comes to dispensing puns in the thick of the action, is actually Bond's superior. That computer-user is Me.

How does one measure my wit vs. Bond's? Let's cherry-pick moments from the series where Bond make a pun, and stack it up against my punnery. It's fairer that way.

Round 1: THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)

Bond has just defeated Jaws in hand-to-hand combat by causing some stone ruins at an Egyptian temple to topple onto Jaws, burying him in rubble.

Bond's pun: "Egyptian builders!"

My pun: "The don't make ruins like they used to!"

Me: 1

Bond: 0

Round 2: CASINO ROYALE (2006)

Bond is tied naked to a chair and has his genitals struck repeatedly by a big chunk of knotted rope by a torturer.

Bond's pun: (crying like a bitch) "The whole world is going to know you died scratching my balls!"

My pun: (nonchalantly) "Hm? Oh, sorry, I didn't feel that. My enormous penis cushioned the impact."

Me: 1, 927, 004

Bond: 0

There, I win. The British government should hire me or something.

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE Part 4: The Gambit of Shame

After the requisite pre-credits and credits action, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969) dials things back a notch to allow room to establish things. You know, the sort of things essential to movies: characters, plot, things like that. It follows the same basic thread of Ian Fleming’s source novel: James Bond drives to a casino/hotel, gambles, meets crazy girl, has sex with her which gets the attention of her Mafioso daddy, understandably freaks out at this prospect, etc. Director Peter Hunt uses this little “mini-movie” portion to great effect at settling George Lazenby into the role.

Bond arrives at his hotel after his unusual morning at the beach and starts throwing his weight around. Those porters sure as hell better be careful with his golf clubs! The management seems familiar with him, and give him the honeymoon suite at a moment’s notice, etc. Lazenby is completely at ease during these scenes, and in less than a minute we have a good handle on who this Bond guy is: a good-natured, nomadic adventurer with expensive tastes, and the clout to indulge them.

After settling in, Bond heads to the casino. At becomes obvious that he’s not on any sort of government business. He’s here to party. Please note the hot ladies who check him out as he first strides into the casino – it’s touches like this that remind the viewer how much fun it would be to be James Bond. Above all, Lazenby’s Bond seems to have the most fun, and he has good reason. Lazenby was the youngest actor to play Bond (28 at the time of filming), and it shows. He has a vitality and earthiness that Connery’s Bond, and subsequent Bonds, didn’t quite have. This Bond seems like he should be dropping acid and listening to The Rolling Stones in between punch-ups and ski chases. The long hair and beard that Lazenby sported post-shooting (see below) would not actually be out-of-place on Bond in this film. However, Lazenby’s rough-and-tumble presence works will with the Bond character’s fanciness – like he was a tough adventurer/vagabond whose sheer skill enabled him to fall into a high-paying superspy gig, and is using his status, freedom and government-sanctioned "licence to kill" to finally indulge his fantasies.

Bond then plays baccarat. Successfully. It’s worth noting that whoever cast his table-mates did a phenomenal job of finding look-alikes for the characters described in the novel. There’s the little Agatha Christie-esque woman, the “monstrous” textile tycoon from Lille, all exactly as one imagines them from reading the novel. Then, another touch directly from the novel: a lovely slice of cleavage hovers over the table and makes a rash bet.

The cleavage turns out to belong to none other than Tracy! Remember? That girl Bond assumed was committing suicide! Bond watches her play, suspicious, and his suspicions turn out to be valid, because Tracy loses a hand big-time, and then reveals that she has no money to cover her loss. In the book, it’s further explained that this will result in Tracy being blacklisted across Europe, and this can be inferred from the film. Bond, gentleman that he is, settles her debt with the explanation that they agreed to be “partners” in the casino that evening. Nobody buys it, but Bond has made a wise move: he’s impressed a hot lady for the second time in one day. He knows what this means. The look on Lazenby’s face says it all. To quote Christopher Walken in BATMAN RETURNS: “Unlimited poontang”.

Take a look at the stack of plaques Bond leaves the baccarat table with: substantially thicker than what he went in with, even after covering Tracy’s debt. This Bond is a man who can make enough money in one night at a casino to comfortably support himself for the next decade. This feeds into Bond’s role as audience fantasy surrogate. OHMSS as a whole, and specifically these early scenes, is among the most fantasy-feeding films in the whole series. Who wouldn’t want to be this guy?

