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Welcome to Film Strip.

I'm Jay and happy to welcome back to the show Carmelita Valdez McCoy.

Hi friend.

Hi, it's so excited to have you back here because we're talking James Bond and we're talking Thunderball starring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Niki Vanderzil, Adolfo Celli, Robert Reedy, Luciana Paluzzi, Paul Stassinino, Guy Dolman, Rick Van Nutter with Bernard Lee and Desmond Llewyn.

Based on the novel by Ian Fleming, which was based on a screenplay by Fleming, Jack Weddingham and Kevin Mclaury, which we'll get into, and directed by Terrence Young, the director of Doctor No and From Russia With Love.

So why are we doing Thunderball?

Well, it's the 60th anniversary in December of 2025 here and.

In spite of all.

Of our efforts, we were unable to get the full Bond roundtable back together with all the guys.

Everybody's got lives and lots of stuff going on, but we kind of completed the cinematic journey through the eras of Bond with all those folks.

But during that, you and I had a side chat going about Bond and all this stuff and I had no idea you were such a Bond fiend or I would have had you in there.

So I.

Realized like, well, we got to make do good on that.

I'm like all.

Right, there's two things we can do.

At once we can't do the Round Table, but I can do a big Bond movie with somebody who's really passionate about it, and that comes to you and Thunderball here.

So what's your background with the Bond verse and then this entry?

Oh friends, I I want to start out by saying I'm so grateful to you for this opportunity to champion my all time favorite James Bond movie.

Bold.

I like it.

All time favorite.

OK.

So my history with Bond is I Sean.

Sean Connery was my first Bond and for, well, evermore, he's really my only Bond.

And I've seen some of the other films, but it was kind of one of those no Connery, no dice.

I've had arguments with people.

I.

This is bold.

I love.

It no.

I am very like, no, Sean Connery is James Bond.

Everyone else is just playing.

They're pretenders.

There is only one in my mind, in my mind, and I know I have not read the Ian Fleming novels.

I know that Connery was not what Ian Fleming envisioned for this character.

But for me, it's, it's Sean Connery.

He's James Bond.

And in recent years I've started to like do this like desensitization of watching other Bond films.

And I, and I've enjoyed some of them quite a bit, but they never quite feel like Bond to me because I'm, I'm just in my, in my mind and in my heart and in my soul.

It's all wrapped up in Connery embodying this character.

So I, my first Bond film was Goldfinger.

I saw it young, like, I don't know, maybe 7.

That's a That's a heck of A1 to jump into at seven years old.

Yeah, and I mean, just instantly fell in love with the character.

And I love all those Cold War spy films.

I.

Mean fairly.

That's probably the most accessible one of all of the Connery ones and maybe every Bond movie.

It's, I mean, it's, it's got all the stuff you think of when you think of Bond tropes, but it's also incredibly audience friendly because by then they'd figured out.

The formula I want to say.

Absolutely.

And so after that initial introduction, which I, I watched with my dad and then I think we went and saw some of the, the Dalton films in the 80s, like in the theater.

And I would, I would see little clips and snippets on TV of Roger Moore, but it was like, no, there's, there's one James Bond and it's Sean Connery.

And so then I subsequently would go on to watch Doctor No, From Russia, With Love, even some of those later ones, the contentious, the contentious Connery Bond films.

But I think, I think the first time I saw Thunderball I was a teenager, maybe late teens and loved it and didn't realize that it was one of the underappreciated Bond films.

And then in subsequent watches for a long time Goldfinger was my favorite.

And then over time and re watching and maybe just personal taste changing I don't know what, but over time it was like, no, it's Thunderball.

Thunderball is my favorite Bond film.

I love it.

I'm going to make an interesting comparison.

Please do.

I feel like Thunderball is similar to Nightmare on Elm Street, the dream Master.

It has the unenviable task of following the Super popular third entry then that case Dream Warriors.

But if you just take it on its own merit for what it is, it's not only incredibly watchable, it's got everything you love about Goldfinger in it and anything you might have liked about From Russia with Love or Doctor No in it.

And it's all done in this nice two hour, 20 minute package.

And I'm going to make the other bold statement that I think it's Connery's best performances Bond outside of You Only Live Twice, which I have been always that thought was his best.

Version of it.

I think it took him a little while to get it too.

So we're in fairground together because I saw Thunderball early on.

Conroy was my first bond, as I've told, on the on the Bond series.

And my dad sort of saw to that.

And so we just kind of rented them, you know, And then TBS did that whole constantly showing the eras of Bond.

And so Thunderball would always come on and I always found myself just drawn to it.

Yeah, for a lot of reasons.

It certainly is not the theme song.

We'll talk about Tom Jones later.

Because I hate, I hate Tom Jones.

I'd, well, I hate him as a person.

I just hate his music.

I just don't, don't do that.

Original Richard Cheese Lounge.

Thing that he's got going on but.

You know, whatever.

But everything else about this movie speaks to what I like in a Bond movie, particularly a Connery Bond movie.

And it was years and years later that I bothered to to get the book of it and read it.

And, you know, I've read all the behind the scenes stuff and we'll.

We'll do a little.

Bit of that here in a minute, but when I read the book, I was sort of blown away by like, wow, they they pretty much just adapted it, you know, and what's funny is to know now that like, well, Fleming was looking for something else to write.

This is going to be like the 9th Bond book and and or the 8th full when they had done like a bunch of short stories with Bond and this this is going to be the 9th book.

And frankly, he was out of ideas.

And Mclaury and him and Whittingham had tried to get the Bond Cinematic universe, if you will, started years before.

There was Eon and the Broccolis and Saltzman, and they wrote the screenplay and he didn't go anywhere.

And so he went back to that and just built the book off of it.

Now, he didn't plagiarize the whole thing, let's be real, that there was just peace.

It was.

Just an outline, more or less.

But.

He pulled a.

Lot of things together, this whole SPECTRE situation and the Blofeld and the nuclear bombs and NATO, all of that.

That era of things in the setting and everything was the outline was there and he just built it out and built characters through it and didn't get their like permissions to do it, obviously.

And so lawsuits for years and years and years that went on in the ultimate settlement of it, just to put the fine point on it was they they would credit all these people in the in the the writing stuff.

And Mclaury would actually get production credit for this one with the deal of he owns the rights to all the characters in this story afterward, but he can't remake it for 10 years, and it took him 18 to get it done.

Maybe one day we'll circle back around to never say never again, because it's been a long time since I've spent any time with that movie, but that's how we got here.

But I.

I read that book.

And I was blown away.

But like the really the only thing that they they took out of it is why Bond is kind of going on coalescence or convalescence I should say at the beginning of it.

It's in the mood in the book.

He's so strung out.

From drinking and partying hard all the time, like you got to go fix that.

And this one, it's much more heroic.

He got beat up really bad, you know, in an assassination attempt, which is much better, I want to say, because you don't need the guy to wake up with a hangover like he does with the book.

But I was.

Blown about how close they are because if you read the Bond books, like, there's always like, pieces of them that make it to the movie.

But the further they get down the line in particular, though, it was just more like, we're going to take this piece and this piece and mash it together.

You know, they don't really translate them.

Yeah.

And but this one again has all the same stuff that I love about Goldfinger, but it's just ramped up a little bit more.

It's and I'll go back to my Nightmare on Elm Street comparison again it.

Dreammaster is just Dream Warriors again, but it's just 211 so and if you watch it I I think you'd appreciate it more that way and I.

And I say that about this one too.

So you and I are both champions of the Thunderball as it was.

And plus, it's just a cool ass title, right?

Like this is gold, man.

This is a great, great word.

It is it and OK I I do enjoy the theme song very much.

