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one-of-us-blog · 6 years

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For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, the twelfth James Bond adventure. Bond is on the hunt for a sunken bit of technology that could spell big trouble for the British government. Bond also gets tangled in an absolute badass’ quest for vengeance, and surely that’s going to end well, right? Right?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I’m sorry this is so late, but you did a fantastic job with your last two recaps! I can’t believe you’re so close to the finish line! I’m going to keep this extra short to dive right into the action, but I wanted to say again that you’re doing an amazing job and I can’t wait for your next recap!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Michael G. Wilson & Richard Maibaum, film directed by John Glen

We’re old hands at this now, so the standard gun barrel sequence holds no surprises for us. What is surprising, though, is that we open on James Bond bringing flowers to the grave of his late wife, Teresa Bond. Remember Tracy? It’s been a while! Bond doesn’t have long to mourn in peace, though, because a priest runs up to inform Bond that the office is sending a helicopter to pick him up. The chopper arrives, but Bond is suspicious when the priest appears to give his last rights as the helicopter takes off. Bond was right to be suspicious, because just then we cut to Bond’s archnemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld! Well, I mean, I think it’s Blofeld… We don’t get a good look at his face, but I’d know that kitty anywhere. Despite now being apparently wheelchair-bound and sporting a neck brace after his last encounter with Bond, Blofeld still has a trick up his sleeve and sends a signal to the chopper that kills the pilot. Blofeld controls the helicopter remotely and instead of just crashing it immediately and killing Bond easily, Blofeld has some fun and whips him around a bit. This gives Bond time to get control of the helicopter and steer it right over to Blofeld. He hooks onto Blofeld’s wheelchair and drops him into a smokestack while Blofeld babbles incoherently about buying Bond a stainless-steel delicatessen. At leas the cat got away.

After that bonkers opening, we jump to our trippy title sequence where we actually get to see Sheena Easton belting out the undeniable bop, “For Your Eyes Only”. This is a real slow jam, and the standard crew of naked silhouetted ladies even manage to slow down their flips and summersaults to match the mood.

With that banger behind us, we jump to a fishing boat which is actually yet another nautical spy base. The fishermen really goof up and accidentally haul in an old mine which promptly blows the ship, spy base and all, to hell. In MI6, M is informed about the accident; turns out there’s trouble, because the water the ship sank in ain’t that deep and now there’s a chance the damn KGB can get ahold of tech aboard the ship. MI6 hires a marine archeologist to secretly locate the sunken base and get the goods before those damned dirty Russians can get their hands on it, but he and his wife are both gunned down in front of their daughter, Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet). The freshly orphaned Havelock regards her murdered parents and craves vengeance.

Back in London, M gives Bond the lowdown on what exactly is at stake here. The ship that was sunk was carrying the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC), which can be used to launch missiles from British subs. Bond is filled in on the deaths of the marine archeologist and his wife, and told they were killed by a hitman named Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha). Bond is sent to Madrid find Gonzales and figure out who hired him to ice the Havelocks. Bond infiltrates Gonzales’ villa while some truly unexpected music plays all around him. Bond is almost instantly captured by Gonzales’ men, but then Gonzales is unexpectedly killed with an arrow to the back. Bond makes a run for it and runs into the uninvited archer: the utterly badass and utterly parentless Melina Havelock. Bond and Havelock make for his car but it gets blown up, so they take Havelock’s bitchin’ ride instead and she leads some goons on a chase that would put Bond to shame. The car tips but some friendly villagers right it and Bond, in a move that is as unnecessary as it is unwanted, decides he’s going to drive Havelock’s car now. Through dumb luck and none of Havelock’s cold precision Bond eludes the goons (to be clear, he totally flipped the car at one point, too, but Havelock is a lot cooler than him and didn’t pull a dick move by demanding to drive again because she’s not that petty and she has nothing to prove to this limey showoff).

Bond gives an absolutely insufferable lecture about the dangers of seeking revenge to Havelock who, much like me, has no time for his shit. You’re seriously going to try to warn her away from seeking vengeance after dropping Blofeld down a smokestack, like, half an hour ago, James? C’mon. He finally skulks back to England before he can get in the way of anymore of her awesome plans. Bond is scolded like the overgrown child he is by M and told to use some magical Q tech (which is really just an electronic sketch artist) to identify a man he saw paying Gonzales. Unbelievably, Q’s toy works and the man is identified as Emile Leopold Locque (Michael Gothard).

