Thunderball (1965)

Thunderball (1965)

Director: Terrence Young

Starring: Sean Connery

Look up! Look down! Look out! Here comes the biggest Bond of them all!

When Sectre #2 Emilio Largo steals two atomic bombs MI6 assign all of their 00 agents to the case and James Bond is dispatched to the Bahamas to follow up on a lead.

Following on from the massive success of Goldfinger EON Productions must have been worried as to how they could possible top the crazy success that movie had. Their solution as evidenced by the tagline above was just to make everything bigger. More girls for Bond to bed, more gadgets, even more exotic locations and rather than a plot on a small scale they were to go full-hog and have Spectre steal nuclear weapons. So did it work? Well commercially it absolutely did and Thunderball went on to top even Goldfinger’s remarkable gross profit and become the most successful 007 movie at the box office. Remarkably even today when adjusted for inflation it is still the highest grossing Bond movie and one of the top fifty highest earning films ever. So it was a massively success comically, but how does it actually stand up today? Well while the first three films are almost universally loved Thunderball is perhaps the most divisive film of the franchise with some saying it’s amongst the best whereas a lot of Bond fans, of which I consider myself, view it as one of the very worst. So what do I think?

Okay so here goes. I am just going to come out and say it right now. Thunderball is without a doubt my favourite Bond movie of them all. I know it’s not a perfect movie and I know it’s downright ridiculous at times, but I just love the film in all its imperfect glory. I mentioned in my review of From Russia with Love that when I first saw all the Bond movies aged thirteen during an ITV Bond Marathon in 1999 I didn’t really enjoy Bond’s second movie and thought of it as one of the worst in the series as I preferred the more outlandish 007 films like A View to a Kill, Goldfinger and The Man with the Golden Gun. That was true with Thunderball, but even more so as it, along with Diamonds are Forever- a film too silly even for thirteen year old me- was probably my least favourite of the franchise. Years later I bought the DVD boxset just prior to Skyfall’s release and a friend I decided to watch a Connery Bond and opted for Thunderball and my opinion of the film completely changed.

So why didn’t I like it at the time and what made me change my mind on it? Well the biggest complaint about Bond’s fourth film are the underwater scenes, particularly the huge battle at the end. I used to hate it whenever 007 donned a swimsuit in movies like For Your Eyes Only or License to Kill as it would no doubt end up with Bond having a slow-motion hard-to-follow fight with a random henchman at some point, but I do actually find Thunderball’s fights exciting these days rather surprisingly. Perhaps it’s helped that we are now in an age where most fights in action blockbusters are a complete mess of quick editing and the shaky camera we’ve all come to loathe but not only do I not find the Thunderball’s underwater scenes boring anymore but I think the climactic battle with Largo’s henchman and the MI6 agents to be a well-choreographed thrilling spectacle. Yeah the underwater battle does go on a long time and I am not too sure why Largo’s goons swim out to fight the MI6’s men rather than stand on the Disco Volante (Largo’s boat) and throw grenades, or better yet just sail out to sea, but I watch it in a sense of awe. There’s obviously no CGI here so we actually have some twenty odd people staging a battle in the Bahamas Sea with actual sharks, octopuses and crustaceans swimming around it. Even if you don’t find it entertaining you can’t deny how spectacular it all is. The battle at the end also contains one of the most shockingly violent moments in a Bond movie when a henchman gets a harpoon stabbed through his diving mask and presumably into an eye. That’s some Timothy Dalton era violence right there! I do have one reservation however which is that it appears that, unless there was some amazing trickery involved, at least two sharks are shot with harpoons during the making of the movie which is pretty inexcusable.

Another common criticism is that the villain Largo (acted by Adolfo Celi and dubbed by Robert Riety) is weak and a bit forgettable. I kind of agree with that and concede that he certainly isn’t as memorable as Dr No, Rosa Klebb or Goldfinger but I do kind of like his understated villainy and for some reason I find him constantly feeding his henchman to his pet sharks to be darkly hilarious. His sharks join Dr No’s tarantula as the second in a long line of failed animal related deaths in the Bond canon. Also he is shagging his niece (a fact which everybody repeats with such regularity without reacting like it’s no big deal) and if that’s not pure evil I don’t know what is!

