Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976)

          While it pales in comparison to the same year’s big-screen Sherlock Holmes adventure The Seven Per-Cent Solution, this entertaining telefilm boasts a colorful cast, a fine script, and more-than-adequate production values. The picture also represents Roger Moore’s first and only attempt at playing Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic detective, and he’s a good fit. Not only does Moore’s velvety voice make long scenes of Sherlock explaining things an auditory pleasure, but the snobbishness inherent to Moore’s screen persona meshes nicely with the aloof quality of the Holmes character. There have been so many wonderful interpretations of this particular investigator that offering superlatives is imprudent, so it will suffice to say that Holmes and Moore do each other justice.

          Written as a screen original by veteran TV scribe Alvin Sapinsley, directed by the reliable Boris Segal, and set to jaunty music by Richard Rodney Bennett, Sherlock Holmes in New York opens in London, with Holmes spoiling the latest scheme of his nemesis, Professor Moriarty (John Huston), who vows revenge before escaping. Soon afterward, Holmes receives word that his on-again/off-again lover, actress Irene Adler (Charlotte Rampling), is in peril. Thus Holmes and his trusty biographer/sidekick, Dr. Watson (Patrick Macnee), travel to New York, where Irene is performing. Holmes learns that Irene’s son—whose father may or may not be Holmes himself—has been kidnapped, and that Moriarty is responsible. The catch? Moriarty has stolen all the gold from an international exchange, and Holmes is warned that if he helps police recover the stolen loot, Adler’s son will suffer the consequences. Dum-dum-dum!

          Sapinsley’s script hits nearly all the required notes well. The dialogue is elevated, the criminal scheme is outrageous, and the interplay between Adler and Holmes is deep, encoded, and sexy. (Rampling looks especially beautiful here, with her signature iciness suiting the role of a woman capable of intriguing the brilliant Holmes.) Despite wearing a goofy perm and sideburns, Moore cruises through his performance with great flair, and Macnee employs a gruff vocal style instead of his usual sing-song tones, which makes his Watson a fine complement to Moore’s suave Holmes. If there’s a weak link in the cast, which also includes the great David Huddleston as an NYPD detective, it’s Huston, who delivers an over-the-top interpretation of Moriarty; that said, Huston appears in just a few scenes, and he raises the energy level whenever he appears.

Sherlock Holmes in New York: GROOVY

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

          A British psychological drama distinguished by a mystery element that keeps viewers guessing whether or not something supernatural is actually occurring, The Man Who Haunted Himself is very much in the mode of a Twilight Zone episode—characterization and plotting are used to generate suspense until the story reaches its outlandish conclusion. While some folks will find the larky narrative more persuasive than others, it’s always a kick to see Roger Moore testing the limits of his dramatic powers. Although he’s about as effective as the film itself, which is to say only somewhat, he commits to the material. Watching an actor who sleepwalked through some of his highest-profile movies contribute real effort is pleasurable, no matter the inconsistently of the results.

          Moore plays Hugh Pelham, a businessman whose life is stiffly regimented, from the patterns of his daily work schedule to the rhythms of his stagnant marriage. One afternoon, Hugh experiences an inexplicable seizure while driving—clunky special effects make it appear as if a phantom version of Hugh’s car appears in tandem with the real vehicle—so Hugh causes a terrible accident. On an operating table shortly afterward, Hugh dies for a moment, and then his doctors briefly see two heartbeats on an EKG monitor. Thereafter, Hugh endures several maddening incidents, such as being told he just left a room that he’s entering, suggesting that someone who looks identical to Hugh is tampering with his life. For instance, Hugh encounters a sexy photographer, Julie (Olga Georges-Picot), who claims that she’s having an affair with Hugh even though he has no recollection of sleeping with her. The filmmakers cleverly circumvent their basic storytelling problem—an unseen antagonist—and Moore does a fair job of sketching his character’s progression from bewilderment to petulance to, finally, the brink of madness.

          The movie also gets quite weird at times, especially during a long scene in which eccentric psychiatrist Dr. Harris (Freddie Jones) explains doppelganger theories to a worried-looking Hugh: While Harris repeatedly spins Hugh’s chair to keep it moving, the camera, which is positioned at an extreme low-angle, moves in tandem with Harris, creating a dizzying funhouse effect. Oh, and for an added bonus, The Man Who Haunted Himself features a line that’s quite droll in retrospect, seeing as how the picture was released two years before Moore assumed the role of a certain secret agent. While discussing corporate espionage with coworkers, Moore’s character says, “Intrigue isn’t all James Bond and her Majesty’s Secret Service.” Are you sure about that, Mr. Moore?

