No Time to Die [2021)

Benito Que, Donald C. Wiley, Vladimir Pasechnik, Robert Schwartz, Set Van Nguyen, Vladimir Korshunov, and Ian Langford. Not to mention Air Sibir 1812 (shot down by Ukrainian SAM). Five microbiologists aboard. Israeli microbiologists? En route to Novosibirsk. Also not to mention Swissair crash on approach to Zurich. Died: head of hematology Ichilov Hospital (Israel). Died: directors of Tel Aviv Public Health Department and Hebrew University of Medicine. 33 passengers. 24 died. All Israelis aboard died. Possible names (pseudonyms?): Avishai Berkman, Amiram Eldor, and Yaacov Matzner.

https://www.fromthewilderness.net/free/ww3/02_14_02_microbio.html

Masaji Kitano.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaji_Kitano

Doctors of death.

Listen to the master, Dr. Steve Pieczenik, M.D., Ph.D., speak about this.

https://stevepieczenik.com/2021/08/09/opus-8821-doctors-of-death/

Yoshio Shinozuka.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshio_Shinozuka

Yasuji Kaneko.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuji_Kaneko

War criminals.

Ichirō Hatoyama (Japanese PM 1954-1956).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichir%C5%8D_Hatoyama

Nobusuke Kishi (Japanese PM 1957-1960).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi

Hayato Ikeda (Japanese PM 1960-1964).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayato_Ikeda

Three Japanese Prime Ministers.

Not indicted.

Please explain Trump’s position on the COVID vaccines.

General Otozō Yamada.

Sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp by the Soviets.

Served only seven years before being repatriated to Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoz%C5%8D_Yamada

General Shunji Sato (a physician).

Sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Served only seven years before being repatriated to Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunji_Sato

Bacteria mass production.

Under “epidemic prevention” and “water purification” euphemisms:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic_Prevention_and_Water_Purification_Department

Rami Malek character Lucifer (Lyutsifer).

Peter Daszak working for CIA?

Anthony Fauci covering for CIA?

Fauci covering for U.S. military?

Sticky situation.

Are the statements of Dr. Jon McGreevey (Ryan Dark White) legitimate?

I believe Lin Wood has thoroughly discredited himself by now with his incessant attacks on (particulary) General Michael Flynn.

But could Lin Wood’s whistleblower by bona fide?

He’s running for U.S. Senate in Maryland.

And then you have Ron Watkins (CodeMonkeyZ) running for U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona.

Might as well throw in Bobby Piton running for U.S. Senate in Illinois.

Per McGreevey:

he claims that COVID is a defensive bioweapon “designed to protect the United States” and also (most notably) that he himself designed it. According to McGreevey, it is called GenAegis (Genetic Shield). McGreevey elaborates on it a bit here…”a weapon designed to seek out certain DNA, programmable […] they can make endless variants”.

Sound familiar?

https://web.archive.org/web/20210725044535/https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1418973700108476420.html

McGreevey’s assertion is that Obama and Biden gave this bioweapon to China (who then converted it to an offensive bioweapon?).

It was (according to him) developed at Fort Detrick (Maryland).

How does this comport with USMC Major Joseph Murphy’s recent whistleblowing to Project Veritas?

Murphy claims that COVID was a vaccine FOR bats (which was to be administered in an aerosolized version by spraying it into caves in China), but that it leaked out of the Wuhan lab before it was finished.

Murphy’s main contention is that DARPA refused the project, but NIAID (which Fauci runs) then subsequently accepted the project.

The project was proposed to DARPA by the EcoHealth Alliance (run by Peter Daszak).

JAG_Docs_pt1_Og_WATERMARK_OVER_Redacted 2

This evidence was discovered by Murphy in his capacity at DARPA.

The evidence is now ostensibly being held by the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA) at Quantico.

Note that NCIS is also HQ at Quantico.

And of course there is FBI there as well.

[not to mention United States Army Criminal Investigation Command (USACID) and U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI or OSI)]

But let’s back up to NCIS for a moment.

Why does Ron DeSantis (Navy JAG) seem so much more wise than Donald Trump on the COVID vaccines in these last couple of months?

DeSantis has not gone full-retard like the man who should win the Nobel Peace Prize (Dr. Robert Malone), but DeSantis also hasn’t shot his mouth off like the buffoon Trump.

What happened to Trump?

Great President.