The other major complaint people have is that we see Spectre executing their whole plan at the movie’s beginning and Bond has to play catch-up all film and yes they are correct, but I don’t think it is a problem. I can see it takes away all the mystery to it, but didn’t we know Kronsteen’s plan from the start of From Russia with Love too? Yet nobody complains about it in that film. Also it’s not like any of the Bond movies really have a compelling mystery to them. In Goldfinger for instance we are straight up told at the start that he’s the bad guy and in most of the movies, Goldfinger included, we have a silly scene where the villain basically says “Before I kill you Mr Bond, let me reveal my evil plan to you!.... It’s so cunning isn’t it?! Gwaaa haaa haaa…..ha? Oh, crap. He’s escaped. And now he knows my plan. Bugger” So at least Thunderball doesn’t fall into that tired clichéd trap and besides Colombo is one of the best TV shows ever and every episode of that reveals who the killer is and how they did it upfront and it is still incredible, so I don’t think knowing the villain’s plot before 007 does is really a deal breaker.

The way Bond learns about Spectre’s scheme is one of the problems of the movie however. You see Spectre agent Count Lippi, played by Guy Dolemon (who were just saw playing Harry Palmer’s boss in the Ipcress File) has hired a pilot to have plastic surgery to look like a an officer in the French Airforce, take his place on a plane carrying the two atomic bombs, kill his fellow pilots and deliver the bombs to Largo. Meanwhile another Spectre Agent, the delectable Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi), is distracting the real pilot with her feminine charms in a spa while they wait for his doppelganger to arrive and kill the man he is impersonating. Now all of this is fine, and would be okay, were it not for the fact James Bond just so happens to be staying in the same spa at the same time as Volpe, Lippi the pilot and the man designed to look like him. It’s just such a coincidence that 007 happens to be there at the same time and it really stretches the credibility of the movie from the start.

There are some similar moments of bizarre happenstance such as during the pre-title sequence when Bond is at the funeral of a Spectre agent with the initials “JB”, another nice Bond-is-dead fake-out, but he spots that the dead man’s widow opening the car door himself and thus must be a man and he works out that the widow is actually the dead man himself. I do love the old 1960’s snobbery that no woman would ever possibly open a car door herself, heavens forbid, and I love the shock of Bond punching what appears to be grieving widow in the face, but I don’t know why the Spectre member would turn up at his own fake funeral…. Just what were you thinking? What is the point of going to all the trouble of faking your death if you are going to turn up to the funeral anyway?

There are also several instances of bad continuity too in Thunderball with the one that stood-out most being when Q, who we see out in the field for the first time which I personally always enjoy, giving Bond several gadgets including a watch that is also a Geiger counter and a camera that takes underwater photos. Later on in the movie Bond gives the camera to this movie’s Bond girl Domino (Claudine Auger but voiced once again by Nikki van der Zyl) and tells her it works as a Geiger counter. No, it’s not Bond, it’s the watch! I honestly don’t know how such a silly mistake like that could happen in a major motion picture. I also don’t know why he didn’t give her the watch as she certainly would look less conspicuous walking around on her Uncle’s boat looking for the bombs if the Geiger counter was a small wristwatch rather than a huge camera. Thanks for Domino walking around the boat with Bond’s gadget she is inevitably caught by Largo, but the she is freed by one of his henchmen. That henchman is then pushed out of the boat by Bond, moments before it crashes, but also before he informs 007 that he can’t swim. The man is never seen again so presumably he drowned I guess??

Another complaint I have is with the editing. Peter Hunt, the editor, ending up asking for the movie’s release to be delayed three months as that’s how long it would take to edit the movie to a high enough standard so I have a ton of a sympathy for him, but maybe he should have asked for one more month? The fight on the Dissco Volante boat at the end where Hunt speeds up the footage to supposedly make everything more exciting is just laughably awful not helped by the worst rear projection of any movie yet during our reviews. There is even a horrific jump cut in the sequence too which is something I thought we had left behind in Dr No. There is a massive continuity error, yes another one, where Bond’s blue mask is knocked off his face, so he instead picks up a mask from a deceased henchman which was black, but in the very next cut Connery is wearing the blue mask again. I know he can only work with the footage provided to him, but could he not just cut out the mask being knocked off part altogether if it will be contradicted mere seconds later?

So there are a lot of issues with Thunderball and yet it remains my favourite in the series, so why is that? Well for starters I think this is Connery’s best performance in the role to date. I have read that after films four films in as many years Connery looks bored in Thunderball but if that was the case I have never noticed it. I think he is excellent in this movie, even if his hair piece that he has had to wear in every film looks slightly off this time around. While there are problems with the script I think the dialogue in Thunderball might be the best and if this isn’t the wittiest 007 movie is certainly is the funniest. Some of the lines are great and include classic one-liner puns like when he shoots a henchman with a harpoon gun “I think he got the point” along with his rapport with Domino “How did you know that my name was Domino” “It’s written on the bracelet on your ankle.” “Oh what sharp little eyes you have.” “Wait to you get to my teeth.”

