THUNDERBALL

Directed by Terrence Young.  Written by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.
Starring Sean Connery,Claudine Auger, Adolfi Celi, Rick Van Nutter, Molly Peters, Martine Beswick
1965, 130 minutes, Color, Rated PG, Panavision 2.35:1

The major television networks in America don't really show movies anymore, which is a shame.  Granted, there is the occasional showing during holidays, but for the most part the cable movie channels have removed the specialness of watching movies on network television.  For that matter, TV channels used to fill airtime by showing movies but now mostly fill their off-hour airtime with infomercials.  With cable movie channels running movies 24 hours a day without commercials, perhaps the day of networks showing movies is justifiably past.  But I still kind of miss it.   Mind you, I would never watch a movie on network television at this point. Aside from the commercial interruptions I wouldn't be able to handle the content editing, or even the aspect ratio fudging for 2.35:1 films.

Still, back in the day when TV ruled home entertainment networks made an effort to make broadcasting a movie seem like an event, something that is just a distant memory now in this age of having hundreds of channels to choose from. Consider the Channel 9 (WOR-TV) "Million Dollar Movie" with its montage of New York City set to the theme from GONE WITH THE WIND.  It was  regal and set up whatever came on after it beautifully.  I can't tell you how many Saturday afternoons I spent watching Channel 9.   Or consider Channel 48's (WKBS-TV) "Creature Double Feature" with that great hand that comes out of the grave.   How could you not love whatever came on after seeing that intro?   EQUINOX, THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, THE BLOB, BEWARE THE BLOB, THE CRAZIES--I saw all of these at too young an age on channel 48.  Best of all was the Channel 5 Movie Club that showed on WNEW-TV in New York (before it became a Fox channel).  It came on at 11:00 pm Saturday nights and they showed "good" movies with fewer commercials and more uncut than usual.  I saw STRAW DOGS and MISTER ROBERTS for the first time on the movie club, and STRAW DOGS had all of its topless nudity intact.  I wish I could remember more of the movies I saw for the first time on that channel.

Right up there, for me anyway, is the ABC Sunday Night Movie.   When ABC showed the Bond films, everything about it screamed EVENT.  We had the promo commercials leading up to it during the week, the thrilling opening sequence, and best of all a warning that viewer discretion was advised.

The first two Bond movies, DR. NO (1962) and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) were solid successes--both had small budgets and both grossed impressive numbers worldwide.  GOLDFINGER (1964) had a larger budget but grossed much more than the previous two.  It became a worldwide sensation and kicked off a flood of super agent films, television shows, and books.  The next Bond film was given a much larger budget and tried to prove to the world that the original was best of all.  The film spanned several countries and featured a large international cast, large-scale action scenes, and not one but TWO beautiful leading women.  Like GOLDFINGER, THUNDERBALL was also a huge hit and to a large degree shaped all of the Bond films that came after it, both stylistically overall and specifically with establishing certain things that HAD to be part of every subsequent Bond film.  The title sequence by Maurice Binder especially set the pattern for literally every title sequence to come after it in the series.

The plot is fairly complicated for a Bond film, with SPECTRE stealing some nuclear bombs and demanding a ransom from the U.N.  Bond is assigned to investigating a lead in Jamaica and stumbles on the bad guys in the process.  It's the second appearance of Blofeld in the series, though his face wouldn't be shown until the next Bond film, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE.  The story was originally co-written by Bond creator Ian Fleming and others for producer Kevin McClory who had wanted to make his own Bond film prior to Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman buying the rights to DR. NO, but when the movie never materialized Fleming adapted the story as a book.  The problem is that Fleming didn't own the rights to the story, and this led to a lawsuit between McClory and the makers of the Bond films.  The next Bond film had previously been announced as ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, but McClory was threatening to make his own Bond film.  Rather than allow that to happen--McClory had a valid claim to the THUNDERBALL story as a movie--Broccoli and Saltzman settled with McClory and agreed to make THUNDERBALL instead.  Thus, the world was robbed of seeing Sean Connery in probably the best Bond story of all. In 1964 Connery was still invested enough in the role to have made MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE very interesting, to say the least.

THUNDERBALL is probably the yardstick by which I measure all other Bond films.  It's not a perfect movie by any means but in my view does a lot more right than it does wrong.  The film shows several signs of being a rushed production, with numerous continuity errors and obvious pickup shots.   The worst continuity error is a character that disappears at the end of the film.  Note in the first capture below that Bond, the girl and another man jump from the ship right before it hits the reef and explodes.  Yet when we cut back to the water after the explosion the man is missing and his absence is not commented on.  As Bond and the girl are clearly in a studio tank in the closeups one can only guess that the actor was unavailable several months later when the close-ups were shot.

At one point Bond is talking to Domino on a beach, the majority of which takes place on an actual beach.  An insert shot of them just as obviously on a soundstage sticks out like a sore thumb.

The Bond character occasionally gets lost in the shuffle as the filmmakers try to cover all of the action; he never actively does anything to propel the story forward.  He instead floats along reacting to events he has no control over.  Heck, he doesn't even kill the villain.  This was perhaps not the intent of the makers but was a byproduct of the dramatically larger scope of the film. The underwater scenes involving the downing of the plane, and the big fight at the end consume a huge amount of screen time. The need for the plane sequence can be debated.  Does the film need it to tell the story?  Perhaps not, but it's undeniable that it adds to the impact of the film.   The underwater fight sequence at the end is sometimes referred to as "indeterminable" by those who have no patience for it, and I can sympathize to a degree.  It does go on for a hell of a long time, but again, for putting spectacle up on the screen it works just fine.