And then he broadcasts to the world that he got the Pfizer vaccine (while encouraging people to take these shots)?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-i-got-the-pfizer-125703879.html

And he casually drops his booster status after a crowd in Dallas gathered to hear him speak had just sung the Christian hymn “How Great Thou Art”? [sounds like Hochul’s church vaccine speech]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-played-conspiracy-theory-hits-024518810.html

And then Trump lies (?) to Candace Owens about people taking the vaccines not dying?

https://www.axios.com/trump-candace-owens-dying-vaccine-covid-92fd3eb3-f5ec-4167-8649-113903119de1.html

And finally, Trump makes what appears to be a pointed reference to DeSantis in which Trump insinuates that DeSantis is “gutless” for not revealing his booster status?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-roasts-gutless-desantis-for-keeping-his-booster-status-a-secret

Just what the hell has been going on with Donald Trump?!?

These outbursts have caused me to lose all faith in him.

I would take DeSantis (or Ron Paul, or Tucker Carlson, or Candace Owens, or Robert Malone, or RFK Jr. or almost anyone) over Trump at this point.

Trump has backed off the vaccine-pushing.

But I have to say: that is not good enough.

The man need only visit two websites to understand the danger of these vaccines:

the criminally-parsed version

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

-and-

the actual version

https://openvaers.com/covid-data/mortality

These figures (11,879 and 23,149 [respectively]) should be increased by a factor of 10 to account for the historical underreporting to the passive-surveillance (voluntary) VAERS system [HHS] of serious adverse events such as Kawasaki disease (i.e. 118,790 deaths or 231,490 deaths).

https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/underreporting-vaccine-adverse-events

And in case anyone wants to play the “correlation does not necessarily equal causation” card, consider this:

https://openvaers.com/covid-data

As for their efficacy…

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-covid-deaths-2021-vaccines-b1963790.html

And of course there is this gem about ethno-specific bioweapons:

https://www.wired.com/1998/11/israels-ethnic-weapon/

Are you starting to understand why China and Silicon Valley want your DNA?

This is a new kind of war where certain people will be purposefully made susceptible and others purposefully made nonsusceptible to bioweapons released on a massive scale.

Not to mention that the vaccines are debilitating the U.S. military (while SecDef Austin [a General] and CJCS Milley stand around with their dicks in their hands).

That’s treason!

They should have known.

And if they didn’t know, they’re still responsible.

The buck stops with them.

https://vimeo.com/533241402

Why the insane push for all of humanity to receive vaccines that are neither safe, nor effective?

And why is Trump’s “solidarity” with the Canadian truckers (Freedom Convoy) so at odds with his months of moronic statements regarding the vaccines?

Does he not realize that these people are rising up PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF THE VACCINES HE BROUGHT INTO THE WORLD?!?

Don’t forget that Trump’s Operation Warp Speed (of which he is evidently so proud [see Candace Owens article above]) ALSO PAID FOR THE AstraZenca VACCINE (WHICH IS NOT EVEN AVAILABLE AT ALL IN THE USA)!!!

[not to mention three others we funded that are also not available at all in the USA: Novavax, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline]

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219231756/https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explaining-operation-warp-speed/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford%E2%80%93AstraZeneca_COVID-19_vaccine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novavax_COVID-19_vaccine

It should be noted that there is not a Sanofi or GSK COVID vaccine approved anywhere in the world.

Where did those $2 billion dollars we gave them go?

While Sanofi and GSK took HHS (U.S. taxpayer) money and ran (producing nothing?), here are the other countries which have developed their own COVID vaccines:

–China (8 different vaccines [Sinopharm BIBP, CoronaVac, Convidecia, Sinopharm WIBP, Zifivax, Minhai, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Sinopharm CNBG])

–Russia (4 different vaccines [Sputnik V, Sputnik Light, EpiVacCorona, and CoviVac])

–Iran (4 different vaccines [COVIran Barekat, FAKHRAVAC, COVAX-19 {in conjunction with Australian company CinnaGen}, and Razi Cov Pars])

–India (3 different vaccines [Covaxin, ZyCoV-D, and Corbevax {developed by Texas Children’s Hospital < ! > and Baylor College of Medicine <Houston>}])

–Cuba (3 different vaccines [Abdala, Soberana 02, Soberana Plus])

–Turkey (Turkovac)

–Kazakhstan (QazCovid-in)

–Taiwan (Medigen)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_COVID-19_vaccine_authorizations

Why was a children’s hospital and medical school in Texas developing a COVID vaccine that is only available in India (licensed to Biological E. Limited [BioE])?

