Beginner’s Bond: Diamonds Are Forever
“Beginner’s Bond” is about my quest to close the largest gap in my personal cinematic knowledge: the James Bond franchise. I’m watching all of the movies in order for the first time and recording my reactions here. Our last subject, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was the first true dud of the series—I had to split up my viewing because I kept falling asleep. Let’s hope Diamonds Are Forever is nothing like it.
First and foremost, Sean Connery is back. It speaks to his prowess as an actor that the film is so drastically improved simply by putting him back in the role. Every scene is at least three times as interesting as anything that happened in OHMSS. That’s the quality that turns an actor into a bonafide movie star. You hear his voice before he ever appears onscreen, and a wave of excitement hit me as soon as I heard it. On an instinctual level my brain was saying “Yes! This is gonna be good.” There’s a reason the studio was willing to pay $1.25 million to get him back, which was the most a screen actor had ever been paid at the time.
The movie begins with 007 trotting the globe, following Blofeld’s trail, and he is not fucking around. The sequence is immediately compelling because (up to this point) we have rarely seen Mr. Bond so enraged that his human mask slips and we see the coiled violence beneath. He doesn’t even try to seduce the half-naked woman that has the intel he wants, which would typically be his first approach. Instead, he skips straight to literally choking the answer out her. When he finally catches up to the object of his hatred, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, he doesn’t kill him quickly. No, Mr. Bond decided to drown him in goo. He spent time and effort making his enemy’s final moments as agonizing as possible. While James has always had a rather cavalier attitude about killing people, I don’t think I’ve seen him be so intentionally cruel before. That’s where we get some of our truest insights into a character—when they do something that is unusual for them.
M orders Bond to investigate a diamond smuggling ring, suspecting that the culprits intend to manipulate prices by dumping. 007 fakes his own death (the second time) in order to infiltrate the smuggling operation. While he chases rumors of diamonds around, a creepy pair of assassins, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, stay just a few steps ahead, eliminating every link in the smuggling chain. Of course, James’ investigation leads to a casino, then to an eccentric billionaire that turns out to be a front for his old pal Blofeld. Apparently Mr. Bond merely drowned his body double at the beginning of the film. Blofeld eventually reveals his plot, and I believe this is the first instance of a villain holding the world hostage with a space laser, a trope that became so popular it’s practically a cliche now.
All in all, Diamonds Are Forever is a fun return to form for the franchise. It has almost all the big hits: sci-fi gadgets like the voice changer, numerous overcomplicated impending death traps, beautiful women with silly names like Tiffany Case and Plenty O’Toole. And while Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are not superhuman, they are interesting enough characters to compensate. A pair of proficient killers who enjoy their work and love to make belabored puns about death—Mr. Bond was essentially fighting two extra crazy versions of himself. And once again, Sean Connery gives a masterful performance of a man who is as dangerous as he is charming. This movie is everything that is fun about James Bond, just more of it. I wonder how the next film, 1973’s Live and Let Die will measure up. Roger Moore has some pretty big shoes to fill, and I hope he’s up to it!
