Bond Revisited

Octopussy (1983)
Bond 13

When Agent 009 turns up dead at the British Embassy in Berlin holding a Russian Faberge egg, 007 (Roger Moore) is called in to investigate. He soon finds out that the egg is being sought by a collector named Kamal Khan (Louis Jordan), who is in league with a psychopathic Soviet general, Orlov (Steven Berkhoff) who is hell-bent on Soviet domination despite reprimands from his superiors. Orlov's plan involves smuggling an atomic bomb into a U.S. Air Force Base in Europe. Bond's investigation of Khan leads him to India, where he meets a mysterious woman named Octopussy (Maud Adams) who is connected to Khan. The bomb is smuggled aboard a circus train, and one of the men helping Kamal & Orlov is the man responsible for killing 009! Bond must race against time to stop the bomb from exploding & killing thousands, then running down Kamal Khan before he escapes!...hilarity ensues.

Trivia: During casting, James Brolin was almost given the role of James Bond when at the last minute, Roger Moore agreed to play Bond again. Brolin's screen tests can be seen on the DVD. Moore had gone out of contract after For Your Eyes Only (1981). The production went with safe-bet and popular Moore because the film would be competing with Never Say Never Again (1983) starring original and former James Bond actor and legend Sean Connery. The uncertainty in using an American actor in the role and having to introduce a new actor in going-up against Connery were the reasons Moore was sought. Maud Adams (Octopussy) previously appeared (and was killed) in another James Bond film (The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)). Faye Dunaway and Sybil Danning were considered for the role.

First James Bond movie to be released with the MGM Lion logo at the beginning. MGM merged with United Artists in 1982, the year before the release of Octopussy and this is the first Bond movie distributed by the new company, MGM/UA Distribution Co. When Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny introduces her new assistant Penelope Smallbone (Michaela Clavell) to James Bond (Roger Moore), during one take, she accidentally called her Penelope Smallbush instead. Stuntman Martin Grace had a serious accident while filming on the train. Hanging on the side of it, the train went into a non-assessed area of the track and he rammed into a pilon, seriously damaging his leg and hip and hospitalizing him for six months. He made a full recovery. Vijay Amritraj is a professional tennis player in real life.

The Faberge Egg as seen in the movie was actually the Imperial Coronation Egg designed by Peter Carl Fabergé. It was made 1897 to commemorate the 1894 Coronation of Czar Nicholas II. The jeweled egg contains a model of a Coronation Coach; a guilloché field of starbursts with a translucent lime yellow enameling on the exterior surface; trellised greenish gold laurel leave bands have mounted at each intersection point an opaque black enamelled Imperial gold double-headed eagle with a rose diamond on their chest; on the top is a large portrait diamond with a cluster of ten smaller diamonds; and a smaller portrait diamond is set within a cluster of rose diamonds at the reverse end. Almost twenty years later the egg would re-appear in the movie Ocean's Twelve (2004)

The Characters:

