James Bond Ultimate Edition - Vol. 3 (GoldenEye / Live and Let Die / For Your Eyes Only / From Russia With Love / On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Diana Rigg, George Lazenby, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Sean ConneryDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Mandarin Chinese (Original Language); Korean (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 633 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-12
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of James Bond Ultimate Edition - Vol. 3 (GoldenEye / Live and Let Die / For Your Eyes Only / From Russia With Love / On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
Movie Review: The best of the Ultimate Bond boxed sets
Summary: 5 Stars
With an embryonic and not entirely successful Robert Brownjohn title sequence of credits projected onto body of belly dancer (some great spelling mistakes here, as `Monte' Norman and `Martin' Beswicke's agents probably pointed out!), Barry's first official Bond score and Blofeld's first (off-screen) appearance, the formula is clearly beginning to fall into place. This was also the first of the series to have a pre-title sequence, one of the few that relates directly to the film's plot, and it is still by far the most successful of any of them.
The gadgets that were to eventually get so out of hand make first appearance in form of Bond's ingenious attaché case, but at least here they are still entirely credible - nothing more extravagant than a well kitted-out briefcase and a breakaway sniper's rifle. Series regular Walter Gotell also makes his first appearance, though not as General Gogol but as the head of a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. training school. Unlike the cute and lovable old Russian bear at SMERSH in the Moore films, here he is cheerfully ruthless and businesslike, using live targets in training courses.
Bond's snobbery is much to the fore here. "Red wine with fish, that should have told me something," he tells Robert Shaw's working class homicidal paranoiac, the best and most genuinely threatening of the Bond heavies ("You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees."). It also establishes the sexual deviancy of the villains in Rosa Klebb's lesbian tendencies (very apparent as her hand wanders onto Daniella Bianchi's knee). With Bond such an amoral figure, the villains had to be even more immoral and perverse: always bastions of authority, usually millionaires they get their kicks planning global crimes, so depravity is simply foreplay to them. Even Vladek Sheybal's chess master Kronstein, looking for all the world like Vladimir Putin with mild indigestion, seems at a remove from mere mortal pleasures.
It's still the best of the series and most convincingly plotted, an excellent crane shot of the chequered setting for a chess tournament sets the scene for the chess-like nature of the plot as factions co-existing in uneasy truces are set off against each other. Indeed, directorially this is considerably more ambitious and assured than its predecessor, evident in the skilfully handled church scene and a beautifully blocked scene as Bond is followed along a train platform by Shaw inside the train.
Sadly, while pitched as the `Ultimate Edition,' the transfer on this repackaged two-disc edition is still problematic. The picture quality is certainly improved over the original single-disc issue, but rather than the original British 1.66:1 ratio, it's presented in the cropped 1.85:1, but worse still, the ending is still missing footage of Bond examining the reel of compromising 8mm film in the gondola before the end title. As with Dr No there's not a huge amount of new extra material over the extras from previous release, all of which are carried over here, but it's pretty good - extracts from Ian Fleming on radio show Desert Island Discs, a TV interview with the author and a featurette on Fleming and Raymond Chandler.
No Bond film has suffered as much historical and critical revisionism as On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A huge hit on its first release and no better or worse reviewed than any of the preceding Bonds, George Lazenby's decision to leave the series before the film was released led to a tidal wave of attacks from the press and spurned co-producer Albert R. Broccoli (who even removed Lazenby's face from the original US poster!) that cast such a dark shadow over the film that the fact it's one of the highpoints of the series slipped from the public consciousness. Instead it became the Bond that flopped (if taking more than ten times its cost can be called flopping), the Bond that everybody hated (there were plenty of rave reviews to prove otherwise) with the Bond so bad he had to be fired (the producers tried to sign him up for several more pictures but, foolishly he admits, their new star thought the series was on the way out). It didn't help that the film was subsequently heavily cut for reissues and TV, and it's only with the Ultimate Edition DVD that the film is finally available in its absolutely uncut version (even the previous DVD was missing a few shots). Over the years its reputation has gradually grown, although EON clearly still regard it as the black sheep of the series: where the producers proudly boasted in 1970 that it was the fastest Bond to recoup its cost, for the documentary here they maintain it was the slowest. It's tempting to imagine whether 2006's Casino Royale would have met with similar treatment had Daniel Craig decided to call it a day before it opened...
