BOND-A-THON: Diamonds Are Forever

‘Diamonds Are Forever’: in which the director of ‘Goldfinger’ is back at the helm, Sean Connery is back in the lead role, God is in His heaven and all is right with the world. Carlsberg don’t do movie reviews …

Joking apart, ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ is – it has to be said – a frustrating and ultimately pretty mediocre outing for 007. It’s a film of two halves: part one is basically How The Diamond Smuggling Operation Works, while part two is What The Diamonds Are Used For. Part one is moderately entertaining with some touches of mordant humour (the funeral parlour and the straight-out-of-central-casting mob guys raise a smile) but lacks the scale and spectacle expected of a Bond movie. Part two delivers the world domination shenanigans, the villain’s fully kitted out secret base and the requisite explosions, but pads out the action with a ridiculously over-egged sequence involving a cassette tape and Jill St John in a harlequin bikini that plays like something out of ‘The Benny Hill Show’.

It’s worlds apart from the character-driven approach to ‘OHMSS’ and that, apparently, is how the producers wanted it. Although Peter Hunt was offered directorial duties, scheduling conflicts with another film put him out of the running and Broccoli and Saltzman re-engaged the services of Guy Hamilton, the man who’d pretty much defined the Bond formula with ‘Goldfinger’. Indeed, an early draft of the script had Auric Goldfinger’s vengeful brother as antagonist. With George Lazenby exiting the role, the producers consider Michael Gambon and – unbelievably – Adam West, before signing John Gavin. At this point, United Artists pulled rank, put their foot down and demanded Sean Connery back as Bond.

This put Connery in a pretty awesome bargaining position and as well as bagging a then record-breaking $1.25million fee – which he used philanthropically to establish the Scottish International Education Trust – he got backing for two non-Bond projects. Only one of these – Sidney Lumet’s intense and uncomfortable ‘The Offence’ – came to fruition. The other, an all-Scottish adaptation of ‘Macbeth’, fell through after Polanski’s version made it into production first. Meanwhile John Gavin, technically still under contract, was paid in full.

The film opens with what seems, for about the first two thirds, like a narratively pointless prelude. In this prelude … now, how do I describe it without sounding blunt … Bond beats the shit out of a couple of guys then rips the bikini top off a sunbathing beauty and threatens to strangle her with it, and in like manner ascertains the whereabouts of one Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Grey), fugitive from justice. And here we must pause while I rant about something that pisses me right off every time I watch what is otherwise a no-brainer low-to-mid-level slab of 007 escapism. 

This vengeful hit-people-strangle-people-find-Blofeld-kill-the-motherfucker business seems a lot like the filmmakers’ atonement for daring to end ‘OHMSS’ on a downer, Bond’s best girl dead the agent himself shattered. Only … the Bond’s first port of call in the aforementioned investigative continuity is quite obviously Japan, suggesting ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ as a direct follow-on from ‘You Only Live Twice’. While this is a logical step in one respect (it reintroduces Connery’s Bond from that actor’s last appearance), it makes utterly no sense in another, since a Connery-only continuity disallows for the death of Tracey di Vincenzo – indeed, it disallows for Bond to ever have been married at all – and even allowing for the fact the Blofeld had the temerity to escape at the end of ‘You Only Live Twice’, Bond’s obsessive pursuit of him at the start of ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ seems OTT. Unless Bond was out for revenge for the death of his wife, which he doesn’t seem to be because of … well, see above.

In short, it’s all a bit too meta. And things just get worse with the appearance of Blofeld. Bearing in mind that the very first scene of the movie contrives to bring to mind ‘You Only Live Twice’, in which Charles Grey plays an ally of Bond’s who is murdered by SPECTRE agents, where I ask you is the sense in casting that selfsame gentleman as the SPECTRE-commanding Blofeld himself? No matter how good Grey is in the role – and he’s very good indeed; it’s difficult to pick a definitive Blofeld from the quartet of Anthony Dawson, Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas and Charles Grey – the close proximity of his appearances in the Bond chronology, accentuated by the diametrically different characters, just plain bugs me.

So: Bond tracks down Blofeld, seemingly dispatches him, Shirley Bassey belts out the theme song, and some naked women gyrate in silhouette. (I really ought to spend some time during this retrospective discussing the work of Maurice Binder, but I’m not sure I have sufficient command of the English language to explicate “naked chicks gyrating in silhouette” beyond, oh I don’t know, five words.) Next up, M (Bernard Lee) is delivering some expository dialogue about diamonds and Bond’s off to Amsterdam to infiltrate a smuggling operation.