(How in the world has there not been a Bond character with the surname ‘Gothard’?)

Bond heads to Italy to track down Locque. In his hotel bathroom he finds a message waiting for him on his mirror, and it leads him to his Italian contact, Luigi Mario – No, sorry, Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno). Ferrara introduces him to a businessman and informant named Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover). Kristatos tells him that Locque is employed by a guy named Milos Columbo (Chaim Topol). I feel like we could have skipped a few steps in this introduction chain, but alright. Kristatos and Columbo used to fight in the Resistance together, but they took different paths and now Columbo is a seriously bad dude.

In the village, Bond catches sight of none other than Melina “Motherfucker” Havelock. That’s right, bitches, it took MI6’s most advanced Etch A Sketch technology, a ridiculous string of introductions and absolutely no effort from Bond himself for him to get this far, and this orphan got here before him with nothing but her wits, her thirst for vengeance and the ghosts of her dead parents to guide her way. Please, somebody, give this woman a spinoff!

Bond just can’t let Havelock tend to her own business, so he has to spy on her. Some motorcycle thugs race toward her, and Bond gets in the way of what I’m sure was a carefully laid trap of Havelock’s design. He drags her over to a sled and we find out she’s only here because someone pretending to be Bond sent her a telegraph telling her to meet him here. Aw, come on, writers, don’t nerf her like that! Havelock insists that Bond has no right to tell her what to do, but he slams his arm into her and forces her to stay in the sled. She tries to escape several more times, but he forces her to stay in her dreadful presence. He tells her to be a good girl and wait for him to do all the work himself, because we just can’t have nice things in this franchise.

Some ice skater who looks like she’s fifteen tries to sleep with Bond and he refuses her because even he has some limits. They go off skiing together and he ditches her, only to be pursued by more motorcycle thugs and a sniper taking shots at him from above. Bond manages to ski to safety for a moment, but the thugs, now joined by one of Columbo’s henchmen, are still on his tail. If there’s one thing these movies love more than a boat chase it’s a ski chase, and this one’s really goin’ all out. Bond eventually meets up with Ferrara, who drives to safety and he skates around with that teenaged ice skater some more. The ice skater’s coach drags her away so some hockey players can try to kill Bond.

He escapes in time to find out that Ferrara has been killed by Columbo. This never would have happened on Havelock’s watch. Speaking of, Bond meets back up with her in Corfu and she takes him on a tour of the local sights. Havelock reminisces on the views that her super dead father loved, and Bond unnecessarily comforts her as she processes her grief. Bond meets up with Kristatos in a casino, and Kristatos warns him again about how bad of a dude Columbo is. Unbeknownst to Bond or Kristatos, they’re being recorded by one of Columbo’s goons. Bond decides to make a move on Columbo’s mistress, Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris). He successfully beds her, and she admits she knows he’s a spy and she’s supposed to get intel out of him.

Bond and the Countess go for a walk on the beach after banging all night long, and suddenly Locque shows up and Red Asphalts von Schlaf with a dune buggy. Locque is about to kill Bond, but suddenly Columbo’s men show up, chase Locque away and capture Bond. Columbo explains to Bond that Kristatos is actually the bad guy in all of this, he hired Locque and he’s working with the KGB to get the ATAC. Bond doesn’t immediately buy this, but Columbo gives him a gun as a show of good faith and the two get smashed on brandy. That night, they head to Kristatos’ warehouses where he’s secretly processing opium. Inside the warehouse they also find some old mines, so it turns out that fishing accident at the beginning of the movie was no accident.

Locque makes a break for it in a car, but Bond manages to shoot him and cause him to swerve nearly off a cliff. In revenge for the death of Bond’s best friend in the world, Luigi Ferrara, he cold-bloodedly kicks the car and causes it to fall to the rocks below, killing Locque. Afterward Bond tracks down Havelock, who’s busy carrying on her mega-dead father’s work in marine archeology and generally has no time for Bond’s bullshit. They head back onto her dead parents’ boat and Bond fills her in on the sitch with Kristatos. Havelock expertly translates some of her father’s notes and singlehandedly figures out where the sunken ship containing ATAC is located. She steers a minisub to the ship’s location while Bond makes himself as useful as balls on a dildo and slows her down at every turn.