OK, fair.

I mean everybody.

Likes their own I just.

Don't.

I've been listening and singing along to it at the top of my lungs for two days, you know, just to get in the mood.

No.

And I'm with you.

I think this film it, it has all those elements that everyone else's favorite Bond films do, but it, it does I, I think this is a sweet spot for Connery.

He, he's only a few years older in the mid 30s, but he he looks he really in this film.

We get that he can be kind of suave and polished and put on the nice suit, but there is a ruggedness and there's a he's this looks like a man who's living this life with all that that entails.

Yeah, well, he's been through the ringer like we've.

Seen him, His car's been through the ringer.

That opening scene the Aston Martins beat to hell because he's just pulling out of the Goldfinger episode, more or less you feel like.

Oh yeah, this is his physicality.

The action sequences and everything is just bigger.

The audacity of some of these action set pieces and the underwater sequences.

Oh yeah, they really went for it in a big way.

Oh, they totally did.

And I'll only say this about the theme song.

If I didn't know that the Dionne Warwick Mr.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang existed, I probably wouldn't think anything about it.

But the fact that I do know that exists and I've heard it, I'm.

Like, oh, that's just so cool, man.

Like, it's, it's hard for me to get over that.

But but not for real, though.

This isn't even in my like my top five of Bond songs.

It's maybe the top Bond title of all time, but it's it's not my top five songs.

But talking about like, and I know we don't just judge movies about how much money it made, but you need to know like how big of a hit this was, folks.

They made this for $9 million.

There's a lot of money, you know, in 1965, but it made over 140 in the box office.

This thing was bank the whole way.

And that is not a small feat.

And I mean, all these movies in some way or another have made.

Tons of money and they've done quite well for themselves, but this one in particular just just absolutely, you know, crushed it because you got to remember that they spent.

You.

Know three $4 million on Goldfinger and they got, you know, almost 200 out of it or something.

So they made a lot of money off of that one too.

And then when you you look at the the box office, this even got higher when it was all said and done if you adjust it all.

So I, I just think that's neat to know that this is when Bond was such a part of popular culture that it had taken hold like it took really three films to get it there.

People like Doctor know, people really like From Russia With Love, but, and I like From Russia With Love, but I won't sit here and tell you that it's action-packed 'cause it's not.

It's more contemplated, it's much more spycraft.

And if you've known anybody that's ever worked in that space or anybody who really has done it, you come to realize how freaking boring that work is.

I mean, it really is.

It's a lot of sitting around and reading things and taking photographs and talking to people.

It's not, it's not an adventure.

This, on the other hand, is a total adventure from the jump.

And I love that about this movie and the fact that, you know, they brought this out at Christmas, which is wild.

But, but you know what, think about like all the freezing, you know, people in New York and you know, and, and in the up and down the East Coast and stuff, because that's where your big biggest audience was in the 60s.

And even people out West, it's colder, you know?

And in the UK, in the home country of the James Bond character, yeah, it's freezing and wet.

It's.

Terrible.

So you want to show a movie when we're in the Bahamas?

For 3/4 Summit.

I'm game.

You know it's it's the escape of the movie, right?

That's what I love about this is that it is such an escape.

And again.

And I've, I've always found this one to be so much fun and so into.

So yeah, I'm going to do the Plot Summary here that we can get into this thing 'cause there's a lots of ways to, to attack this, but we'll, we'll go around the horn with it.

So Spectre orchestrates this daring plot to steal 2 atomic bombs off of a NATO Vulcan.

Bomber and led by #1 Blofeld and executed by the ruthless #2 Emilio Largo, who wears an eye patch.

This is the Bond villain of all time.

This plane involves impersonating a high-ranking French Air Force pilot.

That's changed from the book by the way.

They just paid the other guy off and using a doctored corpse to fake a plane crash near the Bahamas.

So when they assassinate the real pilot, they get the double to go on and take his place in the mission.

He hijacks the bombers.

He gasses everybody on the plane.

And then of course, he he's already held him over the barrel for a lot of money.

And then he does it at the very last minute too.

And they acquiesce only to make sure when they're getting the bombs off of there that they cut his air hose, which is so.

And it's, and it's Margo who does it.

Of course, you're right.

So they go and hide the bombs aboard Largo's yacht, the Disco Volante.

Another great piece of word play here.

And they, you know, get the ultimatum to the Western world.

They're looking for 100.

£1,000,000 in diamonds or one of the bombs is going to get detonated in a major British for American city at the time that's like $280 million.

This is a lot of lot of money.

So MI 6 learns about this.

They immediately deploy bond because he's already run across some of these people along the way.

He was recovering at a health clinic in the Bahamas from a previous mission.

And he finds this missing link between the bombs and leads him to Largo.

So he poses as the wealthy Playboy version of himself, and he gets close to Largo's beautiful mistress Domino Derval, who is unknowingly wrapped up in this because.

It was her brother who was the pilot that got involved in all of the stealing.

Of the bombs so Bond discovers that Largo's the man who likes to play high stakes games and he's got this grotto filled with sharks.

This again every Bond trope in the world is happening right now and he's got this great hinch woman Fiona Volpe who attempts to kill him several times.

She isn't killing another one of the SPECTRE agents because he's such a bumbling goofy named Count Lippy that we get to all along the way, Bond is trying to get inside information and he finally reveals the truth to Domino.

Who vows to help him on his mission because she's also getting beat up by Largo all the time too, which sucks.

And so Bond uses his expertise in underwater combat along with some his friends from the CIA to go to this massive battle where you got all the SPECTRE agents and all the the good guys from the Navy and the Navy.

Frogmen who are the.

The precursors to the Seals basically do this whole underwater battle with spear guns and knives and.

Sharks running around, all kinds of stuff.

I'm surprised they didn't have a shark with a frigging laser on it.

But they finally, you know, disarmed the bombs.

They full Largo's plans.

And during the chaos, Largo attempts to escape on the disco Valante out of a hydro fool that comes out of it.

But while he and Bond are fighting, Domino sneaks it from behind and shoots him in the back with a spirit.

Gun and kills it.

So with Largo dead and the bombs safely recovered, Spectre's plot's completely thwarted.

The Navy secures the two bombs and ensures the safety of the Western world, and Bond and Domino are rescued from the wreckage in a life raft, with the Royal Navy and the US Coast Guard arriving to pull them away at the last minute.

So lots of different things we can get into there, but I think the way to start is with the overall what the plot is in this in the Spectre plot.

And I really love this idea because when we first meet what Spectre's up to, they're basically having like.

The office meeting where you're all having to go around and they have to get their financial reports.

There's the two guys that are ripping off the drug money and he decides to electrocute one, which the coldest part of that is that after they electrocute the dude in the chair, the friggin empty chair comes back up.

So that's, I mean, I've been in some intense meetings, but that was, you know, taking the cake.

But.

It's Largo's.

Plan is like if we steal these two bombs off this NATO plane, we, we now have atomic supremacy.

We can threaten in the Western world.

We can, you know, get, get all kinds of money and it's really going to, you know, flush us with cash in addition to having two nukes, which you know, you might want to have.

And this plays into all of the fears of the 60s, right?

The Cold War fears about nuclear armament and everything we were going to.

And I, I don't know, I just love it.

I love this whole thing.

I love the fact that they add the twist of we're going to get an impersonator to take over the pilot.

Because we don't want to.

The smart actual military people would be willing to get paid off.

We'll just get a double.

I love all the machinations of that.

Oh, yeah, Spectre as this, this shadowy group that is exploiting the complexity of the Cold War geopolitical landscape for their own financial gain.