All of which is fairly low-key stuff for a Bond movie. Hamilton keeps the pace up, though, and Bond is rewarded by the charms of Tiffany Case (St John). And here we pause for another rant. Jill St John is a looker plus VAT; beyond that, she has real screen presence and a mischievous charm; beyond that her IQ of 162 speaks for itself. In the first half of ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, the script allows her to play Tiffany Case – and she relishes the performance – as a brassy, smart-talking dame, full of sass, sarcasm and self-interest, and anyone watching the movie for the first time might be tempted, during this section, to earmark her as “all-time best Bond girl”. But ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, as noted earlier, is a film of two halves. And it’s second half unforgivably reimagines Tiffany Case as a shrill, simpering bimbo, robbed of juicy dialogue and reduced upping the cleavage quota. (Not that it needed upping after Lana Wood’s gravity defying appearance as the unsubtly named Plenty O’Toole. “Named after your father, perhaps?” Bond muses.)

And while I’m in rant mode, one further point of contention. ‘OHMSS’, for all its flaws, at least set out to present a human Bond. A Bond without gadgets who is required to use his wits, his charm and – whisper it softly – his intelligence. He connects with a woman, but realises he has to be the smooth-talker, the seducer, to get information out of other women (there’s a telling scene where he dallies with two of Blofeld’s potential brainwash victims, one after the other, and uses exactly the same dialogue to win them over … the second time, he’s not even putting any effort into it). ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ is an incredibly reductive film, not only returning Bond to the status of sex-as-a-fringe-benefit misogynist, but upping the ante on Fleming’s homophobia. Where the screenplay for ‘Goldfinger’ had the good grace to gloss over Pussy Galore’s Sapphic preferences and Bond, ahem, straightening her out, ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ just wades right in there and gives us the despicable characterisations of narratively unnecessary henchmen Mr Kidd (Putter Smith) and Mr Wint (Bruce Glover).

So, yeah, plenty of good reasons not to like ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ very much. Except that it’s often stupidly entertaining. Prime example: the utterly bonkers scene where Bond smashes into a fake moon landing, steals a moon buggy and kicks off a high speed chase through the Nevada desert, a piece of what-the-fuckery so magnificently deranged it’s as if Alejandro Jodorowsky had shown up at United Artists and convinced them to give him a shot at making a blockbuster. There are plenty of other moments like this, some sifted in as grace notes – Q (Desmond Llewellyn) cheating at the slot machines and blithely leaving his winnings behind, chuffed above mere monetary rewards that his latest prototype works so well – and others as set-pieces, that leave you in no doubt that the film was one big wheeze, a deliberate means to slap some fun back into the formula.

Many have criticised Connery’s performance – uninterested, phoned-in – but I quite enjoy his casually ironic delivery and slightly aloof presence. He suggests all the snobbery of Bond from the first two films but smoothed with a touch of self-deprecation. If ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ is the Bond movie as elaborate joke, then Connery was definitely in on it. And it certainly made the transition to a new Bond easier when the next instalment took Roger Moore to Harlem and Caribbean in ‘Live and Let Die’, an opus as unapologetically racist as ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ is homophobic. There were changes ahead for the franchise, but political correctness wasn’t one of them.

HAMMER HORROR WEEKEND/SUMMER OF SATAN: The Devil Rides Out

A quick search on the Waterstones website before I sat down to write this article showed very few of Dennis Wheatley’s books still available. Two or three out of the 70 odd titles he published during a five-decade literary career. As such, it’s easy to forget just how popular Dennis Wheatley was; how prolific; and how varied an output.

As well as the occult novels for which he is chiefly remembered, he wrote historical fiction, espionage dramas and a series of novels set in World War II. His debut novel sold so fast it was being reprinted once a week! During the ’60s, it’s estimated that his titles were shifting a million units each year.

In terms of prolificity and variety of subject matter, Dennis Wheatley was kind of like Stephen King, Bernard Cornwell, Len Deighton and James Jones rolled into one. With the sales figures to prove it. And yet only a handful of his works were adapted for cinema: ‘Forbidden Territory’ is largely forgotten, so too the creaky but enjoyable ‘Secret of Stamboul’ with James Mason and Valerie Hobson; which leaves the three Hammer adaptations: ‘The Lost Continent’ (from the novel ‘Unchartered Seas’, ‘The Devil Rides Out’ and ‘To the Devil – a Daughter’.