Bond gets to talking to Tracy, and Diana Rigg finally gets her first real scenes in the film. Now would be a good time to mention that Rigg makes for the finest Bond girl ever. She absolutely, and confidently, nails all the qualities that make Tracy stand out as a character: the fierce intelligence, the maturity, the confidence, the humour, the haughtiness, the vulnerability, and the slight craziness. The role of Tracy is a complex one whatever way you cut it, and Rigg never misses a step. She’s such a forceful presence in the film that she often outright steals it out from under Lazenby, which is actually not at all harmful to the point of the movie. Of all the lovelies paraded through all 21 (and counting) films, there’s still no doubt that Tracy was the one Bond should have married.

Yes, he marries her at the end of the movie. Don’t act so surprised. Oh, and she gets shot in the head as well! Spoiler!

Diana Rigg is hot as well. This helps grease the film’s wheels somewhat. And she has great chemistry with Lazenby, a chemistry that I can’t imagine her sharing with Sean Connery had he played the role. Would they have cast Rigg if Connery had continued on? If not, would the character of Tracy have been more of a simpering wastrel than Rigg’s interpretation, as per Fleming’s novel? Who knows?

After their initial banter, Tracy arranges to have a one-night stand with Bond. Truly, this is the girl of all our dreams. Bond, too, seems overjoyed at the prospect, but then it sinks in on him for the first time that not all her birds might be chirping. He seems contemplative for a moment. Would bedding her be tantamount to rape? Taking advantage of a clearly overwhelmed, frightened woman?

The film immediately cuts to Bond confidently entering her hotel suite in search of unlimited poontang, so obviously Bond ignored his qualms. Once inside, he is attacked by Che Che (Irvin Allen), a hulking guy dressed vaguely like a sailor. Another fight ensues, and this one is no less impressive than the beachfront fight that opened the film. These two guys bash each other senseless, shattering furniture and sending the sound-effects technicians into a frenzy. This further seals the film’s claim to having the best action in the whole series. Lazenby is unstoppable in these fight scenes. Bond eventually flattens Che Che and leaves the suite, pausing only to steal a bit of caviar. “Royal beluga – north of the Caspian!” he says to himself. Oh, James, you’re so refined!

Bond returns to his own suite, clearly disappointed to have found, in lieu of a naked Diana Rigg, a monstrous guy dressed like a sailor who wanted to kill him. Who wouldn’t be? While licking his wounds, he is ambushed by Tracy. They banter again, but this time Bond’s tired and hurt and has had enough of her bullshit. If I got attacked by thugs every time I spoke to a woman, I’d start getting pretty pissed off as well. He even roughs her up a bit in his quest for the truth, enabling the audience to see through the lackadaisical charm for the first time at how ruthless Lazenby’s Bond can, and often has to, be. He’s a hard bastard, and always fully in-charge.

She still pleads ignorance, and he believes her, and the tension melts between them. Bond finally voices his concerns: “I think you’re in some sort of trouble.” She won’t say what it is. This surely displeases Bond, but sex is on the menu, so things end happily for Bond’s casino holiday. This scene also features a hefty bouquet of flowers on Bond’s suite balcony, and according to Peter Hunt on the DVD, flowers were a motif of the film. I don’t know that they’re supposedly to signify exactly (Tracy’s presence? The tranquility that her presence provides?), but they’re there if you want to read into them.

Bond awakes to find that Tracy’s checked out, and has paid back his debt. Bond then leaves the hotel in a rather wonderful mustard-coloured jumpsuit with an orange skivvy, only to be abducted at gunpoint by yet more thugs, including Che Che. Bond’s heedless confidence in the face of such danger is really amusing, and, again, you really wish you were as cool as this guy. He is whisked away to a dockyard. The dockyard seems to employ a midget janitor who whistles “Goldfinger” while sweeping the floor – yet another reminder that this is still the same series of films.

Bond decides he’s had enough of these guys, so beats them senseless in another fight scene. This one pushes things way over-the-top, and is so full of zooms and crazy sound effects that the action becomes impossible to follow. This is among the most psychedelic moments in the film. Bond then busts into an office, which is amusingly quiet and calm compared to the battle that just went on outside its door.