And I love that when we when Largo shows up for the meeting, he goes through the building of this front, a philanthropic foundation that helps stateless persons.

Because this is only 20 years after World War 2, the devastation across Europe is still very fresh.

People live through this that, you know, the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, which is 80 years ago this year, you know, all of this is still very fresh.

So these fears are very real.

And and you have Spectre, this, you know, this shadowy, powerful organization that is just going to milk this situation for all it's worth.

They're like the modern day, you know, 21st century thoughts about the Illuminati, you know, and all these people that are, they're really behind all of it.

It's all these corporate bigwigs and we've got this Bohemian Grove nonsense and, you know, they're rubbing each other with blood and peanut butter and all that shit, you know, I mean, it's the same kind of conspiracy theory idea.

But I love it that there would just be this group back there that's just like, we're just in it for the cash.

But we want it in every country and that way we can influence in every election.

We just kind of own the things.

And they don't have any real political ethos other than chaos, you know, which is because that is beneficial when you're a war monger, you know.

And I, I love that though, because it's such a great conceit and to see it so organized.

A lot of times you meet these bond villains and they have these great ideas, but they're all insane.

So that's why they unravel, right?

And that's.

What's cool about this one is like, well, they're not.

They're not really screwed up.

And that's, and this Blofeld character in particular is just.

I've always loved that idea that the central figurehead that would be Bond's great adversary, you know, that he would constantly have to go up against.

At least in this area of Bond I I find it endlessly interesting to go with.

Oh, yeah.

And that he's, you know, in this film, he's behind a partition.

We just, you know, the stroking of the cat in his lap.

But we're not going to see him full on because this isn't a man who shows himself.

This is the man behind the man behind the man.

Right.

Yeah, he doesn't have to.

He's.

Got all the power right?

Absolutely, Yeah, No, I, I love this.

And it's just, it's I think it's really well executed and and we do have to acknowledge this has been parodied Spectre this introduction that that boardroom scene parodied to death because you can.

And I but I think if you come back to this film and you put aside all of the jokes that it has spawned in in parody form, that it is really cool.

It is.

I mean, you realize very quickly with just like 2 minutes of dialogue going around the room for financial reports, which sounds really.

Boring, by the way, having had to do that a few times and and jobs, it's like.

This is the long day, right where we talk budget.

That's always boring.

But to have the bean counters sit there and tell you how you're doing, you get a sense of the.

Scope of where this organization goes, and you also get a sense of their ruthlessness.

Because you got the two agents that are in charge of that.

You're smuggling the Chinese drugs into America.

That's their whole thing.

And they only return a much smaller amount of what they were supposed to.

And Blofeld already knows which one of them is ripping them off.

So you think it's the sweaty guy, but it's actually the guy sitting next to it.

And he?

Knows it and he's like I already.

Decided on action and he electrocutes and like I said and he dumps him out of the chair and then brings it back up and they just keep going but I love what he says in there too he's like this organization only works because of the integrity of its members.

I was like, but you're all fucking criminals and it's like, there's got to be honor among thieves.

I.

Guess everyone has a code.

It might not be a code that aligns with the morality or the values and ethics of other groups in society, but everybody's got to have a code.

Well, I mean, I think about that in something in a movie like Heat, you know, when you've got the Neil McCauley character who talks about you don't have any attachments that you can't drop.

When you feel it coming around the corner and ultimately his undoing.

Spoiler alert is he gets attached and he doesn't let it go quick enough.

And he also is obsessed by this detective this after.

Which is sort of of this story too.

You get this fly in the ointment that is James Bond that will mess with you.

But now I love, I love again that the organization of Spectre and what their plot is.

I love to the what they go through to steal this plane with this guy.

We got the the actor that's gone through this.

The spy that's gone through all these facial recognitions, he's learned to sound just like this guy.

He you know, I mean it's just him and he's just a double, but he you know, he's side night shoots him that little that took me years to figure out what he shoots him with that little zip gun.

He basically just blows cyanide up in his face and it kills him.

That's why everybody's covering their face for 5 minutes afterwards so that it get killed.

And this one you also meet a lot of the other characters in this story.

Even you meet Volpe, who's just a great Hinch woman.

We've already.

Had good Hinch women in this these movies, but she's awesome.

But unlike Pussy Galore last time, she will not be turned.

She is going to at all.

And that's what you love about her is that she is so far gone down the road that yeah, you're not going to you're not going to touch her.

And I, I love her and I love Count Lippy in there too, because they're sort of assigned to this by large.

So they're Largo's hench people, you know, and you can already tell which one of them is the smarter one.

And it's her by mile.

Oh, most definitely, yeah.

I love her character.

She's, she's got this kind of raw, dangerous sexuality that you expect, right?

And this cold, calculating ruthlessness.

And she's, I mean, really the biggest direct threat to James Bond's life.

Because Largo is at this point a businessman.

He's he's he's let's he pays other people to do the thing that needs doing.

He's, you know, he's just shooting clay at his, at his Nassau resort and he's just not, he's just not very.

There's like a kind of an apathy to Largo, this laziness.

She won't get her hands dirty.

Well, he, he's the head.

Oh yeah, he's the VP or whatever, right?

So he's going to get down and dirty.

Yeah, he's going to have his Hinch people do that stuff.

See that that also plausible deniability.

I'm just a businessman, you know, with sharks in my pool, you know my.

You know, this is a whole other thing.

But that spoke to young James, a shark fanatic, You know, so I was like, oh, sharks.

But what I I looked it up because I was just curious, like, what does vulpa mean?

It's Italian for fox.

And I was like, well, Will said, because she's not in the book.

Like, she's just a, you know, nameless woman in the book.

And I love this though, because you get this dangerous redhead.

You know who?

Kind of looks like she could be Domino if Domino had on a red wig.

They're very similar.

They are similar and and this one was actually a cat or try it out for that.

And they gave her this role instead because they felt like she was more sinister and they were right.

She is.

I love how she goes down too later on.

Like, you know, they're dancing in the club and somebody's there to shoot Bond, and he feels like that's coming.

So he spins her.

Around, and she's the only good shot.

In the back, I mean, what?

We're going to have to talk about the whole Junkaloo sequence because it's my favorite.

I I love there's the scenes between Connery and her when they kind of have their verbal sparring.

I just love it.

And the scene where she reveals herself as a Spectre agent.

And he of course already knew he'd spotted the ring much earlier.

But I love they have this back and forth playing, you know, bruising each other's egos, him saying, you know, I did this for King and country.

You don't think it gave me any pleasure.

And and there's a moment where she plays it, I mean, so perfectly.

There is a moment on her face where she's a little like, How dare you?

You know what they play with that they try to recreate that so many times throughout Bond history.

The only time they got anywhere close to it was the scene on the train and in Casino Royale between Eva Green and Daniel Craig.

When you've got Bond and Vesper going at each other and they're.

Basically have sized each.

Other up at.

That point it's it's the similar chemistry, but it took them years to ever get back to that and you're dead on the way they snipe at each other.

It's like, Oh yeah, these two are going to like screw, but they're going to hate each other for it like, but they're going to let them know like, well it wasn't any good for me.

It was just it was just the job, you know, but I mean, but I love that though.

That's.

What makes it so much fun?

Because again, this is the fun.

You know, part of these things and.

I don't, I don't know.

I I thought she was a great Hinge person.

I thought.

Lippy, though, was also great, and I swore I was like, this guy's been in a Bond movie before, but he hadn't.

He was.

He's been in a lot of other.

Things he just looks he looks like one of the the guys in doctor O, the professor that gets shot.

You know you've had your six that guy, he looks like him, but it's not him.

God, the woman is just this English actor, but I love his his part of it is I got to replace the.