‘The Lost Continent’ is arguably the most oddball title in Hammer’s vaults, and definitely needs sail the choppy waters of The Agitation of the Mind at some point. ‘To the Devil – a Daughter’ bears little resemblance to Wheatley’s novel beyond the title and caused controversy over a nude scene by Nastassja Kinski (15 at the time of filming).

‘The Devil Rides Out’ also caused controversy when it was released, though not for jailbait reasons. While it was no surprise that Hammer would make a film about the dark arts – particularly with a Wheatley novel as source material – the depiction of the occult in their productions prior to ‘The Devil Rides Out’ had been firmly routed in the Gothic tradition, both in terms of imagery and historical setting. When the occult is allayed with vertiginous castles, black carriages drawn by snorting horses, and poor folk trembling in nearby taverns and warning travellers to stay away, it’s comfortingly easy to file the whole experience under “superstition” and happily munch your popcorn.

‘The Devil Rides Out’, set in 1930s England, brought Satan into the twentieth century. It’s some measure of the film’s controversy at the time that censorship issues were prevalent even before a single frame was shot. Originally slated as a Hammer project in 1963, filming didn’t start till four years later when the studio were more confident that certification would not be withheld.

Adapted by Richard Matheson and directed by Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher, ‘The Devil Rides Out’ begins with the Duc de Richlieu (Christopher Lee) and Rex van Ryn (Leon Greene) concerned for the welfare of their friend Simon Aron (Patrick Mower). Simon has come under the influence of the darkly charismatic Mocata (Charles Gray). Interrupting a gathering of thirteen at Simon’s house – he tries to pass it off as a meeting of an astronomical society, but some decidedly non-planetary charts in the observatory not to mention a pentagram inlaid on the flooring give the lie – de Richlieu immediately recognizes the cabal as Satanic. Using the simple expedient of slugging the lad unconscious and heaving him over van Ryn’s shoulder, they rescue Simon and make a hasty exit.

What follows is basically a battle of wits between de Richlieu and Mocata with the souls of Simon and Tanith (Niké Arrighi), a fellow neophyte as yet uncorrupted but still powerfully swayed by Mocata’s devilry, at stake.

Pulled into “the battle” (de Richlieu’s words) are his friends Richard (Paul Eddington) and Marie Eaton (Sarah Lawson) to whom he entrusts the care of Simon and Tanith. In one of the film’s most quietly chilling scenes, Mocata comes calling and almost manages to exert his influence over Marie. The unexpected appearance of the Eaton’s young daughter Peggy breaks the spell and Marie recovers fast enough to order Mocata out. “I’m leaving,” Mocata assures her; “I will not be back. But something will. Tonight, something will come for Simon and the girl.”

Charles Gray – a natural to play Blofeld a few year’s later in ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ – is the film’s ace in the hole. With Christopher Lee, so often an embodiment of the dark side in Hammer films (and in a couple of George Lucas films, come to think of it!), on good guy duties, it was essential that ‘The Devil Rides Out’ have a villain of real gravitas. Charles Gray delivers, projecting suavity, menace, authority and stone cold evil with just a look from those piercing eyes. And the voice. In the black mass scenes, he speaks as if each word is a slab of granite inscribed with something deliciously unholy. He poses a genuine threat to de Richlieu and his friends, so much so that there are no foregone conclusions here and even the redoubtable Duc seems almost powerless in the final confrontation.

There is very little to criticize in ‘The Devil Rides Out’ – the effects show their age in places and Arrighi’s performance is stilted (she disappeared from sight after a career lasting less than a decade) – and much to admire. I’m hard-pressed to choose between this, ‘The Wicker Man’ and the original ‘Dracula’ as my favourite Christopher Lee performance. It’s certainly Charles Gray’s finest hour. The pace is unflagging. The set-pieces – particularly de Richlieu and van Ryk’s desperate invasion of an outdoor ritual to rescue Simon and Tanith; and, later, de Richlieu and the Eaton’s invocation of the powers of good within a chalk circle as they weather a night of diabolical attacks conjured by Mocata – are among the most iconic moments Hammer created. ‘The Devil Rides Out’ takes its Satanism seriously and it lingers shadow-like in the mind.

