Our hero: broken, stripped to his
fundamental traits of tenacity, fearlessness and loyalty, his city
under siege by a darker version of himself -- an enemy with the same
training and former allegiances, who now sets his talents to
destructive, vindictive ends. After being presumed dead, our hero
rises up, and though far from his days of peak performance, manages
to swoop in and make a case for the continued relevance of theatric
heroics by saving the day, using an arsenal of specially designed
“toys” and souped-up cars from a teenager's wet dream. A
bittersweet triumph sees familiar faces brought out to pasture,
concluding a trilogy years in the making, while simultaneously
introducing new characters, setting the stage for the next phase of
the legend, whatever that may be.
Thus is the mythical figure of 2012,
brought to multiplexes and IMAX theater screens in 70mm and 2K
projection, providing hero archetypes in the guise of
popcorn-munching for future would-be Joseph Campbells (the best we
can hope of a steady diet of superhero movies is that it produces
another one of him, and not another me or Gabe, God forbid). With
Skyfall and Dark Knight Rises almost perfectly mirroring each other
in theme, motifs and hero arcs (if an argument broke out and the
other two movies were already claimed, Avengers and the Amazing
Spider-Man could also fit this mold fairly easily, but for the sake
of this article, I'll leave them out of the pie-eating contest) one
can't help but ask the question: Why now?
It seems Batman and Bond have been
circling each other for decades now, with parallel -- sometimes
intertwining -- histories. 1962 gives us 007's bow on the big screen
with Dr. No. The low-budget thriller that no one on the crew took
seriously (director Terence Young didn't think anyone would buy the
outlandish plot or villain, concerning a metal-handed criminal
mastermind toppling US rockets during launch) became a sleeper hit
and created a new filmic genre, as well as a new musical one (one
could argue that spy music didn't come into full flower until John
Barry's bombastic, glossy Goldfinger score two years later, though
Dr. No still introduced Monty Norman's iconic James Bond Theme). 1963
expanded the MI6 universe and provided a more real-life take on
spydom with From Russia With Love, then Bond put his tongue in his
cheek for Goldfinger and exponentially bloated to Thunderball and
then You Only Live Twice dimensions. By 1967 a hollowed out volcano
that launched spacecraft to hijack astro/cosmonauts and their
vehicles made Dr. No seem downright pedestrian. Between Thunderball
and YOLT the Bond series took its first year-long hiatus (starting a
biennial release schedule that, with a few exceptions, it retains to
this day). Spymania was on the rise and by the year 007 paused for a
breath, parodies, rip-offs and homages galore were glutting
moviescreens: Our Man Flint, The Silencers (Matt Helm's debut),
What's Up Tiger Lily?, the Dr. Goldfoot movies, The Liquidator. These
were mostly garish, brightly colored spoofs, presenting spy as
gadget-wielding, model-bedding bon vivant up against equally colorful
baddies. This year also saw another colorful playboy bounce to
screens (both small and large): Batman.
At the time there was little in the
Batman comics to suggest the operatic levels of camp on display in
the show (though, after the series' popularity, just try and keep a
15-ft typewriter from popping up in an issue). Similarly, the Bond
novels, with a few exceptions, were nowhere near as outlandish or
gadget-laden as their cinematic counterparts. Well sure, Pussy Galore
originated in the Goldfinger novel, but what? Books can't be dirty
too?
This guy: an invention of the cinema
This lady: born of the artform that gave us Jean Valjean, David Copperfield and Captain Ahab.
Am I saying James Bond was instrumental
in getting Batman on TV? No, but I am saying in the climate Bondmania
created, it probably made it easier and gave it the tongue-in-cheek
approach it's (in)famous for. By the next year, the Bond series
itself slid firmly into self-parody, both in the official Eon series,
and in a non-canonical and not-at-all-faithful-to-the-source-novel
Casino Royale, starring Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, David Niven and
so many others (Soooooo many others. So so so many others). So what
did the two franchises share? Colorful gimmicks, a jazzy score,
Batman's wiseassy knowledge of just about everything (Bond: “Beluga
caviar, north of the Caspian.” Bats: “Let's
hope that it's a stitch in time, Robin, that saves nine - The nine
members of the United World Security Council. Come on.”), gadgets,
henchmen and a cast of classy,
sexy, deadly ladies (Lee Meriwether's Catwoman/Kitka gives any Bond
girl a run for her money). Well, mostly.
Another reason to make mine Marvel:
this is what Scarlet Johannsen looks like in the DCU
Tallulah Bankhead was just one of the
many people to make you go “hey, whu?” on Batman. Everyone wanted
(or legally had) to be on the show. Vincent Price, Jack LaLanne,
Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Woody Strode, Elisha Cook Jr, Seymour
Cassel, Art Carney, Ida Lupino, Eli Wallach, Liberace (!), not to
mention unfilmed cameos that Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra reportedly
wanted to make.
The aforementioned Casino Royale has a
similar tactic of throwing actors at the screen to see if you or your
grandparents recognizes them: Orson Welles, Jean-Paul Belmondo,
George Raft, Deborah Kerr, Charles Boyer, John Huston (also
co-directed), Peter O'Toole, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
In their own ways, Bond and Batman at
the time were the “hip” things the not-so-hip did because, well,
it was the 60s. They were like twin gas giants sucking everyone in
Hollywood into one of their orbits, like Hollywood Babylonian orgies
that no one under 40 wanted to go to.
