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A View to a Bond Baddie: Elektra King

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate James Bond’s 50th birthday on screen (and the release of Skyfall), we’re going to take a look at the character and his films. We’ve already reviewed all the classic movies, so we’ll be looking at his iconic baddies, and even at the character himself.

Elektra King remains unique among Bond’s selection of big-screen baddies if only because she’ really the only major female villain. Of course, Bond villains have employed henchwomen before. Rosa Klebb was a major menace in From Russia With Love, even if she was answering to a mostly absent Blofeld. Largo employed the sinister Fiona in Thunderball, immune to the charms Bond used to seduce Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. A View to a Kill even gave us a female villain who wasn’t defined by her sexuality, with Mayday defined by her physical strength more than anything else. Still, it seemed like a villainess would never quite break the Bond movie glass ceiling, which makes Elektra such a fascinating character.

Of course, she’s trapped in a pretty terrible film.

It’s good to be the King…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: bond, Bond girl, Christmas Jones, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, elektra, Elektra King, germany, GoldenEye, james bond, James Bond in film, Jeff Castelaz, Pussy Galore, Recreation, renard, SolarWorld | 21 Comments »

A View to a Bond Baddie: Auric Goldfinger

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate James Bond’s 50th birthday on screen, we’re going to take a look at the character and his films. We’ve already reviewed all the classic movies, so we’ll be looking at his iconic baddies, and even at the character himself.

Golden words he will pour in your ear
But his lies can’t disguise what you fear
For a golden girl knows when he’s kissed her
It’s the kiss of death… from Mis-ter…
Goldfinger.

Pretty girl, beware of his heart of gold
This heart is cold…

He loves only gold!

The first film in the series, Dr. No, did an exceptional job establishing the template for a Bond villain. Dr. Julius No had an island fortress, a stylish layer, an army of henchmen, a few key soldiers with a gimmick, a sinister plan and a physical deformity, all of which would become fairly key ingredients for an archetypal Bond baddie. That said, Joseph Wiseman only appear on-screen in the role for about twenty minutes, so the audience actually got relatively little time to know him. The follow-up, From Russia With Love, also had a set of memorable bad guys, but the interaction with Bond was limited to the final few minutes of the film. (That isn’t to suggest those few minutes weren’t fantastic.)

On the other hand, we actually spend most of Goldfinger with Auric Goldfinger, and he’s the first villain in the series who has a number of extended interactions with our hero.

His finger in many pies…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Adolf Hitler, auric goldfinger, bond, China, Fort Knox, Goldfinger, ian fleming, james bond, James Bond in film, Joseph Wiseman, Julius No, List of James Bond henchmen in Goldfinger, napoleon, Nazi, Pussy Galore, world war ii | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Thunderball

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Darren

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

Thunderball perhaps gets a bit of a bad wrap because it’s perhaps not quite as good as From Russia With Love or Goldfinger. I’d argue that very few Bond films are. Thunderball perhaps represents the first moment that the series came to a rest – the first three installments had been built around establishing the character, his world and the tropes and clichés that viewers could expect from movie to movie. Sometimes concepts evolved gradually (for example, the novelty henchmen grew from the three blind assassins to Klebb and her knifey boots to Oddjob), while sometimes they were introduced suddenly (Bond’s Aston Martin), but by the time the fourth film came around, all these elements had been fairly firmly established. As such, the fourth film seemed to be more intent on consolidating the series than in breaking new ground. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that.

Bond isn't washed up... yet...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Aston Martin, Aston Martin DB5, casino royale, film, From Russia with Love (film), Goldfinger, james bond, james bond january, Movie, nato, non-review review, nuclear wepons, Pussy Galore, review, sean connery, spectre, thunderball | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Goldfinger

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Darren

Even though it was the third movie in an already iconic and hugely successful franchise, I think that Goldfinger is perhaps the film most responsibly for defining the shape of the archetypical Bond film we’ve been watching for fifty years now. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dr. No and From Russia With Love, but this film defined what an audience could expect from a Bond film. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s confident and it’s flamboyant. It’s also a wonderfully fun cinematic experience which manages to be consistently entertaining but never veering too far into the realm of the ridiculous.