I also really enjoy his interactions with Largo. When they first meet and Largo is playing cards Bond is hilariously blatantly letting the villain know he knows he works for Spectre and baiting him with “I thought I saw a Spectre on your shoulder… The Spectre of defeat I mean. So it’s your Spectre against my Spectre.” Better still is when he visits Largo at his home and sees Fiona Volpe’s rifle in Largo’s hands. “What an interesting gun, it looks more fitting for a woman” states 007. “Do you know lots about guns Mr Bond?” “No. I know a little something about women.” Largo’s slight wry smile to that joke is my favourite moment of his in the whole film. You get the impression that if he and Bond weren’t at opposite ends of the law they could just go to a bar, order some booze and talk about women. I don’t think there are many moments where Bond has made a villain laugh at all and I really think that small smile helps humanise Largo and gives him more character than he is given credit for. He also has an eyepatch and that will never not be awesome.

Connery is even better with his interactions with bad-girl Fiona Volpe. After 007 has had a close shave with death after spying near Largo’s boat he is offered a lift back to Nassau from Fiona. Connery notices Volpe’s Spectre Octopus ring and becomes alarmed at how fast and reckless she is driving. Why do Spectre agents wear something that reveals they are evil like that? It’s silly. I would love to own on though. Volpe pulls up outside Bond’s hotel and says that she is staying here too. “What a coincidence” Fiona mockingly says before Connery, at his most sarcastic, replies with “Yes, so convenient.” Volpe then asks if Bond is okay as he looks paler and reckons “Some men just don’t like to be driven” before 007 comes back at her with an excellent “No, some men just don’t like to be taken for a ride.” Seriously this dialogue is outstanding.

There is also some psychical comedy such as when Bond arrives at MI6 and excitedly looks to toss his hat onto the hat-rack like he has done in the previous three films only to see that to his immense disappointment the hat-rack is now right next to the door. Connery’s crestfallen face as he has to simply place the hat on the stand makes me laugh every time. The funniest, and best, scene in the movie and potentially any Bond movie is when Bond enters his adjoining hotel room to seek out his fellow agent only to instead find Fiona Volpe in the bath tub with her nude body only covered up by the bubbles. “Aren’t you in the wrong room Mr Bond?” “Not from where I’m standing.” “Since you’re here do you mind giving me something to put on?” James Bond then hands the naked Fiona her shoes and then sits down on chair to watch her exit the bath. It might sound creepy on Bond’s part but I still think it is just the coolest scene ever put to film.

That nicely brings me to the best thing in Thunderball and that is without a Fiona Volpe. I have heard complaints levelled at Thunderball because henchman Vargas, the guy who “got the point”, is a really weak henchman, but they seem to miss the fact that he’s not the main henchman of the movie, Fiona is. I think because she’s female and she sleeps with Bond that people think she is a Bond girl or create a sub category of ‘Bad Bond Girl’ (perhaps they are the same people who think Renard is the main villain of The World is Not Enough and not Elektra King) but make no mistake Fiona is second-in-command in Largo’s plan, not boring Vargas and she’s just awesome.

When we first see Fiona she is in bed with the soon to be killed French pilot, who is being a bit lecherous by suggesting that maybe she would be more comfortable if she removed her top, and she just seems like a bit of eye candy. However Fiona is soon bossing the henchman around, ordering them to close the hotel room door to avoid being seen and to keep the noise down. When the pilot’s doppelganger says he wants more money Count Lippi aims at his gun at him, but it is Fiona who takes charge of the situation by seeing the bigger picture and agreeing to the demands showing that she outranks her fellow Spectre agent. The next time we see Lippi he is being killed, due to his hiring of the greedy new pilot, and is offed by a motorcyclist who’s motorbike is equipped with machineguns. I imagine people in 1965 might have assumed the motorcyclist would have been a man and been rather surprised when the crash helmet was removed revealing Paluzzi’s beautiful red hair.

Paluzzi initially read for the role of Domino and I am so glad she was cast instead as Volpe, with the character of Fiona being changed to that of an Italian to suit her, as she would have been completely wasted in the rather thankless Domino role. As Volpe she steals literally every scene she is in, whether she is riding the motorbike, driving her car so fast that it makes 007 nervous, firing a rifle with 100% accuracy and even mocking Largo for wanting Bond dead simply because he flirts with his woman. The way she delivers that line to Largo and flicking her cigarette in disgust at Largo’s jealously is so perfect. It also should be noted that after Bond hands her shoes to her in the bath she never loses the upper hand in that scene and removes the towel from her hair and covers herself up. Yes, she sleeps with Bond, but in a complete reverse of what Bond did to Miss Taro in Dr No it was Fiona who had sex with 007 to distract him until her goons got to the room. Then in one of my favourite scenes she berates Bond and his magical penis that had converted women to his side like Pussy Galore. “But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr Bond, James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtual… but not this one!” She is easily the strongest female character we’ve encountered so far and is my favourite character in all of Bondium.