Who paid for it?

Where’s Rand Paul?

This is a huge waste of money.

The three vaccines we got (Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson [which were totally unnecessary to rush {considering the low mortality rate of COVID-19 <relative to ebola or smallpox, for instance>}]) are neither safe, nor effective.

If Trump knows the available vaccines in the USA aren’t safe (how could he not know?), then he is liable for the death and injury caused by his encouragement for people to take the vaccines.

State Department character based on Ash Carter?

State Department infiltrated by Rami Malek.

CIA is trusting a foreign agent.

Death of Felix Leiter.

Death of James Bond.

Is 007 now a black lesbian like mayor Lightfoot of Chicago and disgraced BLM cofounder Patrice Cullors?

Q is gay.

Houston recently had a white lesbian mayor [Annise Parker].

And what about black lesbian Karine Jean-Pierre (KJP [Psaki’s backup])?

Is this some kind of cult?

That’s a lot of black lesbians.

And one white lesbian.

Muriel Bowser (D.C. mayor)?

Donna Brazile?

Lashana Lynch is aptly named after androgynous Klaus Nomi.

Is 007 now a black transexual?

Spoiler alert: James Bond dies.

Is this the end of the series?

And the Bond franchise has to keep the diversity in high gear.

Who cast this movie: Richard Torres-Estrada?

Bishop Garrison?

Lloyd Austin?

Mark Milley?

Michael Gilday?

At least Ana de Armas is charming.

I can’t say the same about Lashana Lynch.

What the fuck is this woke shit?!?

Ian Fleming would be puking his guts out.

Assange in Belmarsh.

But let’s make sure we have the score here.

The one representative of the CIA (Felix Leiter): black male.

Miss Moneypenny: black female.

The new 007: black female.

What percentage of the U.K. is black?

3.3%.

Three percent.

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest

This is a British film.

Eon Productions Ltd.

Piccadilly (London).

Pinewood Studios.

But the film was also produced by MGM.

Beverly Hills.

Ok.

What percentage of the USA is black?

14.2%.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/

Ok.

So let’s look at the main characters.

Daniel Craig: British white male.

Léa Seydoux: French white female.

Rami Malek: Egyptian-American [African-American] male.

Lashana Lynch: British black female.

Ben Whishaw: British white male.

Naomie Harris: British black female.

Jeffrey Wright: African-American [black] male.

Christoph Waltz: Austrian-German white male.

Ralph Fiennes: British white male.

Billy Magnussen: American white male.

Ana De Armas: Cuban-Spanish female.

David Dencik: Danish-Swedish white male.

Rory Kinnear: British white male.

Dali Benssalah: French-Algerian male.

14 characters.

It’s nominally a British movie (although co-produced by American company MGM).

What percentage of the main cast is British?

6/14 (43%).

Less than half of the main cast is British.

What percentage of the main cast is American?

3/14 (21%).

That means 36% of the main cast is neither British, nor American.

Why?

Maybe the story called for it.

The evil guys have to be exotic.

Rami Malek (Egyptian heritage) and Christoph Waltz (Germanic).

Dencik (the biological weapons guy) is a Scandinavian playing a Russian.

Also a baddie.

What percentage of the main cast is white?

8/14 (57%).

The good guy (James Bond) is white.

But two of the three villains are also white.

The third main villain is of Egyptian descent.

What percentage of the main cast is male?

10/14 (71%).

It is an action movie.

Who goes to war?

Men?

Are women drafted into most militaries in the world?

Do they participate in combat roles?

How often?

What percentage of the main cast is white male?

7/14 (50%).

Let’s be honest.

The James Bond franchise cucked out to the looters and arsonists of BLM.

Eon and MGM kneeled in fealty to woke Hollywood.

Continuing.

What percentage of the main cast is black?

3/14 (21%).

This is the important number.

Britain is 3.3% black.

So blacks are WAY overrepresented in what is a British franchise.

But even if we figure in the American coproducer MGM, blacks are still overrepresented.

America is 14.2% black.

So blacks are even overrepresented here by 50% in relation to the American production company.

But here’s the other important part.

