Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXIII

Look out for Miss Lotte Lenya,
And ol' Lucy Brown- Mack The Knife (Bobby Darin, 1959)


Movie lovers who claim that the best James Bond movies were those in which Scottish actor Sean Connery played Agent 007 (pronounced "double-O seven") typically receive little argument.  There have been twenty-four Bond films going back to 1962, with the chic, debonaire Connery starring in the first seven.  The first four in the series set the bar high: Doctor No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965).  Since they were released during each of my high school years, I consider them main elements in the pop culture of my youth.

Bond was a creation of British novelist Ian Fleming, who unfortunately died at the relatively young age of fifty-six in 1964, just as his fictitious hero was becoming internationally famous via the silver screen.  You might say that James Bond was Sean Connery's alter ego.  Connery became so identified as the secret agent that it took years for audiences to accept him in other roles.  The handsome Bond character exuded confidence, calmness, bravery, a sense of derring-do, and most importantly, a keen wit on display especially at the end of certain scenes.  [Bond after the bad guys' helicopter crashes and burns: "I'd say one of their aircraft is missing."]  With those attributes in mind, perhaps Connery was born to play Bond.  And of course, Bond was a lady killer.  Some of the most ravishing actresses of the day were "Bond Girls," including Ursula Andress, Honor Blackman and Jill St. John.

Last month I had the chance to watch From Russia With Love, which I had not seen since my Minot days.  Almost all of the several rankings of Bond films available on the internet have From Russia With Love graded as one of the top three.  Inquiring minds want to know, "Why?"

For starters, all the requisites for a bona fide Bond caper are present in From Russia With Love.  Beautiful leading lady who falls for the Englishman?  Check (Russian Tatiana Romanova played by the gorgeous Italian actress Daniela Bianchi).  A wicked mastermind with a distinctive accent and a memorable name?  Check (Lotte Lenya as Colonel Klebb, aka Number 3).  A cold blooded assassin?  Check (an almost unrecognizably young Robert Shaw as Red Grant, who appears throughout the film but doesn't utter a word 'till half way through).  Then we have other Bond staples such as the slightly older homeland secretary, Miss Moneypenny, who has a tongue-in-cheek office flirtation game going with Bond, all the while realizing that the chicks in whom 007 is romantically interested are at least ten years younger than she.  Lois Maxwell plays that minor yet essential role in the first fourteen films in the series.  And what would a Bond film be without some gadgets?  There are plenty of them here, such as a folding sniper's rifle with infra-red night vision capabilities and a flat throwing knife, the important difference being they are secretly contained in a single attache case which will explode unless opened in an unconventional way.

What sets From Russia apart from many films of its genre is the plot, which is more clever and layered than your typical spy action story.  Colonel Klebb has defected from Mother Russia to Spectre, an evil organization with designs on taking over the world.  She is called upon to execute a plan devised by creepy chess grand master Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal), whereby not only will Spectre gain possession of a top secret Russian communications device called a Lektor, but Bond will be permanently silenced as well.  Klebb dupes Romanova, a clerk in the Russian consulate office in Istanbul, into agreeing to pull off the Lektor theft, believing it to be an act of loyalty to the mother country and unaware of Klebb's defection.  Under orders from Klebb, Romanova convinces the Brits that she will turn over the Lektor to them, but only if Bond arrives in Istanbul to assist.  When Bond sees her photo, he does not need his arm twisted to accept the assignment.

From there we have Bulgarian killers working for the Russians, a pro-western Turk (Pedro Armendariz) with a secret telescope directly below the Russian consulate, a gypsy camp where Bond hides out and is immersed in a shootout, a ride aboard the Orient Express, a helicopter trying in vain to run down Bond (reminiscent of the famous crop dusting scene in North By Northwest), and gondola excursions on the canals of Venice.  It's all great fun.  There are even two scenes, following what I mistakenly took for the ending, where Bond comes face to face with imminent death.  Against all odds he lives for another day.

****

These are the movies I watched at home during the third quarter.

1. Charley Varrick (1973 drama; Walter Matthau and Andy Robinson rob a rural New Mexico bank only to find that their loot belongs to the mafia and hit man Joe Don Baker has been hired to retrieve it.)  B+

2. The Death Of Stalin  (2017 comedy; Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev, the master plotter who out-schemes and out-maneuvers several Communist Party leaders to assume control of the Soviet Union when its dictator, Adrian McLoughlin as Joseph Stalin, dies in 1953.)  B-

3. East Of Eden (1955 drama; disillusioned James Dean tries to come to grips with the favoritism father Raymond Massey bestows upon older brother Richard Davalos, while Richard's girlfriend, Julie Harris, becomes the only person who sees Dean's good side.)  C+

4. Faithless (1932 romance; repercussions from the Great Depression wreak havoc on the relationship between heiress Tallulah Bankhead and marketing man Robert Montgomery.)  B

5. From Russia With Love (1963 James Bond thriller; Sean Connery goes to Istanbul to assist beautiful Russian Daniela Bianchi steal a top secret communications device.)  A-

6. The Girl He Left Behind (1956 comedy; college slacker Tab Hunter's lack of ambition turns off girlfriend Natalie Wood, resulting in Tab's military enlistment where he becomes an army slacker.)  D-

7. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (2018 romance; Lily James is an accomplished London author who immerses herself in the secrets of a book club started during the World War II German occupation of an English Channel isle.) A-

8. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959 romance; a French actress, Emmanuelle Riva, has an affair with a married Japanese architect, Eiji Okada, while she is in Hiroshima to work on a post-war, peace-themed film.)  C+

9. Love Locks (2017 romance; New Yorker Rebecca Rominj accompanies daughter Jocelyn Hudon to Paris, where they unwittingly check into a hotel now owned by Rebecca's old college flame, Jerry O'Connell.)  B+

10. Tully (2017 drama; Charlize Theron is totally stressed out before and after giving birth to her third child, but things dramatically improve when a nighttime nanny, Mackenzie Davis, arrives.)  B

11. The Way We Were (1973 romance; Barbara Streisand, a left wing activist, and Robert Redford, an apolitical writer averse to stirring the pot, fall in love during their college days and proceed to have joy and heartbreak throughout the next decade.)  A-