Film Review: MOONRAKER (1979, Lewis Gilbert)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 126 minutes.
Tag-line: "From the most exotic locations on Earth, MOONRAKER will take you out of this world!"
Notable Cast or Crew: Roger Moore (THE QUEST, LIVE AND LET DIE), Michael Lonsdale (MUNICH, THE NAME OF THE ROSE), Lois Chiles (THE WAY WE WERE, BROADCAST NEWS), Richard Kiel (EEGAH, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME), Corinne Clery (YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE, THE STORY OF O), Bernard Lee (DR. NO, THE THIRD MAN), Geoffrey Keen (THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY), Desmond Llewelyn (THUNDERBALL, GOLDENEYE), and Lois Maxwell (LOLITA, GOLDFINGER).
Best One-liner:  "Take a giant step back for mankind."

 A few James Bond films (like, say, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE or SKYFALL) attempt a stern and serious atmosphere, a kind of no-nonsense-thriller vibe striving for a degree of class that's slightly more "John le Carré" than "Ian Fleming."  MOONRAKER is not one of these films.

It shares more in common with the delightfully insane DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER or the funhouse loopiness of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN than your typical higher-tier Bond film.  And that is why I love it.
So, without further ado– my six favorite head-scratching, spit-take worthy moments in MOONRAKER: they're what make life worth living.

#6.  Bond hurls a henchman through a priceless clock-tower window, whereupon the unfortunate lackey plummets to his doom...

 and completely penetrates a grand piano

 
 in a live-action Looney Tunes tableau that achieves near-Joe Dante levels of comic grotesqueness.

 Go ahead, James.  Care to lay the cherry atop this sundae of slapstick savagery?  I know you've got something good up your sleeve.

There you go!  A-plus!


#5.  Spielberg ouroboros.
In addition to having a returning character named "Jaws," MOONRAKER uses the famous, five-note theme from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND as the electronic combination to a door in a high-security area.  Little did the makers of MOONRAKER know that Spielberg would soon begin his own James Bond-ian series (INDIANA JONES) which would eventually include in its third installment a Venice speedboat chase sequence, just like in MOONRAKER!  The mind reels.


#4.  Lasers, Lasers, Lasers!
 
I mean, the movie is called MOONRAKER.  Obviously, you wouldn't rake the moon with anything less than a laser.  What else are you supposed to use... a rake?  

Now here are some pictures of an undercover MI6 agent dressed as a monk zapping the hell out of a goopy dummy, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK-melting-Nazis-style:

Carry on, then.

#3.  Roger Moore as Clint Eastwood.

Set to the raucous strains of Elmer Bernstein's MAGNIFICENT SEVEN soundtrack, Moore makes an entrance while dressed in a near-facsimile Man With No Name costume.  This feels like a gag better suited for THE PIRATE MOVIE or a NATIONAL LAMPOON'S flick, but I'm more than okay with it.


#2.  Jaws' Love Interest.

Fan-favorite, metal-mouthed behemoth Jaws (Richard Kiel) returns from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME with appropriate grandeur and succeeds in stealing a second James Bond movie away from James Bond himself.  In a mind-blowing setpiece scored by the love theme from Tchaikovsky's ROMEO AND JULIET, Jaws is swept up off his feet by the Heidi-esque "Dolly," a super-strong woman with pigtails.  I'm going to stop you right there, tell you to lower your arched eyebrow, and ask you to just go with it.

This culminates in a crowd-pleasing plot-line of Jaws becoming something of a good guy, which leads to Jaws tossin' Mr. Bond a hearty outer space thumbs-up

and celebrating his new life choices by gnawing the cork off of a bottle of champagne and enjoying it with his lady friend.

Clearly, I wish that Jaws could be in every James Bond movie.  Alas.

#1.  I have to give the number one spot to the moment that inspired an actual, non-theoretical spit-take:

James Bond blasts his motorized gondola out of the Venetian canals and onto a main thoroughfare, rapidly inflating a bottom panel that transforms the vessel into a hovercraft.

He then gallivants about the streets of Venice, wearing a "I say, what are you looking at, good sir?" expression upon his smug face.

 
 This prompts a pigeon to do a show-stopping double-take, achieved through a forward-reverse-forward motion effect.
 
This is one of the ballsiest, most wonderfully inane gags to appear in any movie, James Bond or otherwise.  Its sheer lameness is such that it goes through the rabbit hole and back again, trampling your logic centers until you have no choice but to admit its brilliance. 

Four stars.

–Sean Gill

Read More

Only now does it occur to me... THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

Only now does it occur to me...  that if William Castle had ever directed a James Bond film, it definitely should have been THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.

What would the gimmick have been?  Flying skeletons?  A full-on working fun house in the lobby?  13 GHOSTS-style Scare-o-manga-vision?   A free novelty rubber nipple with admission? (Christopher Lee's character Scaramanga has a notable extra nipple.) Something to do with a gang midgets at the theater?

Of course, with the latter, I'm alluding to the irrepressible Hervé Villechaize (FANTASY ISLAND, FORBIDDEN ZONE), whose measured performance as "Nick Nack" reaches levels of subtlety previously reached in a Bond movie only by Bruce Glover in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER.  I'm going to choose to believe that the incongruous beauty of a little person in a Bond flick is what sparked the imagination of the makers of FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY, the first of many glorious Weng Weng Agent 00 movies from the 1980s.

