Bahamian Rhapsody (Thunderball, 1965)

Of all the Bond films, Thunderball is one of the most significant. Not only was is very successful financially, but also because of certain… issues surrounding it.

Essentially, what happened was this: while Ian Fleming was still alive, and writing the Bond novels, plans were made to produce a Bond film. Fleming, along with a couple of other guys, put together a script. Ultimately, the film idea fell through, and the script was abandoned. Later, Fleming adapted said script into his next novel – Thunderball. He saw no problem with this, since he owned the character. However, one of the men he worked with – Kevin McClory – began to kick up a fuss about how he had come up with some of the characters and plot elements, and so technically owned them. Most significantly, he laid claim to the creation of SPECTRE and Ernst Stavro Blofeld. This created legal problems when the film was made by EON, legal problems that would plague the series for a long time to come. I won’t get into it here, since this is about the film itself, not the problems surrounding it, but if you are interested in learning more about these issues, you can read further details here.

 Anyways, enough of that stuff, onto the film proper. As I said, the film made a huge amount of money. One of the likely reasons for this (apart from following on the heels of the insanely popular Goldfinger) was the special effects. The film makes heavy use of underwater filming. Now, that’s nothing special these days, but back then, it was a new and amazing technology. The filmmakers had the budget, and wanted to show off with it. Thus, they opted for one of the most water-centric storylines: Thunderball.

The result is that there are a lot of underwater scenes. And the thing about water is, people tend to move very slowly in it. Unfortunately, this means that sections of the film move at a glacial pace. However, to the 1965 audience, they didn’t care – they were wowed by the awesome special effects, and as a result, the film raked in a vast amount of money.

So basically, it was the Avatar of its day.

But enough preamble, let’s go!

After the gun barrel (the first actually featuring Sean Connery) we open on a coffin with the initials JB. What? Surely we can’t start the film with Bond already dead!?

Of course not! Bond is alive and well, spying on the funeral with a French female agent (of course). Bond and the female agent are discussing the man in the coffin, one Colonel Jacques Bouvar, who had murdered two of Bond’s colleagues. Bond was tracking him down, hopefully to kill him, when Bouvar apparently died in his sleep, leaving Bond disappointed.

Bond and the agent spy on the widow, who walks out of the church and up to a car. She opens the door, gets in, and the car drives off. Something isn’t right here…

The widow returns home, and is surprised to see Bond sitting in a chair by the fire. He tells her he’s come “to offer his condolences”.

He then promptly punches the grieving widow in the face.

What the hell Bond?! This is how you show sympathy?

However, all is not as it seems: Bond addresses the woman as Colonel Bouvar and, after a short struggle, rips off the veil to reveal that it is indeed the allegedly dead Colonel.

Okay, faking your death to get Bond off your back, I can understand that. But was it really necessary to dress up as the widow and attend the funeral? I dunno, maybe Bouvar just likes dressing up as old women. Oh, and the clue that let Bond figure it out? “She” opened the car door herself, instead of waiting for someone else to do it!

A fight ensues. It’s a pretty brutal one, made only slightly ridiculous by the fact that one of the men is wearing tights and high heels. Bouvar eventually grabs a poker and whacks Bond with it.

Bond turns the tables, though, and strangles Bouvar with the poker, avenging his dead colleagues in the process. Bouvar’s thugs begin hammering on the door, so Bond makes himself scarce – but not before thoughtfully tossing some flowers onto the body.

Bond runs outside, but he’s on the roof of the building! How will he get down?

Worry not, as Bond dons a… helmet? What are you planning, Bond?

He… he has a jetpack…

That was his escape plan. A jetpack. Which he had stored on the roof in advance. So his plan was “punch widow, jetpack away”. Ok then.

Bond lands outside the grounds of the mansion, next to the French agent in his Aston Martin. He then casually tosses the no doubt very expensive – and probably blazing hot – jetpack into the boot of his equally expensive car.

Bad guys exit the house and begin shooting. Bond and the agent hurry into the Aston. The car, mistakenly thinking it’s in a horror film, refuses to start, so Bond activates the rear bulletproof screen. And then, as the agents get nearer, he uses a new feature: high-pressure jets of water shoot out the back of the car and knock the thugs to the ground.

And as the water sprays over the camera, we segue into the awesomeness that is Tom Jones.

Hells yes. That man has one hell of a powerful voice – so powerful, in fact, that he reportedly passed out after singing that final note. Also, these are the first titles designed by Maurice Binder, and it established what would become the standard for those following: naked ladies (usually in silhouette) dancing or otherwise gyrating across imagery that relates to the film (in this case, underwater). And it is awesome.

After the credits, we open on a street in Paris.A car pulls up and a man gets out. A traffic attendant rushes over and tells him he’s not allowed to park there. However, when he sees who it is, he immediately apologises, calling him “Monsieur Largo”. Largo ignores him and strides across the street to a building with a sign out front:

It’s supposed to be a charity for helping displaced individuals, but all is not as it seems. Largo heads into the back of the building.

He activates a secret switch. He passes through a hidden doorway and into a large room, where some sort of board meeting is taking place. But not just any board meeting. The man at the head of the table, who keeps his face hidden, is Ernst Stavro Blofeld. This is SPECTRE.

Blofeld, addressing Largo as Number Two, invites him to sit down. They appear to be having their AGM. They go through the business, putting in apologies for Jaques Bouvar (who is excused on account of being dead) and put in their financial reports (mostly based off extortion). Blofeld, blazing the way for countless villains after him, also randomly executes a henchman who failed him via electrocution. While this unsettles most of the members sitting at the table, Largo is unruffled.

Blofeld now calls on Largo to explain their latest plan. He does so, saying that their goal is to extort £100 million from NATO. Their plan has something to do with a detox clinic in England, called Shrublands. Their agent Count Lippe is there, ready to act.

Cut to Shrublands. Count Lippe is there, and meets another patient, a Mr James Bond.

Of course, it goes without saying that Bond is receiving a massage from a pretty blond girl at the time. Her name is Patricia Fearing, and she’s supposed to be a nurse. But apparently this is a nurse in the “Hello, Nurse!” sense, rather that actually being a trained medical professional, as she spends approximately all her time onscreen being chatted up by/having sex with Bond.

Anyways, Bond exchanges pleasantries with Lippe, and spots a curious tattoo on his arm: a red square with a spike through it. Lippe, realising that Bond has seen it, quickly covers it up. Bond is suspicious.

He calls Moneypenny on a payphone and asks her to investigate. Moneypenny is less interested in fact checking, and more interested in flirting. Bond, meanwhile, spots Lippe heading off in his car. He goes quiet for a moment, causing Moneypenny to ask if he’s fainted. Which is a pretty stupid question, since if he had fainted, he could hardly say “yes”.

Knowing that Lippe is away from the clinic, Bond takes this opportunity to search his room. Bear in mind that at this point, all Bond has to go on is that the guy covered his tattoo. According to Bond, that is enough to warrant breaking into his room and going through his stuff.

While he is in the room, a most curious thing occurs. The connecting door to the next room starts to open. Bond hides behind it, and someone pokes their head in for a look. Bizarrely, this person has their entire head covered in bandages.

How very strange. Before the figure can enter the room and see Bond, he is startled by a phone ringing and flees. Bond decides to leave as well, pausing to steal a grape on the way out. The monster!

Later, Bond pops into Patricia’s office for an examination. She orders him to disrobe, which Bond is more than accustomed to, and begins examining his body. Bond, needless to say, takes the contact as permission to grab her and forcibly kiss her. Still not past the rapey period, apparently.

To her credit, Patricia manages to resist. She decides, for her own protection, to strap Bond to a rather terrifying machine.

It’s called The Rack (an unofficial title, one assumes) and it stretches the spine. It does this by causing the patient to make constant humping motions. Nothing new for Bond then. If humping stretches your back, no wonder Bond is so tall.

Bond, presumably resisting the urge to make a joke about Patricia’s “rack”, asks about the man in the room next to Count Lippe, reasoning that he might have been the bandaged man. Patricia doesn’t know much, but she knows that his name is Mr Angelo. She leaves Bond to the mercy of The Rack.

Shortly after she leaves, someone else enters. Bond only sees their arm, and on the arm is a tattoo.

It’s Lippe. He turns the machine up to full power and cheerfully says goodbye to Bond. The machine goes out of control, increasing the humping speed to dangerous levels. Bond looks like he’s in pain; although knowing him, it could equally be interpreted as him approaching orgasm.

Bond, exhausted from all the humping, passes out. Again, nothing out of the ordinary for him. He revives when Patricia rushes in and switches it off. He is clearly rather shaken by the ordeal.

Not shaken enough to blackmail a woman into having sex with him, though. Which he totally does. He implies that it’s Patricia’s fault the machine went out of control, and that he’ll report her to her superiors (potentially causing her to lose her job) unless she gets it on with him in the steam room. Well, it’s a step up from outright raping a woman. Now he only tricks them into shagging him instead. Progress!

After getting steamy, Bond goes to have a relaxing steam bath. However, he sees Lippe doing the same thing. Deciding on some petty revenge, Bond turns the heat in the bath up to full and traps Lippe in it. He then leaves as Lippe begins to scream.

Cut to later, and Bond is giving a naked Patricia a massage with a mink glove. Well, what were you expecting?

Elsewhere in the clinic, something is going down. We see a man called Major Derval busy romancing a redhead. Is there anyone at this clinic who isn’t a sex machine? Apart from Lippe, of course.

The phone rings. The redhead answers, identifying herself as Derval’s secretary. Yeah right. The person on the phone asks to speak to Angelo. The redhead informs them they have the wrong number, and gets back to getting it on with Derval. Alas, they are interrupted again: Derval’s car has arrived.

He gets dressed in his uniform. He’s a Major in the air force, and is heading off to a nearby air base. Hmm. Ready to leave, he opens the door to see:

Good God! A clone! Not only does he look exactly like Derval, he’s even wearing the same uniform!

The clone gasses Derval, killing him. Lippe and the clone enter the room. The redhead is evidently part of this plan as well. While Lippe attends to the body, she identifies the clone as Angelo, and hands him a few items: an oxygen mask and a canister of nerve gas. She also hands him an envelope with his payment. Angelo, having never seen a Bond film before, demands more money. I bet this goes well for him.

He also mentions that he has had extensive plastic surgery and voice lessons to become a perfect imitation of Derval. Lippe hands him Derval’s watch and ID tags, and Angelo heads off in Derval’s place. The redhead and Lippe begin wrapping Derval’s body in bandages.

In the guise of Derval, Angelo successfully infiltrates the air base. “Derval” will be onboard a jet armed with a couple of nuclear warheads. Uh oh. He boards the plane and away they go.

So a SPECTRE agent, in possession of a canister of deadly gas, is onboard a plane armed with nuclear warheads.

This can’t possibly be a good thing.

PART TWO

Screencaps courtesy of Screenmusings.org

The Domino Effect (Thunderball, 1965)

As Angelo takes off in the plane, the noise of it irritates Patricia, who is still getting her massage. Bond goes to close the window, and sees an ambulance pull up. Lippe gets out and a couple of cronies carry a body into the clinic.

Bond is curious, so he investigates. He finds the body, wrapped in bandages. He undoes said bandages to reveal Derval.

Up in the air, the Vulcan carrying Angelo and its deadly payload flies through the air. Angelo is invited to sit in the front seat (oh goody!) and does so. Time to enact his plan. Fitting the O2 mask onto his face, he uses the nerve gas to kill the other crewmen. He seizes control of the plane. Angelo probably doesn’t have much expertise in flying a military jet, but he doesn’t have to. He pushes the jet into a nosedive.

As the plane comes down low over the sea, we see a yacht waiting. Largo is onboard. He orders that underwater landing lights be activated, and watches as the Vulcan crashes into the sea and sinks.

Time for the next stage of the plan. Largo and his men don SCUBA gear and swim out to the sunken plane. Angelo, meanwhile, is struggling to free himself from the plane. It seems his seatbelt is stuck. Largo swims up. Angelo indicates he needs help. Largo instead severs Angelo’s O2 mask, leaving him to drown. That’s what you get for asking for more money! Of course, it is entirely possible that Largo fully intended to kill Angelo anyway, so Angelo was screwed either way.

Largo’s men retrieve the nukes from the plane. They then cover the Vulcan in a seaweed-laden net, hiding it from view. Now only the sharks know it’s there.

Largo gets back on board his yacht and makes sure the warheads are stowed safely. Then, with their lethal cargo, they head off. Largo calls Blofeld to confirm the acquisition of the nukes. Blofeld is pleased, although he also is pissed off that Lippe’s bumbling about and getting Bond involved may have jeopardised the operation. Like any sane, rational boss, Blofeld orders for Lippe to be executed.

Back at Shrublands, Bond is checking out. He gets in the Aston Martin and drives off. Lippe, deciding to make up for his previous failings by killing Bond, pursues and begins taking pot-shots at Bond. Just then, a motorbike, its rider’s face hidden by a helmet, comes up behind them. To Bond’s surprise, a rocket shoots out of the motorbike and causes Lippe’s car to explode. SPECTRE agents apparently do not go in for subtly. When the order comes to execute someone, they don’t bother with poison or a silenced weapon, instead opting to explode the shit out of their target. Well, it’s certainly effective.