The pilot with our fake pilot or whatever, and her job is I got to seduce the pilot so that we can kill him, right?

Just because of course that's the role we would give her.

When in reality, she probably would have been a lot better.

And the reason she's, you know, dispatched to take him out later was like having this extra layer into this made it way too complicated.

Yeah, unnecessary.

She can handle the whole job.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is.

And also this whole we didn't need this whole pile of figures.

It's cool for us.

As an audience.

But like Spectre realizes, like, this is unnecessarily complicated.

We don't need this, you know?

And this was so.

Wild about when they when they do steal a plane and it gets crashed and and that's a great sequence by the way, it looks really good.

It's great model work.

I mean sounds, the whole 9 and they crash that bomber and it's.

I love how the music when they get to the water just has this sort of dreamy little feel to it.

I love the score of this.

John Barry is in his.

Bag the whole way.

And it's, and I love when they're killing these people that they the way they.

Kill that pilot by cutting that air hose, and you just watch that man drown in front of you.

Violent.

Oh, it's so violent, Yeah.

So much better than lighting him up or shooting him or setting him on.

Fire.

Do they like it's?

Just it's also incredibly personal, you know?

Yes, absolutely.

Very.

I mean, that's cold.

It's also very cinematic because when the air hose goes, it's like all the bubbles come up through the water.

It looks really great too it.

It looks incredible because it's it, it, it's so.

You can feel that happening to you.

If you've ever been in a drowning situation or just been underwater too long and you get a little freaked out, you just know we can all immediately relate to that.

What I think is neat is that Largo, who is this hands off guy?

Personally does this, it's like Michael Corleone shooting somebody in the face like is he?

No, I'm going to do this.

That's that's cold right there.

That's like letting that is it?

The last thing I want this guy to know is I know you tried to screw me and so I've got you.

No, you're right.

There are, there are a few times in this film and, and funny enough in the underwater sequences where Largo kind of steps up and and does something directly and he seems to enjoy he he enjoys being in the water.

Yeah, well, I mean, you think you think about this guy, I just sort of build my own back story of who he was and things.

And some of it's informed from the book and just knowing this movie so well.

But you can see like at one point this guy was obviously a an accomplished diver.

He obviously had been in a lot of combat.

He's got a freaking eye patch.

So he's pretty bad ass.

He just doesn't have to get his hands dirty anymore except when he wants to.

That's what's so neat about him as a as a villain, right?

He's different than the other villains, like Goldfinger is.

No real physical threat to him, you know.

At all, he's just psycho.

He's just a psycho, Doctor No, was also a psycho, but could have been a physical threat if he got his hands on you.

But you got to get close enough for him to do that, right?

This is different because this guy not only is incredibly intelligent and he has this whole network of evil to, you know, deploy, but he's very formidable himself.

Yeah, no, you're right.

You're absolutely right.

There is Well, and it and it it comes up when when Domino is explaining to Bond how she ended up with Largo as her guardian.

They they they check into all these places.

Everyone knows her as his niece, which is which is how you get around, you know, the scandal of you know, that she's kept mistress is like almost like a sugar daddy situation, very transactional.

But she mentions that when they first met, she was attracted to him then.

And I, I've always kind of interpreted that as when he was more a hands on guy, when he was more in the action, she was more into it.

Big time.

I mean, I, I love that.

I love that they play that nice joke.

I was the first thing my, you know, 20th century brain, later 20th century brain jumped.

It was like, oh, the joking Pretty Woman, you know?

I can't prove that they ripped that off, but I'm going to think they did.

But I I love, I love how Largo operates.

Is he's all and all these bond villains tend to be this way, but of all of them, I think of he's so extremely confident, but even he has a boss.

And that's to me is like this guy really loves gambling and all these risk things and stuff like that because he likes to have as much charge as what he can because ultimately he knows he still reports to somebody more powerful than him.

And it eats at the dude.

Like I really think it bothers him that he is not the number one.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Well, and it, yeah, it makes me think of, you know, people who work you, you see this trope in in cop movies where the cop who used to be a beat cop or kind of on the street detective and then gets promoted to like a desk job and they hate it because they'd rather be in the fields and they've been promoted.

So technically you're in a more powerful position, but you're also not doing the thing that you got into this for in the first place.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like you've moved up, but you've lost the edge.

The thing that gave it to you, Right.

I, I don't know.

I I again, I love Largo.

I love his whole thing.

The use of sharks again as a kid totally spoke to me as the Jaws freak.

So I was like, this is awesome.

This is great.

I mean and.

They're real.

I know they get real tiger sharks in there, which is insane.

So because.

The thing about tiger sharks is their teeth are built in a way where they're like flying saws.

So when they come at you, they're going to shred you when they hit you, that's the that's their attack.

They don't, you know, like a great waters and that has big teeth and can grab you and tear you, but a tiger shark just saws you up, you know, and I'm and that's.

The sort of fits.

I'm like, also, it was probably what they could get that would work and the tank that they were working with.

But I love that they get the live sharks and all that.

So that's so much fun.

You know, he's because he's so freaking cruel too, and he's when he's showing that off to Bond, he throws the guy in the pool.

I mean, how many bond villains throw somebody in a shark pool?

Right?

But it but it is.

And you know, I made the joke in the Plot Summary.

It's the thing that the doctor evil plays with.

It's all all the tropes are built off of it.

But when you go back to the original and like you said, if you.

Set that all aside.

It just gives you a sense of how ruthless these people.

Yeah.

And that's the thing about.

Ruthlessness.

Yeah, incredibly.

Ruthless.

They find ways to use it in the plot beyond just, oh, it wouldn't that be cool if he kills people with sharks?

Because later when they're doing their reconnaissance, trying to find the bomber, the Vulcan bomber, there's, you know, this area and there's sharks swimming.

And Bond is like, we need to look there because Largo's got this thing with sharks.

This is the place to look because this guy likes to have sharks to protect his home and to use against people who wrong him or.

Well, and you, you think Largo would have picked that out because it's something most people would stay away from.

So he knows where the shark reefs are, you know, and, and the way they've camoed those things, you wouldn't know they were.

There, unless you were looking for, That's the deal with the Bahamas, right?

Is that the water's so clear you should be able to spot them from miles away, but not if they're camoed and there's a bunch of sharks swimming around.

Then you're like, eh, it's just another reef, you know, for the sharks.

And it's also what probably brings the sharks there.

They think it is too.

You know, and I, I wouldn't, when Bond gets into doing all of the investigative part of these things and stuff, and that's what, you know, he meets Domino through this and and all this, it's some of the most fun you get to see Bond have doing these things when he finds all this stuff, you know, and he's swimming up underneath the the ship and he's, yeah, he's going in and out and he's on the estate at night and all this.

I mean, it's, it's pretty wild.

Yeah, no, it is.

You get to see him do the spycraft.

I love one of my favorite scenes and it's very quick.

But at one point when he's returning to his hotel room, he comes into the room, he opens up a book where we see he has a hidden recording device and he plays the tape and we hear that someone has entered the room while he was out.

And I love the camera follows.

It's like he's mentally retracing the steps that he hears on this recording to then, you know, find the henchman this hiding in the room, but just those little things.

Yeah, well, we've seen him like pull a greased hair out and put it across a closet before and he.

Comes back and it's gone, you know, like it's all the little stuff like that, that little subtle stuff.

It just leading so much credence to like, not only is he suave and debonair and you know, can be a great in a fight or whatever, but he's incredibly smart and he's been, and he's also experienced like at this point too, just cinematically think about the journey we've been on with Bond.

You know, he's he's thwarted somebody trying to knock out the space race.

He's thwarted, you know, all kinds of Russian KGB operatives and stuff.

