The James Bond Bedside Companion (66 page)

PRODUCTION

S
ean Connery returned to the series on a one-time basis to play Bond in
Diamonds Are Forever
. Since
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
had not been as successful as the preceding films, the producers decided to revert back to the standard Bond formula. Connery was back, and the fantasy elements would be played up again. Ken Adam also returned to design more of his futuristic, sparkling sets.

Diamonds Are Forever
also marks a new direction in the series. Humor began to play an increasingly important role in the films beginning in the seventies. Although
Diamonds
still has its share of thrills and some suspense, much of it is played strictly for laughs. Tom Mankiewicz, co-scriptwriter for the film, explained his theory on why the Bond films changed in the seventies in an interview for
Bondage
magazine:

Well, I think what turned the Bond pictures around, in my opinion—and long before I got on them—was that car in
Goldfinger.
I think the minute Sean pressed the button on the ejector seat, and the audience roared, the series turned around. The audiences saw outlandish things they had never seen before, and the natural response of anybody—a writer, a filmmaker—is to give them more; more of what they want. And there's constant pressure as the films gross a great deal of money to make each one bigger, and "more" than the last.

Let's take
You Only Live Twice.
Once you have a helicopter come by with a giant magnet and pick a car up off the road, and dump it out in the ocean—it's a
           
staggering thing to look at. Once you say to an audience, "All's fair;
we can do that," it's awful tough to keep a serious plot line going. You have so many tools available, so many outlandish things which an audience is not only used to, but they want to see, they got indoctrinated into it, and that's when I say Bond became Disney, in a certain way. It became an entertainment; it became an afternoon out, where for two hours you were going to see stuff you never saw before . . . The feeling of the studio (I mean United Artists and Cubby) was that if you pulled your horns in, and made a smaller picture, they (the audience) would be disappointed.

(From "The Tom Mankiewicz Interview,"

by Richard Schenkman,
Bondage
, Number 8)

Sean Conneiy's back and Jill St. John's got him in the 1971-released
Diamonds Are Forever.
(UPI Photo.)

Mankiewicz's theory makes sense, and explains the mentality of the producers. Granted, Ian Fleming's lesser novels, such as
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
, might not translate well into cinematic material. One can understand why the filmmakers opted to go this route.

The general public isn't made up of James Bond purists. The people who flock to the Bond films are going to be entertained, as Mankiewicz states. The Bond purists, who have continually objected to the way James Bond has been handled on the screen since 1970, are relatively small in number. Mankiewicz told
Bondage
that he is a fan of Fleming's Bond, but believes that the change in the character for the films was necessary both commercially and cinematically. The Bond films, starting with
Diamonds
, became "romps," (to use Mankiewicz's word), and this, in part, explains their artistic decline in the seventies. Ironically, these movies made even more money than had the previous six. James Bond, apparently, is a successful commodity in almost any form.

Diamonds Are Forever
employed both European and American crews. Locations were shot in Amsterdam and England with one group, and in Los Angeles and Las Vegas with the other. The production was completed in under eighteen weeks, so United Artists escaped having to pay Connery the $10,000-per-weekover-schedule salary guaranteed in his contract

The film was enormously successful when it was released in December of 1971—it appeared that the picture would outgross all the previous Bonds. The film is entertaining, without a doubt, with fast-paced action and spectacular settings. The dialogue is sometimes very funny, containing a few terrific one-liners. Guy Hamilton is back at the helm, giving the film the speed and polish that enhanced
Goldfinger
. But the prime asset of the film is Sean Connery's return as James Bond. This was proven in theaters around the world, when audiences cheered at Connery's first appearance on the screen saying those famous words: "The name is Bond. James Bond."

SCREENPLAY

M
uch of the screenplay was written by committee, as usual, with a lot of input from Broccoli and Saltzman, as well as Hamilton. Richard Maibaum wrote the first draft, and Tom Mankiewicz was brought in later for a rewrite.

The film differs a great deal from the novel. There are a few similar scenes in the first quarter of the film, but they are in an entirely different context. The plot now involves SPECTRE, rather than the syndicate known as the Spangled Mob. Good old Ernst Stavro Blofeld is in control once more (in the novel the villains are Mafia-style gangsters named Jack and Seraffimo Spang). The film harks back to the science fiction aspects of
Dr. No
and
You Only Live Twice
, involving the creation of a laser-equipped satellite which SPECTRE will use to blackmail (as usual) major government powers. The laser gun is powered by diamonds which have been smuggled from a mine in South Africa owned by the British. At the beginning of the film, the British know that the diamonds are being smuggled but are mystified because the gems are not appearing on the black market. Someone is apparently stockpiling them, and it's up to James Bond to infiltrate the smuggling pipeline and find out who the culprit is. Blofeld and SPECTRE were brought into the plot, apparently, to maintain a semblance of continuity in the cinematic saga. Bond would naturally be seeking revenge for the murder of his wife in the previous film. Therefore, in the pre-credits sequence, we see Bond attacking various people in different locations, demanding to know the whereabouts of Blofeld. Bond finally locates him in the act of creating duplicates of himself by means of plastic surgery. Bond breaks into the futuristic operating room and kills Blofeld (at least he thinks it's Blofeld). We learn later in the film that it was only one of Blofeld's duplicates, and the real villain is alive and well and threatening governments again.

