Bond Watch: Thunderball (1965)

this poster does a surprisingly good job of summing up the movie

This was the one Bond movie that, even during the 7th grade sprint of renting Bond movies back to back all summer, somehow I never picked up.  I don't know why.  It's possible it was checked out.  Even stranger, I always assumed I'd run into it on cable or at the Paramount during the summer, but it never showed, or I never came across it.

So, here in 2016, I finally watched the movie.

Unfortunately for me, I had triple-checked the plot of Thunderball (1965) over the years to make sure I really hadn't seen it, and - yes, that movies absolutely was the one where the guy crashes a Vulcan with two atomic bombs into the ocean near The Bahamas and ends with a wicked underwater fight.

Don't worry.  If I had that spoiled for me over and over and still enjoyed the movie, you'll be fine.


Somewhere I read that around this point the schedules and budgets for the Bond films started to get a bit away from the Brocollis, and it's not too hard to see the scale and scope of the films ballooning here at just the fourth movie.  Frankly, I'm wanting to wrap up this post so I can read up on how they pulled off one of the last parts of the movie (where the boat splits in two), but from the pre-credits sequence, this movie is both less serious and far more gadget heavy then its predecessors.  But, also locations, sets, numbers of extras and on-screen gadgets and FX are all state of the art.

Spectre hatches a plot to steal the aforementioned atomic bombs right off an RAF bomber.  Bond puts some pieces together and starts his search for the missing plane in Nassau, seeking out the sister of the murdered pilot of the plane.  She's jungled up with an eye-patched SPECTRE agent named Largo, who keeps a pool filled with man-eating sharks (sans lasers).  Largo is executing a SPECTRE approved extortion gambit for over a quarter billion 1965 dollars, which is... I assume a lot in today's dollars.

This Bond film follows Goldfinger and Dr. No's penchant for disposable henchmen in great droves and matching outfits, and has a deadly sidekick, who in this cases is the fetching Fiona, a ginger-haired assassin.  I liked Fiona.  That bad-guy was all right.

Much of the movie takes place in and around Nassau, and they incorporate a Mardi Gras-like festival during a major chase sequence, making me wonder what could have been in the Mexico City sequence in 2015's Spectre.  But the underwater bits are surprisingly well executed.  That's what you're really going to remember this one for: underwater royal rumble.

And spear gun impalements.  So many spear gun impalements.

After Goldfinger co-starred one of my two favorite Bond Girls, Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Domino feels like a throwback to Honey Rider.  She's there, she sorta serves a purpose, but job one is to fill a bikini and keep Bond interested in his work.  The movies were not yet at a point where they seemed willing to consistently give their female leads much to do.

All in all, I liked the movie.  Less so than Goldfinger or From Russia With Love, but those are some favorites of mine in the entire series.  It's not going to be an endless road of escalation of appreciation.

Next up is You Only Live Twice, which I remember as "that one in Japan".