The Man Who Haunted Himself: GROOVY

That Lucky Touch (1975)

          Suave British actor Roger Moore never properly capitalized on his visibility while playing James bond from 1973 to 1985, appearing in fun movies that failed to find wide audiences (such as the 1979 action romp North Sea Hijack, released in the US in 1980 as ffolkes), and, more often than not, headlining misfires along the lines of That Lucky Touch. A British/German coproduction plainly designed to capture the effervescence of Cary Grant’s romantic comedies, That Lucky Touch suffers from a woefully underdeveloped story, and neither the action components nor the humorous elements connect. Thanks to the presence of several big-name actors and the use of picturesque European locations, the movie is pleasant enough to watch on a scene-by-scene basis. Alas, it all crumbles the minute one tries to connect the narrative dots. Viewed with forgiving eyes, however, the picture has one strong virtue, which is the chemistry that Moore shares with costar Susannah York. (This was the duo’s second and final picture together, following the solid 1974 thriller Gold.) Although Moore and York aren’t exactly Grant and Hepburn—not even close—they banter well and have similar upper-crust screen personas.

          Moore plays Michael Scott, an international arms dealer who may or may not operate inside the law. (Even though Michael takes clandestine nighttime meetings like a criminal, he’s portrayed as having above-board UN connections.) York plays Michael’s next-door neighbor, Julia Richardson, a reporter for The Washington Post. Both characters are friendly with US Lt. Gen. Henry Steedman (Lee J. Cobb), a blustery career officer married to the overbearing Diana (Shelley Winters). Michael wants Henry to buy a large shipment of guns, and Julia’s snooping imperils the deal, so, naturally, Michael and Julia share a meet-cute that leads to love. The plot also involves a UN war-games exercise that puts Julia into the orbit of an amorous Italian named Gen. Peruzzi (Raf Vallone). The final player on the board is Michael’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, sexy Sophie (Sydne Rome). Allegedly based upon an idea by the legendary playwright Moss Hart, That Lucky Touch makes very little sense. At its worst, the movie devolves into bewildering chaos, especially during a duck hunt that’s intercut with both the war-games exercise and Michael’s desperate attempt to stop Julia from doing—something or another. All very murky.

          Mildly tasty but also flat and unsatisfying, That Lucky Touch is like champagne without the fizz.

That Lucky Touch: FUNKY

1980 Week: The Sea Wolves

          Several veterans of the highly enjoyable military adventure The Wild Geese (1978)—including director Andrew V. McLaglen, star Roger Moore, and screenwriter Reginald Rose—reteamed for the offbeat World War II adventure The Sea Wolves. In fact, the original plan was to reunite all three main stars of The Wild Geese: Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Moore. Alas, it wasn’t to be, so Moore costars in The Sea Wolves with the considerably older David Niven and Gregory Peck. As it happens, Niven and Peck are more appropriate casting, notwithstanding Peck being an American, since the story dramatizes a real-life incident during which a group of retired British cavalry officers were recruited for an espionage mission against the Nazis. Additionally, Niven and Peck had collaborated to strong effect in a previous manly-man adventure picture, 1961’s The Guns of Navarone.

          The Sea Wolves has a certain genteel charm owing to its old-fashioned presentation of Allied heroism and Axis treachery. However, the absence of the modern tonalities that McLaglen and Rose utilized so well in The Wild Geese—angsty antiheroes, twisted international politics—makes The Sea Wolves seem overly tame. The filmmakers’ attempts at integrating lighthearted comedy into the mix further diminish the life-or-death gravitas needed to make the derring-do scenes work. At its worst, the movie is flat and forgettable.

          Set in India, the picture begins by showing U-boats sinking British tankers, thus interrupting key Allied supply lines. British spies determine that information about the tankers is emanating from a radio transmitter hidden somewhere a port controlled by the neutral country of Portugal, meaning that no official invasion force can be sent to dismantle the transmitter. This situation gives rise to the bold idea of recruiting soldiers from the Calcutta Light Horse, many of whom are retired and living in India. Eager for another shot at military action, aging enlisted men train for their mission while the Light Horse’s officers—played by Moore, Niven, and Peck—conduct espionage in order to learn the exact location of the transmitter.

          Despite the tremendous appeal of the leading actors, The Sea Wolves is bogged down with predictable plotting and uninspired staging. Furthermore, the chemistry between the leads never clicks quite the way it did between the stars of The Wild Geese. Moore seems like he’s a generation apart from his costars, Niven looks bored, and Peck seems frustrated at playing such a vapid role after getting so much room to stretch in his two previous films, MacArthur (1977) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). One also suspects that McLaglen was exhausted after having directed two elaborate films—the larky ffolkes and the leaden Breakthrough—in the year prior to making the equally complex The Sea Wolves. Whatever the reasons, The Sea Wolves is watchable but a disappointment nonetheless.