Batman's Mr. Freeze himself, Otto
Preminger, not to be outdone, took a page out the show's playbook
when he cast the entire west coast in the next year's Skidoo: Carol
Channing, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney, George Raft (that dude
again?), Slim Pickens, Richard Kiel (still 9 years away from playing
Jaws in not one but two Bond films), Harry Nilsson, the Penguin, the
Joker, the Riddler, and Groucho Marx all starred, officially making
this film old fart Woodstock. Incidentally, Casino Royale and Skidoo
are cautionary tales of what happens when your uncle decides he
wants to become part of the counter-culture. When Brian Wilson
dropped acid you got the aborted, yet genius SMiLE. When Otto
Preminger did it, well...
In contrast to this type of outlandish
sixtiesness, You Only Live Twice is ridiculous in a way that
acknowledges that yes, James Bond is awful silly sometimes, and yes,
this is a golden era for making this type of fluffy entertainment, but we're
here to take this silliness seriously. It opens with Bond, now
apparently world famous as a superspy, seemingly being murdered to
allow him to carry on his work without being bothered by pesky
megalomaniacal supervillains while working his latest case in Japan
(his anonymity in death doesn't last long, and is a trick the series
has tried before and since, most recently in Skyfall). There is a
plot by Blofeld and SPECTRE to capture US and Soviet rockets to try
to start World War III, there is a mini-helicopter chase, there is a
cigarette that shoots live ammo, there is a wide-scale ninja attack
of a volcano base, there is a scene where Bond becomes Japanese and
“marries” a local woman for cover. There is enough going on here
for three movies, but unlike Casino Royale, it has a constant sense
of invention and audacity to show you something you'd see in an
Austin Powers movie, but having the balls to only crack a smile when
necessary (the film was co-written by Roald Dahl, and it shows in the
fanciful aspects), whereas Casino Royale tries to coast by as a
series of cameos and comic set-pieces which are usually not funny and
have only slightly more coherence than Scary Movie 3.
Most people say it was the Manson
murders, or the stabbing at Altamont, but I think you can see now
what really killed the sixties.
Which brings us to 1969, and the
epitaph to the swingin' 60s spy craze: On Her Majesty's Secret
Service.
Batman was already off the air for more
than a year. The fun was over, the culture was moving on from such
lavish, inflated cotton candy feasts. The Bondverse had come back
down to earth and was more morose and showed the consequences of a
spy's life more soberly. George Lazenby, taking over for a Sean
Connery who did not, for the moment, want to return to Bond's tux
(that would famously change, more than once), gives it his all in his
first acting role, but many people were wondering where the hell “the
other fella” went.
What many critics and fans see as
inexperience and youthful cockiness in the Aussie actor, I see as the
arrogance and aloofness a superspy like James Bond has accrued over
the course of 5, now 6 films. He's seen everything, done everything,
slept with every woman, eaten the finest food and drank the finest
champagne (on the British government's dime, no less. Glad I don't
pay taxes there), killed the oddest henchmen, foiled the maddest of
world domination plans, and always come away unscathed. He's earned a
certain sense of smugness. He knows he'll come out on top and barely
has to try in a struggle (much like a certain Gotham millionaire, but
this won't be explored cinematically for several more decades), but
now, when confronted with the one woman he may actually love, a
degree of fragility is also required – this is where the
inexperience comes in. As a young actor trying to prove something as
a man who has nothing to prove, 28-year-old Lazenby's posturing as
the ultimate male creates an interesting feedback loop of unsure
security, which is crucial to this particular film. For these
reasons, and I know this sounds like heresy, I doubt Connery could
have done as well in the role.
Dammit, Sean! That could've been you!
This is what makes this film so tragic.
He constantly overestimates himself, and winds up paying for it. This
is the first film, since Q's introduction, that he has no gadgets. He
has to rely on his wits, his skills, his luck, and most crucially in
this film, the aid of his comrades and loved one(s). His love
interest in this, Tracy, is his equal. She is just as capable as he,
and twice as reckless. Whereas Bond knows he'll always land on his
feet, Tracy, the bored, spoiled daughter of an international crime
syndicate boss, not only knows she won't, but is counting on it. If
only that damn handsome spy would let her commit suicide once in a
while
Now Bond has a charge. With Tracy's
deathwish, Bond must again keep on his toes, if only for her sake.
Fatally, he fails her: supremely happy in his new role as husband
(Bond? Tied down? Say it ain't so), he is caught off-guard on the
drive from the wedding. Blofeld, whom he has allowed to escape alive
after the main action of the film, finds them at the very end of the
third act. Bullets fly, Bond gets the old spyhunter in him as he gets
ready to speed after them. He sees the crack in the windshield, the
bullet in Tracy's forehead. This is the price of being a carefree
world-renowned, well-living superspy. Any happiness or contentment is
fleeting. All the dry vodka martinis and all the Bollinger '53 and
all the beluga caviar in the world can never equal the loving
relationship and sense of peace he'll never be able to have.
He had a
good stretch, but the 60s are done, the swinging has to stop. Bond
will return, as he always does, but the lesson he learned will be all
but forgotten by the next installment, Diamonds Are Forever, replaced
by a lame, shoddy Vegas nightclub version of a Bond film, and this
by-the-numbers approach unfortunately mars much of the rest of the
series, with only every few movies approaching the excitement, the
seriousness, the fun, the inventiveness of the first six films.
Interestingly, Adam West, Batman
himself, was considered to replace Connery on OHMSS, but he declined.
No, it would still be two decades before Batman would become Bond.
No comments:
Post a Comment