It's all the more mystifying considering how fresh and genuinely exciting much of the film still is today. With many of the series' regulars off making Shalako with Sean Connery (as was intended leading lady Brigitte Bardot), the film benefits greatly from new blood and new ideas while debuting director Peter Hunt's long experience as the series editor keeps it recognisably a Bond film. George Leech's stuntwork is much better than anything Bob Simmonds ever came up with, while cinematographer Michael Reed's superb work in the Swiss locations makes it one of the most visually memorable of the series. The ski chases still amaze, with Willi Bogner and Johnny Jordan going to ridiculously dangerous lengths to secure shots no-one had ever attempted before or equalled since (Bogner skiing backwards with a camera for the ground shots while Jordan was suspended from a helicopter for the aerial shots!), made all the more vivid by John Barry's superb score with its most exciting main title theme of the entire series.
Blessed with one of the strongest and certainly the most emotional of Fleming's plots, followed much more closely than the norm for the films, it also has a healthy contempt for the gadgets that keeps Bond, not the hardware centre stage: he may use a hefty gizmo to crack a safe, but he's more interested in leafing through Playboy while waiting for it to do its job. Elsewhere, he uses his wits and what's available. It's particularly gratifying to see him tear out his pockets and use them as makeshift gloves in one scene.
There are odd moments of awkwardness to Lazenby's performance, but nothing truly fatal, and he grows into the role as it progresses. Indeed, as the first Bond to be asked to show real fear (in the ice rink sequence) and despair (the ending), at his best he's far more natural than his detractors give him credit and despite being intended as a Connery imitator there are plenty of moments where he makes the part his own. He's certainly the most physical Bond, not least because of Peter Hunt's determination to put him in harm's way so the camera can come in close in the vicious fight sequences. As for whether Connery would have made the film better still, it's doubtful. Had it originally followed Goldfinger as was originally planned, it's possible, but by the time the oft-rescheduled picture finally went before the camera he'd lost all interest in the part and it's hard to imagine him putting any more effort into it than he did in Diamonds Are Forever. It's certainly impossible to imagine him pulling off the film's devastating final scene by that point.
On the debit side, the pacing is slightly problematic, not least due to the deletion of an uncompleted chase through the London Underground that leaves the film with a slight sag in the middle. That continuity problem with Blofeld not recognising Bond IS irritating (OHMSS was intended to be their first meeting), the romantic montage feels like a jewellers commercial and at times Hunt's cut-to-the-bone editing style is overdone. None of which stop this being very nearly the best Bond of them all, and the one the series wouldn't come close to matching for another 37 years.
For Bond fans, this repackaged two-disc Ultimate Edition is like a brightly lit Christmas Tree on Christmas morning, with plenty of new extras to make it worth an upgrade to the two-disc edition if you already have the previous DVD. Of these, the most interesting are the interviews with Lazenby from the time of the film's release. Much criticised for his arrogance and ego in an era when stars were kept on a tight leash, now he simply seems honest and sincere and considerably more positive about the film than many of today's stars on modern press junkets. Unfortunately, while all three original 1969 making-of featurettes have been included on this issue, Shot On Ice, about the filming of the stock car sequence, has been clumsily tampered with, the extracts from the film taken from the remastered print in widescreen in away that will annoy the purists. It's also missing the alternate theatrical trailers that have appeared on the laserdisc and video releases in the past. But to go some way to compensating, the disc also includes new featurettes on casting the film and a staged press day during shooting as well as all the extras from the original release - plus that tidied up uncut version. Highly recommended, this is Bond at his best.
Fondly remembered by many as Moore's best effort, you have to be in the right mood to see this today and willing to make a mental trip back in time to the early 70s when it was made. It's probably dated more than almost any other Bond film - even bearing in mind that the seventies was the decade that fashion forgot, the sideburns and flares on display here are pretty vicious and, as the first film since Dr No to enter Bond's flat, it is deeply distressing to note that he is a slave to Formica and has chicken-shaped pate moulds on the wall. As swell as being the first Bond film since Goldfinger not to be shot in 2.35:1 widescreen, more significantly it also marks the point at which the series started imitating other trends rather than setting them - in this case blaxploitation pictures, which is quite an achievement you're your hero is white. Beyond its voodoo trappings little of the plot of Ian Fleming's novel survives as Shaft - sorry, Bond - takes on the drug-pushing president of a small island in Jamaica, but it's certainly one of the most action-packed of the series and never outstays its welcome the way some later efforts would.