HELLRAISERS: The Night of the Generals

An all-star production of the over-produced, over-publicized, over-long archetypally ’60s variety, ‘The Night of the Generals’ blends murder mystery, conspiracy thriller and war movie tropes into a heady cocktail of WTF. We’re talking two and a half hours of hopelessly confused narrative digressions and howlingly incongruous scenes.

Occupied Poland, 1942: Major Grau (Omar Sharif) attends the scene after a prostitute is murdered in a dingy tenement building. Dressed in an ankle length greatcoat and black boots, he questions a witness who is hesitant about co-operating. And with good reason. “He was an officer,” the witness mumbles fearfully. Grau asks how he knows. “He was wearing trousers like yours.” Trousers, that is with a red stripe. The kind of natty apparel you don’t get to strut around in till they make you a general.

Like me reiterate at this point that Grau is dressed throughout this scene in a long greatcoat and high boots. His trousers are obscured. The man could be wearing a freakin’ kilt! Also, he’s played by Omar Sharif, whose swarthy Egyptian looks, while toned down with a dusting of white powder, remain more swarthy and ethnic than you’d credit anyone with in a military hierarchy based on Aryan purity.

The incongruities continue. The Polish hooker is revealed as a German agent, only for this tantalising subplot to disappear. A Corporal who’s a talented pianist complains at having to play Chopin when Wagner is his composer of choice. (Aside from the orchestral piece ‘Siegfried-Idyll’, Wagner’s entire output was opera or lieder; he wrote no piano music.)

Then there’s the lurching flash forwards to the mid-Sixties as Interpol agent Inspector Morand (Philippe Noiret) – a man whose connection to the events of the war isn’t established until halfway through the film – plods around tracking down the surviving protagonists and asking them blandly procedural questions in a manner that makes ‘Midsomer Murders’ look like James Ellroy on crack.

Oh yeah, and no sooner has the mise-en-scene returned the audience to Poland in 1942 than it’s suddenly Paris in 1944 and everyone’s been transferred and have co-incidentally met up again. Or maybe it’s not such a co-incidence, since ‘The Night of the Generals’ takes another lurch at this point and the 20th July plot (you know, the old bomb-in-a-briefcase under the table, let’s kill der Führer routine) is in full swing and all but one of the potential murderers are involved in the conspiracy.

But wait, you protest. The 20th July plot took place back in Germany. What’s all this malarkey about the conspirators being in Paris? Well, they’re waiting for word that the craply-moustachioed one is toast, whereupon they can establish a new government and curtail the war and … oh, what the hell? The point is, the conspirators have to keep the non-conspirator out of the way for a couple of days, and some fucking genius involved in the production of this Euro-pudding decided that huge amounts of tension and suspense could be wrung from one of the major characters being driven around Paris interminably and having a Stendhal Syndrome kind of turn when he goes to view some allegedly decadent art (you know, the kind that features naked women). This character being a hardcore Hitlerite and having a tendency to viciousness, could he be the murderer?

There is absolutely no mystery to ‘The Night of the Generals’. No suspense. It is by turns ludicrous, clichéd, overacted and pedestrian in its direction. It boasts a powerhouse cast – Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Tom Courtenay, Donald Pleasance, Charles Gray (two Blofelds in the same movie! playing Nazis!), Christopher Plummer, Coral Browne, Philippe Noiret, John Gregson and Nigel Stock – all of whom are miscast, underused or saddled with appalling dialogue: Noiret’s is exposition-heavy and, although at ease in English-language productions elsewhere in his filmography, he seems distinctly unconfident here; and pity Pleasance, desperately trying to breathe life into a clunker of a line like “am I to assume that if Stage 1 meets with resistance we will go to Stage 2 and possibly Stage 3” (I can only quote Paula’s monumentally derisive comment: “Wow, so there isn’t a Stage 1a, 1b or 1z, then?”)

All, I should say, except Peter O’Toole. He takes hygiene-obsessed General Tanz (ostensibly the most one-note character in the whole piece) and imbues him with the insouciance of T.E. Lawrence (or at least the version of Lawrence essayed by O’Toole in David Lean’s epic), the provocative and oddly threatening dandyism of Dirk Bogarde in ‘The Singer Not the Song’, and an icily ironic remove that pre-supposes Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’.

Armed with cap, boots, swagger stick, leather gloves and a piercing thousand-yard stare, O’Toole stalks through the film, disdaining Anatole Litvak’s somnolent direction, rolling the deficiencies of the script around in his mouth before spitting them out, and making mediocre material memorable simply by treating it, imperiously, with the contempt it deserves.