Thunderball - 1965

Yeah, still not a fan of these old Bond movies, so superficially macho, where girls are objects, the fate of non-leading characters is left untold, many things are willingly repetitive and therefore boring so to appease the macho-audience… and I keep seeing a lack of credits at the end, so back then not even the non-leading real people were considered important enough to even write their name at the end…

So, I’ll write here what this film is about, everthing I think is of any consequence, and then… to never watch it again.

I watched all Bond movies after many years, before they get out of Netflix; I watched them in order but I’m afraid I’m not copying them in order on here… still, there’s the “Bond” page where they are listed in order. 

Once again, it starts before the opening credits, with basically the end of Bond’s previous mission before the main one. A certain Colonel Bouvar killed some agents and Bond was after him, but we see Bond at the man’s funeral, not happy he had no hand in his death… but he notices he’s still alive, disguised as his own widow, because he opened his car door by himself, so they fight and Bond kills him for real.

BBond escapes with a jet-pack… is this where this ridiculous mania started?

Well, in 1965 it was probably cool.

Bouvar was “Spectre number 6”.

This film is again against Spectre: they plan to steal “two atomic bombs” and ask for many millions in exchange. The stealing part goes perfectly according to plan: they have a guy name Angelo undergo plastic surgery to look just as pilot Derval so to take his place, kill the others and bringn the plane where they’re waiting for him. Angelo made the mistake of asking or much more money so after he’s done his part he’s left to die.

Spectre agent Count Lippe is not really important, he exchanges bad pranks with Bond that only lead to Bond having his way with the girl working at that health clinic, worried she might lose her job, so he not very graciously informs her that his silence has a price … :-/  of course he’s Bond so we see her falling for him afterwards, but that’s too bad because of course he’ll leave her shortly afterwards.

It’s at the clinic that the real Derval is killed and Angelo takes his uniform and stuff.

Lippe and the bad guy should have either taken the body away at night or guard it somehow, but no, they let Bond see the man’s face, so when all 00 agents are informed of the blackmail (money or the bombs will explode somewhere in England or the US), Bond can see the pilot’s face in a picture and know where to start. The operation’s “code name” is of course Thunderball.

Bond’s first move is to approach Derval’s sister Domino, who quite conveniently for him is with Largo, Spectre number 2 and leader of this operation project. He approaches her while she’s snorkeling or something and is his usual ‘charming self’ :-/   “Most girls just paddle around, you swim like a man” :-/

She is “uncooperative” at first but she’s around unpleasant company all the time, Emilio Largo’s men and he himself. She calls herself Largo’s niece or mistress, calls him her guardian and mentions that she once found him attractive, meaning that now she has not much choice anymore, she’s watched all the time and has to stay with him. So Bond has it easy enough in the end.

Bond approaches Largo at the cards table, of course Bond wins, we know luck is what makes the hero, and Bond taunts him: “I thought I saw  a specter at your shoulder” - “what do you mean?” “the specter of defeat”.

There is Felix again, and a girl naemd Paula, an agent they keep around to do assistant work. Until she’s captured and tortured for information and she dies by suicide, swallowing poison. 

Q appears for today’s dose of gadgets: “I must say, I find this business of equipping you in the field, on the run, as it were, highly irregular” and of course he always appeals to Bond to treat his gadgets well.

The Spectre wants to be paid in “blue-white flawless diamonds between 3 and 8 carats”.

Largo has a swimming pool with sharks and is as careless as his men when it’s to do with killing Bond off. He sees Bond and another man fighting in the pool and orders to close it and let the sharks in: it’s not difficult for Bond to injure the man so all sharks head for the blood while Bond escapes from where they came.

His men also don’t check, after a night search in the water, they go “we must have hit him with the propeller” and go back, even though they saw no hint of a body or blood.

There’s a woman: Fiona Volpe (Franci Walker in Italy, for whatever reason) who is on Largo’s side and does not fall for Bond’s charm. She takes him hostage with Largo’s men but the bad guys are never the clever ones, and they take a car on the night of the festival, so they don’t go far. Bond uses whisky and a lighter to set them on fire and escape (really? So… if one smokes while drinking whisky he can internally combust? Or a live flame is necessary? These films…)

He should have been able to disappear with so much people and chaos and noise, but they catch him. The bad guys stay hidden while she approaches him and dances with him. Bond understands there’s a gun far behind him and his sixth sense tells him exactly when the guy is going to fire, so he can turn in time to have the girl shot and not himself.

Bond needs to find the bombs and he asks for Domino’s help who does understand indeed that “that’s why you made love to me” but she helps anyway because she loved her brother and he died because of Largo. She’s closely watched, so of course she’s found out and tortured by Largo.

Bond finds the bombs. There’s a long underwater battle between Largo’s men and US marines, I suppose, conveniently in red so we can sort the good guys form the bad. Largo escapes though, with his boat Disco Volante who can separate like the Enterprise, leaving the battle part behind while he speeds away. Somehow Bond manages to get in, I saw no way how he could achieve that but he does.

He fights Largo and his men and is about to lose when Largo grabs a gun, but Domino appears behind him and kills him with a harpoon. 

The boat is out of control so they jump in the water. The two of them but also Kutze, the scientist who handled the bombs for Largo but appeared forced into it. He freed Domino saving them all, and he rendered the bomb safe because he “threw the arming device into the sea” so that “the bomb cannot be exploded now”. He sort of saved the day, but at the end Bond hands him a life buoy because he can’t swim and forgets about him. Bond and Domino are rescued and taken away by a helicopter, but not him, we see nothing of him, he’s been completely forgotten. This is because a Bond movie must end with him with the pretty girl in his arms, reward for a job well done, and there was no space I guess for the less-pretty man who made it possible. It’s not really encouraging to do the right thing, is it?

There is no word in the ending credits of a future film, this time.

James Bond is Sean Connery

Domino is Claudine Auger

Largo is Adolfo Celi

Fiona is Luciana Paluzzi

Felix Leiter is Rik Van Nutter

Paula is Martine Beswick

M is Bernard Lee

Q is Desmond Llewelyn

Moneypenny is Lois Maxwell

Kutze is George Pravda

ITA agente 007 thunderball - opereazione tuono