As Lippe’s body roasts in the flaming wreck, the motorbike zooms off. Bond, clearly confused by what just happened, doesn’t think to follow.

The bike pulls up beside a lake, where the rider disposes of the bike. The rider then removes the helmet to reveal:

This redhead, it seems, is not just a pretty face.

Back in London, Bond enters M’s office as usual. However, Moneypenny tells him that the meeting is being held in the conference room, and that every 00 agent in Europe is present. Bond goes to the very elaborate hall and takes his seat, while M glares at him for being late.

Note that Bond sits in chair number seven, so we can assume that 00 agents are arranged by their number. This is the only time in the series we see all the 00 agents together, although we will be hearing about several of them from time to time.

M explains the situation. SPECTRE are demanding £100 million, or else they will use the nuclear warheads to destroy a major city. These days, the whole “holding the world to ransom with a nuclear bomb” has become the most clichéd villain scheme ever. At the time, however, this hadn’t been done before. Ian Fleming’s suggestion that nuclear weapons could be used as tools of extortion was ground-breaking. So basically, Fleming popularised nuclear terrorism. Wow, thanks.

The government has decided that they’ll have to pay up… unless someone can recover the warheads. They have worked out, based on the range of the Vulcan, all the potential places they could be hiding. All the MI6 agents have been provided with folders containing the details of the assignments. They’re going to be dispatched all over the world to search for the bombs. The codename for this operation: Thunderball. Hey, that’s like the title of the film!

Bond’s assignment is to go to Canada, but he has other ideas. The folder contained information on all the airmen on the Vulcan, and he’s spotted a face he recognises: Derval. Even though Derval was apparently on board the Vulcan, Bond saw his body in Shrublands when he was allegedly flying over the Atlantic.

There’s a girl in the photo with Derval. The information states that this is Dominique Derval, Derval’s sister. She resides in Nassau. Bond tries to persuade M to send his there instead. M asks if he wants to go because of his love of watersports. I really hope he doesn’t mean in the modern sense.

M knows that Bond just wants to go after the pretty girl, but it’s a still a better lead than anything else they have. He agrees to let Bond pursue the innocent young lady. To the Bahamas!

The film gets stuck into showcasing the underwater scenery immediately. A girl in a black swimsuit is hitching a ride on a large turtle, while Bond floats nearby. She pauses to collect a starfish, and in doing so gets her foot wedged in some coral. She panics, but Bond seizes the opportunity to rush to the rescue. He frees her and they float to the surface together.

It’s the girl from the photo: Dominique, Major Derval’s sister. Bond wastes no time as usual. With his first sentence, he introduces himself and immediately begins flirting. Dominique is at least somewhat receptive to this, and awards him her starfish as a reward (not a euphemism, the actual starfish she found on the sea bed, so get your minds out of the gutter).

Bond swims over to his own boat. He has another agent working with him, and if you assumed that it’s a sexy lady in a bikini, well:

Of course it is. Outside Felix Leiter, about 90% of the agents Bond works with just happen to be sexy ladies. In spite of appearances, though, Paula Caplan is a pretty competent agent. She and Bond pretend to be unable to start their boat, and Bond asks Dominique if she’ll give him a lift. She agrees and Bond leaves Paula floating in the middle of the ocean so he can seduce the girl. She doesn’t seem to mind, though.

They arrive on a crowded beach. Bond instantly proposes having lunch by the pool, and Dominique accepts. As they head off, two sinister men watch them go. Neither appears to be connected to the other.

Bond and the girl sit down for lunch, and make chitchat. Dominique is fully aware that he’s trying to seduce him, and plays along. She spots one of the two men watching them and reveals that she is kept under constant supervision. She has a “guardian” who likes to know where she is at all times. She seems slightly resentful of this fact.

A horn sounds in the distance. A yacht has arrived. Specifically, Largo’s yacht. Dominique excuses herself, telling Bond that her guardian has arrived. Putting two and two together, that means that Largo is her guardian. Bond asks if he can meet him. She refuses, and also turns down a dinner invitation. To which, Bond says:

BOND: “My dear uncooperative Domino…”

DOMINO: “How do you know that? How do you know my friends call me Domino?”

BOND: “It’s on the bracelet on your ankle.”

DOMINO: “So, what sharp little eyes you’ve got.”

BOND: “Wait till you get to my teeth.”

Skip ahead to night-time. A very swanky party is going on, and Bond is swanning around in his tuxedo as expected. He wanders into a casino.

