Heavy Bondage: For Your Eyes Only

After the outer space exploits of Moonraker there was no choice but to bring Bond back down to earth.
- Variety, June 1981

For Your Eyes Only
Film: 1981
Book: 1960 (8th in chronology)

Irreverent Synopsis: A disguised British surveillance boat is destroyed when a sea mine is pulled into its fishing nets (apparently this is a pure accident), but its ATAC device, a Vital McGuffin, is not destroyed. The Havelocks, undersea researchers who sometimes moonlight for the British government, apparently find it, but they are murdered in front of their daughter Melina's eyes. Melina swears revenge and begins to track down the killers, through the treacherous triggerman Gonzales to his paymaster Locque. Bond is tracking down the same people in order to find the ATAC. After Melina shoots Gonzales, Bond has to resort to trying to find Locque; this search for information eventually connects him to Kristatos, who has contacts in the Greek underworld and is apparently sponsoring a young American ice skater. Kristatos says that Bond's problems emanate from a nasty gent named Columbo. Trying to get to Columbo, Bond ends up in bed with Columbo's sometime mistress, Lisl, who is killed the next morning by the villanous Locque. Bond is captured/rescued by Columbo's men. Columbo explains that Kristatos is the real villain, has been playing Bond, and Locque works for Kristatos. They raid Kristatos' warehouse and Bond eventually kills Locque. After that it is just a matter of finding the ATAC device with Melina and a helpful parrot, having it get stolen by Kristatos, and making a rock-climbing assault on Kristatos' haven, St. Cyril's, just in time to throw away the ATAC so no one can have it - "that's detente, comrade."

Major Observations: If the synopsis above seems like a big mess, it's because this film is actually two stories glued together, with a few extra features added in.

The book For Your Eyes Only is a collection of five short stories. Two of them, "From a View To a Kill," and "Quantum of Solace," have never been used in the films in any way (although the title of the first was pinched for an unrelated plot, and at least the title of the second will be used for an upcoming film). The fifth, "The Hildebrand Rarity," will be discussed under Licence To Kill as it contributes one of the major characters there. For Your Eyes Only is largely derived from the remaining two:

In "For Your Eyes Only," war criminal von Hammerstein wants the Havelock's property in Jamaica as a long-term refuge, so he sends Gonzales to either buy it or kill the Havelocks. They won't sell, and are killed. (Their deaths are even more wrenching in the book than in the film.) Bond is asked - completely unofficially - to go exact revenge by M, an old friend of the Havelocks. Bond goes to kill them, but encounters their daughter Melina, who is taking revenge on her own. Melina shoots von Hammerstein with her bow, Bond kills Gonzales, and they escape.

In "Risico," Bond is sent to infiltrate and stop a drug smuggling ring. His contact Kristatos tells him that the man he wants is Columbo. Bond gets to know Columbo's mistress, follows her, and is captured by Columbo, who reveals that ... well, you know the rest. The middle portion of the movie is a very close lift of this plot, including opium in the newsprint rolls and the tape-recorded conversation (in the book it's hidden in a chair, not a lamp), with the major difference that at the end of the warehouse raid, Kristatos is the ultimate kill, not Locque.

Though one can quibble endlessly with why a spy boat would have a device on board which allows the control of missile-bearing subs, otherwise the ATAC McGuffin is a reasonably clever way to tie two otherwise unrelated plots together. The script's other big additions are Locque, ice skater Bibi Dahl (played with maximal obnoxiousness by Lynn-Holly "Ice Castles" Johnson), and the St. Cyril's sequence. The keelhauling sequence was taken from the book version of Live and Let Die.

Locque is a brilliant addition; with Kristatos such a waste of space (see below), he is the film's genuinely scary villain - especially striking given that he has no lines! Much has been made of the fact that Bond kills him in cold blood (Moore himself was reportedly dubious about the scene), but the character has been painted such that you believe he genuinely deserves it. Running over Lisl, in particular, seems like a gratuitous act of evil above and beyond the ordinary; there is no special need for Locque to get rid of her.

As for Bibi, the ice-skater business is so grafted onto the movie that some commentators have wondered if it isn't the film's attempt to make a subtle point. The idea of subtext in a Bond film seems inherently ludicrous, but on repeat viewings I have come to agree with these commentators: This may be partially a film about getting old. Bibi may be there entirely so Bond can reject her.

