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Rating: What did Leonardo da Vinci say after painting "The Virgin of the Rocks"?
What did Michelangelo say after sculpting the David?
What did Frank Lloyd Wright say after designing the Guggenheim?
Pretty much what Jenna Jameson said right after finishing the filming of "Breast Obsessed"...
"And now what the hell do I do?"
And it’s more or less what must have crossed the minds of the Bond saga creative team after "Mission Goldfinger."
We're in 1965, and the brand of the sexual maniac at Her Majesty's secret service is fully defined and experiencing an arguably unprecedented interplanetary success.
The audience now knows what to expect from a 00semantics film: breathtaking action, breathtaking locations, and breathtaking beauties. The problem, therefore, is to offer something new to keep the audience's interest alive while remaining faithful to the trademark defined with the first three films.
Perhaps, in the awareness that a further exacerbation/exaggeration of the tones and narrative solutions risked degenerating the entire saga into self-parody (or, even worse, into unintended comedy), the choice was made to create a film that, in itself, adds nothing to the canon, limiting itself to giving it even more secure and elegant attire thanks not only to an even larger budget but especially to the experience and success of the previous films.
In "Thunderball," the feeling of "autopilot engaged" is palpable right from the introduction, which, now reaching the fourth episode, is a distinctive element of the saga:
- gunbarrel sequence;
- initial scene with a small shock for the viewer (fake Bond's death in "From Russia with Love," gold bath in "Goldfinger," Bond's funeral here);
- opening credits projected on women's bodies, which deep down you know aren’t really naked, but you can’t help watching them without blinking, lest you miss a nipple;
Similarly, Connery by now ad-libs.
I’m practically certain that by the time of this film, his scripts ended up resembling the action list of a Cicciobello doll, like:
Scene 1 – Clinic Interior – day:
- beat up the villain with a tattoo;
- uncover the glans;
Scene 2 – M’s Office – day;
- flirt with Moneypenny;
- bicker with M;
- flirt with Moneypenny;
Scenes from 3 to 574 – doesn’t matter if it's day or night, it's all the same:
- beat up the villains;
- infiltrate every living, at least sentient being, not necessarily consenting;
- the nightstand isn’t sentient;
- infiltrate it anyway;
Also upholding tradition is the return of my heroes: SPECTRE!
After the brief pause in "Goldfinger," Number 1 and his big, pettable cat return cooler than ever.
We learn that they have a beautiful meeting room, gigantic (truly gigantic!), where numbers 1 to 12 regularly gather for a sort of "year-end budget approval."
Basically, it's a condo meeting.
Only instead of the administrator, there's a guy petting a cat in front of everyone without ever showing his face.
Instead of residents, there are respectable businessmen engaged in the worst atrocities in the fields of Counter-espionage, Terrorism, Retribution, and Extortion, and everyone is asked to state how much money they managed to bring into the organization’s coffers (the "Consultation for English postal train robbery, 250,000 pounds" is genius).
Then, if it turns out someone hasn’t stuck to the stair-cleaning schedule or messed up organic disposal and now there's such a smell you can't breathe, or attempted to swipe the heroin dealing cash, the administrator can always decide to give them a verbal warning or roast them in an electric chair right in front of everyone, as a warning to colleagues who might even think of doing the same.
Staying on topic: Adolfo Celi as Emilio Largo is a magnificent villain.
The fierce resentment he feels toward Bond is almost tangible, if only for the ease with which Bond wins over Domino, yet his portrayal is very restrained, rarely over-the-top, almost drawing a line with the grotesque and at times almost ridiculous character of Auric Goldfinger.
Notably, the director in Celi's first appearance pays homage to his Italian roots by having him park unlawfully.
As might have been guessed, "Thunderball" is the chapter I've liked the least so far.
There are some very cool elements, like the aforementioned SPECTRE executives meeting (or its counterpart: the secret agents’ rendez-vous from all over Europe), Celi’s performance, the surreal jetpack escape in the opening scene, the even more surreal final rescue scene (Domino’s perplexed expression as Connery inserts a tube into his rear to inflate the balloon is quite hilarious), and some of Bond's quips are among the best I've heard in the four films, like:
Moneypenny: "All of Europe’s special agents have been called together and the Interior Minister is involved too."
Bond: "His wife must have lost the dog.".
But the film's overall assessment, while certainly positive, doesn’t quite trigger awe.
"Thunderball" is, in effect, the aquatic level of a platform video game like Super Mario Bros or Sonic.
Not that it's not fun in itself.
But it's certainly less fun than the other land-based levels.
In general, it lacks a bit of pacing, and in some parts, I feel it drags on too long.
The underwater scenes, in particular, however beautiful and resulting from dazzling special effects that for the time would spin everyone’s heads like the exorcist, now mainly induce two thunderballs. The underwater fight is exasperating: at a certain point, I thought the file had jammed and VLC kept replaying the exact same scenes for 4 hours.
If we add a musical theme that isn’t exactly "Maracaibo, sea force 9, going, yes, but where? ZA! ZA!", the risk of an unintended nap is right around the corner.
In short, to tie up loose ends, it’s still a good episode of the saga, distinguished by an excellent "villains" department, but, upon closer look, it turns out to be an interlocutory chapter, adding nothing to what has already been seen.
Wanting, instead, to pull the underwear thread, we come (verb very appropriate) to discuss the objectively very beautiful Claudine Auger as the unfortunate "Domino."
Ah, here too I’m a bit at a loss.
Let’s immediately say that the name "Claudine," and French names in general, intrigues me a lot.
I say "Claudine," and immediately I picture a young mischievous student who isn’t wearing panties under a light pastel-colored cotton skirt, on a warm late spring day.
Come on, leave me alone, Claudine... Don’t you see I’m working?
No, I don’t want to dance, please...
And what would your father think if he saw us?
You know he’s my boss and trusts me a lot...
He even asked me to keep your mom company on that boat trip...
Besides the wet dreams, Auger is truly beautiful.
Long legs, medium breasts.
Very slight Venus squint in her left eye.
A mole near the right corner of her mouth that could easily become an excuse for very refined and elegant erotic games and facials.
Not surprisingly, she was elected Miss France in 1958.
The problem is that her character isn’t well fleshed out, it lacks some bite, some depth. You don’t perceive a real suffering for being, essentially, Largo’s prisoner, nor a real hatred towards the man who killed her brother.
And for someone like me, who still has the chest exuberance of a Pussy Galore fresh in mind, or the elegant submission of a Tatiana Romanova, two thighs you'd lick and suck all night as if they were two giant popsicles with a hottie flavor aren’t enough to keep you from the last place in the "Best Boom Bond Pussies" ranking.
And on this note:
"Best Boom Bond Movies"
1) "From Russia with Love";
2) "Goldfinger";
3) "License to Kill";
4) "Thunderball: Operation Thunder";
"Best Boom Bond Pussies":
1) Daniela Bianchi – Tatiana Romanova;
2) Honor Blackman – Pussy Galore;
3) Ursula Andress – Honey Rider;
4) Claudine Auger – Dominique "Domino" Derval;
Next up: "You Only Live Twice."
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