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Having been launched under the aegis of Sax Rohmer, the 007 series enters its next phase by veering toward Thomas Dixon Jr. "White face in Harlem. Good thinking, Bond." Roger Moore as Her Majesty's superspy replaces Connery's roguish virility with quizzical smarm, a TV-sized unflappability to contrast with the franchise's gaudiest flashes of surrealism. The villain is a Caribbean Prime Minister (Yaphet Kotto) who doubles as a New York drug kingpin, the plan is to upend rival crime barons by flooding the market with free heroin, "a sort of junkie's welfare system." His prized possession is the virginal fortuneteller (Jane Seymour) who sees "violence and destruction" in her tarot cards, her powers desert her once she's had "earthly love." James Bond and the race divide, Guy Hamilton's wry British eye on the ferociousness of former colonies. "My name is..." "Name is for tombstones, baby. Y'all take this honky out and waste him, now!" Black beauty into flaming skull to the tune of Paul McCartney, secret portals at the Fillet of Soul lounge, exit through the Oh Cult Voodoo Shop. (The sign outside the crocodile-filled hideout assures that "Trespassers will be eaten.") The bodacious CIA klutz (Gloria Hendry) takes her cue from Stella Stevens in Karlson's The Silencers, the hook-handed henchman (Julius Harris) suggests Oddjob given a Larry Cohen rewrite. "One tough pig to nail down," the hero proves his mettle in a procession of vehicular slapstick—giving a double-decker bus a flattop, buzzing through minions with a training airplane, leaping across the Louisiana bayou in a motorboat. Geoffrey Holder's insinuating menace classes up King Kong ooga-booga, Clifton James' Southern-fried apoplexy points to Smokey and the Bandit. "Secret agent? On whose side?!" Spielberg and Lucas run with the template, subtract savoir-faire, and get Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. With David Hedison, Tommy Lane, Earl Jolly Brown, Roy Stewart, Lon Satton, Bernard Lee, and Lois Maxwell.
--- Fernando F. Croce |