He's thwarted somebody who tried to blow up more Fort Knox.

You know, he's seen some stuff and in the opening.

Scene he kills this guy who fixed his own death and dresses up as his widow at the the you know funeral which is an awesome fight scene and he gets the crowd beat out of him for it but he still.

Wins, you know, he gets the jet pack and all this stuff.

So he's been around and while he's got all the gadgets and all the stuff, it's still his mind.

That's his biggest weapon, you know, And that's what's what's so neat.

And you know, when you see him, he tries to turn, you know, this Paula woman too, and she rather than turn, she just kills herself.

I was like, well, that's that's loyalty you can't buy if you're Spectre, you know, and lets you know how deep they run.

And it also adds stakes for when he gets to domino because, you know, bonds go to Turner at some point.

How dangerous is that going to be for?

Her, you know.

And as it turns out, quite yes, very much so.

But now I I love that.

I want to talk a little bit about the Disco Volante though, because one, I love that word or that phrase.

I think it's a great name for a boat, but it is, it's such a neat, like evil guy layer, you know, I know he has his home or whatever, but I always felt like Largo's layer is really that boat.

Yeah, yeah, no.

And it's, it's pivotal to this story, right, that so much of it takes place on the water and, and the bomber is hidden in the water.

And it's it's, it's going to be the catalyst for so much in the story.

And at the end when we see that it actually like you can jettison off.

Yeah.

I mean it's.

Got an escape pod?

Yeah, we love that.

Yeah, it's so awesome.

It's.

Cool.

It's really cool.

So, you know, at a glance, like, oh, you know, a luxury yacht.

Of course this guy's filthy rich.

Of course he has one of those.

But it's also very functional.

Yeah.

I love the name too and it translates to literal translation.

Is flying saucer or no?

Is flying disc, but it's usually kind of understood to be flying saucer, which I think is kind of fun.

I do love that.

That is great so.

That I know, I love all the things about it.

It's also a great place to hide bombs.

You.

Know like that and that's how Bond finds it usually like this little underwater Geiger counter that that Q gives him and you play with all that it's like oh it's all the gadgetry's cool and this he's got the little rebreather thing that they would use in the phantom menace many many years later or in a Galaxy far far away with however you want to take that you know but I I love all the stuff that he gets to play with here because again it's all very functional.

It's not a joke yet it's it's a trope, but it's it's all incredibly functional stuff and it's cool.

And the way that Bond gets onto the boat and it all.

I don't know.

I love that the the the infight, of course, has to go down on the water on the boat like, but I think it's neat that when he goes to Largos estate, you know, and he finds out that Paula's dead or whatever and he, you know, he's he's shooting guns with him and illness and he's died.

I know a lot about women myself, you know, which is a joke for the audience, you know, and it's but it's fun.

And then that leads him to the junk and everything.

And I know you wanted to talk about that specifically.

I love this sequence.

I think it's incredible, one of the most cinematic, gorgeous, just really kinetic scenes in a Bond film.

And there's, there's something about it that I, I was trying to, I keep trying to put my finger on what is it about this sequence?

And I and I think that there's a, you know, realism, like neo realism in Italy, you know, and cinema verite, like all these things kind of happening around the same time.

And it, there's something very raw and real about this sequence, the chase through the Junkanoo parade with the bands and the floats and, and you, which was it the episode with Preston in your Bond series?

You guys were talking about had Bond ever been shot and that and that, yes, in Thunderball and, and just everything about the way the sequence plays out, Bond lighting the alcohol on fire on the upholstery of the car to escape being clipped by a bullet in the leg.

And we see the blood and he's kind of stumbling and the music, the drum beat.

And it's just built into the setting that there's bands with drummers and the floats and the people and, and he's weaving through the crowd.

And so there's all the noise of the Junkanoo, all this celebratory crowd noise and the bad guys coming up behind and following the blood trail, which a million movies have done since.

But it's just so stunning.

The colors are so rich.

And just the the movement of the crowds and the people of them weaving in and out and him trying to find somewhere to go to get away from his pursuers.

I just think it's incredible.

I've always felt like the best Bond movies have a small section in them that turns into film noir, and this is the noir section of this movie.

Against all this color and all this noise, it's a great place to assassinate somebody because there's so much freaking noise.

You have.

No, it'd be like, you know, Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Like, you have no idea.

No one's paying attention to you.

They're all drunk.

Exactly.

Yeah, everybody's, everybody's drunk.

Or.

High, you know they're they're not, they're not in their mind to think about that.

Plus, you know they're coming for you.

And you can't do anything about it.

And that's and I love that.

I mean, this whole movie is kind of built on this premise is that we've built this guy up to basically be the superhero all the sudden.

But now we're going to show you that he's actually human and vulnerable.

He's the crap beat out of him early.

He almost gets killed on this back stretching machine which is from the.

Book by the way too which?

Looking at that, I'm like, no way in hell would you ever.

Lock me up on something like that.

Hell, I don't care if it did help, I'll just suffer.

I'll just take Tylenol.

But I I love that he's gone through all these things you get.

God, this guy goes through some hell in this movie and that's that's what makes it so much fun.

It's why I think it is one of Conry's best performances because he's such a brute and a strong guy.

But when he shows vulnerability is when you really get to see the genius of the.

Actor and what he.

Can yes, absolutely.

1 And I, I love to, to your point, when we get to the Kiss Kiss Club where they're going to have this kind of ultimate confrontation and he, he pulls that young tourist out for a dance and you know, she's got to be thinking, Oh my God, lucky me.

Right.

You know, this guy that I don't know has pulled me out to the dance floor.

And when we get that dance with, with Fiona Volpe and, and, and the dialogue, he's trying to be discreet and stay calm because they're in this crowd of people.

They're on the dance floor with other couples.

There's people seated all around the dance floor and at the bar.

So he's trying to be discreet.

He's trying to be calm.

She's saying threatening things to him.

And he keeps saying things that are.

It's like they're having two different conversations, but it's because he's trying to keep this situation from being noticed by other people.

Yeah, and, and in his voice, there's this the, the, the tension, right?

The, the, oh, you could tell like he gets the gravity of the situation.

He is not cocky and arrogant that it's a for sure thing I'm going to get out of this.

I mean, yeah, he's already been hurt.

He knows she's going to try and kill him, so he's looking for who's going to shoot next.

That's how he's able to turn her at the last second and she catches the bullet.

He, he knows he's in danger, you know, but and he's so aware of all of it that it, it's just neat to watch his like spider sense sort of tingle and stuff.

Again, Connery's doing all of this stuff with his voice in his face, which is amazing because you realize like 3/4 of this is dubbed later and it's him, you know, doing it.

So he had to recreate that performance in a booth.

You know, and it's seamless.

It's beautiful.

I just, I do.

I love that about Bond at this point in kind of the arc of the character and Connery, where he is in his career and time of life and, and his experience with the character and having embodied the character.

I, I just love that.

It's like cocky arrogance is great, the arrogance of youth, but nothing, nothing beats the confidence and the capability of lived experience.

And like, this is a guy who's confident in the situation, but he also knows when.

When.

Yeah.

No, I need to.

I need to step lightly here.

I'm in real danger.

You knowing your limitations is how you survive, you know?

Speaking of testing limitations, it's a good time to talk about Domino at this point.

So we sort of set her up as this mistress and kind of kept woman, you know, who's flirting with danger.

And she doesn't realize how deep she is in this shit until, you know, she meets Bond and gets to see all of these things.

What did you think of her just as a character?

And, and also kind of juxtaposed against the the Bond girl trope of a character and things like that.

She's pretty complicated in my book.

She is.