Largo is at the table, accompanied by Domino. Bond makes himself known, causing Domino to look surprised. He joins the game and, being Bond, immediately wins a hand against Largo.

LARGO: “Well, someone has to lose.”

BOND: “Yes, I thought I saw a “spectre” at your shoulder.”

LARGO: [pause] “What do you mean?”

BOND: “The spectre of defeat. That your luck was due to change.”

LARGO: “We’ll soon find out.”

This scene is brilliant because, as soon as Bond introduces himself, Largo immediately knows who he is. I suspect the subject of Bond comes up frequently at SPECTRE board meetings. So both men know exactly who the other is, and do not hesitate to let the other know this. But they do it while playing cards, in front of a large group of people. Everything is doublespeak and hints. It’s a great scene.

Bond, naturally, wins again. At this point, Domino wants to go and get a drink, but Largo refuses to leave the table until he has won his money back. Bond offers to buy her a drink instead, with Largo’s permission of course. Largo accepts.

By “drink”, Bond apparently meant dinner, as he and Domino sit down to an elaborate meal, champagne and caviar included. Bond asks her about her relationship with Largo. She describes herself as his “kept woman”. So she’s his mistress.

She happens to mention her brother, François. Bond looks uncomfortable for a moment, wondering whether to share the news of his death. Domino changes the subject, however, and asks to dance.

As they dance, she talks more about François. She clearly thinks the world of her brother. Knowing that he’s been killed would devastate her, so Bond instead asks for more information about Largo. As if on cue, said eyepatched personage arrives. Bond quickly finds out from Domino that she and Largo will be sleeping onboard his yacht, and that they will be leaving the Bahamas is two days. That fits in with the schedule SPECTRE announced for the bombs. Now Bond has enough reason to suspect that Largo is involved.

Largo, of course, is no idiot. He wants to keep his eye on Bond, and invites him to lunch at Palmyra, his villa. Bond agrees. Largo departs with Domino, questioning her about Bond.

Bond returns to his hotel room. Last time, he used a hair and some talcum powder to determine if someone had been snooping. This time, he has something slightly more sophisticated:

It’s a tape recorder hidden inside a book. Hey, Bond invented the audiobook! Listening to it, he discovers that someone has indeed been in his room – and that they’re still there. Whoever it is must be hiding in the bathroom.

Just then, there’s a knock at the door. Bond opens to reveal a guy in shades (who, unknown to Bond, had been watching him earlier). The guy says, “Well, hello, double-oh-s…” when Bond punches him in the stomach. He pulls the guy into the room and tells him to keep quiet. He then goes to the bathroom and flushes the sneak out.

At this point, we find out who the guy in the shades is. It’s yet another incarnation of Felix Leiter, one of the better ones.

Bond grabs the sneak (an underling called Quist) and tells him to make sure Largo knows what happened. He then tosses him out of the room. Bond pours himself and Felix a drink.

Quist arrives at Palmyra. He meets Largo beside a pool. But not just any pool:

Largo starts a proud tradition for villains by having a literal shark pool in his villa. Largo asks Quist about Bond, and quickly deduces that Quist has failed him. Taking a cue from his own boss, Largo then has Quist tossed into the shark pool. The rest of Largo’s mooks look on as the water turns red.

Back in town, Bond and Leiter meet up with Paula and Pinder, a local agent. Pinder takes them to the MI6 safehouse, where a familiar face is waiting for Bond:

It’s Q! Rather than being stuck in his lab back in London, he’s made the trip to the Bahamas to give Bond his gadgets. This time, we have: a Geiger counter watch; a camera that is both waterproof and infrared, meaning it can take pictures in the dark underwater; a miniature flare gun; and this:

It’s called a rebreather, and provides an emergency air supply underwater, while being small enough to be kept in your pocket. Such was the ingenuity of this gadget, that in real life, the military expressed interest, asking how the filmmakers had developed it. They were dismayed to be told that it was in fact a fictional gadget that didn’t work in real life. Oh well.

Q also provides Bond with a “harmless” radioactive pill. Bond looks confused as to how “harmless” and “radioactive” can be in the same sentence, but Q insists it’s safe. If Bond swallows the pill, he’ll turn himself into a temporary GPS signal, allowing MI6 to find him. Bond does not look enthused about this gadget.

Bond and Leiter make plans to spy on Largo’s yacht. Meanwhile, back in London, SPECTRE issue their demands regarding how the ransom must be paid. The government is of the opinion they should pay up, but M has faith in Bond.

But will Bond come through for him?

PART THREE

Screencaps courtesy of Screenmusings.org