Why THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is the Greatest Bond Movie | Video Essay

and the power from that people have enough problems in the world without going and seeing them on the screen it's better they should Escape From The Hum drum normal existence into the world of fantasy and relax that's what entertainment means the Greek theater meant to transport the audience to the gods which Glendon meant to let them see heaven which is another way of saying take oneself out of oneself in this video I want to go back to basics see the first video I ever made on this channel looked at how to make a good James Bond movie and since then 007 has been a regular guest star in my videos but there is a glaring emission in my bond coverage that I am hoping I can put right Roger Moore's record seven film tenure in the role can be the subject of only sometimes Justified mockery and while I have been guilty of criticizing some of his more ludicrous moments in the past I still absolutely love his take on Bond and it is one I have come to appreciate even more as time goes on and so as I slowly but surely work my way through the bond Pantheon and in honor of 007's 60th anniversary best month I want to talk about Roger Moore and one of if not the greatest James Bond movie of them all that's right this is a video essay about the Spy if you loved me and this one is for all of you who have been badgering me to make more Bond content it's taken a while but it's finally here and it is by far the longest video I've ever done because well I love this film and I have a lot to say about it and so if you want to support me making even more Bond videos then you can do that simply by turning that red button gray and with that out of the way let's get into the review yes I'll put our best man on it at once never was the phrase Nobody Does it Better more aptly applied to a James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me is among the most exotic glamorous globetrotting action-heavy stunt Laden and entertaining movies in the series it has it all Barbara back the car that becomes a submarine claws Barbara back the parachute jump Egypt Italy Scotland Ken Adams sets Barbara back and of course the one and only sir Roger Moore at his finest it's not surprising that if you ask pretty much any bond fan for their rankings the spy who loved me is going to be in the top three but this is more than just a massively entertaining spy movie I argue that it is the single most important movie in the entire bond series because it is the movie that saved the series and planted the siege that would allow it to continue to thrive for another 45 years and counting so before we do a deep dive into the movie itself let's put the film in its historical context because to be honest it's a bit of a miracle this movie even got made in the first place see it's hard to believe now but when the spy who loved me came out in 1977 the James Bond series was in a bad way since Sean Connery left the role and came back then left again the future of James Bond on the big screen was in considerable doubt and had been for several years Eon Productions were in many ways a victim of their own success no one had ever expected bombs to be as big as it was I mean doctor no only cost a million dollars to make but through these films they had inadvertently created a cultural and cinematic icon one that was firmly linked to Sean Connery himself so when Connery made it clear he was leaving the role for good Eon faced two questions do we hang up our hats and retie the series altogether or do we try again to replace Sean Connery after all their first attempt to replace him had not really worked although it is highly regarded now on Her Majesty's Secret Service was a bit of a flop at least by Bond standards George lazenby's performance as the character wasn't well received by audiences at the the time and there was no guarantee that they would warm to another fella and at first they didn't Roger Moore's first two outings as James Bond again were met with middling reviews and in the case of The Man with the Golden Gun a very underwhelming box office return they were far from the bond Mania Glory Days of Goldfinger and Thunderball and it seemed that after a decade audiences were losing interest in bond especially now that its iconic leading man had left and so as Eon geared up to make the 10th Bond movie it was a Do or Die moment if this movie didn't succeed that would be the end of James Bond on film the pressure was on for the spy who loved me to deliver and deliver big not only did it have to rekindle audiences enthusiasm for bond in general more importantly it had to cement Roger Moore as the definitive James Bond this is familiar to us now of course every 10 years or so the bond series has to quote unquote reinvent itself to stay modern and relevant but there's a first time for everything and this was the first time Eon actually had to do this because even though Roger Moore had already had two outings as James Bond at this point he was still very tempered by the legacy of Sean Connery the entire bond series was still stuck trying to follow the formula that had made Connery's films so popular breaking away from this formula ended up being the key to the success of the Spy he loved me but as we'll see later that was easier said than done so