Of the top seven characters (as they are listed in the Wikipedia entry for this film [presumably based on screentime]), three are black.

3/7 (43% of the “stars” or leading roles in this film are played black people).

Compare that to the 3.3% British black population.

Or the 14.2% American black population.

This is an absurdly-high overrepresentation of black people!

For what?

Are 43% of box office returns in the USA because of black viewers?

I highly fucking doubt it.

And do the 3.3% of Britain who are black make up 43% of the viewership (i.e. revenue) there?

There is strictly no chance.

So this movie is a woke joke.

A woke disaster.

In terms of casting.

The worst is Lashana Lynch.

Not talented. Not charming. Completely ill-cast.

Jeffrey Wright is mediocre.

Nothing special.

The best is Naomie Harris.

SHE should have been the black, female 007 (if they were going to go that route).

For fucksake…she was a field agent in Skyfall.

Why the fuck did she get relegated to becoming M’s secretary?

She’s charming.

She’s capable.

Neither of which (in the acting sense) can be said about Lashana Lynch.

Lynch is most similar to Gloria Hendry in Live and Let Die.

At least Hendry was attractive.

Sexy.

And funny.

Or we could compare Lynch to another androgynous abomination: Trina Parks (Thumper) in Diamonds Are Forever.

Nothing like a flat-as-a-board, muscular black woman to get the heterosexual male fired up.

This is, again (after all), an action movie.

Who is the target audience?

Does the LGBTQ community really get into James Bond?

I don’t fucking think so.

At least Trump is right about this: “Everything woke turns to shit.”

There are disaster movies.

And then there are movies that are disasters.

This is the latter.

What a fucking woke piece of shit.

And who was responsible for this artistic abomination?

Bay Area failed-snowboarder, Japanese-American Cary Joji Fukunaga.

This dude was totally unqualified to shoot a Bond film.

And it shows.

What a fucking ripoff.

Don’t waste your money on this piece-of-shit film.

Danny Boyle (both excellent Trainspotting films) should have directed this movie.

It appears that Fukunaga not only killed James Bond, but killed the James Bond franchise as well.

Great job, fucktard!

Fuck you, you piece-of-shit, no-talent director.

-PD

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Conspiracy Theory [1997)

Great courage only manifests itself under conditions of great fear.

And Dr. Steve Pieczenik was right when he wrote recently that the conspiracy theorists have won.

And so it is worth revisiting where we have been.

Worth spicing up the espionage tank with a genuine slice of spookery.

No spoofs here.

Citizen detective reborn.

The Justice Department would do well to revisit this film.

Laughable Loretta Lynch.

And her feckless predecessor Eric Holder.

A travesty of justice. A mockery.

These two buffoons.

Enter Mel Gibson as the outcast.

Newspaper clippings.

A wizard with a highlighter.

Making copious connections. Connecting dots with more efficiency and efficacy than Saul Berenson’s wildest pragmatic dreams.

Because of inspiration. That spark. Banzai! Geronimo!!!

She has a dog in the fight.

America.

Back when the Twin Towers were still standing.

A horrible gift. To be able to see through the news.

To be able to “translate” it at a high level of accuracy.

Patrick Stewart is our Sidney Gottlieb.

And maybe the details are Hollywooded, but they are basically true.

McGill University. Perhaps he would have made a better Ewen Cameron.

A little Hannibal Lecter escape.

Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

The moment I first believed.

Amazing grace.

William Colby. DCI. Talking about the CIA’s heart attack gun.

The Church Committee. 1975.

But not all psychiatrists are bad.

Indeed, the most dangerous thing is when they change sides.

Or rather, when their “community” becomes so corrupt that the good guys become a de facto vestige of the original principles…operating outside of the official apparatus.

These would be the patriots like Dr. Pieczenik.

The brave man who called bullshit on the bin Laden “assassination”.

Described by Antoine Marfan in 1896.

You can’t kill a dead man.

But damage control is always as attractive as it is elusive.

And so slimed. Tagged. Made.

Conspiracy Theory is not a masterpiece, but it’s an essential film.

Because it comes back to love. Comes back to the real “why”.

We don’t need Simon Sinek or the RAND Corporation to tell us this.

We just need Mozart. And Alex Jones.

And we might look in vain for the man behind the curtain.

Because each man (or woman) leads to another man (or woman).

When you meet shameless liars, then you have found the stink.