Taking barely 11 minutes to get into some serious raised eyebrow action, there is perhaps a bit too much of Simon Templar in Moore's performance, but there is also a harder edge to his Bond that was soon smoothed away. He has a very cynical attitude towards Jane Seymour's virginal Solitaire), using her callously as bait. In a way it's a blessing that the film was not tailored specifically for Moore as later efforts would be, relying more on his rarely tapped abilities as an actor than his star persona. It doesn't hurt that director Guy Hamilton visibly raises his game from his lazy helming of Diamonds Are Forever.
This also shows the first sign of breaking up set pieces to add throwaway visual gags. This frequently detracts from the nifty and still very impressive speedboat chase, possibly the best sustained action sequence in the series until the free-running chase in Casino Royale, as Clifton James does his Deputy Dawg impersonation while the odd bit of slapstick comedy removes much of the threat. At times it is hard to tell which lines are meant to be funny and which ones aren't. "Great disguise, Bond - white face in Harlem" is pretty obviously the former, but surely the unintentional dialogue high point has to be Tony Award-winning Shakespearian actor Yaphet Kotto - curiously seeming to give three performances, starting out as Marlon Brando before easing into the genial villainy - uttering the immortal "Names is for tombstones, baby. Take him out and waste him."
The extras from the original single-disc DVD release are all retained for this repackaged Ultimate Edition 2-disc set - including the documentary with amazing outtakes of the alligator stunt going wrong that prove that the filmmakers used real gators - as well as some welcome new additions. The 1964 extract from Millicent Martin's TV show with a young Moore sending up James Bond is fun, and there's an intriguing 1973 documentary shot on the set. The print may be a damaged mixture of faded color and black and white footage, but the content more than compensates, from Moore quipping "If Guy Hamilton thinks I'm doing that again, he can get the other feller back, I'm telling you" to the depressing sign of the times that even then the film industry was still partially segregated, with the Black Stuntmen's Association having to prove that you didn't need blacked-up white stuntmen to double for black actors. The trailers are among the best of the series, promising 'More excitement, more action, more danger and more - much more - Roger Moore.' Better still, the legendary Milk Marketing Board commercial that was so cruelly undermined by Moore's entertaining account of filming Roger Moore as James Bond, is also included, featuring much manufactured footage of the cast downing pints of milk after dangerous stunts!
For Your Eyes Only is showing its age a bit now. At the time a hugely welcome return to basics after the leaden FX spectacle of Moonraker (the second remake of You Only Live Twice in a row for the series), it still holds up as one of the best of Roger Moore's Bonds, but its faults are much more apparent than they once were. Among them is the tendency to undercut everything with unfunny little jokes (a scoreboard keeping count of thugs Bond knocks out, Bond giving a bemused royal wave to pursuing thugs, and a horrendous cameo from a Maggie Thatcher lookalike in the end), some flat studio work (no disguising the fact that the mountaintop Greek monastery is just a Pinewood set), a dated Bill Conti score and a comic relief nympho nymphet Lynn Holly Johnson constantly throwing herself at a disinterested Bond. Luckily, the pluses more than compensate - a stronger plot than usual for the Moore efforts, at least one cold-blooded murder, and a very welcome absence of gadgets until the postscript that ensures that Bond has to extricate himself with his own wits in some pretty good setpieces. Best among them is a mountaineering sequence where he uses his bootlaces - not steel bootlaces, just common bootlaces - to save himself in an old mountaineers trick.
Incidentally, with Blofeld still sporting the neck brace he wore at the end of OHMSS, and with the film beginning at Tracey Bond's graveside it's tempting to think of the pre-title sequence as a way of making amends for the jokey way Bond's nemesis was disposed of in Diamonds Are Forever were the following sequence not the proud possessor of the most surreal line in the entire Bond series, the infamous "I'll buy you a delicatessen - in stainless steel!" So, while this may be one of the Moore serious of Roge's outings, it's not exactly Bergman territory.