before we get into how it did it we still haven't finished with all the reasons James Bond was in trouble in the 1970s because the problems went far beyond the Fallout of Sean Connery's departure Harry Saltzman one of the two producers who made the bond series what it was fell into debt and had to sell his share of the rights the company did go into a sign of liquidation a Hiatus it could not actually produce the James Bond film and after much Much Ado we won Harry unfortunately lost his shares and therefore was out of the company but Eon had simply traded one problem for another because now they needed a director originally Bond staple guy Hamilton was all lined up to direct but he left the project to work on Superman spoiler alert he was eventually replaced on that too but this still left the Spy he loved me without a director funnily enough Eon actually turned down an offer from Steven Spielberg to direct but if you want to know what a Spielberg Bond movie would look like then watch Raiders of the Lost Ark see for Eon this was too big of a project to risk on an unknown director and so they wanted someone with Bond experience to lead it with guy Hamilton off the project that left them with very few other choices the obvious backup would have been Peter hunt the ohmss director who had also worked with Roger Moore on the persuaders TV show but hunt declined the offer preferring to work on other things so surely the next logical choice would be Terence Young the man who directed Bond's first two Adventures as well as Thunderball which if you adjust for inflation is still the second highest grossing James Bond film of all time surely he would be the Natural Choice to reinvent Bond well it's unclear whether or not he was ever formally offered the job but if he was he declined and so the job fell to Lewis Gilbert the director of you only lived twice we'll come back to Gilbert shortly but the decision to bring him in and not Terence Young or guy Hamilton was I think one of the most important reasons the spy who loved me was the success it was and part of the reason it saved the bond series so were the director sorted the last thing we need is to write to the movie not to worry it's 1975 and we still have several Eon Fleming James Bond novels to draw on except it turns out that we don't see Eon only had the permission to use the title of the Fleming novel The Spy Who Loved Me Not the story itself to be fair the story itself is not actually told from Bond's perspective and barely even features him so it would have made a pretty shocking movie but the fact remained that this would be the first time Eon had to write an entirely original James Bond story for the big screen their plan was to go back to basics a classic Bond story that pitted him off against Specter and his Ash Nemesis blofeld but of course there was another problem a man called Kevin The Saga of Kevin mcclory and the James Bond films as the subject of a whole other video which I probably will make one day but for our purposes what you need to know is that he had a legal claim to the character of blofeld and the Specter organization so when he heard that Eon were using them in the spy who loved me he sued them resulting in a page one rewrite of the entire script so with all of this behind the scenes drama going on it's not hard to see why there was a three-year gap between The Man with the Golden Gun and the spy who loved me now I know Bond fans today would give up a Fabish a egg to wait only three years between movies but up until this point there had been a new Bond film more or less every 18 months or so for 10 years having a gap allowed memories of Connery to fade away so that when the new James Bond movie came out it was a new Fresh experience rather than feeling like a rushed rebranding of the same old series anyway against all the odds the key people were finally in place and produce a cubby broccoli decided he was going to go big or go home rather than trying to cut back and minimize the Financial Risk he went the opposite way and threw everything at the spy who loved me giving it a budget almost twice the size of the previous Bond film he even funded the construction of what is still one of the largest sound stages in the world so that Ken Adam would have a place big enough to house his colossal sets cubby knew that the future of bond lay in this movie and he was sparing no expense to make it the best movie it could possibly be you can see this right from the start where after the gun barrel we opened with a British submarine in crisis and soon learned that both it and a Soviet sub have gone missing but rather than cutting to bond we instead meet the Bond girl first with the very flemingesque name of agent XXX real name Anya amasova it's actually a great fake out here because we're deliberately led to believe that this is Bond or at least Bond's Russian Alter Ego he's even played by one-time Bond Contender Michael Billington but when he gets up it is instead revealed that triple X is in fact Russia's best secret agent this is XXX message received and understood we'll come back to her later in the video because we then cut to M and Moneypenny who are there to introduce bond in a way that would come to define the humor of the more films he's on a mission sir in Austria well tell him to pull out these sorts of double entenderers