When Puns Go Wrong: OCTOPUSSY

Dear Albert R. 'Cubby' Broccoli, U.S. Navy man, film producer, loving husband to three wives and devoted father of three children: I'm glad you're dead.

I mean, I'm happy that you created and produced the Bond films, but let's face it: towards the end there, you were really screwing the pooch.

It's you who bears the brunt of the blame for the horrifying excesses of MOONRAKER, for the increasingly ridiculous pairings of 50-year old Bonds and 20-year old actresses, and I have a feeling you're to blame for the ridiculous title of Roger Moore's sixth appearance as Bond, OCTOPUSSY.


Really? OCTOPUSSY? That's not even trying. You're the same guy that made YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and LIVE AND LET DIE, great puns both. Of course, you had a little help from Ian Fleming there. But OCTOPUSSY? Why not just give in and call it YET ANOTHER JAMES BOND MOVIE WITH A FLACCID, DECREPIT PENIS SURROUNDED BY SURGICALLY ENHANCED BREASTS?

The Bond films are renowned for a juvenile, smirking attitude towards objectified women, with names like Pussy Galore and Plenty O'Toole looming large in cultural memory, but somehow, to me, Octopussy is offensive on a whole other level, and I think it's because 'Cubby' Broccoli was trying to give women a greater role in the Bond films.

That sounds incredibly sexist. What I mean is, he was trying, and failing miserably. Mr. Broccoli was a product of an earlier, man's-world culture, and the need to update the Bond films to reflect a more inclusive view of sexual politics was simply a job he was not designed for. Starting with 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, the film preceding OCTOPUSSY, there is a dedicated effort to make women more capable and resistant to Bond's charms, and Bond accordingly more monogamous and respectful (this on the heels of the cringe-inducing "a female doctor?" and "women drivers!" comments of the '70s). However, creating capable, professional women seems like it was antithetical to 'sexy' for Mr. Broccoli and the writers and directors of the '80s Bond films. Often, they settle for one or the other.

Bearing this in mind, the character of Octopussy actually plays an incredibly minor role in the film that bears her name. She's basically a middle man (if you'll excuse the gender-specific phrase), negotiating between the far more sinister villains of General Orlov and Kamal Khan, and eventually is persuaded (sexually, of course) into helping Bond dispose of them. She's kind of insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Naming this film OCTOPUSSY is like calling GOLDFINGER "PUSSY GALORE", in that Ms. Galore shares not only as outrageous a name as Octopussy, but also, a similar role: namely, to be sexually conquered by Bond and made to see the error of her ways, presumably on her way to the kitchen to make James a sandwich.

This often happens to the rarest of character types of the Bond films: that of the independent, financially successful woman. There are usually lesbianic overtones to their independence, their sources of income are often due to the result of some sort of illegal activity, and Bond always forces them away from their success (and vague homosexuality) with his magical transformative dick. Pussy Galore and Jill Valentine are examples of this type from the earlier films, and Octopussy is essentially the same stereotype, just veneered with a gloss of greater importance and an '80s hairdo. The early tagline, "No one does him better" is trying to be as liberating as it is enslaved to the ideology of the past.

Calling the film OCTOPUSSY may have been some sort of token gesture to women viewers, but it simultaneously takes the legs out from underneath that gesture by winking self-consciously at the terrible pun, not to mention the actual limitations of the character. It misses the whole point. In the final analysis, it doesn't indicate any kind of better place for women in the Bond franchise, but is merely the soul of a ten-year old boy giggling at the word "pussy". I'm not sure that'll bring back the female audience, Mr. Broccoli.

I actually enjoy large sections of OCTOPUSSY, specifically the post-titles sequence, wherein a clown-disguised 009 is pursued by a pair of knife-throwing twins and staggers into a diplomatic reception, red nose and all, before dropping a counterfeit Faberge egg at the feet of a shocked ambassador and dying. It's an incredible beginning to a great spy story. There are also some admirable attempts at creating relatively down-to-earth plots and villains, as well as some interesting looks at the Cold War culture. The whole thing is starting to feel the inertia of the Roger Moore era, though, and there's a definite feeling of going through the motions that carries over into A VIEW TO A KILL, in what would blessedly be Moore's final appearance as 007.

'Cubby' Broccoli would go on to make three more Bond films after OCTOPUSSY, almost all of which tried to reinvent Bond and the idea of the "Bond girl". He died during the production of GOLDENEYE, the film that finally brought Bond into the twentieth century. Mr. Broccoli's daughter, Barbara, took over her father's responsibility as the producer of the Bond films. Now, how long will it take for a Bond film to be directed by a woman?

Not Even Wim Wenders Could Make MOONRAKER Good

For years, I laboured under the impression that MOONRAKER, the 1979 James Bond film, was a cheap response to STAR WARS that, in its rush to theatres, essentially just copied the script of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the 1977 Bond film. Watching both of these films again, it's clear that's not entirely true. There is a sharp difference between the two, and the difference is that MOONRAKER is terrible. Let's take a closer look:

It becomes clear to me, as I think about it, that many of the criticisms about Roger Moore's Bond are actually of his performance, and, indeed, the overall tone, in MOONRAKER. Now, I don't want to turn into some sort of Moore apologist, but what is one supposed to do when faced with this kind of absurdity except try to grin your way through it?

This movie should never have been made.

The Infuriating Smirk of Roger Moore

Do you think there's an ideal age to see a film? That a movie will play better to a specific age group or demographic because the ideas in it are more relevant to those people?

