Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

If you were to ask the average James Bond fan where they would rank Diamonds Are Forever, they would probably put it towards the bottom of their list. It’s a much maligned entry in the series and is considered to be the worst of the Connery Bond movies (though, I prefer it to You Only Live Twice).Their vitriol is understandable; it comes directly after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which is regarded as being one of the best (if the not  the best) James Bond films.  On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was, for the most part, a fairly realistic thriller with a great Bond girl (Diana Rigg) and formidable villain in Telly Savalas (as Blofeld). Diamonds Are Forever, however, is a rather silly movie with over the top characters (Blofeld’s gay henchmen, Mr.Kidd and Mr. Wint, the reclusive billionaire, Willard Whyte, to name a few), a campy villain (Charles Gray’s Blofeld), and an attractive, but extremely useless Bond girl, Tiffany Case (Jill St. John).  It completely ignores the tragic ending of the previous movie to make way for some cool gadgetry and silly James Bond quips. 

The biggest flaw with Diamonds Are Forever is that it stars the wrong actor – this would have been an ideal Roger Moore adventure.  Moore’s tongue-in-cheek approach to the role would have been at home in this movie, especially the scene where Bond takes on the sexy, but deadly bodyguards Bambi and Thumper.  Connery’s intensity and dry delivery is completely out of place in this movie and, as a result, he looks bored. It has become trendy to bash Roger Moore on the internet, but I rather enjoy his humorous interpretation of the role. Sure, Moore's Bond is as far removed from Ian Fleming as you can get, but his tongue in cheek delivery suited the silly scripts he was given.  Diamond Are Forever would have been a better debut for Moore’s Bond than Live and Let Die - which is bogged down by an extremely long boat chase and dreadful comic relief in the form of redneck sheriff, Claude Pepper (who would reappear in The Man With the Golden Gun).  However, at least Connery looks good in the action scenes.  

Tiffany Case is a wasted opportunity at a potentially great Bond girl. She starts off promising and then gets increasingly dumber as the movie progresses. In the early scenes, she is shown to be pretty savvy; she is a diamond smuggler and when Bond first appears to her, under the disguise of Peter Franks, she uses the finger prints he’s left on a drinking glass to verify his ID; Bond, of course, is one step ahead of her and is wearing false finger prints on the tip of his fingers.  It’s trendy to criticize Jill St. John, but I think she plays the role appropriately enough, and, while she maybe shrill at times, she is at least lively, especially when compared to some of the later Bond girls.  The problem is the script, by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz, which turns Tiffany into more of a hindrance to Bond than actual help. It’s so annoying at the movie’s climax when she literally does nothing, except scream and hide, while the world is going to hell around her.  I complained about how devoid of personality Aki and Kissy Suzuki were in You Only Live Twice, but at least they were helpful; Aki saves Bonds life on a couple of occasions, and Kissy is not only a valuable guide to Bond, but, rather bravely, swims back to shore to get the reinforcements; she even takes out a few baddies with a gun.  Tiffany Case only bungles things up and then, when Bond tells her to grab a machine gun and take out a few henchmen, accidentally falls off the rig while firing it.   Couldn’t Maibaum and Mankiewicz at least given her something valuable to do? Instead she is relegated to comedy relief. 

The less I say about the secondary Bond girl, Plenty O' Toole, the better.

Yet, for all of its warts, Diamonds Are Forever is pretty watchable movie - there are certainly worse ways you can spend two hours. It may not be up to par with Connery’s early Bond movies, but there are enough exciting moments that make it worthwhile:  The fist fight in the elevator, with Bond and foe constantly shattering glass every time they throw a punch; Bond almost being cremated in a coffin; the car chase through the Las Vegas strip, which ends in a parking lot; Bond escaping his would be captors in a moon rover; Jimmy Dean’s amusing performance as the eccentric billionaire, Willard Whyte; and, most memorable of all, Bonds fight with Bambi and Thumper. The latter scene is fun, because Bond is completely defenseless against the acrobatics that the women lay out on him - it’s a totally unconventional fight scene, at least for that time period.  Now, if only they would have gotten Roger Moore.

For the record, this is how I would rank the Bond movies:

1)      From Russia With Love

2)      On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

3)      Skyfall

4)      Goldfinger

5)      The Spy Who Loved Me

6)      Dr. No

7)      Casino Royale

8)      Licence to Kill

9)      For Your Eyes Only

10)   The Living Daylights

11)   Thunderball

12)   GoldenEye

13)  Moonraker

14) Diamonds Are Forever

15)   You Only Live Twice

16)  Octopussy

17) The Man With the Golden Gun

18)  A View to a Kill

19)   Tomorrow Never Dies
20) Live and Let Die
21) No Time to Die

22)   The World Is Not Enough

23)  Spectre 

24)   Quantum of Solace

25) Die Another Day

Credits

Cast: Sean Connery (James Bond), Jill St. John (Tiffany Case), Charles Gray (Blofeld), Lana Wood (Plenty O’Toole), Jimmy Dean (Willard Whyte), Bruce Cabot (Saxby), Bruce Glover(Mr. Wint), Putter Smith(Mr. Kidd), Norman Burton (Felix Leiter), Bernard Lee (M), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Trina Parks (Thumper), Lola Larson (Bambi), Joseph Furst (Dr. Metz), Laurence Naismith (Sir Donald Munger), Joe Robinson (Peter Franks), Margaret Lacey (Mrs. Whistler), Leonard Barr (Shady Tree), Marc Lawrence (Attendant), Sid Haig (Attendant 2).

Director: Guy Hamilton
Screenplay: Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz.
Running Time: 120 min.