Although the original DVD wasn't the most fully loaded disc on the market, there's less of an upgrade in terms of extras than meets the eye on this repackaged 2-disc 'ultimate edition.' Alongside Roger Moore's new audio commentary there are two deleted scenes, one of them a welcome addition that brings a bit of tension to Bond and Melina's relationship as she chastises him over his nocturnal activities, but the three new featurettes are little more than fairly raw behind the scenes footage while the multi-angle alternate versions of Bond's cold-blooded killing of Loque are particularly badly laid out. The menu also lists the 3 slight variations on the theatrical trailer carried over from the previous edition as TV spots!
After six years in limbo as EON and the new owners of MGM/UA found themselves and the series locked in legal action at lawsuits, Timothy Dalton decided too much time had elapsed to renew his licence to kill, ushering in the Brosnan era with GoldenEye. At the time hailed for `saving' the series (just as Dalton and Moore had been before him), the star's own bitter feud with the producers and the success of Daniel Craig in reinventing the role seem to have combined with disappointment with some of Brosnan's subsequent Bond films to the point where it's harder and harder to find any Bond fans with a good word to say about his tenure. But in 1995 GoldenEye was certainly welcomed with open arms and blockbuster business and it holds up remarkably well.
If there's a problem with Brosnan's take on Bond, it's that there really isn't much of one. He looks good in the suits, does what's required but where every other Bond actor brought something new or of their own to the part, Brosnan is more of a composite of previous Bonds, an across-the-board demographic-pleasing but nothing radical Bond, veering more towards the unflappable suavity of Roger Moore than the danger of Connery or Lazenby or the gritty bleakness of Dalton. But then, if Brosnan brings nothing new but his face to the part, in many ways, like The Living Daylights, GoldenEye is a kind of transitional Bond film rather than anything as radical as Casino Royale, the old Bond formula recognisably in place with all the surface gloss and expected ingredients but with a post-Cold War spin to dust off some of the more clichéd aspects.
While the plot isn't exactly realistic, revolving around a scheme to use a stolen Russian electromagnetic pulse satellite weapon to wreak a lucrative revenge for past wrongs done to the villain's family, the treatment isn't as over the top or as arch as it could have been (for that, you need to see Brosnan's final outing, Die Another Day). The writing is much stronger than usual, the film plot-led and finding a good mix between the action you expect and some insights into the characters you don't, for the first time in the series' history the leading ladies really do have decent roles, and Martin Campbell's direction is particularly powerful: while it is a little short on long shots, betraying his TV background, it's got none of that going-through-the-motions feel to many of the more prolific Bond directors' efforts. Terry Rawlings' editing is also interesting and often highly effective, while even Eric Serra's much criticised score - that hideous post-title sequence car chase aside - is often stronger than it's given credit for even if it is perhaps too giant a leap from the traditional Bond sound for most purists.
If the film is still highly enjoyable, the Ultimate Edition DVD, however, is a definite mixed blessing. The new extras are particularly good - 4 deleted scenes and several new featurettes, including ones on the tank chase, car stunts, model work, pre-production, location scouting and Campbell's directing (which much footage of him in a bad mood on a particularly bad day). There's also the press conference introducing Brosnan, the original TV promo `GoldenEye - The Secret Files' and all the extras from the original release (though c Curiously the extra TV spot from the laserdisc release is still is missing). It's also uncensored in the UK this time, Xenia's headbutt restored (though the alternate shot replacing it in the UK version is now gone). All of which SHOULD make this a perfect disc - with one notable caveat. Unfortunately the new transfer is not, with the picture wildly overcropped - it's still in the 2.35:1 ratio, but top, bottom and both sides have been cropped, which is very noticeable on the computer readouts in the film. For that reason, if you aren't bothered about the extras you might want to stick with the previous special edition, which IS in the right ratio.
More James Bond Ultimate Edition - Vol. 3 (GoldenEye / Live and Let Die / For Your Eyes Only / From Russia With Love / On Her Majesty's Secret Service) reviews:
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Summary of James Bond Ultimate Edition - Vol. 3 (GoldenEye / Live and Let Die / For Your Eyes Only / From Russia With Love / On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
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