I love the domino character and Claudine Auger plays her so well because she's.

This is a stunning woman.

Yeah, she's.

She's like a supermodel basically.

Oh yeah, I mean, she's gorgeous.

There's the way she plays this character and the way the character is written.

There is like a sweetness to her that some people might mistake for almost like a for being naive or innocent, but she's not.

There's, there's a world weariness to this because there's a sadness to this character.

She's clearly a a young woman and she's been with Largo for a long time.

You know, this is a woman who's been through some things.

100% and.

And is is she?

She knows her situation is not good.

And there's a fatalism to her, like, I made my bed and now I have to sleep in it.

She doesn't realize the length that Largo would go in terms of what happened to her brother, her brother's involvement and that, you know, that he could be so easily dispatched and she wouldn't even know it.

And that Largo was involved.

Yeah, but she does, she does have a her eyes are open about her general situation.

And so it it's this great kind of interplay between the aspects of her that's that is very sweet.

And when she talks about her brother, the pilot Francois, like, you can tell she gets that that childish look on her face, kind of like all my Big Brother who I love so much.

She's so proud, very.

Yes, yes, it really comes through that when people, you know, siblings are, are bonded in that way that like the whole sun and moon, everything rests on this, this older sibling that you know, that you depend on and grew up with and love.

I mean, that's the only other family she's got in the world.

You know, that's The thing is like Largo has stepped in to be kind of slash father, father figure, you know, and all of that.

Stuff in.

Addition to.

Daddy issues, yeah, let's just say it.

Yeah, that's Domino has those for sure.

And then you realize that some of that lives in brother and not so much like sexually and things like that.

But that was a man that she admired and held up and the he would never do something like this.

And then when she finds out it wasn't even him, you know, but it.

It was.

Was, you know, like that's she, she's so naive, but almost purposely so cuz she's been so hurt as a young person.

I felt like she's like, I'm just going to be naive and just be the kept woman.

Fine.

You just want me to be pretty fun, you know, Cuz I mean.

This is like the runner up to Miss World in 1959 or whatever.

So she's.

Stunningly gorgeous, but and this character knows I'm gorgeous.

I can get by on my looks fine.

You know, I'm I'm just going to not pay attention to all of that noise over there.

I'm just going to be in this and you know, Claudia and Argar is so incredible in the performance, but Nikki Vanderzel, who does the voice over too and did a lot of these Bond movies, is also great because she's got to match that physical.

Performance with this voice and there's a lost art of, of being able to do that these days.

I, I know you're like me, you flipping through Netflix like that's really neat and it takes about two seconds to realize that, oh, we're dubbing from a different language and it, and it loses it.

I'm sorry.

It really is.

It's it's not an easy thing to do and I I'm good work for the people that are.

Getting the work for it, but she said, boy, it misses something.

This is a different time and era when people that could perform with their their vocal instrument were just as instrumental as the physical instrument.

And I, I don't know, I, I love this character too because she's so complicated and she's so broken.

You know, like Bond finds these women sometimes, and they're.

They're either like.

Part of a machine or something like that, or they're.

They're slightly evil, you know, in their own way.

You know, and they or, or they're just there to be you, you know, like they don't have the depth.

And I feel like Domino as a character sets the bar for a lot of Bond Bond girls going forward because everybody likes to act like Vesper and Casino Royale was the first one that ever like had any brains or anything.

And she certainly had the most of all of them the way they were written.

But there's a bunch of Bond women throughout the years that.

Could.

Best him just.

As well, you know, and and.

This I think it all starts.

Here it really started with Pussy Galore in some ways, but yes.

This is the next extension of that.

But Pussy Galore, I mean, let's be real.

And I love, I love Goldfinger.

Folks don't come for me.

No, but there's there's elements of that character.

There's a little, it's a little campy.

It's a little pulpy.

Yeah, I mean, part of it is they had to soften what was in the book too, because we weren't ready to talk about that in 1964.

So, you know, but yeah, no, you're you're not wrong.

There's a lot of it that's changed.

Whereas the Domino characters, this is in the book, this is in the story.

And I don't know who came up with.

It out of the four drunken dudes in the Bahamas.

But but whoever good call because.

It because it works and it's also too I mean it it's a trope now and you think of it as cheesy, but it totally works that like she wears black and white because her name's Domino, right but you almost wonder if like Largo didn't give her that name too, you know, for part of his his gambling, you know, fixations and fetishisms and that he dresses her in that way where she.

Is a a.

Thing to be manipulated for my own enjoyment, but inside of her own brain too.

She's being two different people at the same time and she's having to resolve it.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Just an aside, I love how I love how Bond plays off already knowing that people call her Domino, which, you know, would have given away that he's he's inserted himself into this situation to get close to her because of his job.

And, you know, and he says, oh, well, it's on your anklet, you know, and so it's like kind of plays it off that way and it and it turns into that flirtatious thing that he's, you know, staring at her legs.

It's.

Well, and I think I think he knows too that the thing about Domino that's true is that the thing she desires more than anything else is genuine attention Yes, and she doesn't get it from really anybody.

And so that's his end for her, you know, and, and it's it, you may think it's cold, whatever.

This is spycraft.

This is how people get turned.

You got to find what what makes them tick and you got to talk to them.

It's the same as if you're doing sales.

You got to figure out who people.

Like.

You know, if you're a manager, you got to figure out what your employees respond to, and then you got to play that thing for them.

And that's what he's doing here.

But you can also tell he's like, I want to get her out of this, maybe not to.

Keep her, but just she deserves more than this and she deserves to know that her brother was not this criminal, you know, And because in the book, like I say, it's just, they just pay the the pilot off and he tries to shake him down and they kill him anyway, you know, And but they were going to do it anyway.

So I like it better now that it is an imposter, because then there's some bit of purity still left in Domino when it's all said and.

Done.

Yes, Yes.

And that's just a little thing, you know?

But again, it's that it's that kind of little plot that makes this so much fun to rewatch, you know?

Yeah, it it all just builds up the character.

Yeah, and I mean, and this is where we we at the part of the plot now where after the junk and Bond and lighter have found the the Vulcans that are camouflaged, they found the bodies of the crew.

And that's when he tells Domino, your brother was killed by Largo.

He doesn't even know how deep yet, but he he knows that.

And that's when he knows like, hey, I, I need you to help me get him back for this, right?

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that Vargas is also comes to be an it's got to be an inspiration for similar, similar characters in other films.

Oh, 100%.

Vargas, the guy that looks like kind of a like a nothing, Yeah, but there's something about his face that's kind of creepy.

He looks like one of the aliens in Men in Black.

You know he or one of the the the people in.

Hush, the Buffy episode.

Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.

Very nondescript.

Lanky, kind of just, but just sort of hanging out.

Yeah.

No, nothing, nothing special about the guy except that he, there's a look on his face that is unsettling.

And I, I love when, when Largo is introducing Vargas and he never speaks.

Of course, he never speaks, doesn't talk ever.

No, when he's introducing me to Bond, he says, well, he doesn't drink and he doesn't smoke and he doesn't, you know, he does it with women.

And so very like goody 2 shoes Adam Ant situation.

Well, he's very he's.

Like now we we call him straight edge, you know, like he's he's just he, but he is.

But he's it's also the thing that like he doesn't have the world weariness that like somebody bond would have.

And that means not the same experience.

He's a killing machine.

Yeah, he's menacing, but he's not crafty, and that's the difference.

No, he's just, he is.

He's a weapon.

Largo point and shoot Vargas, because Vargas has no attachments.

He's clear headed.

He's always ready to strike when ordered.

And you see a character like this, you know, in The Godfather, you see a character like this in The Assassin and Scarface, there's always like that one guy that you're just like, yeah, that something about that guy is not right.