would end up becoming a recurring feature of Moore's pre-titled sequences but for the spy who loved me especially this is the first Glimpse we get of how this film was distinguishing itself from the Connery era by leaning into Roger Moore's talent for this kind of winking at the camera humor well going sorry darling something came up I mean you'd never get a joke like that and then a Connery film but that's okay because connory's Bond had a different sense of humor I discussed this with cubby before I went on the film and I said in one of the mistakes that they're making with the Roger films was that they were trying to turn him into uh Sean Connery well thank God they took that to heart because right from the start we are seeing more in his element but we'll talk more about that later too let's get on with the pre-titles sequence bond gets told to pull out through one of the most underrated little gadgets of the series and Dominic has bright yellow jumpsuit the 70s really were a different time he heads off and we get a proper ski Chase now this isn't filmed anywhere near as well as the one in ohmsses but it doesn't matter because after killing the fake Russian Bond we met earlier he launches himself off the cliff and we get what is still the most iconic and impressive stunt bond has ever given us as in one single silent take we watched stuntman Rick Sylvester plummet off a 2 000 meter high mountain and then to the triumphant Fanfare of the Bond theme he opens his Union Jack parachute and Glides off into the title sequence Legend has it that this was met with cheers and a standing ovation at the London Premiere and it's not hard to see why the 70s weren't a great time for the UK politically or economically but here was a movie that made British audiences feel patriotic all over the world whenever I saw the movie instead of people howling and throwing stands at the Union Jack they were bursting into a spontaneous Applause which was kind of satisfaction patriotism and bond have long gone hand in hand but until Skyfall came along the spy who loved me was by far the most British of the bonds James I need you so does England but patriotism to one side the parachute stunt was exactly the sort of shot in the arm the bond series needed the films had always been known for their impressive stunts of course but this one stood Head and Shoulders above the ones that had come before it and was unlike anything seen on the big screen before just eight minutes into the film audiences already knew this was going to be something very different then we have a classic Murray spender title sequence which is noteworthy for being the first one to feature a Bond actor in it and besides reminding us that future Bond director John Glenn edited the movie I think the sequence really helped set up the film as a romance between Bond and Anya because for all the spy Intrigue in action the heart of the spy who loved me is as the name suggests the relationship between these two like From Russia with Love ohm assists Casino Royale and even the world is not enough making the relationship between Bond and the bond girl the core of the film's story and heart almost always makes for a strong and compelling Bond film because it allows the characters to shine unfortunately the shine of the lead characters is a bit let down by the villain can Al Stromberg played by Kurt Jurgens is perfectly fine as a bond villain but he is not very memorable compelling or even threatening he's very much just going through the motions you never really feel like he could be a threat to bond in the way someone like Goldfinger kananga or scaramanga could be but that's okay because he's not really the villain of this movie that title of course goes to draws who we meet in this scene easily the most recognizable and popular Bond henchmen except maybe odd job it's incredible that a character with literally no dialogue could go on to become such an iconic part of the series it's hard to believe he only appears in two Bond films I mean growing up I felt like he was in all of them but regardless Richard Keel brings This brilliant menace to the role simply through the strength of his physical performance and of course those metal teeth I think the filmmakers knew he would be popular because they intentionally keep him alive even though any other henchman would die after this or this or this or this but Jaws list brushes it off literally and walks away every time so yes the main villain of the film could have been better but is more than compensated for by the formidable presence of Jaws moving on and we see Anya get her Mission from General Gogol and learn that her lover had been killed in action it appears he become involved in a British secret service operation I should very much like to meet whoever was responsible for his death this sets up the dramatic Stakes for her and bond because at this point she does not know it was Bond who killed him even though we the audience do back to 007 and we get our first look at Moore's Bondo in his proper naval uniform something we haven't seen since Gilbert's last Bond film this scene is also distinctive because they filmed it on location at a British submarine base in Scotland visually and thematically it's just so much more interesting than the classic office briefing scenes of the Connery era and it also closely ties