This pre-credits sequence is very confusing and is over before the audience can fully comprehend what has happened. In a way, this is a problem with the entire film. The plot itself is overcomplicated, and several scenes cut in the final editing probably explained a great deal that seems missing from the released version. For instance, it's not totally clear that it is SPECTRE that is running the smuggling pipeline. It seems that a different organization is behind the operation, and
SPECTRE
has interfered and begun sidetracking the pipeline into their own coffers. After a couple of viewings, it becomes clear that the links in the pipeline—the dentist in South Africa, the elderly schoolteacher in Amsterdam, Peter Franks, and Tiffany Case—do not know they're working for
SPECTRE.
Wint and Kidd, the two homosexual
SPECTRE
assassins, begin killing the pipeline links; it's not clear until later that
SPECTRE
intended to close the operation once they had obtained all the diamonds needed to complete the satellite project.

Bond (Sean Cannery) and
Tiffany
Case (Jill St. John) congratulate each other on a good day's work on location in Los Vegas for
Diamonds Are Forever.
(UPI
Photo.)

A scene from the novel that appears in the film almost intact depicts Bond's impersonation of Peter Franks and his visit to Tiffany Case's hotel room. She is dressed in her underwear, as in the novel, but her character is written differently.

A few characters from the novel were retained—Tiffany, Felix Leiter, Wint and Kidd, Shady Tree—but new ones were created as well: Willard Whyte (the Howard Hughes–like character whom Blofeld impersonates for his new front), Plenty O'Toole (just another Bond-girl), and Burt Saxby (one of Blofeld's underlings who manages the Las Vegas hotel where Bond stays).

The script does contain some funny lines, probably thanks to the wit of Tom Mankiewicz. Some of these lines were a little too witty for Broccoli's taste, but the dialogue remains in the film anyway. One example occurs when Leiter is looking for the diamonds hidden
inside the dead body of Peter Franks. "Where are they?" he asks Bond. Bond replies with a smile, "Alimentary, Dr. Leiter." Connery's delivery of these lines is wry. Another funny moment is when Miss O'Toole introduces herself to Bond at the casino. "Hi, I'm Plenty," she says. Bond looks her up and down and replies, "Of course you are." "No," she says, "Plenty O'Toole!" Bond then says, "Named after your father, no doubt."

DIRECTION

G
uy Hamilton is back for his second Bond film, to which he brings much of the same slick style of
Goldfinger
. But the touch is lighter this time.
Diamonds
emphasizes wit and high camp at the expense of suspense and danger. The film moves so rapidly that one can barely follow the storyline. The action speeds recklessly from set-piece to set-piece, never giving the audience time to ask, "Now, why did that happen?" It seems to be a strategy on the part of the filmmakers for covering weak plot details: move over them fast if they don't make sense.

This doesn't mean that
Diamonds Are Forever
isn't stylish. The opening scenes revealing the diamond pipeline are moody, thanks to John Barry's eerie score. The scene in which Bond is trapped inside a coffin loaded into a crematorium creates a good deal of suspense, but his rescue by Shady Tree is a cop-out. The most atmospheric and Bondian scene in the film is when 007 rides the elevator to the top of the Whyte House in order to break into the penthouse. Using a gun that fires a cable and grappling hooks, Bond dangles in midair over Las Vegas for a few minutes as he pulls himself up. The music, the night sky, and the shadowy photography create a breathtaking effect.

The film's highlights are the two chases: one involving a moon buggy from the satellite space laboratory, and the other pitting Bond and Tiffany's Mustang against the Las Vegas police. This latter sequence is full of thrills and is really the high point of the film, even though it's markedly similar to the Aston Martin car chase in
Goldfinger
. Over twenty automobiles were totalled for the filming of this scene.

The main problem with Hamilton's direction is that he takes many of the characters too lightly, Blofeld in particular. In
You Only Live Twice
, Blofeld seems a raving lunatic. In
Diamonds
, Blofeld is British (a mistake) and very charming. He has as much style and elegance as Bond himself. The treatment of Wint and Kidd is especially annoying. In the novel, the homosexual couple are extremely dangerous characters. In the film, they are simply silly. Much of the picture's humor is derived from these two. Finally, the character of James Bond himself is treated with levity. Connery still manages to bring a certain amount of macho ruggedness to the role, but the character seems to be floating through this assignment on a breeze. It's all too easy for him. Connery's performance aside, one can easily see that the Bond character as written here would easily harmonize with Roger Moore's personality for future films.