The two suit up and head into the sunken ship, but Kristatos is lurking above and knows someone’s messing around near the ATAC. Havelock is naturally startled when confronted by a bunch of drowned sailors, and Bond takes the opportunity to condescend to her and tell her to go back to the safety of the sub. She says fuck that noise, and gets to work finding ATAC while he’s busy jerking himself off in his wetsuit. The two begin cutting ATAC free of the ship, but suddenly one of Kristatos’ men bursts in and knocks Bond aside like the sidekick he is. This allows the henchman to get ahold of Havelock and sever her air hose, much like her parents were severed from their mortal coil. While Havelock valiantly struggles with henchman, Bond manages to slap a bomb on his back and the two swim to safety, ATAC in hand, as he explodes.

Despite Havelock literally growing up around this sort of stuff, Bond takes it upon himself to coddle her once they get back to the sub and even decides to pilot it himself (it’s that car ride all over again!). Unfortunately, Kristatos has a mini sub of its own, and the two subs BattleBots it out for a while before Bond manages to steer them to safety, nearly destroying a priceless archeological site (and by extension, the life’s work of Havelock and the death’s work of her father) in the process. They finally make it back to the surface, but Kristatos is waiting for them and he seizes the ATAC. Havelock is worried about the men she left on the boat, but Bond only cares about being a big strong man and making sure Havelock is let go. Yeah, because she’s definitely going to just walk away from the guy who killed her parents and now apparently fed her crew to sharks, dumbass. There’s an incredibly gross moment where one of Kristatos’ disgusting henchmen cut Havelock out of her wetsuit, then Bond and Havelock are trussed up and dragged through the water behind Kristatos’ boat.

Bond and Havelock get raked over some coral and some sharks almost much ‘em, but Bond manages to cut their bindings and they make it back to Havelock’s dead parents’ boat. Thanks to a pet parrot formerly owned by the late Mr. Havelock, they’re informed of where Kristatos is hiding the ATAC. Bond, Havelock, Columbo and some of Columbo’s men head for an old monastery where Kristatos is holed up. Bond almost dies while scaling the mountain to reach Kristatos, but eventually makes it to the top and sends a basket down to pick everyone else up. That ice skater is here, too, by the way, but don’t ask my why because I haven’t got a clue. A KGB helicopter is on the way to pick up the ATAC, and Bond and co. fight their way toward Kristatos.

Bond wrestles the ATAC away from Kristatos just as the KGB arrive.

Now get ready for some bullshit. Havelock, crossbow in hand, is ready to bring some biblical vengeance down upon the man that turned her mother and father into corpses and orphaned both her and a parrot, but Bond, James “Drop a Dude Down a Smokestack Because Ten Years Ago He Killed the Woman He’d Been Married to For Three Hours” Bond, James “Kicks a Car Off a Cliff and Kills a Man in Retaliation for the Death of a Man He’d Known for Five Minutes” Bond, gets in her way and tells her this just isn’t the way. She hesitates, influenced by Bond’s buffoonery, and Kristatos draws a knife. Then Columbo, fucking Columbo, the guy absolutely everyone has forgotten at this point, gets to save the day and kill Kristatos by shooting him in the back. Right in front of Havelock. The orphan. The vengeful assassin. The ruthless huntress who had gone halfway around the world to unleash hell upon those who had wronged her. The guy who was responsible for the obliteration of her parents is killed by a completely ancillary character RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER, and she was denied the vengeance that was undeniably hers by right of blood and grief because James fucking Bond had to mansplain morality to her two hours after dropping a crippled man down a smokestack and then making a pun about it.

Bond throws the ATAC off a cliff instead of letting the KGB have it. The KGB leave. Bond and Havelock fuck on a boat. Margaret Thatcher talks to the parrot.