Given all of that, THUNDERBALL remains my favorite Bond film for several reasons.  It was the first Connery Bond film I "got" as a youngster.  I had seen a few of the films on TV previously--notably THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER--and weaned as I was on Roger Moore's interpretation of Bond, THUNDERBALL was a revelation the first time I saw it.  For the first time I understood why people were saying that Connery was the best Bond, for in his prime he was truly something to behold.  Brawn and intelligence have rarely combined so seamlessly onscreen, and from a purely physical standpoint Connery was never better as Bond than he was in this movie.  He moves like a caged animal, full of confidence and style, and he is still thin enough to look good with his shirt off.

Though to be fair, he doesn't look tip-top in ALL of the film.  It looks to me like Connery showed up in one type of shape at the beginning of shooting and ended up in different shape by the end.  I think the location filming was done earliest as he looks best in these scenes.  When filming moved to the soundstages later on, he had put on more weight and is beginning ever so slightly to take on the paunchy look that would define his look for the next 10-15 years.  In fact, if I were to guess which scenes were filmed absolutely last I would say the fight aboard the Disco Volante was filmed last of all, for he looks the heaviest there.  Then again, maybe it's just angles.

 

Connery started complaining in the press during THUNDERBALL about how much time and energy making the Bond films took, and if one looks closely you can see a slightly diminished dedication to the performance from Connery.   Compare his reaction to the death of Paula in THUNDERBALL to the death of Tilly Masterson in GOLDFINGER, which was just one film prior.  In that earlier film he is genuinely moved by her death, but when confronted by a death of a colleague he barely reacts at all.  There are any number of ways to justify his reaction in THUNDERBALL:  Paula was an agent of her Majesty and so knew the dangers involved, for instance.  Possibly.  However, I think it more likely that the production was moving so quickly at the point of filming that sequence that it was just rushed through.

THUNDERBALL was the first widescreen Bond film and Terrence Young's stylistic sensibilities set the bar for all future Bond films.  The wider frame is used expressively and for effect--characters are consistently spread out across the screen, and the landscapes are appropriately framed to maximize screen real estate.  It is the first Bond film to FEEL like a Bond film.  Compared to GOLDFINGER, THUNDERBALL is a work of art visually and set the tone for just about every Bond film to follow.  It was an expensive movie and every effort was made to put the money up on the screen, and to a large degree the filmmakers were successful in this for THUNDERBALL has an immense scope to it.

Aiding immeasurably to this sense of "scope" are the wonderful sets by Ken Adam.  Whether it be massive indoor spaces or regular sized rooms, Adams' work on the film is impressive, albeit not always practical.  I can go along with the massive meeting room in the MI5 building, but I'm not sure why SPECTRE would need such a large space in downtown Paris.  I particularly like the sea shanty used by Q later in the film, and all of the hotel rooms.

The cast of THUNDERBALL is top notch.  The women are voluptuous, with Claudine Auger as Domino a particular standout.  She may not have been able to speak English well, but her initial appearance in the film features a swimsuit that remains a favorite for its peekaboo nature.  Luciana Paluzzi is impressive as an almost impossibly voluptuous agent of SPECTRE, but Adolfo Celi is almost the prototypical Bond villain.  He even sports an eye patch.  The main difference between THUNDERBALL and almost every Bond film that came after it is that the main villain is not a major character.  "Number 1", or Blofeld, is seen to be the man in charge on the bad side but the villains that Bond deals with are underlings that report to him.  Beginning with YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, the main villain would never again be shunted the background, with a possible exception for CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

I have strong memories of seeing some of them on ABC around 1979-1980, especially THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and THUNDERBALL.  When ABC showed the movies back then, they didn't (couldn't?) censor the main titles, and there are one or two very clear shot of naked breasts in the title sequence of SPY.  Likewise, there are also naked breasts in the title sequence of THUNDERBALL.  I was 10 or 11 at the time of seeing these films for the first time, do I really need to explain why they appealed to me?  This was the second Bond film that Maurice Binder did the titles for.  The first was DR. NO, and while the titles for that film were interesting it is really here that the title sequence pattern for all subsequent Bond films was set.

THUNDERBALL has been released on home video many times.  The first time I owned it was on laserdisc, and the first widescreen edition came in a gate-fold with only so-so graphics.  It was later reissued in a box set that featured a MUCH better cover and Criterion Collection-level supplements.  Every home video version subsequent to the box set has used parts of it.  The box set was in CAV, featured a soundtrack mixed into surround for the first time, an audio commentary, multiple featurettes and a decent array of still-frame content.  It was, at the time I got it, my all time favorite laser disc.  I never bought THUNDERBALL on DVD until the Ultimate Editions were released in 2006.  It featured a new 5.1 surround mix, more featurettes and an additional commentary.  Visually, it looked good for standard definition.

The Blu-Ray version of THUNDERBALL is easily the best it has ever looked or sounded.  Complaints can be found online about excessive digital scrubbing of the image, but for my tastes it looks great.  I see what the complainers are talking about, it just doesn't bother me that much because when it's all said and done the movie has never looked better.  The film was cobbled together using several different sources, and to a large degree you can't tell unless you are looking closely.

The new 5.1 surround track is NOT the version that was on the Ultimate Edition DVD.  It instead seems to be the track used for the laserdisc way back when.  I no longer have the ability to play a laserdisc but I think it sounds fabulous and really adds to the effectiveness of the film.