October 3, 2006

On Her Majesty's Secret Service, part two

When Bond arrives at Countess Teresa di Vicenzo's room to receive "payment" for saving her from drowning herself (in the ocean and in the casino), instead of finding her, he encounters a large man who puts a different set of moves on him.

He finds the Countess in of all places, his room.

Bond: You're full of surprises, Contessa.

As you can see, she is also armed. And I'm not referring to Bond's Walther PPK.

Tracy: So are you, Mr. Bond. Do you always arm yourself for a rendezvous?
Bond: Occasionally. I'm seem to be accident prone.

Mere screen caps couldn't capture all that is contained in the following fifty-four seconds of movie. Ladies and gentlemen, Bond as Ian Fleming intended:
In that clip, we hear (for the first time in the film) the melody to what is essentially the love theme in OHMSS, "We Have All the Time in the World." If you click on the link, you'll hear Louis Armstrong's recording of the song.

The next day, Bond is forcefully taken to meet the Countess's father, Draco, who also knows the whereabouts of the man Bond has spent two years chasing after, the head of SPECTRE (the evil terrorist organization), Blofeld. As Bond is being led to a "meeting" with Draco, we hear this midget janitor whistling the theme to Goldfinger:
Bond displays his amazing knife-throwing prowess:


Draco: But today is the 13th, Commander.
Bond: I'm superstitious.
Draco: A martini for our guest. Shaken, not stirred.

Draco will give Bond the location of Blofeld if he will agree to marry Countess Teresa.Bond: I find her fascinating, but she needs a psychiatrist, not me.
Draco: What she needs is a man to dominate her. To make love to her enough to make her love him.

With the knowledge of the location of Blofeld (again, what 007 has been trying to obtain for two years), he heads for the M16 (British Secret Service). We are treated to some classic banter between Bond and Moneypenny:

Moneypenny: James! Where have you been?
Bond: Much too far from you, darling.
Moneypenny: Same old James (he grabs her derriere), only more so. Heartless brute. Letting me pine away without a postcard.

Bond: (whispering) Cocktails at my place...eightish. Just the two of us...
Moneypenny: Oh, I'd adore that. If only I could trust myself.
Bond: (speaking at above normal room level) Same ol' Moneypenny. Britain's first line of defense.

Bond goes in to meet with M, only to find that the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (M) has decided to pull Bond off of the search for Blofeld, because he's been at it for two years. Bond writes a letter of resignation and cleans out his desk. This provides the makers of OHMSS yet another opportunity to "celebrate" the previous Bond films, and perhaps get moviegoers not to notice a new chap is playing Bond (not bloody likely). I love this (first is "Under The Mango Tree" from Dr. No, then the themes From Russia with Love and Thunderball):

That's all for now!

1 comment:

Chris said...

Oooh, I recognize the icon!

It's not so much that it's fantastic as you are nice for saying so.