The Sea Wolves: FUNKY

Shout at the Devil (1976)

          While not a great movie—or even, for that matter, a particularly coherent one, given its odd mixture of light comedy and nasty violence—Shout at the Devil is worth investigating for fans of manly-man adventure flicks. Among other things, the picture includes the only screen pairing of Roger Moore, who shot this movie in the early days of his long run as 007, and the inimitable Lee Marvin. The movie’s convoluted narrative and lengthy running time give both actors opportunities to hit many different notes, and Marvin’s rough-and-tumble charisma complements the alternately grim and suave flavors of Moore’s performance. Shout at the Devil also boasts incredible production values.

          Set in German-controlled East Africa circa 1913, the story concerns an amiably disreputable ivory hunter named Colonel Flynn O'Flynn (Marvin). An American expat with a mysterious past, Flynn needs a stooge for his next poaching excursion, so he snookers traveling English aristocrat Sebastian Oldsmith (Moore). The biggest hiccup in Shout at the Devil’s storyline is that Oldsmith doesn't turn himself over to the Germans once he realizes Flynn is a scam artist—but if you can suspend your disbelief on that point, the rest of the movie is quite enjoyable. Without going into laborious detail (there's a lot of story in Shout at the Devil), Oldsmith hangs around with Flynn long enough to get injured, at which point he's nursed back to health by Flynn's beautiful daughter, Rosa (Barbara Parkins). Naturally, Oldsmith and Rosa fall in love. Thereafter, Flynn persuades the Englishman to help rip off the Germans, especially odious regional commander Fleischer (Reinhard Kolldehoff). Once all the narrative pieces fall in place, the movie becomes a covert-mission story about Oldsmith hunting down and sabotaging a strategically important German warship.

          Director Peter Hunt edited several 007 movies before making his helming debut with one of the series' best installments, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), but he never worked on any of Moore's Bond pictures. Instead, the two teamed up for the first time to make the similarly overstuffed action-drama Gold (1974). While Hunt does a great job creating tension within individual scenes, he's not adept at balancing performance styles, so Marvin and Moore sometimes seem as if they're acting in different movies. (Leading lady Parkins, who generally played decorative and/or villainous roles, does some of her best work here, lending elegance and weight to her scenes.) Nonetheless, the best parts of Shout at the Devil are rousing and/or whimsical, if not both.

          The running gag of Flynn inventing reasons why Oldmsith must endanger himself works nicely, and there's a peculiar but fun subplot involving Flynn's mute sidekick, Mohammed (Ian Holm), who mostly communicates with sarcastically raised eyebrows. Some of the action is genuinely thrilling, too, like Oldsmith's incursion (while wearing blackface!) onto the German warship. So while Shout at the Devil is excessive and sloppy, it’s also a lively throwback to the adventure movies of yesteryear, with just a touch of modernized grit. FYI, those with P.C. sensibilities might have a tough time with this picture, since the heroes slaughter elephants for profit, and it’s worth mentioning that Shout at the Devil is widely available both in the original cut (which runs 147 minutes) and a snipped version (which runs 128 minutes). The longer cut is recommended.

Shout at the Devil: GROOVY

ffolkes (1979)

          Midway through his tenure playing a certain suave secret agent in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Roger Moore was probably itching to do something different—which might explain why he attacks the leading role in this entertaining British thriller with ferocity noticeably absent from his acting in the 007 movies. Portraying an eccentric operative named Rufus Excalibur ffolkes (two lower-case letters at the beginning of the last name, thank you very much), Moore upends nearly every aspect of his James Bond characterization. Instead of a nightlife-loving rake, ffolkes is a recluse who prefers his cats to the company of women, and instead of being a charming sophisticate, he’s a tactless snob. Furthermore, rather than being a superhero capable of doing virtually anything, ffolkes is a specialist in just one tactic: underwater commando attacks.

          Thus, when three oil rigs located off the English coast get overtaken by terrorists, the British government knocks on the door of ffolkes’ castle—literally, because he lives in a decaying stone edifice—asking for help. Thereafter, the movie delivers tightly coiled excitement as the commandoes sneak onto the oil rigs with stealthy weapons like harpoons and knives, seeking to thwart the baddies before hostages are killed and the rigs are demolished with explosives. Written by Jack Davies from his own novel Esther, Ruth & Jennifer (the code names of the oil rigs), this picture was released as North Sea Hijack in the UK during 1979 before creeping onto American screens in early 1980 with the new title ffolkes. Although it didn’t do much business at the box office, it found a welcoming home on pay cable—and, as it turns out, ffolkes is nicely suited for home viewing.