Moonraker is the first time I really noticed that Roger Moore was too old for the part, at least as played there. (It mostly hits me in the pre-credit sequence, where the stewardess he's seducing could be his daughter.) Here, for the first and perhaps the only time in the films, this aging aspect is made explicit. Moore comes into close contact with three women, and behaves very differently toward all three of them. He is carefully neutral to Melina, only ending up in bed with her once she has given a clear signal it's okay; unusually cautious, in other words, for Bond. Bibi he rejects entirely and thoroughly throughout, as is fitting ("Get dressed and I'll buy you an ice-cream" is exactly the response she deserves to her seduction attempt). But the "Countess" Lisl he encounters enthusiastically, as a peer. Their intimate scenes are definitely portrayed as being the intimacy of older people, who have been around the block a time or two, and this is how it should be.

Interestingly, the actual ages of the three women are not that far apart. (Cassandra Harris was born in 1952, Carole Bouquet in 1957, and Lynn-Holly Johnson in 1958.) But they are played as being of dramatically different ages, and that's what's important. Moore, for the record, was born in 1927, which made him 54 at the time of this film and thirty years older than his leading lady of record. No wonder he approaches her carefully!

The film plays Bond throughout as an older gent, who has to choose somewhat different tactics. There's yet another lengthy snow-sports sequence in this film, and it bears a great deal of resemblance to OHMSS, but it plays fairly well to me, partially because Bond's tactics are rather different here; he can't outrace or outperform the younger men (especially the biathlete Kriegler), so he has to resort to sneakiness and concealment. It's a slow-paced sequence (except for the bobsled bit, which I find more thrilling than the OHMSS equivalent), but it works. Bond on the ski-jump, knowing that someone will be attempting to shoot him as he descends, and planning his way out, is genuinely suspenseful to me.

This film also represented a conscious attempt to get away from the reliance on gadgets and big set pieces, and as such, its closest heir is OHMSS - a sometimes deliberately-paced film with a fair amount of actual detective work from Bond. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The film wasn't a flop by any means, but the always-crucial US admissions were down some six million from Moonraker and enthusiasm was notably muted. This was the death knell for anyone making a contemplative Bond film in the foreseeable future.

Watching the film definitely takes a quieter mindset than is typical for Bond viewings. It is not a fast film, but the only time I actually reach for the fast-forward button is the stretch from just after Locque's death until the parrot sequence - i.e. the underwater search and the keelhauling sequence, the former of which strikes me as tedious and the latter not nearly as gripping as Broccoli hoped it would be. (Reportedly, Broccoli had wanted it in a Bond script for years but his directors shied away from it because it would be such a pain to film.)

The film could have been better if some of the parts were better. Moore is just fine here - back to form after phoning it in for Moonraker - but Carole Bouquet is absolutely wooden as Melina - watch her complete lack of reaction when her parents are shot before her eyes. Julian Glover is capable of better work than he gives here as Kristatos. He was quoted as saying "As an actor, I have to be fairly good as Kristatos because he has no noticeable eccentricities ...." Good plan, Julian; bad execution. At least Chaim Topol brings gusto to his role, if not actual quality. By the by, this is an unusually svelte Topol we see here; it strikes me every time I see it. I think I'm always expecting Tevye.

Everyone else is pretty good.

Minor Observations: "M's on leave." Bernard Lee died of stomach cancer in January of 1981; it was clear early on that he would not be able to shoot his scenes for this film. Rather than immediately recast the part, James Villiers played an extremely dislikable Bill Tanner (Tanner, the Chief of Staff, is supposed to be Bond's best friend in the department). A much better Tanner would come along in the Brosnan era. Meanwhile, Villiers hoped to be offered M in the future, but he was considered too young for the part. Not all of M's lines were given to Tanner; some of them were given to the Minister of Defense, and in at least one case (the confessional scene) to Q.

Rewatching this film made me glad that they got over the Lotus fixation (or perhaps the contract expired) by the next film. Such boring cars. The first Lotus in this film has a rather interesting anti-theft device, though ....

The Identograph sequence, with Bond and Q working into the night together, is oddly refreshing - perhaps it is the lack of petty sparring for once.

Two things I normally do not notice about Bond movies strike me badly in this one. First, the clothing: much is made of Roger Moore as fashion victim, but this is the only film where it's intrusive to me. The Miami Vice style on a man in his fifties is just wrong. Actually, it was wrong on nearly everyone. The other thing is the music, notably in the second half of the winter-sports sequence where it comes close to spoiling the whole thing. When I found out that the score was done by the talentless Bill Conti, though, all became clear. The silver lining is that, by Octopussy, John Barry will feel welcome again ....