But he never speaks and he just kind of goes where you point him.

So Vargas character, I love it.

Oh, no, he's he's incredibly great and I'm glad you brought him back up because we we hadn't talked about him yet.

But no, he's he's a that's why it's so neat to again think about Largo as the chief villain here.

All the tentacles he has, he's almost like an octopus in that way.

You know, he's just got all this layer coming around, so.

But as it turns out, he's he's got this whole army of, you know, dive people too.

But we're going to introduce the the frogmen, you know, the the forerunners to the seals and the British SAS divers.

It's so epic.

Oh, and so think about this for a second.

Just the idea of cinematically having this underwater battle, because this is in the book.

This is is all from that when they're trying to lay this out and they're like, so I'm just thinking like if I'm Terrance knowing the director.

So let me get this straight.

We're going to do a battle at the end where no one can talk.

It was just going to be music, and it's just going to be basically ballet underwater with knives and spear guns.

Huh.

Like, he's got to figure out how to do that, and he did and he did.

That's what's so amazing about it, is that the climax is spectacular.

Oh my God, I love it so much.

So I'm going to take this moment just to say I love sea battles in movies.

And it's I always have.

There's something about it.

And so in this, we, we get all of the intense underwater physical grappling and people are shooting spear guns and people are getting knifed and air hoses are getting cut and just this tangle of bodies in the water and the bubbles and the debris and the sharks and it's just crazy.

And then we also get the firepower of the battle cruiser coming in and firing and, and then there's Specter men firing and it's just, it's just so much going on.

It's just so good.

It's just a lot of moving pieces and that's what's wild is that you have all of this stuff happening, but it never drags, It never gets boring.

It's there's so much cool stuff to look at and you, I mean, I had to think about it after I watched it this time.

I was like, there's no talking.

Like there's always, there's not a ton of talking using these big battle sequences with bomb, but there's always some, you know, because they're not underwater necessarily or in space or some nonsense.

This though relies entirely on the score, one which is out of this world, and the choreography of all the stunts happening and just this the little sound design of the screen, the swish of the spirit guide.

You know, and because it's, I mean, if you don't know much about spear guns, y'all, and I don't know a ton about them, but I know how they work.

They're big industrial rubber bands that fire these these bolts through.

So it would make a tongue sound.

But how do you put that underwater?

What the sound is like, people figured that out, you know, and, and it's the whole scale of the conflict is what I love because it's not just bond versus the world.

Bond and the Navy and the British Navy are backing him up.

I love that it involves all those other people.

Cuz you know, that's the thing about Goldfinger, everybody forgets is how many hundreds of other people got involved with that.

All those soldiers at Fort Knox, all these other, There's a lot of other people.

Behind the scenes.

And so many times the Bond movies come down to just Bond having to to defuse the bomb and, you know, shoot everybody at the same time.

And what this one realizes like Nope, Bond is there for one thing, disarm the bombs and in his own head kill Largo and maybe not in that.

Order at all times, because he definitely.

Wants to kill Largo, but I, I, I again, I just love the whole thing and the, the way it plays out.

It's, it's incredible to watch and it's, it's one of those things too.

It's, it's on you.

You can just look at that scene on YouTube and it's so much fun to just watch because I have to think like how long that took.

To do you know and to get right and then to edit it in a way that it.

Keeps it going.

It's just tremendous piece of filmmaking.

Oh yeah, I mean every, like you said, all those moving pieces.

I mean, you had to coach that through.

Everybody's got to know I'm swimming here.

I stabbed that guy.

I shoot this thing.

Everybody's got to know.

Their concerns, the safety concerns, how long people can be underwater safely.

Right, you got to teach all these people how to dive.

Yes, and and there was like, this was real dangerous stunt work.

Yeah, there's also actual sharks.

In the water, so if we put in fake blood out that might I mean they don't do color, but they might sniff that and go what is that and just come look and.

That's the thing.

You.

Don't want is a is a curious.

Shark, because sharks don't have hands.

They have mouths.

It's the last thing you want is a curious shark.

So yeah, I mean I you know, I involve it kind of like they they hired a lot of, you know, ex military people and divers and things to do this.

So they they cut that training in half, but you still got to get those people to know.

Now here's how to do that on.

TV and make it look good y'all.

You know, here's how it's going to look good in the movie theater and I can only imagine what this looked like in 1965 on a big screen.

Someday I would love to see this on a big screen.

I don't know if it's going to get the re release or not, but we're doing a lot of those now with the anniversary releases.

I kind of hope it does.

Because I would love to.

See this on a big screen and just to see this.

The spectacle.

Yeah, because it's unbelievable just what the yeah, what it looks like and how it goes down.

So it's it's it's a great use too of the scenery of the the film, you know, the Bahamas, the whole the whole thing.

Oh yeah.

We got to talk about the end, though, because we already talked about the hydrofoil and how cool that is coming out of the Disco Valente.

And that Bond tracks Largo to that.

And they they get into like the fistfight of all fistfights.

While this boat is doing double time.

And it, it seems cheesy now because they speed the film up and stuff, but do you realize that's what they were working with at the time?

I never get lost in that.

I I think that just adds more tension to this thing because how do you steer this out of control boat and fight this guy at the same time?

Outnumbered.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it yeah, it's a yeah.

The the boat is just flying and there's rocks and and you got hench men on your back and it's just chaos in this enclosed space.

And that's another thing about the use of the boat is that close quarters fighting where you kind of have to use you don't.

There is no retreat in it with this person in this very closed space.

And how do you use that space to your advantage?

Yeah, it's it's the one thing that well, not the one thing it's one thing that the IT remake movies I felt got right is what a rock fight in a ditch really looks like and really feels like it seems like it's out in the open order, but it's really just you and.

Several other people in a small little spot.

You know, and when you have small enclosed spaces, when you do the fight in the phone booth, you know it has to be staged correctly and it again, you've already had this.

Huge.

Battle sequence, right?

We've already disarmed the bombs.

Now this is about revenge.

This is.

I'm going to not only I'm taking this guy out because if he got away, yeah, Largo's taking the L.

Today or whatever, but he's resourceful.

Enough that he would come back again.

Oh yeah, well, he's #2 in the Spectre organization.

Yeah, so he's got a, he's got his own problems to deal with there anyway, but, you know, he's not done.

And so we're we're really going to cut the head off the snake when we take him out.

But what's wild is that Bond is actually reeling from all the damage he's taking in this movie and, you know, previously too.

So he's not winning the fight.

He's not doing well at all.

In fact, he's about to die.

He is within seconds of being shot at point blank range.

Yeah, and you're not going to live that he's he's done and that you hear that that again, that spear gun sound.

And it's like it's the great moment in wrestling where they come back in the last second.

The tag team partner gets back in and knocks out the foe.

It's so great that Domino shoots him in the back.

I love it so much.

It's so cold, but it's so perfect.

Yeah, because at first time, because, you know, there are all the frogmen and the Navy and all these, there's plenty of allies that are out in the water.

So for a second it's like, oh, did someone, you know, did one of the CIA guys or one of the soldiers make it onto the boat?

No, no, the person who most who most benefits on a personal level from Largo being taken out, Domino gets to take that shot.

Well, and we should talk about too.

She got freed because his.

Nuclear physicist for hire turns to the good and untizer.

It was a step too far.

Yeah, it was like, well, I'll only go so far, but I'm not gonna.

That guy what and you know, the kind of the trope of the, the scientist who gets wrangled into these things because there's funding for the science and opportunity to experiment or study or build whatever scientific projects that they've, they've been cooking up.