to the Patriotic themes of the film as well as the plot of a missing submarine also if the producers are taking notes can we please see bond in uniform again in the next film it's an aspect of his character that was very much glossed over in the Craig films anyway like Anya before him bond is sent off to Cairo under orders to retrieve a microphone home and in a sign that this film is very much a product of its time we have Bond inexplicably dressed like Peter O'Toole because apparently this was the uniform for white people routing camels in the 1970s like even the script itself describes Bond as being dressed in full Lawrence of Arabia Garb so they weren't exactly being settled with their references still I'll take it over this any day Bond makes contact with his old friend Sheikh Hussein who only has a couple of lines but I just love how Edward de Souza chooses to play this character in such a broad and uninterested manner he really makes an impression and stands out as one of bomb's more memorable local allies and of course as seen in a Roger Moore James Bond film that starts like this can't end without another classic rogerism when one is in Egypt one should delve deeply into its Treasures oh how the times have changed bond gets to Cairo proper and I just really love all of these scenes for the first time since you only lived twice this film really feels like a proper globetrotting adventure and I put a lot of that down to Gilbert's Direction even though every Bond film takes us to new and exciting places for me Moore's last two outings didn't really capture the travelogue element of bond in an especially memorable way except for scaramunga's Island the locations in those films were just the backdrop here they're the star treble was such an important part of the Fleming novels and the early Bond films and despite you love me really recaptured that magic in Austria Scotland Egypt and Sardinia Gilbert takes the time to really show off the fact that they are filming on location in parts of the world that would not have been very familiar to Western audiences in the 1970s which is also exactly what he did when he took us to Japan and You Only Live Twice back in Cairo and Bond's fight with sandor is a bit underwhelming unfortunately for all his strengths as an actor Roger Moore just can't sell a fistfight in the same way Connery could and I don't think it was choreographed well enough to hide that but that's not important because we ended the scene with our first Glimpse at the more ruthless streak that runs through Moore's Bond where's package where's package this wouldn't be the last time Moore would kill someone like this but it was the first and not only did it become an iconic enough Bond moment to be referenced in Quantum of Solace it was also a reminder that bond is a killer yes even Roger Moore's Bond what a helpful chap he moves on to the pyramids where a fun fact two-time Bond alumnus Charles Gray is narrating the light show no traveler Emperor Merchant or poet has trodden on these Sands and not gasped in awe this scene marks Bond's first confrontation with jaws who has just killed fekish the lead that both Bond and Anya were after the two spies meet for the first time briefly but the real introduction comes in the next scene I love everything about this from the setting to the costumes Roger Moore looks so comfortable on the role of bond here in his trademark tuxedo and this dress is a truly stunning piece of Cinema history that was a clear inspiration for Palomas and no time to die but at a deeper level this scene firmly establishes a mutual respect between Bond and Anya as they both show off how much they know about each other to the extent that Anya even orders Bond's signature drink for him for the gentleman vodka martini shaken not stir like the train scene in Casino Royale there's not really any plot purpose to the scene with our two leads it's all about character and it includes this stand-up moment for more married only once wife killed glad you've made your point of certain things yes mortis conveys the harder Ridge of bombs so well in this moment and he shows us the side of the character that we have never really seen before except for the moment where this actually happened unlike diamonds are forever or the past two more films here the film is showing us that bond is still carrying Tracy's death with him and we see some emotional vulnerability in him in Connery we saw anger and fear but only rarely did we see grief and if we did he would never reveal this side of his character to someone like Anya I don't say this to criticize connory's portrayal of bond I'm not doing that at all now I'm using the comparison to show how the spy who loved me was specifically written for Roger Moore's Bond his previous two films were clearly still influenced by the fact that the writers were still imagining Connery in the role take for instance this Infamous scene in Golden Gun this is something you would see Connery do but it's jarring for more despite Who Loved Me included scenes like this one because it was playing to Roger Moore's strengths as an actor and allow his own interpretation of the bond character to shine through instead of trying to copy Connery he was taking the character somewhere new this would be something that each subsequent Bond actor would do of course and it is why