If so, I think I was introduced to the James Bond films at the exact right time. I was around 11 or so, and the heady mix of girls, guns, and car chases went straight into my blood, like an adrenaline shot to the heart. I suspect the same is true for many young men. Our fondness for Bond is rooted in late night viewings of underwater spear gun battles and beautiful blondes in need of rescue. They're viewed in dens and basements with uncles and grandpas. They are simultaneously the fairy tales and the porn of our tween years.

I've written briefly about how Bond films are childhood fantasies writ large, but I find that they're almost all (with a very few interesting exceptions) actually a very particular fantasy we have as boys: the fantasy of growing up. Bond was the culmination of what I thought I'd become: the suave lady-killer, the dangerous rogue, the renowned expert on every subject under the sun. In a word: invulnerable.

Which is why the Roger Moore Bond films are, for the most part, unbearable.

Moore's approach to playing Bond was to smile his way through the metal-toothed and midget henchmen, knowingly grin at the Agent XXXs and Holly Goodheads, and double-take at the massive space stations and blimps of his enemies. He was having fun, and he wanted you to join in on the childish adventure. I suspect those that like Mr. Moore's portrayal were those who saw them as young boys, not as interested in vodka martinis as they were in space laser gun battles.

To those of us who were more intrigued by baccarat and Faberge eggs, though, that ever-present smile looked more like a smirk, refusing to play it straight. We could never connect to the fantasy while the ostensible narrator was grinning at us, mocking our desire to indulge in the ridiculous daydreams of childhood. To borrow a British phrase, he took the piss out of the whole thing.

This is, however, a generalization. Bond films all tell the same basic story, so we tend to combine them all into an actor's "version" of the Bond character (hence the often-repeated criticism of Timothy Dalton's Bond as "too dark and serious", although only one of Dalton's films is "serious" in any sense of the word). The truth is that each film has a distinct Bond, which plays distinctive notes about the character. To illustrate this, let's look at Moore's second effort, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.


THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is a fascinating failure, a film that has so many great scenes and moments to add to the Bond mythos, but one that is ultimately done in by it's inability to play it straight. Oddly enough, almost none of this is Moore's fault. His Bond is the most grounded character in the whole mess, and for the most part, he plays it dead serious. The scene between him and Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's mistress, is of particular note. In the scene, Bond trails her and breaks into her hotel room, confronts her, then viciously slaps her and nearly breaks her arm. It's one of the darkest scenes in any Bond film. There's a sense in this scene of a brutal realism, of a lethality in Moore, that earnestly portrays the assassin that Bond is. It's a scene that never plays up Bond's sexual prowess to resolve the situation, and never winks at the audience. In as much that it comments on Bond's chauvinism and violent tendencies, it's a much more mature look at those childhood fantasies about the invulnerable male.

But for every scene like this one, which disturbs and pushes the viewer, there is an overlong scene with J.W. Pepper hurling racial epithets and generally embarrassing the franchise, or a gangster apologizing to a cardboard cutout of Al Capone for shooting it, or a midget butler bringing, of all things, Tabasco sauce to his master. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is scared to commit to the story, like a child who knows he's too old to order off the kid's menu, but just wants a hot dog really bad.

It is the only Bond film to ever really comment on Bond's "licence to kill" (other than, of course, LICENCE TO KILL), and the moral ambiguities inherent to such a thing. Christopher Lee's Scaramanga is a shadow of Bond, a fact Lee is only too fond to play with. There is a great dinner scene where the differences between the two men are laid out, and one feels like Bond is protesting just a tad too much. Like many of these great scenes in the film, though, it is immediately proceeded by a silly, winking scene that makes fun of it all. Lee is immediately saddled with a lengthy monologue about "solex agitators" and channeling the power of the sun in order to explode Bond's plane with a blast of solar energy. It's not enough that Scaramanga wants to kill Bond - now he's got a world domination scheme! It's ludicrous, and Lee looks like he's trying to get through it all as quickly as he can so he can get back to the duel between the two men.

But even the basic idea of the duel gets undermined by Scaramanga's ridiculous LaserQuest-y maze that the duel takes place in, replete with funhouse mirrors, a giant grizzly bear statue, and a life-size mannequin of James Bond. It's like Laser Quest with the lights on; no fun for anyone.

By the time we get to A VIEW TO A KILL, Moore's seventh and final outing as Bond, no one's even trying anymore.


Iceberg submarine with a British crest on it? Check. The title sequence now has neon in it. Ooh. Microchips are important. Hooray. Moore is so old at this point (58) that his most exciting stunts are performed by a horse. The Bond fantasy is about growing up, not growing old. There's nothing cool or exciting about 007 in this film - even the one relatively new trick in Bond's repertoire, snowboarding, is undercut by the use of The Beach Boys' "California Girls" (sadly, not a middle-finger-flipping gummie bear to be seen).

In fact, the most interesting characters in the film are the villains. Christopher Walken's Max Zorin and Grace Jones' May Day are the two most memorable antagonists in the Moore era. Walken's character is a gem, a steroid-bred lab baby, brilliant but psychotic, a KGB agent gone rogue. It plays perfectly to his unique delivery, and he seems to have great fun letting loose, killing both adversaries and allies with gleeful abandon. But it's Grace Jones who steals the show, with her lithe steroid-fuelled assassin. Her arc is a little cliché (her line after Zorin betrays her: "I thought that creep loved me!"), but her commanding presence breathes some life into an otherwise dull movie.

As good as these villains are, it all seems so paint-by-numbers at this point. The Bond character isn't really about anything in this movie. He just moves where the script tells him to go and does the things he's expected to do. Moore tries to coast by with that damn smirk, and it becomes obvious that the toothy grin is only getting toothier by the day.

But maybe when I'm 58, it'll play better to me.