Here, Bond (and the audience) meets Marc-Ange Draco, Tracy’s father, for the first time. The character was likeable in the book, but Gabriele Ferzetti’s performance sends his Loveability Factor through the roof. Draco is apparently the head of the Union Corse – France’s version of the Mafia – which would normally entail being a horrible, bloodthirsty bastard. Ferzetti’s depiction of Draco doesn’t run counter to these assumptions – after all, when he’s talking to Bond, he’s in “charming” mode, not “I will cut off your daughter’s fingers if you don’t pay protection money” mode.

He and Bond then have an intimate chat, with Draco revealing that Tracy is indeed troubled, and that he thinks Bond would make an ideal foil for her – “What she needs is a man, to dominate her! To make love to her enough to make her love him!” These are wise words, my friends, but Bond already knows the score. Bond declines Draco’s gracious offer of his daughter’s poontang. Draco then sweetens the deal, offering Bond millions in gold. Bond seriously considers this offer – he’s only human after all – but then decides that he doesn’t need a million pounds. Of course not – we saw him win that amount last night. Jesus, this guy is awesome. And he has a bachelor’s taste for freedom!

Financial security. Ability to kick anybody’s ass. Easy-going charm. The love of any woman he wants. Yes, this Bond is the perfect man, one all men aspire to be, and one all women would surely like to possess. It’s important that Bond is set up as being this unstoppably awesome and independent early in the film, because it becomes important to the whole later. Bond allows his perfect lifestyle and self-assurance to be undermined – pleasantly, that is – by love for Tracy. Then, when she eats a delicious bullet sandwich at the end of the film, that delicate balance comes crashing down from underneath Bond. It’s really quite tragic.

What else? Oh, yeah – Bond makes a deal to start seeing Tracy again if Draco will help him track down super-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld – guy Bond fought against in four of the last five Bond movies. Draco agrees, and then the film shifts from lovey-dovey mode to secret-service mode. Yay!

The 007 Most Unintentionally Funny Bond Moments

Because you demanded it, here is a countdown of the most unintentionally funny moments in all 21 Bond films. The list runs from 001 through to 007, with 007 being the coveted top-spot, for obvious reasons.

Hint: it's because Bond's code-number is 007. Duh.

001: Bond running

Six actors have now played James Bond on film. Of that six, only two managed to master the art of running without looking like complete girls. As we all know, Sean Connery is The Man, and say what you will about George Lazenby’s acting, but the fella knew how to get from A to B without having people laugh at him. The others, though?

Roger Moore was the first Girly Bond, and as such bore the brunt of the criticism. Until then, no Bond had been this much of a dork. Moore bravely broke the mold, by running, in his own admission, like he, “had a broomstick up my ass.”

Timothy Dalton set a shocking record by being the second consecutive Bond to run like a girl. Not just any girl - a fat girl. At this point, there was an appalling 50% rate of Bonds who weren’t gimps.

This rate plummeted to a dismal 40% when Pierce Brosnan arrived on the scene. Having first come to attention as a finicky fop in the fantastic Remington Steele, nobody was expecting much of Brosnan’s running talents, but he still managed to disappoint, by not only running like a girl, but by running like a girl with such self-important conviction.

Having only seen CASINO ROYALE (2006) once, I cannot completely vouch for Daniel Craig’s running skills. I don’t think he was a complete embarrassment, but he did seem a little top-heavy. Like a barrel running around on little chicken legs.

An honourable mention goes to Bob Simmons, who doubled Sean Connery for running scenes in many of his movies, and managed to look like an utter fucking goon each and every time. What a nerd.

002: Inappropriately loud music

As FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE was made in ancient times, the filmmakers were given leeway on how ridiculous and sloppy their movies could be. Audiences in 1963 were lucky to be alive, what with all those dinosaurs and tuberculosis and Hitlers they had to deal with, so relaxing in a “theatre” and watching moving “pictures” was something of a luxury. Thus, they didn’t mind when the producers slapped in stock music of the James Bond Theme, at full volume, during a scene of Bond chilling out in his hotel room. The addition of this music adds a feverish, almost crazed undercurrent to an otherwise innocuous scene.

Rewatchability Count: 1 viewing should be enough. It lasts long enough for even the least attentive viewer to catch on.