The End

~~~~~

I’ve got to say, I’m pretty damn mad right now. This had the potential to be an absolutely amazing movie. The look of righteous fury in Havelock’s eyes as she stood over the bodies of her murdered parents honestly gave me chills. She shot an assassin with an arrow and drove in a high speed chase like a badass. Then Bond came into her story and she was completely declawed. Bond gets revenge on Blofeld for killing Tracy. Bond gets revenge on some dude whose name I can’t even remember for killing Ferrara. But Havelock? No, Havelock doesn’t get revenge. Havelock isn’t allowed to avenge the deaths of her mother and father. And then, as if that weren’t enough, we’re slapped in the face by Columbo being the one to kill Kristatos. If Kristatos was going to die, why the FUCK couldn’t Havelock be the one to kill him? I’ve been confused and frustrated by parts of these movies in the past, but never, in 12 whole films, have I felt this genuinely furious. The writers of this movie took a character like Havelock, who could have been an absolute badass angel of wrath on a holy quest for vengeance, who could have been an equal to Bond and could have elevated him to his best, who could have delivered an incredibly powerful and satisfying story, and then they took a big dump right on her face.

That’s not even taking into account the other things about this movie that suck. The music, aside from the titular song, isn’t good. Why is that ice skater in the movie at all? Why did we need to go through fifty different dudes to get to Kristatos and Columbo? This movie is a mess, and I’m very angry about it.

I give For Your Eyes Only QQ on the Five Q Scale.

It’s the final countdown! Before I post my next James Bond recap, Eli will have posted his recaps of both “Home Again Rose” and “One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest”, the penultimate and final episodes of The Golden Girls, respectively. We’ve still got a whole season of The Golden Palace to cover, but this will still be a monumental achievement on Eli’s part and I can’t believe it’s come so soon! You’ve done my Golden Girls-loving heart proud, Chief! I can’t wait to read those final recaps, and then after that (and after I’ve wiped a tear or two from my eyes) I’ll be back with my recap of the James Bond film with arguably the most famous name, Octopussy.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for nerfing and thank you for being One of Us!

#One of us #007 #james bond

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lievbios · 5 years

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007 || James Bond

Name: James Bond

Age: 37

Relationship: married (verse depending)

Sexuality:

Job: Spy

Faceclaims: Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, Idris Elba

In the novels, James Bond is the son of a Scottish father, Andrew Bond of Glencoe, and a Swiss mother, Monique Delacroix, from the Canton de Vaud. He acquired a first-class command of the French and German languages during his early education, which he received entirely abroad. Both parents were tragically killed during a climbing accident in the French Alps when he was eleven.

After the death of his parents, Bond goes to live with his aunt, Miss Charmain Bond, where he completes his early education. Later, he briefly attends Eton College at “12 or thereabouts”, but is removed after two halves because of girl trouble with a maid. After being sent down from Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father’s school.

Bond conducted his year of Sea Service with high recommendations from his Chief Petty Officers and Warrant Officers. He applied for and was uniformly recommended for work in Naval Intelligence. Bond served as an intelligence officer on HMS Exeter both before and during Operation Granby, and later was able to transfer to submarine service, touring on the HMS Turbulent. His natural abilities, mental quickness and confidence impressed his commanding officers. Within the year of being assigned to HMS Turbulent, it became apparent that Bond was not being sufficiently challenged with his duties, so Bond volunteered for the Special Boat Service. Bond excelled at SC3 and Underwater and Aquatic Warfare training. He constantly equaled or bested his superior officers and instructors in all areas after nominal experience.

Shortly before his next assignment, M, Bond’s superior in MI6, gave him the choice of either selecting a new weapon on a mission to investigate the recent disappearance of British Secret Service operative John Strangways or to return to standard intelligence duties. He was then given a choice of using a Walther PPK or a Smith & Wesson .38 Special 5-round hammerless revolver. Bond reluctantly decided to take the weapons on the mission and the Walther proved valuable in Jamaica, where Strangways had gone missing.

Bond later returned to London but, six months after he had left the city, he was sent on a mission to Istanbul in an attempt to obtain a lektor decoder device from a stunning Russian cipher clerk named Tatiana Romanova, who had supposedly fallen in love with a photograph of him. Yet Tatiana had unknowingly been set up by the No. 3 of the criminal organization SPECTRE, Rosa Klebb who sought to avenge the murder of their operative, Dr. Julius No. Bond was aided by Kerim Bey, who helped the British agent bring both the device and Romanova from Istanbul to Venice.

