Bond Revisited

For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Bond 12

A British spy-ship, the St. Georges, accidently hits a mine and sinks near a Warsaw Pact country. On aboard is ATAC, a communications device that could order Western subs to attack friendly areas. 007 (Roger Moore) is sent to recover the ATAC and the Russians, interested in getting ATAC, send a message to their local "contact". Bond's investigations leads to Greece and he meets Melina Havelock, out for revenge, as the "Contact" has had her parents murdered. Bond also meets Aristotle Kristatos and Milos Colombo (known as "The Dove") and one of them is the Russian's "Contact" but each accuses the other. Melina and Bond sets out to recover the ATAC and not only goes up against the "Contact" but also against Bibi, a young ice-skater, who has a major crush on 007...hilarity ensues.

Trivia: This was the first Bond film to be based on one of Ian Fleming's short stories (instead of one of his novels). Interestingly, there are several scenes in this film lifted from other Fleming tales. Examples: The assault on the smugglers' boat and warehouse is lifted intact from a short story entitled "Risico", and the sequence featuring Bond and Melina being dragged through the coral is actually lifted from the climax from the book, "Live and Let Die". The Identigraph appeared in slightly different form in the book, "Goldfinger". The company Autosafe provided the car alarms stickers for James Bond's Lotus Esprit which read "BURGLAR PROTECTED". This has been the only cinema-released James Bond film to date not to feature the M character. Bernard Lee, who played M for the last eleven 007 films, died while preparing for the role. As a mark of respect, Albert R. Broccoli refused to recast the role, changing the script to say that M was on leave.

Wide public interest in the 1980 Lake Placid USA Winter Olympics was the inspiration for the production to use a Winter Olympics location and to include story action within its associated sports. The film used the Italian Alps location of Cortina D'Ampezzo which had hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics. As such, there are sequences set at Cortina D'Ampezzo's Winter Olympic venues. Winter sports featured in the film include the biathlon, ski jump, ice hockey, downhill skiing, ice skating, cross-country skiing and bobsled toboggan run. Cast member Lynn-Holly Johnson (now Givens) was a professional ice skater and her character in the film was an aspiring Winter Olympic medalist funded by Aristotle Kristatos.

A major problem occurred during production which threatened to stop the filmmakers filming. The monks who lived in the monastery on top of the Meteora Mountain placed sheets and plastic on top of the roofs and external infrastructure so as to halt filming. They allegedly did not like the violence associated with James Bond. Reportedly, Roger Moore told them that he had once been a Saint! [See: "The Saint" (1962)]. A special court hearing was convened where a panel of judges decreed that the monks only had rights over the interiors of the mountain-top monastery but the exteriors were the domain of the people and the local government. The film crew were eventually able to film at the location which included a gigantic fall by stuntman Rick Sylvester. They did not actually film inside the monastery (known as St. Cyril's in the film) but built a set on top of a neighboring rock for some of the hideout's exteriors. The interiors were filmed back at Pinewood Studios on a set designed by Peter Lamont.

Playboy Magazine, which had had a long association with James Bond, ran a competition in the magazine for a reader to become a Bond Girl in 1980. The winner was Robbin Young and she appeared in the flower shop scene when motorbikes crash into the florist's front window. Playboy published some of the James Bond short stories by Ian Fleming including "The Hildebrand Rarity" in 1960 and the James Bond character was seen reading a copy of the magazine in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

The Characters:

• James Bond - Roger Moore for the fifth time.
• Aristotle Kristatos - Julian Glover. Generally regarded as a hero for his bravery in World War II and the Greek Civil War that followed, Kristatos was actually a double agent during both conflicts. Though he appeared to be a respectable businessman in the years thereafter, he was in fact a heroin smuggler and a Soviet agent. He developed a blood feud with rival smuggler Milos Columbo, whom he had served with, and betrayed, during the war. Assigned to steal the ATAC (a machine which controls the launching system of British submarines) and deliver it to the Soviets, he killed Sir Timothy Havelock, the head of the British salvage effort, attracting the attention of James Bond and Havelock's vengeful daughter Melina. Kristatos framed Columbo for his various crimes, hoping that Bond would kill him.
• Milos Columbo - Topol. Milos Columbo is a Greek smuggler who was set up by Kristatos as the man in charge of Emile Locque because he knew too much about Kristatos' KGB connections. Columbo captures and persuades Bond that Kristatos is actually giving Locque orders and invites Bond on a raid of one of Kristatos' factories where they find Locque. Columbo's aid is invaluable in storming St. Cyrils, and he finally gains a skating protege when Bibi Dahl loses her previous sponsor. Columbo eventually helps Bond as the result of his mistress Countess Lisl, being murdered by one of Kristatos' henchmen. Milos Columbo used his courage and resources to fight alongside Bond at Kristatos' mountaintop cabin in Greece, eventually getting the opportunity to personally terminate Kristatos.
• Melina Havelock - Carole Bouquet. Melina Havelock is half Greek - half British. She is the only daughter of Iona and Sir Timothy Havelock, two operatives working for the British Secret Service. Their mission takes them to the coast of Albania and Greece to look for a sunken British spy ship that holds a piece of equipment known as ATAC (Automatic Targeting and Attack Communicator). Melina comes to visit them and witnesses their assassination by Hector Gonzales, a Cuban hitman. Swearing revenge, Melina tracks Gonzales down to a villa outside of Madrid with the help of a private detective agency. There, she assassinates Gonzales, but is only able to escape with the help of James Bond who was also there to investigate Havelock's murder.
• Bibi Dahl - Lynn-Holly Johnson. Bibi is the ice skating protege of Aris Kristatos, training in the Italian ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo. Though Kristatos and her trainer, Jakoba Brink, think she is innocent, she is far from it. She blatantly tries to seduce Bond, but he resists on the grounds that she is far too young for him, saying "Now why don't you put your clothes back on, and I'll buy you an ice cream." Because of her young age, she is one of the few women in the film series whom Bond has turned down. When Kristatos revealed his true colors, Bibi switches allegiances, and sponsor. (A Personal Note: I love Ian Fleming's heroine names and this one is a tiny treasure, Bibi really looks like a baby doll.)
• Countess Lisl von Schlaf - Cassandra Harris. Countess Lisl von Schalf (Lisl Baum in the novel) is the obligatory sacrificial lamb of the film. She is mistress to Milos Columbo, and as Kristatos commented, she "bets with other people's money". Supposedly to be an Austrian, Lisl turns out to be really British. Columbo assigned her the task of seducing Bond and to find out more about him, which she did with relish. However, the next morning, she and Bond were cornered by Locque and his cronies on the beach, and in an ill-advised attempt to escape, Locque mowed her down in his dune buggy.

The Theme Song:

The theme song, also titled For Your Eyes Only, was written by Bill Conti (music) and Michael Leeson (lyrics), and performed by Sheena Easton. The song was later nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe in 1982. This was the first James Bond movie to have a music video produced in association with the film. This was the song sung by Sheena Easton who was the first and only artist to appear in the opening titles. Since For Your Eyes Only and the rise of the MTV Generation, all Bond films have had music video tie-ins.

The Vehicles & Gadgets:

After the ever-more outlandish plots of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker — the latter film literally taking Bond out of this world — it was decided that the James Bond series needed to return to reality. For Your Eyes Only attempts to go back to the more basic style of Dr. No and From Russia with Love. One of the most popular sequences of the film is when Bond's venerable Lotus Esprit is destroyed after a henchman working for Gonzales attempts to break into the car, which in turn activated the car's self-destruct function that was built into its security system. The destruction of his car forces Bond and Melina to make an escape in a Citroen 2CV, which was considered symbolic of Bond turning away from the more extreme gadgets of the past. Bond later acquires another car, a red Lotus Esprit Turbo from Q Branch when he arrives in Cortina. [Source]

The Pretitle Sequence:

In the opening sequence, James Bond visits his deceased wife's grave at Stoke Poges Church. The gravestone reads "TERESA BOND 1943 - 1969. Beloved wife of JAMES BOND. We have all the time in the world." The last section is both a quote and name of the title song from On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). This was the movie in which Bond's wife was killed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas). While at the grave, Bond is told by a priest that his office is loking for him and has sent a helicopter to pick him up. The helicopter actually belongs to a bald headed man in a wheelchair with a cat (the name Ernst Blofeld was not used because the rights to the name had been won in a court battle over Thunderball by Kevin McClory). The villian kills the pilot and takes over remote control of the helicopter and takes Bond for a wild ride before Bond is able to wrest control back and, using the helicopter, picks the villian up and deposits him in an industrial chimney.

Well, I thought that by now, I had seen all of the Bond movies and I was just refreshing my memory by rewatching them, but I was wrong, I have never seen this one, or if I did, I don't remember it. It was good as a Bond film and included a spectacular location with the monastary at the end of the film. But I was disappointed in it, the first real time I have been disappointed. The music was bad 80's TV music, something I would expect on CHiPs or something. Uggh! Besides that it was okay.

Next Up: The Battle of the Bonds, Never Say Never Again (independently produced and not officially part of the series, but with Sean Connery returning as Bond) and Octopussy, Bond 13, were both released in 1983. I will review both movies next Saturday.