003: Roger Moore is centuries old

Roger Moore was pushing 60 when he starred in A VIEW TO A KILL (1985), and it shows. There are subtle indications of his age, such as the awkward facelift he sports throughout the film, or the length of time it takes for him to muster up the energy to insert his penis into Tanya Roberts, but one moment near the end takes the cake: as he climbs onto the crane operated by May Day (Grace Jones) to escape the mine. It’s a routine action, but Roger takes a good 5 seconds or so to clamber up onto the thing, and he looks like he has cerebral palsy while doing so.

Rewatchability Count: about 2, maybe 3 times, depending on how much you love Roger Moore. If you’re a fan, then 2 will be enough, because you’ll start to pity him by the 3rd viewing.

004: Halle Berry in general

Despite what her Oscar win would imply, Halle Berry cannot actually act. Despite what her lack of acting ability would imply, she retains a strange likeability, perhaps borne of pity. No viewer will be able to go without pitying poor Halle after a viewing of DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002), which includes some of the worst moments in the entire series, many of which are directly attributable to Halle. From her thuddingly unfunny line delivery, (“I think I got the THRUST of it!”) to her Earth-shakingly funny computer-enhanced backflip dive off a cliff into the ocean, Halle never fails to entertain! The only way she could be funnier is if she reappeared in a post-credits Easter egg riding a unicycle while dressed as a clown and honking a big horn, but that would fall under the “Intentionally Funny” banner and would thus be ineligible for inclusion on this list. I thank Lee Tamahori for this wise creative decision.

Rewatchability Count: 0, because the Halle Berry moments come at such a rapid clip that you will be too punch-drunk with anger and pain to use your remote control.

005: Feverish bobsled chase

A panel of experts (namely, myself) have deemed ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969) the Most Feverish Bond Film. It’s full of sped-up footage and choppy editing, and this can lead to accidental humour. The laughs come thickest and fastest during the climactic bobsled pursuit, as Bond pursues Blofeld (Telly Savalas) down a mountain, against a backdrop of hideous blue-screen rear-projection. From Telly’s throaty laughter at seeing Bond blown up by a grenade, to the hollow clang made by Bond’s helmet as he smacks his head on his bobsled, to the frantic eye-wiping motions Bond does when he gets ice on his goggles that make him look like he’s wiping away girly tears, you will laugh so hard that your cheeks could well be paralysed for life.

Rewatchability Count: 2, for good measure. Things happen so quickly that a second go-round would be advisable to digest it all.

006: “Who the HELL are you?”

In YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), Bond infiltrates Blofeld’s eerie volcano lair in a bid to rescue captive astronauts. In order to best do so, he dresses in a soft cotton skivvy and balaclava. He looks like a manchild whose guardian swaddled them in “safety gear” for a trip to the shops, but he’s actually supposed to be a well-trained ninja. Whatever.

When rescuing the astronauts, Bond pops his head up through the bars on their cell door and announces, “Good evening!”. The astronauts take a good look at this moron, and one irritably asks, “Who the HELL are you?”. One of the most realistic moments in a Bond film.

Rewatchability Count: 2 or 3.

007: Intercourse with table

If you’ve seen THUNDERBALL (1965), you’ll know the drill. Bond is strapped to a spine-stretching machine, which is essentially a long table that jerks back and forth as he lies fastened to it. Then a villain enters the room and cranks the machine up to a deadly level of spine-stretchingness. What results is the most fall-down funny moment in the whole series as the viewer is treated to a good twenty seconds of Sean Connery screaming and writhing on the table. Yes, I’ll lower myself to the obvious: it looks like he’s having sex with the table. No, not just sex – it looks like he’s having his ass torn to shreds by a giant tabular (?) penis, and loving every minute of it. The poor guy just gets pounded.

Rewatchability Count: infinite. Every time I manage to convince myself that I have a sophisticated sense of humour, I find myself rewinding this scene multiple times and laughing like a man possessed. I have no excuse.

Please note: in actuality, being raped by tables is no laughing matter. If you, or any friends you know of, are in danger of being raped by a table, please contact that Table Rape Helpline at 1800-SHOULDERTOCRYON. This has been a YOU ONLY BLOG TWICE community notice.