In Miami, Bond was instructed to observe bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger, who was staying at the same hotel. However, Bond became romantically involved with Goldfinger’s girlfriend, Jill Masterson, who later died of skin suffocation as a result of being entirely covered in gold. Bond returned to London, where he was ordered to investigate Goldfinger’s involvement in the possibly illegal transportation of gold, but he was warned that, if he treated the assignment as a personal vendetta, he would be replaced on the mission by 008.

In France, James Bond fought and killed SPECTRE operative Colonel Jacques Bouvar, avenging the murder of two of Bond’s former colleagues. After encountering several SPECTRE agents at a health spa in the south of England, Bond investigates the hijacking of an Avro Vulcan loaded with two atomic bombs, which had been taken by SPECTRE. The organisation demands a ransom against Britain and the United States for the return of the bombs. Bond follows a lead to the Bahamas, where he meets up with his CIA counterpart and friend Felix Leiter.

Bond trains with Tanaka in ninjitsu who changes his appearance to be Japanese as cover and weds him to Kissy Suzuki. Bond and Kissy find Blofeld’s lair in a Volcano. Tanaka’s ninja troops attack the island, while Bond manages to distract Blofeld and create a diversion which allows him to open the hatch, letting in the ninjas. During the battle, Mr. Osato is killed by Blofeld, who activates the base’s self-destruct system and escapes. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas escape through the cave tunnel before it explodes, and are rescued by submarine.

Looking to avenge his wife, Tracy, Bond raced around the globe looking for Blofeld until he found him during a plastic surgery operation. After a fight, Bond apparently killed the SPECTRE head by melting him in hot mud.

James Bond is sent to investigate the murder of three British MI6 agents, Dawes, Hamilton and Baines (who in fact shared the same bootmaker with Bond), all of whom have been killed within 24 hours. He discovers the victims were all separately investigating the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean island, San Monique. He also establishes that Kananga also acts as “Mr. Big”, a ruthless and cunning gangster in the United States.

After receiving a golden bullet with James Bond’s code “007” etched into its surface M relieves Bond of a mission locating a British scientist, Gibson, who has invented the “Solex agitator”, a device to harness solar power, thereby solving the global energy crisis. The bullet signifies Bond is a target of hired assassin Francisco Scaramanga and Bond sets out unofficially to find him. From a spent golden bullet, Bond tracks Scaramanga to Macau, where he sees Scaramanga’s mistress, Andrea Anders, collecting golden bullets at a casino. Bond follows her to Hong Kong, where he witnesses Scaramanga murder Gibson, the theft of the Solex agitator and kidnapping of Mary Goodnight.

Bond is tasked with investigating the disappearance of British and Soviet ballistic missile submarines and the subsequent offer to sell a submarine tracking system. Bond works alongside Major Anya Amasova of the KGB. The pair track the plans across Egypt and identify the person responsible for the thefts as shipping tycoon, scientist and anarchist Karl Stromberg.

Bond travels to Brazil looking for Drax’s research facility, where he is captured. He and Goodhead escape and pose as pilots on one of six space shuttles being sent by Drax to a hidden orbital space station. There Bond finds out that Drax plans to destroy all human life by launching fifty globes containing the toxin into the Earth’s atmosphere. Bond and Goodhead disable the radar jammer hiding the station from Earth and the U.S. sends a platoon of Marines in a military space shuttle. During the battle, Bond kills Drax and his station is destroyed.

After a British spy boat sinks, a marine archaeologist, Sir Timothy Havelock, is tasked to retrieve its Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) communication system before the Russians do. After Havelock is murdered by Hector Gonzales, a Cuban hit-man, Bond is ordered to find out who hired Gonzales. While investigating, Bond is captured, but Gonzales is subsequently killed by Havelock’s vengeful daughter, Melina and she and Bond escape. Bond identifies one of those present with Gonzales as Emile Leopold Locque and so follows a lead to Italy and meets his contact, Luigi Ferrara, and a well-connected Greek businessman and intelligence informant, Aris Kristatos. Kristatos tells Bond that Locque is employed by Milos Columbo, Kristatos’ former partner in the Greek resistance during World War II.

Bond infiltrates the circus, and finds that Orlov replaced the Soviet treasures with a nuclear warhead, primed to explode at a U.S. Air Force base in West Germany. The explosion would trigger Europe into seeking disarmament, in the belief that the bomb was an American one that was detonated by accident, leaving the West’s borders open to Soviet invasion. Orlov is revealed as a traitor and is shot by Soviet troops under General Gogol. Bond deactivates the warhead and then he returns to India, leading an assault on Kamal’s palace. He chases after Kamal who has kidnapped Octopussy in his plane, where he saves Octopussy and causes Kamal to crash.