          A brisk, workmanlike thriller with an entertaining mixture of bitchy banter and high-seas action, the movie has just enough zing in terms of production value and star power to feel like a major motion picture, but it’s so contained and straightforward it might as well be the pilot for a TV series. In fact, Moore is such a delight as ffolkes that it’s a shame no further adventures featuring the character were filmed: By the end of the movie, the character is so solidly established he could have swam the high seas for years afterward, foiling evildoers who dared to sully the world’s waters.

          Much of the credit for the picture’s Saturday-matinee vibe goes to director Andrew V. McLaglen, whose previous collaboration with Moore, The Wild Geese (1978), was another escapist winner. McLaglen and Moore are aided an efficient supporting cast, led by Anthony Perkins as the main hijacker—with typical aplomb, he weaves humor and perversity into a woefully underwritten role, and the dirty looks he and Moore exchange in their fleeting moments together are worth the price of admission. James Mason adds gravitas as the military official supervising ffolkes’ team of frogmen, while B-movie fave Michael Parks appears as Perkins’ principal henchman.

ffolkes: GROOVY

Street People (1976)

A borderline incoherent crime thriller that’s essentially an Italian film with a pair of English-language actors jammed into the leading roles, Street People is generic action-cinema meat: a mindless string of buddy-movie banter, car chases, double crosses, and shoot-outs. Roger Moore plays an Italian educated in England (or an Englishman raised in Italy, whatever) who grew up to become the lawyer for an Italian gangster based in San Francisco; the mobster, in turn, has some sort of decades-old psychodrama going with his brother, a priest who may or may not be involved with the family business. (Given this picture’s sloppy storytelling and the fact that most of the dialogue was dubbed into English after filming, it’s hard to keep the facts straight.) Stacy Keach shows up when Moore’s character needs help smoking out bad guys who ripped off a shipment of Mafia dope, and it’s never particularly clear how the two know each other, or even what form their relationship takes: Are they friends, former colleagues, relatives? It doesn’t help that the leading actors, apparently receiving no useful guidance from the picture’s two credited directors and six credited writers, give performances that belong in two different movies. Keach goes for light escapism, which works, and Moore goes for heavy drama, which doesn’t. The overwrought filming style doesn’t do Moore any favors; in one of his big scenes, literally every single shot is a melodramatic zoom into a closeup. Amid the nonsense are a few fleeting moments of amusement, like a sequence in which Keach “test drives” a Mafia car by banging it into every vehicle in sight, while a terrified mobster rides shotgun. And, for viewers who trudge all the way to the ending, the climax has that special overcaffeinated intensity usually found in spaghetti Westerns, complete with elaborately intercut bloodletting. Street People isn’t unwatchable, but even calling it a complete mess is being generous.

Street People: LAME

Gold (1974)

          After becoming James Bond in 1973, suave British star Roger Moore was cast in a slew of leading roles outside the franchise, yet was singularly unlucky in picking projects; none of his non-007 pictures became a significant hit, and many were outright disasters. Thus, it’s a great surprise to discover that Gold, which did very little business during its initial release and subsequently fell into the public domain after legal squabbles between Moore and the producers, is quite watchable.
          Depicting the adventures of a mine supervisor who discovers he’s merely the pawn in an outrageous scheme, the movie takes place in the colorful milieu of the South African gold business. The main villain is Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman), an ambitious executive conspiring to destroy his own mine in order to drive up worldwide gold prices. He’s keeping his plans secret from his wife, Terry (Susannah York), and her imperious father (Ray Milland), who owns the mine. When the supervisor who was rigging the scheme for Manfred dies in a mining accident, Manfred recruits hot-tempered Rod Slater (Moore) to take the supervisor’s place; Rod is told that a new vein is being tapped, when in fact he’s being coaxed into opening an underground quarry that will flood the mine.

          Although Gold is far too long, getting lost for a while in the romantic subplot of Rod’s illicit affair with Terry, there’s a lot to enjoy in the film. Several veterans of the Bond franchise participated, giving the movie energy and scale: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service helmer Peter Hunt directed the film with gusto; Maurice Binder contributed a lively title sequence; and frequent Bond director/editor John Glen supervised the mining scenes, which are claustrophobic and intense. (There’s even a corny title song performed by Jimmy Helms in a Tom Jones-lite mode that evokes brassy Bond themes like “Thunderball.”)