Two other things we will not speak of: Sheena Easton, whom I don't even want to hear, much less see (in the title sequence), and the 10 Downing St. sequence that closes the film on a low note. At least it didn't end with the usual horrendous single-entendre!

Bond being sent to track down the payoff chain instead of going back to the site of the ATAC disappearance strikes me as a strange way to pursue the matter. One thing that's initially disorienting about the film is how he suddenly turns up at Gonzales' place - whose place is it? Why is he sneaking up on it? Why is he here?

Speaking of Gonzales' pool party, much fuss was made at the time about how one of the women in that sequence, Tula, later turned out to be a transsexual. I read an interview recently with a major transgender activist who cited this as an early influence on her. Not much of an influence, to my mind; more of a mountain from a molehill (who really notices the eye-candy women with no speaking parts scattered through a Bond film anyway)?

The chase sequence with Bond and Melina in her Citroen seems to me to have more than a few correspondences to the beginning of the animated film, The Castle of Cagliostro, directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 1979.

It's probably just my imagination, but it's also just barely possible that the very clever Remy Julienne driving team (who also did the auto stunts in the original Italian Job) may have gotten an eyeful of the other film ....

The pre-credit sequence, with Bond and a man who is never named as Blofeld, is of course partially a matter of giving the finger to Kevin McClory, but also initially was meant to serve another purpose. Moore's three-film contract lasted through The Spy Who Loved Me, and after that, he refused to sign for more than one picture at a time, spawning a game of show-me-the-money for each subsequent film. He was verbally enthusiastic about appearing in For Your Eyes Only back when it was originally intended to follow The Spy Who Loved Me (note which film "Bond will return in" at the end of that film), but because of the SF boom, Moonraker was made instead, and by For Your Eyes Only, Moore was considerably less enthusiastic. Or he was angling for the cash. You be the judge. At any rate, for a while it was seriously thought that Bond would have to be recast for this one (both James Brolin and Timothy Dalton were reportedly given serious consideration at the time). The opening sequence, with Tracy's grave and so on, was intended as a continuity bridge to earlier Bonds.

The general assumption seems to be that the inexplicable "I'll buy you a delicatessen in stainless steel" is a spur-of-the-moment line that someone thought was funny enough to keep; it's not in the script. Not-Blofeld, by the by, is played in body by John Hollis. One source gives his voice as Robert Rietty, who had previously dubbed a number of Bond villains; another says it is Peter Marrinker.

Around this point Michael G. Wilson begins turning up as executive producer.

� Michael G. Wilson

He also has an official co-writing credit on this film and the next one, and did uncredited script work on the previous one. Wilson is Albert Broccoli's stepson, and was increasingly his second-in-command. After Broccoli's death, Wilson and his half-sister Barbara Broccoli would inherit the Eon reins in full. Wilson will make a cameo appearance in (assuming I've figured it right) every Bond film from here on to date; in this one, he's the Greek priest officiating a wedding in the first St. Cyril's.

The St. Cyril's mountain sequences were filmed at a monastery in Greece. Neighboring monks didn't like these sinful influences nearby and did everything they could to protest the filming - including, one report has it, hanging laundry out their windows in hopes it would ruin the shots.

Much later, another sin scandal broke out when several markets objected to the original poster for the film (which has Bond framed below a pair of woman's legs). Apparently the legs were a little too bare for some; at least one newspaper drew on a pair of shorts before running the ads.

The underappreciated Charles Dance, then in the beginning of his career, can be seen briefly in the ski-jump sequence, working for Locque.

I have a rumor here that the underwater closeups of Bouquet and Moore were faked - filmed in a dry studio, probably through a water panel, with a fan making their hair move, with air bubbles etc added later. I can't find anything confirming this but apparently, the rumor goes, Bouquet had a sinus condition that prevented her from actually being underwater for any length of time.

A stuntman, Paolo Rigon (one of my books has Gigon), was trapped under his bobsled and killed during the filming of that scene - the first fatality on a Bond set. Cassandra Harris' stunt double was reportedly injured during the scene where Locque runs her down.

Cassandra Harris was romantically entwined with one Pierce Brosnan, and married him during the filming of this movie, in December 1980. She appears to have introduced Brosnan to Broccoli during this film, and this may have been significant to Broccoli wanting to cast Brosnan in 1986 ... but then, on the other hand, some say Brosnan would have been in serious consideration anyway. You decide.

Harris would begin to suffer seriously from cancer within a year or so of this film, making this her final film role; Brosnan's low profile during the late Eighties is largely due to his caring for her and their children during her long illness. She died in December 1991.

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