As far as Bond flicks from the Moore era go, this is one of– if not the– best.  I have some fond memories from childhood of seeing this on TV, and though that may color my opinion, it's got a taut storyline, a great villain in Christopher Lee's titular assassin,

those great "Dark Carnival" sets on Lee's private island, a solid 70s Bond girl in Britt Ekland (best known for THE WICKER MAN and being Peter Sellers' wife)

and it even has Bond doing an embarrassing  loop-de-loop bridge jump like something out of a DUKES OF HAZZARD episode or a Burt Reynolds movie, complete with a slide whistle sound effect.  Whew!

[Also, despite the fine opening song collaboration between John Barry and Lulu, I can't help but think Alice Cooper's unused title track would have been a nicer (and more rockin') fit.  That is all.]

Read More

Film Review: BEAT GIRL (1959, Edmond T. Gréville)

Stars: 2.5 of 5.
Running Time: 99 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: David Farrar (BLACK NARCISSUS, THE 300 SPARTANS), Noëlle Adam (WOMAN IN CHAINS, CRAZY IN THE NOODLE), Christopher Lee (Hammer's DRACULA series, THE WICKER MAN, THE THREE MUSKETEERS), Gillian Hills (BLOW-UP, THE KILLER WORE GLOVES), Oliver Reed (THE DEVILS, TOMMY), Peter McEnery (VICTIM, RASPUTIN). Music by John Barry (GOLDFINGER, BODY HEAT, HOWARD THE DUCK).
Tag-lines: "My Mother was a stripper...I want to be a stripper too!"
Best one-liner: "Next week - boom! - the world goes up in smoke. And what's the score? Zero!"
AKA: WILD FOR KICKS

To say that BEAT GIRL is a good movie would be a lie. BEAT GIRL is not a good movie. And it's the sort of 'not good' movie that connoisseurs of the 'Something Weird' catalog will be all too familiar with: tedious pseudo-exploitation. But by and large, these films are bringing something to the table amidst the intolerable line-readings and murky film-to-VHS-to-DVD transfers. Allow me to explain:

Ostensibly successful architect Paul Linden (David Farrar) returns from France having snared a young wife Nichole (Noëlle Adam), much to the chagrin of his daughter Jennifer (Gillian Hills).

Paul's dream apparently is to possess this chippy wife and build some monstrous concrete complex called 'CITY 2000,' where everything is quiet, and you can feel like you're alone even in the midst of the teeming masses, if you can dig that.

His darling daughter Jennifer thinks that noise is strictly for squares and she hangs with a rough n' tumble crowd of beatnik boppers. She won't give Nichole the time of day till she learns that she used to be...a stripper! Drawn to and repulsed by the curious world of insalubrious adult sexuality (represented aptly by oily club owner Christopher Lee!), one thing leads to another, and- as they were wont to say in the 50's- sex, sin, and shame rear their ugly heads.

CHRISTOPHER LEE WILL PUT THE MOVES ON YOU...


...AND NOW 66.66% OF THIS FAMILY ARE STRIPPERS.

Now let's talk about the acting here for a minute. Aside from Christopher Lee (and a surprise guest star I'll discuss in a moment), it is absolutely contemptible. We're talkin' lifeless, D.O.A. line readings- and lots of 'em. Characterization? What is that? We are talkin' dullsville, Daddy-o.

Most of it emanates from our two blonde-coiffed leads- a couple of bargain-basement, gutter Bardots who are so scuzzy, they'd make Loni Anderson look like Grace Kelly. What's up with this unrighteous jive, BEAT GIRL?

"I served with Loni Anderson, I knew Loni Anderson, Loni Anderson was a friend of mine, and Burt's and Dom's. Baby, you are no Loni Anderson."

But the men are by no means getting off the hook here– take a gander at this Elvis-impersonatin' tuff guy:

I propose that even from this solitary freeze frame, you can imagine what discordant anti-musical sufferings accompany this boy and his guitar within the context of the film.

I was nearly ready to agitate some gravel when a schweet bar scene comes on. Now this was made back in a time where if a bar was called 'The Grotto,' it was a fucking grotto- a goddamned cave! Now, what's that music?... Dig them killer-diller riffs and groovy licks! Those cats are in orbit! Well, razz my berries- that's the 'John Barry Seven' with some thick, dissonant, radioactive vibes! I'll just guzzle some foam, kick back and rel– WAIT, WHUTTT? Who is that young, plaid-shirt-wearing cad dancing AT our feeble heroine?

It's young Ollie Reed!!! Sure, he's credited as 'Plaid Shirt' and he only gets a line or two, but he is takin' it for all it's worth. And...uh... I'm pretty sure he's inebriated (which ought to go without saying). He begins the scene rip-roarin' drunk and dancin' up a storm. As it progresses we see him go from merry to soused to shitfaced to just plain wasted:

Keep fighting the good fight, Mr. Reed. We'll never forget you... Plaid Shirt.

And speaking of lackluster character names, the unfortunate Anthony Singleton is billed as 'Green Pants'- an especially demeaning moniker given that this is a black and white film. Best of luck in the future, Mr. Singleton- I'd honor you with a freeze frame if I had any idea which character you played.

So, in the end, BEAT GIRL proves itself occasionally capable of holding one's attention. I suppose I could talk about the beat movement, social mores, counterculture trends, and the like, but I must admit the film has me feeling a bit like this drummer: capped, dragged, and beat.


-Sean Gill

Read More