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Synopsis

Well in the ever ongoing series of reviews of the James Bond series, this particular installment is the last of the Pierce Brosnan collection (the others are on the site, so go find them). And in Tomorrow Never Dies, I saved it for last because well, I needed some form of drama to keep me going.

This one takes Ian Fleming’s characters and adapts them into a screenplay that was written by Bruce Feirstein (GoldenEye) and directed by Roger Spottiswoode (Under Fire). And …
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Synopsis

Well, time may not have been too kind to George Lazenby since he assumed the tailored suits of James Bond for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but considering how well Daniel Craig did in Casino Royale, and the basic storyline is the same for both films, why do people still want to bash Lazenby now? Is it because he wasn’t a carbon copy of his predecessor, Sean Connery? Who knows?

As for the film itself, Lazenby was as unknown as one could get for the job, as this was only h…
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Synopsis

Ian Fleming’s The Man With the Golden Gun was the only posthumous release for the established actor, and the book was such a success that producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided to try and recruit Roger Moore for the role immediately after You Only Live Twice to capitalize on the success of Fleming’s book. However, it wasn’t meant to be, and the film’s production was delayed several years while the George Lazenby era came and went, not to mention the Sean Connery era leav…
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To the credit of James Bond film producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, they realized that recycling a storyline with Russian antagonists or other satellites of communism, was stale even several years after the Berlin Wall fell. But in its place, the big Bond villain was a Serbian national of sorts named Renard, who was shot in the head, and the bullet, still lodged in his brain, made him magically impervious to pain.
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Admittedly after George Lazenby left the James Bond franchise when On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was released, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli wanted to go with a more American-based Bond in their seventh film, and were pretty serious in their intent. At one time, Adam West (yes, Batman) was even involved in negotiations to play the part. Actor John Gavin (Psycho) was signed and sealed for the role a week before principal photography started. But Sean Connery was pitched for it, a bunch of money was thrown at him, and he went upon his merry way to reprise the role that made him famous.
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Once Roger Moore left the Bond franchise (some would say three or four films too late), quite a few things left with him. When Timothy Dalton, whose most well-known work before this was an excellent supporting turn in The Lion in Winter, was brought in, several things seemed to change. First and perhaps most notably, the return of a James Bond that smoked cigarettes was most startling. Second, supporting characters like Lois Maxwell (who played Miss Moneypenny) and Bernard Lee (M) were replaced with younger, fresher (?) perspectives.
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By the time of the fifth James Bond film, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli decided to shake things up a bit creatively. Star Sean Connery was probably getting a little antsy inhabiting the suits and drinking the martinis and feared getting pigeonholed (sorry Sean) and announced he was stepping away from the role. However, he still had one more in him, and with You Only Live Twice there was a definite change in style. It may have been based on Ian Fleming’s novel, but it was adapted for the screen by Roald Dahl, of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame.
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Poor Roger Moore. He does get a bit of a bum rap when it comes to James Bond movies, but I think that in terms of the character, he actually fits the jacket, Walther PPK and shaken martinis fairly well, but the problem for his work was that it faced a lot of new technology, and thus was subjected to a lot of ridicule as a result. New things like walking in space and the computer revolution were given a tongue in cheek look, and in between this and the visual effects simply not catching up to the imaginations, then sure, some of the films look and feel a bit silly.
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If you want another reason to hate George Lucas, it’s that James Bond film producer Albert Broccoli decided to fast track the production of Moonraker ahead of For Your Eyes Only to capitalize on the proverbial Star Wars effect that was occurring through box offices worldwide. However in this one, written by Christopher Wood, who wrote the epic film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins and directed by Lewis Gilbert (who had just done The Spy Who Loved Me), Roger Moore rides a shuttle into space and takes the dynamic of the film with it.
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As a relatively topical fan of the James Bond franchise (though not so topical that I’d buy all of the films on DVD), I had a cursory knowledge of the actors who played Bond and the times that they had been cast. Little did I know however that by the time Roger Moore had signed onto the role in Live and Let Die that this was the third attempt to bring him aboard, and that maybe producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli were hoping that the third attempt brought the proverbial charm. Moore had been approached for the role as early as the Dr. No days, but was in the midst of doing The Saint television show, and Connery was chosen.
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We all know that Daniel Craig helped effectively reboot the James Bond movie franchise in 2006 with the amazing Casino Royale. But let’s not forget that Pierce Brosnan was at the helm of the first Bond “rebirth” in Goldeneye. Brosnan was the darling of Bond producer Albert Broccoli in the mid ’80s, but was unable to take the role because of his then-current commitment to the television show Remington Steele. Assuming he could have gotten the job back then, he would have followed Roger Moore after A View to a Kill.
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Well, after the worldwide success of Dr. No, producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman went back to figure out what to do about a sequel, and following a nod to the series by then-President Kennedy, From Russia With Love was the next candidate in line to be given the Bond treatment from the library of Ian Fleming novels.

In this film, Bond (the returning Sean Connery) has recently vanquished Dr. No, and the organization that he worked for, SPECTRE, decides to try to eliminate Bond, using two things that will lure any well-respecting secret agent, a decoding machine that the Russian government currently is in possession of, and a Russian defector that wants to turn it over to James specifically.
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After seeing Casino Royale it’s hard to look at a Bond film the same way, and when Roger Moore inhabited the guy who likes martinis, fast cars and dangerous situations, it may have been a little cheesy. Granted, Moore did appear in a couple of notable Bond misses, but in the tenth release of the James Bond franchise, The Spy Who Loved Me stands as one of his best, if not the best Moore film.

From a screenplay by Richard Maibaum (his 7th Bond film) and Christopher Wood (his first) and directed by Lewis Gilbert (his 2nd Bond film), this new situation finds James at first in Austria, being chased by assassins, with everyone on skis.
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