Bond investigates into the operations of millionaire industrialist Max Zorin, who is trying to monopolize the world market in microchips. He establishes that Zorin was previously trained and financed by the KGB, but has now gone rogue. Zorin unveils to a group of investors his plan to destroy Silicon Valley which will give him a monopoly in the manufacturing of microchips.

Bond investigates into the sinking of a British warship in Chinese waters, the theft of one of the ship’s cruise missiles—and the shooting down of a Chinese fighter plane. He uncovers a link to media mogul Elliot Carver which suggests that Carver had purchased a GPS encoder on the black market, finding it in his headquarters in Hamburg.

Bond visits Valentin Zukovsky and is informed that Elektra’s head of security, Davidov, is in league with Renard: Bond kills Davidov and follows the trail to a Russian ICBM base in Kazakhstan. Posing as a Russian nuclear scientist, Bond meets American nuclear physicist Christmas Jones. The two witness Renard stealing the GPS locator card and a half quantity of weapons-grade plutonium from a bomb and set off an explosion, from which Bond and Jones escape. Elektra kidnaps M after she thinks Bond had been killed and Bond establishes that Elektra intends to create a nuclear explosion in a submarine in Istanbul in order to increase the value of her own oil pipeline. Bond frees M, kills Elektra and then disarms the bomb on the submarine and kills Renard.

Bond investigates North Korean Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, who is illegally trading African conflict diamonds for weaponry. Moon is apparently killed and Bond is captured and tortured for 14 months, after which he is exchanged for Zao, Moon’s assistant. Despite being suspended on his return, he decides to complete his mission and tracks down Zao to a gene therapy clinic, where patients can have their appearances altered through DNA restructuring. Zao escapes, but the trail leads to British billionaire Gustav Graves.

After shooting Mr. White in the leg, Bond has captured Mr. White and manages to evade pursuit by his various minions in a chaotic car chase in his Aston Martin DBS V12 painted in black. After interrogating him with M at a closed off location, Bond and M are both betrayed by a disguised minion (Mitchell) who, after a toss and tumble, is later dispatched and killed by James. Mr. White takes this time to vanish and is never seen or heard from again (except for being briefly spotted at the opera among other Quantum members.)

Bond and M return to London and search Mitchell’s flat, discovering through tagged banknotes that Mitchell had a contact in Haiti. Bond tracks the contact, Edmund Slate, and learns that Slate is a hitman sent to kill Camille Montes at the behest of her lover, environmentalist Dominic Greene. While observing her subsequent meeting with Greene, Bond learns that Greene is helping an exiled Bolivian General Medrano—who murdered Camille’s family—to overthrow his government and become the new president in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of desert.

VERSES

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ljones41 · 4 years

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"FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" (1981) Review

"FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" (1981) Review If James Bond fans and critics had judged all of EON Productions’ 1981 movie, "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" solely on its pre-credit sequence, the movie probably would have barely made a dime at the box office. Worse, it would have been regarded as the worst movie in the entire Bond franchise. Thankfully, the rest of the movie proved to be far superior to its atrocious opening sequence.

"FOR YOUR EYES ONLY", based upon two of Ian Fleming's 1960 short stories, "For Your Eyes Only" and "Risco", marked the directorial debut of John Glen, an assistant director and editor of previous Bond movies. Glen ended up steering the Bond franchise through a record five movies, all released between 1981 and 1989. With screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson, Glen would take the franchise into a new era that depended less upon gadgets, grandiose villains and their even more outlandish schemes; and more on well-written plots, gritty edge and deep characterizations. And this new direction was certainly obvious in "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" . . . well, except for the pre-title sequence. Which has led me to wonder . . . what on earth made Maibaum and Wilson include that atrocious sequence, in the first place? God only knows. The best I can say about the opening sequence, which featured an unnamed and crippled Blofeld was that its theme resonated with the rest of the movie – namely revenge. Once the movie had moved past its odious beginning, it became a sleek and tight thriller in which James Bond must recover the ATAC missile launching system, that disappeared, following the sinking of a British