And if you follow the stench, you get closer to the source of repugnance.

Moments of tenuous trust.

Knowing you’re dealing with actors.

Several layers of reality.

Mine. Yours.

But you’ve never seen her run!

Julia Roberts.

In a role of which to be proud.

Pretty Woman doesn’t matter.

Make a good film. Make a statement. Leave something timeless.

What is this counterintelligence organization?

And where was it when Snowden took a vacation?

We get a black site.

Remember when the FBI had to overcome armed DoE agents at Rocky Flats?

Just like the end of Spies Like Us.

Humor and dead-on detail.

Maybe you only live twice…

But you can do it silently for love.

Love of country.

Love of people.

Devotion to principles worth upholding.

A dirty business.

With some golden hearts here and there.

Well-done, Richard Donner.

-PD

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Skyfall [2012)

If you wait too long, you lose the impression.

I was way behind on trying to support my compatriots. It is not necessary to agree. What I champion is freedom of expression.

And so we try to remember the mood…the efficacy of cinema in the hands of Sam Mendes.

Perhaps the first “real” director to approach the Bond franchise after having had success beforehand.

Mendes will always have a place in my heart for his deft touch directing Thora Birch in American Beauty.

Fortunately we can look forward to a second contribution in the forthcoming Bond film Spectre.

But for now we have this.

What of it?

I should dispense with self-congratulatory pomp at this time rather than let it distract me.

Yes, I have now seen all of the Bond films from Eon Productions. You can access the reviews of all 23 pictures here on my site by clicking the Bond tab.

Now that we have that out of the way…

The first glaring bit of strategic signaling occurs when we learn that our MacGuffin is a hard drive.

Of course, it’s what’s on the hard drive which makes this worth mentioning.

NATO agents embedded in terrorist groups.

For anyone with a knowledge of Operation Gladio this brings up a troubling association.

To wit: the possibility that the organizations are controlled by NATO for cynical purposes.

This was, and continues to be, a fundamental aspect of geopolitics. False-flag terror.

Perhaps Mendes (or the writers of the film) knowingly left this bread crumb to add a quasi-credibility to what has often become a propagandistic series for the power elite.

Whatever the case may be, the opening sequence is generally good.

Let’s face it: it’s getting harder and harder after 23 films to have James Bond do something novel.

His seeming demise before the credits roll make us think of that horribly daft episode from the Connery days:

You Only Live Twice.

Ralph Fiennes is unlikable from the start, but we learn why as the film progresses.

Mendes does a nice job of faking us out on several occasions. We even suspect Bond as a terrorist briefly.

Another breadcrumb: the depleted uranium bullet fragments from Bond’s shoulder.

With this we are brought back to that stain upon U.S. military operations over the past 15 years.

Keeping in mind the research of Doug Rokke, we might again be seeing an attempt by the Bond franchise to relate with an increasingly informed viewer base.

Think on your sins?

Well, all cinematic sins are forgiven once director Mendes has occasion to mold and shape the lights of high-rise Shanghai into a sci-fi backdrop for good old fashion ass kicking.

Modigliani.

We are meant to associate the extra-terrestrial eyes with Bérénice Marlohe. Like the grey-eyed goddess Athena, we will later meet her in the shower (ohh-la-la!).

When all else fails in a film, have the location shift to Macau.

Indeed, the best dialogue comes between Daniel Craig and Mlle. Marlohe at the casino bar. It reminds us of that fleeting bit of verbal mastery aboard the train in Casino Royale when Craig and Eva Green took turns sizing each other up.

Enter Javier Bardem.

Bardem is certainly among the most convincing villains in the entire Bond pantheon. Something about that bleached-blond hair gives us a creepy feeling every time his character Raoul Silva is shown.

Bardem’s acting, particularly around the time of his character’s first appearance, is world-class.

Ben Whishaw does a fine job as the new Q (though we miss John Cleese and, of course, Desmond Llewelyn).

Credit Sam Mendes with a deft portrayal of the battle between old ways and new.

New is exemplified by the new Q: cyber-reliance.

Old is exemplified by the crusty James Bond: HUMINT.

This film almost telegraphs the Zeitgeist which would spawn Edward Snowden as global hero, but it casts such genius (>145 IQ) as the enemy in Bardem’s character.