And and then to reach a point where you're like, Oh, I, I got in with these people, but these people are, they're off on a trip that I am not, I'm not cool with.

I've we've, we've crossed the line.

Well, I feel like that's also commentary too on the like the military at the time and the and government scientists, things like that.

And we know this now because we did the brilliant Oppenheimer film and all the things been written about him is they invented compartmentalization during that where you only knew what you needed to know and nothing else during that time so that people didn't get too wrapped in their own head about what it is.

And this is, I feel like it's a commentary on like, see how that doesn't?

Work.

Or maybe maybe why it works?

Because if they did know, they would all go.

We can't have this right?

Right there, there's a, there's a point for each person where they're going to say, not that I won't, I won't go that far.

I'm not willing to go there.

And I, I think too, and it, it comes at a point where Domino is being tortured for information, burned with cigarettes and then having it cooled with ice, which would also burn, you know, and, and he comes just right in the nick of time.

And that, too, you get the sense of this guy had probably been thinking about getting out and this was the moment, like, OK, yeah, I can't.

Yeah, this is.

We're not going to.

Yeah, we're not.

Going to do this anymore.

Yeah, but I love that though because.

And I love that her her next thing is like, thanks, I'm not getting off the boat because I've got business to finish and it's glad that it works out to save our hero.

But really, honestly, I don't think Domino cares what happens to James Bond.

She not.

Really cares that Largo's dead.

And that's what's awesome about this is that.

He gets it exactly the way.

He deserves it, you know, stabbed in the back, you know, about one of his many victims.

And it's it's great.

It's a it's an incredible kill.

So, and it's not the first nor the last time you'll see Bond get bailed out by somebody else.

That's kind of the fun part of James Bond is when rail him out and he's like, thank God.

But then they've got to like, you know, you'll get the boat out and they can't because he's wrecked the control.

So they they get off the sucker, you know, and just in time too, and I love Largo's bodies hanging over the wheels crashes into the rocks got to have the big explosion, but I love that they get out into the big life raft at the end.

It's.

It's and they get picked up.

With the skyhook thing, it was awesome.

Yeah.

No, that's it's one of.

Those things you're like, we have those.

And you know, of course we do.

Yes.

And I, I, I seem to remember Nolan talking about that.

It's one of the many inspirations for the the hook scene in Dark Knight.

Oh yeah.

And stuff, but you've seen it in a lot of movies, but this is definitely one that like, Oh yeah, I remember that from this movie.

You know, this is a great.

Way to end too.

And it's, it's just been a rousing time the whole time, so.

I think so.

That's the wild thing about this movie is that it doesn't really let up, you know?

And that's I.

There's a credit to go to a lot of people for that, I'm sure.

But let's get into that now.

We'll do final thoughts, recommendations, popcorn ratings for Thunderball.

So what are yours, Carmelita?

Oh my God, I, I just love this, I think.

And it doesn't get the love that some of the other Connery Bond films get.

And everyone, hey, different strokes for different pokes.

People are entitled to feel about it the way they want to feel about it and like what you like.

I love this.

I think it's so epic, so cinematic.

I think it's Connery at his best Bond in terms of embodying the character and the performance he's giving.

It's just amazing.

All those practical effects and epic SEC pieces.

This is an extra large popcorn with really fresh, warm butter.

It's just, I love this.

It's infinitely rewatchable.

It's a good time.

I got to tell you the thing about Thunderball that again just sticks with me is that it had this impossible task of how do we follow what had been the biggest thing in bond and.

It was really.

One of the better stories too.

Goldfinger's an incredible story.

And it was meant to be the first Bond film.

Right, yeah.

And you think now if they had tried this, Terrence Young talks about he's like, I'm glad we didn't have the money for it because it would have flopped.

He said, 'cause if we just tried to do that with the doctor, no budget, there's.

No.

Way they spent like $1,000,000 with Doctor No, which is nothing you know to do the movie for the scale they did, which is why they did Doctor No.

They felt like it was smaller and they could manage it.

And he's right.

They would have never been able to do this, you know, because the scope of this is something cooked up by a lot of people with a lot of ideas going on.

You can feel it, you know, and it's also people that understood good action and how to do that.

And then Fleming gave it a life by giving it a through line.

And and the thing that holds over from the book to the movie is that this Bond is weary and kind of beaten up a little bit.

And that just makes the journey he goes on even more impressive and interesting surrounded by all of these other colorful and wild characters and that all have their own agency and and interest.

And then put with a great score, incredible cinematography, all a world action, Thunderball deserves to be spoken of in the same light that we talked about Goldfinger, that we talked about Casino Royale, that we talked about for your eyes only some of these, you know, the big greatest bonds like Goldeneye, all these things.

It deserves its place on the mantle with them as well.

And I think about it too, from my life of having seen this movie for, you know, so many years.

And I came back to this one a lot, even before I was doing podcasts, when I just wanted to watch a Bond movie.

I just want to have some fun.

Well, Thunderball just hits all the marks.

This is the Friday night opening weekend tentpole.

Extra large popcorn, fresh butter, the whole 9.

I'm sitting dead center on the screen kind of movie all the way.

Yeah.

I there was never a doubt.

I mean, I was like, I maybe I honestly thought I was like I, I might be too high on this one.

Glad to know I'm not because I love this movie.

And and I I'll go back to what I said in the beginning too.

Everyone loves Dream Warriors and I get one, but I'll sit here and tell you right now like James Master's just as good and in some.

Ways it's more fun.

Don't sleep on the next one you.

Know don't don't sleep on 4.

Randy Harlan's not a bum like what he was doing.

He did.

He was super hungry then I mean like, and again, they they got Terence Young back for this and he has the right sensibilities for it and things they warned and got Hamilton.

He just said no, he was exhausted from new Goldfinger and I get it.

So they got the right bit of everybody here to make this work and and that's one reason this is one of the biggest bonds.

You know of all time.

And it's one of the best ones too.

Again, I I would put Connery's performance in this up against anything that he did with the character and and what's.

Fun is he did it again almost years later.

Would never say never again.

Now what again?

We'll, we'll review that eventually here on Filmstrip and things, but do you have any, you know, just passing thoughts on Never Say Never?

Again, I mean, I'm I'm just going to put this on Front St.

I've only seen it like once or twice.

Yeah, it's not one I revisit.

It's not one I revisit, no.

And yeah, I mean, it's just kind of a an odd.

It's wild to watch a remake of a movie with the same lead actor doing it, but it is but many years later, almost 20 years later.

It's just a completely different feel, completely different vibe.

Well, it was also a very different world.

Like yes.

The 1982 versus 1965 are very different worlds that we're inhabiting and the movie tries to account.

For that, but we'll again, we'll save that for another day on Philip Strikes.

Well, Carmelita, this has been an absolute blast as it always is talking movies with you here.

So tell folks how they can follow you and keep up with all the cool stuff that you're doing.

It was a pleasure my friends, always fun to talk movies with you.

I love it.

So I'm on Twitter and I'm on Blue Sky and I post what I'm watching on Letterboxed.

Same handle every place at, Carmelita says.

Fantastic.

That'll be LinkedIn the show description.

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There's something there for everyone.

There's an Our Entire Bond cinematic series that we've done this year where we revisited each era of Bond with another person.

It's been so fun to listen.

Thank you.

We, I had a lot of fun putting that together and really appreciate all the guys for, for jumping in and doing those with me and it's, it's been a blast.

And you know, while the while the round table did not happen this year, maybe, maybe, maybe we can find a way to pull that together once they get this new bond thing off the ground now that Amazon owns it and now.

We've got somebody else fun to bring into the room as well, so I'm glad we got to knock this one down.

It's a lot of fun.

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