• James Bond - Roger Moore's penultimate turn as the intrepid British agent.
• Kamal Khan- Louis Jourdan. Khan is an exiled Afghan prince with a penchant for fine food and liquor, priceless jewels, and atomic weaponry. He teams with the power-crazed General Orlov in an attempt to unleash nuclear holocaust in Western Europe, by planning to detonate a nuclear bomb inside a US airbase, using Octopussy's Circus as a cover. The ensuing outrage at this "accident" will encourage NATO to abandon nuclear arms, and allow Orlov's armies to invade the West. After he has disarmed the bomb, Bond boards Khan's plane as he tries to escape with Octopussy. He loses his henchman, Gobinda, and Bond sabotages the fuel line in the plane, forcing Khan to crash into a mountain cliff while Bond and Octopussy jump out of the plane.
• General Orlov - Steven Berkoff. Orlov is a megalomaniacal Russian General who wants to seize parts of Europe under the Soviet flag. However, his proposal for a full scale invasion of Europe are flatly rejected, with General Gogol being the loudest voice, in part because NATO would respond with nuclear strikes that would escalate the conflict to a full scale global nuclear war. To eliminate that objection, Orlov's plan deals with the murder of American officials at a circus performance at a US Air Force base in West Germany, using an atomic bomb. The bomb's explosion would be assumed to be an accident (as a nuclear strike would trigger the Air Force's early warning systems), prompting nuclear disarmanent throughout the West. Under Orlov's reasoning, the Soviets would then be able to conquer Western territories without threat of nuclear reprisal, or even resistance, from NATO.
• 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.
• Octopussy - Maud Adams. The title character of Octopussy is the lead Bond girl of the film. The name, in the novel, was given to Dexter Smythe's octopus pet. In the film, Octopussy is his daughter and it was his pet name for her. Octopussy's full name is unrevealed and according to Maud Adams, she is supposedly half Indian. In the film, Octopussy runs a host of legitimate business ventures such as shipping, hotels and circuses, some of which also act as fronts for her jewelry smuggling operation. She also leads a troupe of female underlings under the banner of the Octopus Cult and they all dwell on an island in which men are not allowed except as guests under Octopussy's auspices. Unknowst to her, her jewelry smuggling operation is used by her "friend" Kamal Khan to sneak a nuclear bomb into an airbase in West Germany.
• Magda - Kristina Wayborn. Magda first appeared in the film as a companion (definitely NOT mistress) to Kamal Khan. When Khan's men failed to take the real Fabergé egg from Bond, Magda steals it for Kamal using her feminine wiles on Bond before jumping off the balcony of 007's hotel room with the aid of her sari/gown. Magda is later revealed to be one of Octopussy's henchwomen, hence her role seems to be a link of sorts between Kamal and Octopussy.

The Theme Song:

The score was composed by veteran John Barry. The opening theme, "All Time High" was sung by Rita Coolidge and is the only Bond theme (with a vocal) that does not reference the film's title – until 2006's Casino Royale theme, "You Know My Name". Additionally, it is the second theme not to be named the same as the film; the first was "Nobody Does it Better" from The Spy Who Loved Me.

The Vehicles & Gadgets:

• Acrostar Jet — Used in the opening sequence of the film. The wings of this plane fold up vertically while not in use. During this mission, Bond hid the plane in a horse trailer. Due to a small gas tank, Bond was forced to land at a gas station to refill.
• Alfa-Romeo GTV6 — Stolen from a German woman using a telephone booth, allowing Bond to make it to the Octopussy's circus in time to warn the NATO General present there of the Soviet plot. Then the hottest 'cheap' sports car in Europe, and the most popular Alfa Romeo sports coupe ever made.
• Alligator Boat — Bond sneaks onto Octopussy's island by driving a disguised boat that looks like an alligator.
• Pen — Given to Bond by Q-Branch, this pen contains acid that can burn through any metal. It also contains a homing device.
• Watch — Another gift from Q-Branch, this watch branded by Seiko comes with a beacon that leads Bond to a Faberge egg. The model used in the movie is the Seiko G757-5020 (often mistaken for the G757-5000, which had a rubber strap instead of the metal one clearly seen in the movie).
• Mercedes benz 240D Saloon car: Normally mistaken for a 250 or 230.6, this car was stolen by Bond (Roger Moore) and used to chase after the train. The Mercedes crashes into another oncoming train and lands in a river.[Source]

The Pretitle Sequence:

The pre-title sequence is unrelated to the rest of the film, involving Bond's mission to destroy technology which has fallen into the hands of an unnamed Latin American country (but obviously Cuba, and Castro), and features him flying a homebuilt microjet aircraft that can fold up and fit in a horse trailer.

All in all this was a solid Bond movie, not as good as Never Say Never Again, but pretty close. Octopussy actually out performed Never Say Never Again at the boxoffice. At 56 in 1983, Roger Moore will return one more time before relinquishing the reins to the next Bond (Sean Connery is actually 3 years younger then Roger Moore and in Octopussy and Never Say Never Again both were showing their age).

Next Up: A View To A Kill, Bond 14. An investigation of a horse-racing scam leads 007 to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley.