The Bond retrospective - Number 15

Time for Sean Connery to make an appearance

 
15. Diamonds are Forever

Women's ultimate weakness...water?

While some feel Bond neatly entered his camp period with the advent of Moore it was in fact Connery’s 1971 return that saw the series sink to silly in-jokes and self parody, many Connery fans seem to conveniently forget that the ageing Scotsman seemingly played this solely for the cash and put in a swaggering, lazy performance. Bond’s animosity with Blofeld, the man who killed his wife two years previously, is completely non-existent, and yet is actually referenced in the lacklustre opening. After that we crawl through a dull plot about diamond smuggling featuring one of the weakest Bond girls in Jill St John, and don’t even see Blofeld, whose ‘shocking’ appearance is about as shocking as French toast, until the very end, by which time you’re asleep. Along the way you have to endure the bizarre homosexual assassins known as Winn and Kidd, a camp moon-buggy chase (that’s the low point) and two female bodyguards who as Felix might say ‘kick ass’… but can’t swim. Overall there’s very little to entertain, the action is poor and unrealistic, the characters are unappealing and there’s next to no plot, the only memorable scene comes with the Mustang chase. It’s another of those ‘forgettable’ Bonds


Pros:
Mustang
Shirley Bassey

Cons:
One of the least interesting Bond girls…and she got a lot of screen time
Moon buggy with flailing arms