spy ship off the coast of Albania. MI-6 had originally recruited a British marine biologist named Sir Timothy Havelock to locate the missing ship and missile system, but he and his Greek wife ended up being murdered in full view of their daughter, by an assassin named Hector Gonzalez. Bond tracked Gonzalez to an estate in Spain. But before he could question the killer, Sir Timothy’s daughter, Melina murdered Gonzalez out of revenge for her parents’ deaths. Bond eventually learned that Gonzalez had been hired by a free-lance Soviet agent, who had been recruited to also find the ATAC system. In the Soviets’ hands, the ATAC could be used to destroy Western nuclear submarines. From the exciting chase sequence in the Spanish countryside, to the ski slopes of Cortina and the Greek Islands, Bond and Melina conducted a search for the missing ATAC that led to a bitter rivalry between two Greek smugglers – one who happened to be an independent agent contracted to the KGB. Portrayed by Israeli actor, Topol and British actor, Julian Glover; former friends Milos Columbo and Ari Kristatos drew Bond into a 30-year feud, in which both tried to convince the British agent that the other is the KBG contact. Even worse, Bond had to contend with Melina’s continuing desire for revenge - despite her murder of Hector Gonzalez. In the end, Bond managed to rein in Melina’s vengeful tendencies, learn that Kristatos was the KBG contact and prevent the ATAC from falling into Soviet hands. Roger Moore had nearly passed over his fifth chance at portraying the fictional British agent. Fortunately, he changed his mind at the last moment and proved that underneath the sophisticated façade and cheeky wit, he possessed the acting chops to star in a serious spy thriller. To this day, many cannot decide whether his best performance was in "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" or in 1977’s "THE SPY WHO LOVED ME". Personally, I am inclined to believe that "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" was his finest moment in the Bond franchise. An excellent supporting cast and a first-class script – different from what he had been used to – allowed Moore to meet the challenge of a new kind of Bond and turn in a tough and excellent performance. Even better, he did all of this and still managed to retain something of his sly sense of humor. His finest moments included: -Bond’s conversation with Melina, after saving her life in Cortina -Bond’s first meeting with Columbo -Emile Locque’s death (a controversial scene in the Bond franchise) -final sequence at the St. Cyril’s monastery. French actress, Carole Bouquet, who was 23 years old when she filmed "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" ably supported Moore as the movie’s leading lady. She skillfully turned in an emotional performance as Melina Havelock, seeking revenge for the murder of her parents. Both Topol and Julian Glover portrayed the two rivaling Greek smuggler, whom Bond has to determine was the KGB contact responsible for the Havelocks’ murder. I must say that both actors gave very subtle performances, making it difficult for the audience to decide who was innocent and who was guilty. And this ambiguity contributed greatly to the movie’s success. In fact, "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" seemed to be blessed with an exceptional cast that included Michael Gothard as the quietly callous killer, Emile Locque; Cassandra Harris (at the time, fiancée to future Bond, Pierce Brosnan) as the flirtatious and doomed Countess Lisl; Lynn-Holly Johnson as Kristatos’ ice skating protégée who develops a yen for Bond, Bibi Dahl; Jill Bennett as Bibi’s stoic trainer, Jacoba Brink; and Stefan Kalipha as the cold-blooded Cuban hitman, Hector Gonzalez. Also in the cast was Charles Dance portraying one of Locque’s henchmen, four years before he became well known in the miniseries, "JEWEL IN THE CROWN". Dance had also portrayed Bond author, Ian Fleming in a rather dull biopic called "GOLDENEYE". But what really made "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" for me, was the first-rate story centered on MI-6’s recovery of their secret missile system. Both Maibaum and Wilson, very smartly eschewed the gadget-filled fantasy epics of movies like "YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE" and "MOONRAKER" for a slightly gritty spy thriller with twists and double-crosses, reminiscent of classic spy movies from the 1940s and 50s. Instead of using Bond regular John Barry to write the score, EON Productions turned to Bill Conti, who would later write the score to the "NORTH AND SOUTH" miniseries and direct the music for future Oscar broadcasts, to create a lively score that I found very entertaining. Also included was the movie’s main theme sung by Sheena Easton. The song went on to receive an Academy Award nomination. Thanks to Conti’s score, John Glen’s tight direction, a serious and tougher Bond portrayed by Moore, a first-rate supporting cast, and a skillful script written by Maibaum and Wilson, "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY" (aside from the crappy pre-credit sequence) turned out to be what I believe is one of the finest movies in the Bond franchise.

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