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.
Screencaps courtesy of
Screenmusings.org
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