The rest of the cast are pretty good too. It seems redundant to heap praises on M, Moneypenny and Q at this point as they are always excellent, but we have our third Felix in as many appearances, this time played by the awesomely named Rick Van Nutter. I quite like Nutter actually, okay he’s not Jack Lord, but I can still picture him being a close ally of Bond unlike the older looking actor from Goldfinger. One thing I don’t like is that because it’s a new actor in the role the film shows him lurking in the background of shots, hinting that he might have nefarious plans for 007, but nope it’s his friend. It just feels like a cheap trick creating suspense by casting a new actor in a role which should by now be familiar to us. On a re-watch you think to yourselves ‘Why don’t you just say “Hi James” rather than spying on him?’ Also when finally decides to say hello and knocks on Bond’s hotel room door he is greeted by Bond with a punch to the gut because he nearly reveals James’ codename in front of a henchman. “Sorry Felix, but you were just about to say ‘007’” explains Bond, right in front of the henchman he didn’t want Felix to say it in front of! How did nobody on set realise that is stupid?

Domino isn’t the most memorable of 007 girls, but if you aren’t going to hire a great actress you might as well sign up a Miss France and I think her and Fiona Volpe are the two most beautiful women to ever be in a 007 movie. Then we get another appearance of Blofeld who is notably not bald like future incarnations. Like From Russia with Love I much prefer a faceless Blofeld to one where you see his face as after such build up no revelation will ever be able to live up to it. Blofeld also gives us another one of his classic “You failed me, I am going to kill you! Psyche! I am going to kill the guy next to you instead!” moments. Those never get old.

Aside from Connery and Paluzzi the other star of the show for me are the locations. Ken Adams sets again are simply awe-inspiring, with the lair where Spectre secretly meet being a favourite of mine with its chairs that can descend from the room with a dead body on and elevate without the victim on which is useful whenever Blofeld decides to kill one of his minions. The hall where MI6 and all the 007 agents meet to discuss Largo’s plan is really awe-inspiring with how large it is which immediately makes the threat out to be a massive problem that needs to be solved. Then there is Nassau and the Bahamas in general which are simply breath-taking. The sun, the sea, the sharks, it’s incredible and the underwater photography is unbelievable. These days with cheaper air travel and Go-Pros it’s easy to take these landscapes and photography for granted but they must have seemed like another world to 1960’s British audiences. Fifty years on and they still look spectacular to me and I am amazed at some of the footage of the sharks and the fact that Connery is clearly doing his own swimming.

Composer John Barry does his best work in a 007 flick yet and earns high praise from me for bringing back the wonderful 007 Theme, but I have to say that I really don’t like the title song, though I know it wasn’t written by Barry. Dionne Warrick’s ‘Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ was supposed to be the movie’s theme tune, before the producers decided they needed the theme to feature the movie’s title so we get Tom Jones’ Thunderball. Jones does a good enough job, famously fainting in the recording studio hitting the final note, the lyrics however are nonsensical. I don’t think the song writer had a copy of the movie script as the lyrics seem to think that Thunderball is the movie’s villain in the same vein as Goldfinger rather than the name of 007’s mission and it really hurts the song as what Jones is singing makes no bloody sense. They should have stuck with Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang honestly as the first two movies didn’t have a title theme with the title in ithr and Dr No even had Three Blind Mice at the credits end for goodness sake! That takes me nicely into the credits and Maurice Binder returned after a two movie absence and gives us the template for all future title sequences with the naked women swimming and all the underwater imagery. It is still one of my all-time favourite and easily the best so far.

So overall while Thunderball is a flawed movie, I think the good far outweighs the bad and if you need further convincing it has a working jetpack in it! Sadly this was the final Bond movie directed by Terrence Young who had previously overseen both Dr No and From Russia with Love and while most the later Bond films were still entertaining I feel like they lost the sense of class that the earlier ones had under Young and Connery. I will be covering another Young movie I have never seen however and look forward to seeing how well he will do outside of the Bond movies.

9/10- Yeah I am giving this a higher mark than Goldfinger as I love the scale and scenery of the movie. The dialogue is outstanding and it has the best Bond giving hid best performance plus Luciana Paluzzi who is incredible.

Best quote: “Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She’s just dead.”

Best scene: Bond meets Fiona in the bath.

Kick-ass moment: 007 shooting Vargas with the harpoon “I think he got the point.”

Next time on A Bloody Tomorrow we venture to Hong Kong for the first time for our first taste of martial arts. Come enjoy with me.