the series has had such longevity more was the pioneer of that approach and this scene encapsulates that brilliantly anyway after Jaws kills the club owner that bond in any were after they sneak into his van in Pursuit we've really got to stop eating like this as they generally figured out we get some more Quiet Moments between Bond and Anya before they arrive at the temple and this scene where they pursue Jaws is just so great the blocking and the framing is all designed to take full advantage of the scale of the location and the silence really builds the tension of this cat and mouse hunt it's just absolutely stunning the scene ends with another Switcheroo to establish Anya as bonds ruthless equal as she takes the microfilm and leaves bond to face Jaws through some Ingenuity he escapes and we get yet another excellent scene that plays to more strengths at balance in comedy with tension as he calmly pays Annie a bag for a better than him by putting her in charge of evading jaws and just sitting back with a smirk on his face as he slowly destroys the car try the big one can you play any other two let's try reverse that's backwards quiet watch this [Music] shaken but not stirred it's a bit of a tonal shift but I think more pulls it off as they drive away and escape from Jaws and as if the earlier reference wasn't enough for some reason they used the score of Lawrence of Arabia for this scene which correct me if I'm wrong but I think is the only time a Bond film uses a score from another movie anyway Our Heroes get on a boat to Cairo where we again deepen the connection between the two of them the mutual respect between them grows and bathed in the sunset light the inevitable romance begins as well as the inevitable double crossing I think we should call it your grave ah courageous sudden but inevitable betrayal now I have to acknowledge here that while of course she looks the part of a Bond girl Barbara back is not the best actor in the world and in fact I think most of the time her performance is quite wooden this is xXx message received and understood the accent doesn't help of course but she's lucky the character is so well written I think in the hands of a more talented actress like Diana Rigg or Eva Green Anya could be among the best ever bombed girls it's a shame because scenes like this really end up being carried by more and I think this film could have been even better if the role had been cast differently so we go into the MI6 space that's hidden in the temple of Abby simbel continuing what will become a more erotrope of MI6 that's randomly having all these hidden but themed bases around the world it's great I love it so much between Bond Anya and Q they work out that Stromberg is the one behind the submarines going missing and they're tasked to work together to get to the bottom of it the paired jet off to Sardinia in Italy to investigate but not before having another fight with jaws and a clear homage to From Russia with Love foreign [Music] he just dropped in for a quick bite Bond's first meeting with Stromberg like the villain himself is pretty unremarkable it mostly serves to just move the plot along and to shove some more of Ken Adam's set design more on that later but the centerpiece of the Sardinia scenes is of course the car chase with the Lotus of spree I know the DB5 gets all the love and this will probably land me in some sort of bond fan prison but this is my favorite Bond car yeah okay okay this is actually my favorite Bond car but the espritas are close second it's just so distinctive not just from the dv5 but from any other Bond car before or since the story goes that Lotus knew Eon were looking for a car to replace the Aston Martin and so just parked the Esprit outside of pinewood studio so that cubby broccoli would see it hey it's not stupid if it works and q's introduction of the car is just Desmond Llewellyn at his best I love how he came all the way out to personally deliver the car to bond and explain all of its bells and whistles only for bombs that just speed away and leave him on a dock somewhere in Italy by himself frequent oh Desmond you're sorely missed oh by the way the scene is also noteworthy because we even get a little nod to Q's real name good morning madra but of course we are here because the car has a starring role in one of the most famous bomb chasers of all time this whole sequence really shows off the big budget of this film and jaws has once again returned but of course the fiesta resistance is the submarine and need I say more what's not to love about this it's just so cool a car that turns into a submarine the Practical model still holds up and the sequence even ends with more giving a characteristic wink to the audience the filmmakers know that this is silly and they're just telling us to go with it and enjoy it and that's something I just love about more films things are looking good for Our Heroes until Anya learns that bond is the one who killed her lover the answer of the question is yes I did get it when this mission is over I will kill you this exchange is a brilliant character moment that flips the dynamic between the two of them and once again allows more to shine love business and your people get killed we both know that so did he I just love how cold and professional he becomes when forced to face the reality of his work and it's