[As a side note, I should like to add that Snowden’s story would have to be most ingenious cover ever if found to be inauthentic. Such iron-clad credibility no doubt came at a steep price for the NSA (see PRISM). Though farfetched, one never knows to what lengths the Western national security state will go next to try and salvage its tenuous hold on global hegemony. All things considered, his defection to the public side (in the interest of the general public) seems to be authentic and highly admirable.]

Skyfall becomes less successful when Bardem has Hannibal Lecter lighting cast upon him during the glass-cage treatment later in this film. This is an unimaginative bit of filmmaking beneath the level of director Mendes.

As trivial as it may seem, Mendes later redeems himself with a simple shot of approaching figures reflected in the chrome of a side-view mirror. It doesn’t hurt that the mirror in question is attached to an Aston Martin DB5.

Overall, the successes of this film should rightly be attributed to Sam Mendes. That said, this is not a masterpiece. It is a very good, yet flawed, film.

Here’s hoping Mendes knocks it out of the park with Spectre. Cheerio!

-PD

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The Spy Who Loved Me [1977)

I hate to be a downer, but this one just doesn’t cut it. It is as bad as You Only Live Twice. It even shares the same essential plot as that clunker. The common theme between these two films is the director: Lewis Gilbert. The sad conclusion is that Gilbert did not have the auteurist touch of Guy Hamilton or Terence Young.

At least there’s the ski jump (with Union Jack parachute). At least Jaws (Richard Kiel) is magnificently creepy. At least there is Barbara Bach (though her acting doesn’t register as highly as her physique). Curd Jürgens is a snoozer villain. Don Knotts might have been scarier.

Perhaps the best part of the movie is the song. It is genuinely great! “Nobody Does It Better” was written by Marvin Hamlisch and sung by Carly Simon. Sadly, it’s all down hill from the opening credits.

-PD

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The Return of the Pink Panther [1975)

From the start it is a pale imitation of Topkapi.

But the film is salvaged by upping the ridiculousness of Sellers’ French accent.

The grand premise is similar to Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief (1955), but the Pink Panther series had by 1975 lost that je ne sais quoi which made the first two films of the series minor masterpieces.

This film is really all about Sellers’ uncanny skill at impressions (and there are some good ones): the phone company man, the German-speaking housekeeper and even the Tony Clifton-esque playboy.

It is interesting to note that Sellers actually did have a residence in Gstaad (one of the principal settings for this film).

Also interesting to note is that Graham Stark (who had previously played Hercule LaJoy in A Shot In The Dark (1964), the second episode in the series) plays the role of Pepi. Pepi is actually the only other interesting character in this whole film. There is a sort of “Signor Ugarte meets Marty Feldman’s Igor” about his performance.

The direction at least has some interesting “psychedelic” moments (I’m thinking of the two slow-motion shots of Sellers flying through the air attempting an unsuccessful karate kick).

One thing is certain: Sellers had a comedic magic which even caused his fellow actors (Catherine Schell in this film) to visibly “crack up” during takes. The “corpsing” (as it is known) will be familiar to viewers of Saturday Night Live. Sellers really embodied the part (as any good purveyor of imitations would). When true comedic genius is present, it is often hard to find a Zeppo Marx.

But what I find most fascinating about this awful film (awful aside from Sellers) is that the director Blake Edwards had just three years previous made a fantastic drama starring James Coburn called The Carey Treatment (1972). Edwards was no slouch as a director. That then brings into question the underrated acting skills of Coburn (Derek Flint for spy-spoof enthusiasts).

With the immense talent of Sellers and the thorough competence of Edwards, I can only surmise that (like the Bond series beginning with You Only Live Twice (1967)) the series itself became a stale constraint due to pressure from above. The only real innovation allowed to happen was in the liberties Sellers took with the Clouseau character. The accent is more indecipherable, yet that becomes formulaic over the course of 114 minutes as the new gag is run into the ground. The imitations are creative and elaborate (almost like a playful take on Dr. Strangelove), but none of them seem particularly well thought-out. Somehow there was a disconnect between the talents of Sellers and Edwards. Had they been creating as one, this awfully good film might have been great.

-PD

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You Only Live Twice [1967)

And here we start to drift…

Sure…we finally see the face of the man petting the cat (Donald Pleasence as the archetype for what would become Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers series), but I can’t say I was overly impressed with the directing of Lewis Gilbert. In a series thus far dominated by the underrated Terence Young, even Guy Hamilton had turned in an admirable film with Goldfinger (1964), but You Only Live Twice might better have been allowed to only live once (or not at all).

