007 Mission Files: “Diamonds are Forever”

Diamonds are Forever is one of my least favorite Bond films in the entire series…or is it? Known for the return of Sean Connery, I always put the film pretty low on my list of favorites, but I kind of enjoyed it this time. It still has its flaws, but it isn’t as terrible as I remembered.

Let’s be honest, the major story here is that EON was able to lure Sean Connery back to the series. George Lazenby, who played Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was approached to reprise the role, but the producers were never blown away by his performance and it didn’t seem like the general population ever got on board with him, so they needed to find someone else.

They did a series of screen tests with future Bond actors Roger Moore (who they’d considered since Dr. No but wasn’t available due to his television series, The Saint) and Timothy Dalton (who still felt he was too young for the role). They eventually signed John Gavin to the role for $50,000. Gavin is most known for his roles in Psycho and Spartacus. The producers still weren’t convinced that Gavin was the right choice and took one more run at Connery.

How did they convince Connery to return to the world of James Bond? Money. Connery signed a contract for $1.25 million, making him the highest paid actor for one film of all time. He also received a percentage of the profits. Just a hint, the movie broke the 3-day weekend box office record at the time. Connery actually donated all of the money he earned on this film to the Scottish International Educational Trust, which was a charity he set up with other famous Scotts.

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Diamonds are Forever was released in 1971 with a budget of $7.2 million. Since so much of that money was dedicated to Connery’s salary, there wasn’t a lot left for anything else. The budget was still less than that of You Only Live Twice, but Connery’s fee was more than the entire budget for Dr. No. They also still had to pay Gavin his $50,000.

The movie opens with a great scene where Bond is chasing down Blofeld. Bond has been rightfully obsessed with finding Blofeld since murdering his wife at the end of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. He follows a trail of people and finally finds Blofeld undergoing plastic surgery. Or is he! Blofeld is making body doubles, but Bond thwarts his plan and pushes Blofeld into a vat of chemicals. It kind of looked like he got slimed on Nickelodeon in the mid-’90s.

After the opening credits, Bond returns to MI-6, where M begins prepping him for his next mission. There’s a diamond-smuggling ring getting out of hand. The government fears whomever is gathering this many diamonds is planning on flooding the market and depreciating their value.

Bond is able to infiltrate the smuggling ring by posing as Peter Franks. His contact is Tiffany Case, a beautiful young woman who had the diamonds delivered to her that day. Together they fly to America to have them delivered to their buyer in Las Vegas.

A trail of bodies is being left in their wake, but it isn’t due to Bond and Case. The mysterious assassinating team of Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint are killing anyone who handles the diamonds, and Bond and Case are in their sights.

When their plane lands, Bond is immediately taken by a group of mobsters. The front for their smuggling business is a mortuary, and Bond has hidden the diamonds in the body of the real Peter Franks to get them past customs with the help of our old friend Felix Leiter.

Bond follows the diamonds and discovers they are being built into a satellite. He finds out the man behind this is Willard Whyte, an American mogul who has been hiding in recluse in the penthouse of the casino he owns in Las Vegas.

Bond goes to Las Vegas to investigate Whyte but discovers that the real Willard Whyte has been held prisoner for years with Blofeld, taking his place. Bond had only killed two of his doubles at the beginning of the film. The real one is still alive and well.

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Blofeld gasses Bond and instructs Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint to dispose of him. They drop his body in a pipe that is being assembled, assuming that would be good enough. But Bond just doesn’t die that easily. He frees himself from the pipe, discovers where Whyte is being held, and rescues him.

Whyte and Bond go over the holdings for Whyte’s company and they find a new one that Whyte is unaware of. It is an oilrig off the coast of Baja California. They rush to the rig to confront Blofeld, but the satellite has already been launched. Blofeld had used the diamonds to create a high-powered laser he can use to hold the world hostage. He destroys military property in the US, Russia, and China, but fortunately cooler heads prevail between the unfriendly superpowers and they allow Bond to do his thing. Bond leads an American assault on the rig, and it is destroyed with Blofeld on board.

One of the things that made the movie work better for me this time was seeing all of the characters out of their elements. M, Q, and even Moneypenny all appear in the field to help James along the way. The bulk of the film takes place in the Nevada desert, away from tropical locations. It gave this entry a fresh feeling that was needed after six entries.

The production on this entry finally reached an acceptable level. There’s no under-cranking to sell stunts. The action scenes are edited well. Even the sound effects seem more natural. This is really the first time while watching through the series I felt I was watching a modern movie.

One great example of this is toward the beginning of the film when Bond and M are learning about the diamond business. While they’re being briefed, it cuts to actually showing the smuggling process ending with the introduction of Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd taking their first victim of the film. They then cut back to the exposition and continue their mission briefing. This was a really effective method, and it helps the pacing of this section.

The theme song is another classic by Shirley Bassey. This is the third song she’s done for the series so far along with the title track from Goldfinger and ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,’ which appeared in You Only Live Twice. This song for Diamonds are Forever is widely known in pop culture. It’s been covered a number of times and even sampled by Kanye West.

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In the first draft of the screenplay, the plot centered around Auric Goldfinger’s twin brother on a mission of revenge. They even spoke at length with Gert Frobe, who played Goldfinger, but ultimately he was not able to make the schedule work and was hesitant to return to the world of 007.

Cars: Tiffany Case drives a 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 ‘Fastback.’ Mustangs have been popular throughout the series as a car for supporting characters. With the bulk of this movie taking place in the US, that wasn’t about to change. Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd also drive a 1971 Thunderbird.