such a contrast to his usual nature that it really gives these moments the weight they deserve More's strength as an actor is that he can go from a scene like this to one like this and not have it feel jarring or inconsistent with his character after this and bond and Anya move on to the third Act of the film and they team up with an American sub crew to investigate stromberg's base but they are captured and discovered that stromberg's giant tanker was responsible for scooping up the missing British and Soviet submarines along with their nuclear missiles and here we get the Ken Adam set in all its glory and like all of his work it looks amazing it was so huge that Stanley Kubrick himself was roped in to give the cinematographer advice on how best to light it with all of its dark colors and reflective surfaces I wanted to get another opinion in on how to use my practicals and whether to improve them and so on for me as a bond villain layer this is second only to blofeld's volcano and You Only Live Twice another atom design and this whole third act underscores once again why Gilbert was the best choice of director for this movie the similarities are clear with the opposing armies having an explosive shootout in a way that makes full use of the huge scale of the set while keeping the focus squarely on bond because this is what happens after Stromberg Reveals His grand plan to start a nuclear war and create a new and beautiful world Beneath the Sea classic Bond villain stuff he takes Anya hostage and jets off back to his lair in what is definitely not a little toy speedboat model while Bond escapes and after freeing the captured Sailors manages to stop the nukes and save the world but of course Anya is now stuck on the base with Stromberg the base that the Americans have been ordered to destroy so with the clock ticking Bond assembles his emergency jet ski which for some reason he just has in his luggage and heads off to rescue her he confronts and kills Stromberg and once again it's a fairly unremarkable exchange befitting a fairly unremarkable villain but that's okay because the real Showdown is with Jaws the True Villain of the movie taking full advantage of the sets the sages fight it ends in a use their strength against the moment as Bond grabs drawers by the well draws with an electromagnet and drops them into the shark pool again this is a movie that knows how ridiculous it is and just in case you are in any doubt Jaws kills the shark by eating it if only Felix had thought of that and license to Kill anyway Bond rescues Anya who for plot purposes and no other reason at all has been given a costume change but it's too late the base is being destroyed the water rushing in and the explosions add tension and urgency to these final moments but of course they get away and because this is a James Bond film they get away in a luxurious Escape pod complete with a bed and fine champagne but it's not over yet for one thing we need to clarify that jaws of course escaped into the next movie but back in the Escape pod Anya holds Bond at gunpoint after all she did vow to kill him after the mission but naturally bomb's charm has won her over and she instead pops the champagne Cork and well let's get out of these wet things so the escape craft is picked up by the Royal Navy where M Gogol and Q are waiting to set the stage for another staple of the Roger Moore Bond films finishing on a double entender event no matter how cringe-inducing it may be guarantees that you finish the film with an eye roll yes but also a big stupid grin on your face Tom what do you think you're doing keeping the British hand up sir needless to say the spy who loved me was a massive success though its total box office take wasn't held by the fact that it came out just a week before a small independent movie called Star Wars by the way that's why the next Bond movie was Moonraker and not for your eyes only as the credits promised this movie completely revitalized the bond series and sets the tone for the next four movies led by Roger Moore and Beyond it proved once and for all that rather than trying to recapture the magic of an age that has passed Bond needs to change and evolve along with his audience Goldfinger might have been the film that firmly established the Bond movie formula but the spy who loved me was the film that perfected it against all the odds this is the film that saved the bond franchise made Roger Moore the definitive James Bond for a whole generation of film goers and did all of this while being a thrilling and insanely entertaining Bond movie that 45 years later is still considered one of the greatest of all time so to take a leaf out of Roger Moore's book allow me to finally end this very long video essay on a Cheesy one-liner because when it comes the James Bond movies Nobody Does it Better Than The Spy Who Loved Me sure good night [Music]

Channel: Pentex Productions

Views: 381,128

Keywords: The Spy WHo LOved Me, James Bond, James Bond video essay, Roger Moore, Roger Moore James Bond, James Bond behind the scenes, James Bond analysis, The Spy Who Loved Me opening, The Spy Who Loved Me car, James Bond submarine car, TSWLM, James Bond parachute jump, James Bond ski jump, The Spy Who Loved Me ski jump, Pentex, Pentex Productions

Id: 9DwqgbG7kBY

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 03 2022