When I saw Roald Dahl’s name in the opening credits, I was reassured. And I am always glad to see production designer Ken Adam’s name. But something is awry with this film. It is a bit of a limp fish (and not, sadly, fine sushi).

From the beginning (Bond’s burial at sea) the modern viewer might be thinking of another figure supposedly buried at sea: Osama bin Laden. Perhaps the two deaths are equally credible.

Karin Dor might have saved this movie, but sadly she is eaten a bit prematurely by piranhas. And while the piranhas fit with the methods of past Bond movies (sharks in Thunderball, for instance), there are some troubling details which make it clear the creators of this film might have been well-served to stick closer to Fleming’s novel than they did.

Bond flies a miniature helicopter to an island between Kobe and Shanghai: somewhere along an 829-mile-long route. Little Nellie (the chopper) could hardly have made it much outside of the bay before running out of fuel, but with all the gadgetry on board we might just suspend our disbelief. Perhaps it is even Tokyo from whence Little Nellie departs: an even greater haul. It really isn’t made very clear (or else I missed it). Maybe “Tiger” Tanaka had a base close to Blofeld’s island that I failed to register.

Karin Dor’s (Helga Brandt–#11 in S.P.E.C.T.R.E.) abrupt reversal from sleeping with Bond to disposing of him by parachuting from a plane in which she traps him really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why didn’t she just go ahead and use the plastic surgery tool in the first place? Her interrogation is weak. For what it’s worth, her threat of torture only got half the truth: Bond admitting to being a spy (but an industrial spy after a measly $300,000).

At least the scene in the autogyro is somewhat entertaining, but nothing compared to the underwater battle in Thunderball. Seems the Eon franchise was running a bit thin on ideas by this point. Mercifully, the scenery of Japan is nice (the wedding, the passing funeral, etc.).

The overall premise of the movie is good. It is believable. It is only the execution and the details which mar what could have otherwise been another classic in this series. The ninjas are a bit funny, but when in Tokyo (as they say)… Perhaps the funniest part is Connery as a Japanese man (by way of Lon Chaney methods).

Kissy Suzuki takes the prize as the best name. Score another for the Bond girls in the “memorable name” category. But part of the confusion is that there are three possible Bond girls: one who dies by poison, one who is promising (and pleasing to the eye) until stripped to the bone by omnivorous fish, and Kissy. It’s typical of a movie which doesn’t seem to know exactly what it wants to be. It is formulaic, but that didn’t stop the first four Eon-produced Bond movies from being generally fantastic. The error comes in tentative experimentation, not enough experimentation, and the setting-in of creative lethargy as regards the Bond series’ “tricks.”

No doubt, for 1967 this was some ambitious filmmaking. Ken Adam did a reasonably good job of trying to take the series to the next level with his set design, but the overall product is just not convincing. Truth be told, Adam and the main persons responsible for this film could have all died aboard BOAC Flight 911 had they not been convinced to stay in Japan on the scouting trip a bit longer and watch some ninjas. Perhaps having the ninjas in the film was a bit of thanks for the disaster they narrowly escaped. All on board the flight they were scheduled to take died when it crashed 25 minutes after takeoff.

Roald Dahl (whose name I mentioned earlier) wrote the screenplay. He had been a close friend of Ian Fleming. Despite their friendship, Dahl considered the novel upon which the movie was based to be Fleming’s worst. Indeed, Dahl resorted (due to apparent lack of plot in the novel) to aping Dr. No to a significant extent. Dahl was, however, quite complimentary of director Lewis Gilbert. Perhaps the deck was just really stacked against the auteur in question.

There’s no doubt that great effort went into making this film. A cameraman (John Jordan) lost his foot, for God’s sake! No, the dearth wasn’t in physical “energy,” but in mental excitement.

Editor Peter Hunt went on to direct the next Bond film (due to his successful sorting and sifting of the footage from this gargantuan blob).

At least the title song is great (thanks to Nancy Sinatra).

-PD

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paulydeathwish

musician and film critic

Tag Archives: You Only Live Twice

No Time to Die [2021)

Conspiracy Theory [1997)

Skyfall [2012)

The Spy Who Loved Me [1977)

The Return of the Pink Panther [1975)

You Only Live Twice [1967)