Book vs Film: YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (Part 2)

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was the first film in the series which diverged significantly from the novel. Up to this point, the Bond films had been relatively faithful, in terms of plot at least, to the novels on which they were based. However, with the audience’s expectation that each film would be bigger and more spectacular than the last, it was clear that if YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was to be adapted for the screen, major changes would have to be made to the story.

Most of the book is fairly low-key. Bond, having bungled his previous two missions, is sent on a diplomatic assignment to Japan in an attempt to acquire for the British a major source of Russian intelligence from the Japanese Secret Service. In return for this, he is asked by M’s Japanese counterpart, Tiger Tanaka, to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, a Swiss botanist who has set up a “castle of death” which contains a garden filled with many species of deadly plants and animals. This castle has become a magnet for suicides and a major embarrassment to the Japanese government. Bond discovers Dr. Shatterhand is really his arch-nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and integrates himself into a Japanese fishing village from where he will launch his assault on the castle. A large part of the book is taken up with a travelogue of Bond and Tiger’s journey through Japan and Bond’s time in the fishing village, as he comes to terms with Japanese culture. Blofeld’s evil scheme is not intended to cause widespread havoc as in THUNDERBALL and ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. It is more of an evil retirement project, where he can simply hole himself up in his castle and “collect death,” as Tiger puts it.

The film’s broader scope is apparent from the opening shots in space, where an American space capsule is eaten by an unidentified craft. Although the book’s Japanese setting remains, most of the plot is entirely different. Bond’s task is to find out where the mystery spacecraft landed and who is behind it. After investigating a Japanese chemical company he follows the trail to an island with a small fishing village. Parts of the book are used here, as Bond trains as a ninja and ‘marries’ a girl in the village, ostensibly so he can disguise himself to avoid detection and investigate further. He discovers Blofeld’s lair inside a hollowed-out volcano from where he has been launching his predatory rockets, capturing both American and Russian spaceships, in an attempt to start a war between the US and the Soviet Union.

By this point the Bond film formula had been fairly well established, and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE ticks all the boxes. It has the gadgets, girls, action scenes and terrible jokes the audience had come to expect. The volcano set cost more than the entire production budget of DR. NO and is still the most spectacular villain’s lair in the series to date, and probably the most parodied. There are plenty of fights and action scenes – Bond getting ‘killed’ at the start, the fight at Osato, the car chase, the fight on the docks, the plane crash, the Little Nellie sequence, the fight at the ninja school and the giant pitched battle at the end between Tiger’s ninjas and the Spectre goons. The downside to this is that the film’s plot is not as cohesive as in the book, or, indeed, earlier entries in the film series. Many parts seem to be dictated by whatever set pieces the producers wanted to include, the worst example of this being the plane crash sequence. It doesn’t make sense on any level, in terms of Brandt’s motivation or plot requirements, and it’s not as if the film actually needed another action sequence, especially with the superior helicopter battle occurring not long after.

Other plot elements seem to be unnecessary hangovers from the novel. Bond’s Japanese disguise, the clearest example of this, is something that works much better on the page than on screen. Not only is it ridiculously unconvincing, it is also superfluous to the plot – the disguise is not necessary for him to infiltrate Blofeld’s lair and there are no parts of the film where he has to pass himself off as a Japanese (although this is probably for the better, as disbelief can only be suspended so far. Having the bad guy launch rockets out of a hollowed-out volcano is one thing, but to have someone actually mistake Sean Connery for an Oriental would be venturing too far into the realm of fantasy). It is hardly surprising that it is abandoned without explanation, but you wonder why it was included in the first place. I enjoy the whole Ama village sequence in the film; although to work properly it needed to be longer. In plotting terms it is not strictly necessary but it is one of the elements which give the film its unique feel. I guess one reason for the inclusion of these bits in the film is because the main plot differs so much from the novel the filmmakers felt they had to retain as much as possible in order to be faithful to Fleming.

Both the novel and film of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE rank among my favourites in their respective formats. Both are excellent examples of where the series was at the time. Fleming’s writing developed considerably over the ten years since CASINO ROYALE and the book is a great showcase of this. The film arrived at the height of the hype surrounding the series and combines the expected cinematic spectacle with a smart screenplay and excellent direction, things that are largely missing from THUNDERBALL.