The hearse the mob uses to pick up Bond and the diamonds from the airport was a Cadillac from 1968 and there is a brief appearance of a yellow Triumph Stag in Amsterdam and Bond’s Aston Martin DBS in Q’s workshop being loaded up with missiles.

There is also an interesting chase sequence with a couple of unique vehicles. Bond is driving a MoonBuggy he has stolen from what I guess is the sound stage for a fake moon landing. He is being chased by a few Honda US 90 ATC three-wheelers.

Allies: Bernard Lee returns as M for the seventh time, and his annoyance with Bond’s omniscience has reached its peak. I think he speaks for the audience. It gets old that Bond already knows everything about every topic before the mission even begins. Lee has some nice scenes with Connery.

Lois Maxwell returns as Moneypenny for the seventh time. She only has one scene here as she was filming an Agatha Christie film at the time. However, she is in the field for the first time where she presents Bond with his phony passport.

Desmond Llewelyn returns for the sixth time as Q and has a handful of nice scenes. His annoyance for Bond matches M’s, but that has come to be expected. He shows up in Las Vegas to help and the audience also sees his lab at Q Branch.

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Felix Leiter appears again, and a different actor plays him yet again. This time it’s Norman Burton, who does a fine job. It kind of seems like he’s doing a Frank Sinatra impression. He isn’t my favorite Felix, but he’s serviceable.

Willard Whyte is believed to be the villain at first, but once the real Whyte is rescued (played by Jimmy Dean the Sausage King) he turns out to be Bond’s strongest ally. The character was based on Howard Hughes, who was friends with the producers. Dean actually does a really nice job in this part. It is one of the rare instances of decent acting in a Bond film.

Bond Girls: Tiffany Case is the primary damsel in this movie, played by Jill St. John. Other actresses considered were Raquel Welch, Jane Fonda, and Faye Dunaway. Jill does a nice job with this performance, but the character takes a weird turn. She starts off very strong and intelligent, but by the end she’s kind of an idiot. She makes some really bad decisions and becomes a little ineloquent. To be fair, the character is really out of her element by the end of the movie.

Plenty O’Toole is played by Lana Wood. Bond meets O’Toole at a casino in Las Vegas. She has really terrible luck in this movie. Lana Wood is the sister of Natalie Wood and was cast after the producers saw her spread in Playboy. Wood and Connery had a fling during the making of the film. Halfway through production, he dumped her and started seeing Jill St. John.

During the scene in the pool with Plenty O’Toole’s corpse tied to a cement block, they actually had Lana Wood tied to chunk of cement. It was at just the right spot so she could stick her head up to breathe between takes. Unfortunately, the pool was sloped and she was gradually moving deeper and deeper until she could no longer stick her head out of the water. Luckily, some crewmen spotted this and were able to rescue her. Ironically, her sister tragically drowned a decade later.

There are a number of other Bond Girls in the film including one he strangles at the beginning with her own bikini top for information on Blofeld’s whereabouts.

Gadgets: There are some really good gadgets in this one and some weird ones as well. Both Bond and Blofeld use voice modulators to pretend to be other people.

Bond uses essentially a grappling hook in a pistol. Q has also provided him with fake fingerprints for his cover as Peter Franks. These are both cool.

Q has also taken it upon himself to create a device in a ring that will stop slot machines on the icons he desires. He’s basically just an old man trying to cheat a casino at this point. There’s also a moment where a henchman tries to take something out of Bond’s pocket, but his hand is essentially caught in a mousetrap. These are both weird.

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Villains: Ernst Stavro Blofeld returns again as the primary villain. This time he’s played by Charles Gray, who does a nice job. It’s just weird he was also in You Only Live Twice as an ally. Ultimately, while I like what Gray brought to the table, he’s my least favorite of the three main actors to play the character. My Blofeld hierarchy is Donald Pleasence (You Only Live Twice), Telly Savalas (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and then Gray.

Irma Bunt was supposed to return from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but Ilse Steppat died soon after that film was released. Apparently this was the only time in the history of the Bond franchise they have felt uncomfortable recasting a role.

Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint are an interesting pair of eccentric assassins. Mr. Kidd is played by Putter Smith (who was actually a jazz bassist) and Mr. Wint is played by Bruce Glover (father of Crispin Glover). The two have such a good rapport that it just works. In fact, they were so good as a pair that they convinced Connery on set they were actually openly gay. Glover recalled in one interview that, years later, he was on a flight flirting with a female flight attendant and he heard a loud Scottish voice from behind him proclaim “You son of a bitch…” He turned to find Connery on the same flight and the jig was up.

There is another weird pair of villains in this movie named Bambi and Thumper. They are two female henchmen that are in charge of holding Whyte hostage. They have an interesting dance/karate fighting style. Ultimately, it doesn’t work and Bond is able to take care of them.

The mob is a small part to this film as well. They’re actually the primary villains in the book, but here they are just an integral part of the diamond smuggling ring. There is a nice cameo from a young Sid Haig.

This would be Connery’s last official Bond film. When he was asked if he would play the character again he replied, “Never again.” Of course, his final appearance was a number of years later in the noncanonical Never Say Never Again.

It is reported that Connery’s last day of filming was on Friday the 13th in August of 1971. Ironically, the final scene he shot was when Bond is trapped in a coffin.

Ultimately, I always saw Diamonds are Forever as a knee jerk reaction to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It hadn’t done as well as they’d hoped and their star wasn’t returning, so let’s just go back to what worked before. In all honesty though, that really isn’t the case. The success of this entry did much more to usher in the Roger Moore era than it’s given credit for. There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, and it’s very self-referential. This one might make it into my regular rotation.

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