          Moore doesn’t leave his comfort zone, laying on the charm with tools like his arched eyebrow and seductive speaking voice, but it’s a pleasure to see him being manipulated, rather than strutting like the master of all he surveys, since vulnerability becomes him. York is fine in a thankless role (even though she’s swathed in godawful ’70s fashions), and Dillman is fun as an unscrupulous climber who goes to pieces when Rod starts mucking up his grand scheme. Milland scowls and shouts in his usual style, which is always entertaining, and supporting player Simon Sabela is compelling as the most prominent native miner, Big King.

          The film’s exciting conclusion, which has everything from an emergency plane landing to a vehicular assault to workers getting obliterated by explosions and floods, isn’t edited as tightly as it should have been, but Gold is nonetheless quite satisfying, offering an agreeable mixture of escapist adventure and simplistic social commentary.

Gold: GROOVY

The Wild Geese (1978)

          An old-fashioned adventure story that could have been made in the ‘50s or even earlier, if not for its focus on ’70s-era African politics, The Wild Geese is a rousing action thriller with just enough attention to characterization that its climax has an emotional punch. More importantly, the picture features a unique combination of larger-than-life Brits playing larger-than-life roles: Welshman Richard Burton, Irishman Richard Harris, and Englishman Roger Moore play a trio of aging mercenaries hired to rescue a revolutionary African leader from political imprisonment.

          The story unfolds in classic men-on-a-mission fashion. Nefarious banker Sir Edward Matherson (Stewart Granger) hires alcoholic ex-Army man Col. Allen Faulkner (Burton) to free African political prisoner Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) from an unnamed African country because Limbani is slated for execution. Distrustful of his new employer but in need of a paycheck, Faulkner recruits a team including pilot Shaun Flynn (Moore), strategist Rafer Janders (Harris), drill sergeant Sandy Young (Jack Watson), and displaced South African Pieter Coetzee (Hardy Kruger). The vignettes of Faulkner building his crew are breezily entertaining, though screenwriter Reginald Rose and director Andrew McLaglen layer ominous foreshadowing into the derring-do bits to lay the groundwork for what’s coming later.

          The rescue mission goes well, but then the group’s getaway plane takes off prematurely, leaving the mercenaries and the liberated Limbani alone in enemy territory. Damn that double-crossing Matherson! This juncture is when the picture gets really exciting, because the soldiers have to fight their way through a jungle filled with heavily armed troops in order to seize another plane and escape. The movie pays clumsy lip service to social consciousness when Coetzee becomes Limbani’s bodyguard, forcing a racist white man to learn grudging respect for a saintly black man, but The Wild Geese is less about politics and more about macho militarism: By the end of the movie, nearly every character has mowed down opponents to save his mates.

          With its corny musical score, which could have been lifted from an old RAF training film, The Wild Geese is unapologetically retro, and the storyline is so schematic that some will find it trite. Nonetheless, McLaglen’s sure hand with the action scenes, combined with the easy chemistry that the three leads have with each other and a surprisingly poignant climax, make The Wild Geese a fun romp with much more substance than the average shoot-’em-up.

The Wild Geese: GROOVY

Escape to Athena (1979)

Escape to Athena should be a tasty wedge of cheese, based solely on the eclectic cast and the fact that helmer George P. Cosmatos (The Cassandra Crossing) knows how to make entertaining trash. Set during World War II, the movie features Sonny Bono, Claudia Cardinale, Elliot Gould, David Niven, Stefanie Powers, Roger Moore, Richard Roundtree, and Telly Savalas as guards and inmates at a German prison camp on a Mediterranean island. The muddy screenplay, based on a story co-written by Cosmatos, tries to weave together a plan to derail an impending Nazi onslaught, a quest to liberate oppressed locals, and a scheme to steal ancient relics—while still leaving room for comedy and romance—but in trying to play every possible crowd-pleasing note, Cosmatos creates an absolute mess. Not only are the ample charms of the cast wasted, but sumptuous location photography by British DP Gilbert Taylor, of Star Wars fame, is squandered on inconsequential and occasionally nonsensical scenes. Miscasting and tonal inconsistency are the biggest problems. Moore, clearly eager to try something different between 007 movies, plays a stately Austrian commandant who resents his Nazi superiors, but he gives an atrocious performance: His accent is pathetic, and he tries to come across as likeable and menacing at the same time, so his work is indecisive and sloppy. Bono is such an intrinsically ’70s figure, sporting the same shaggy shoulder-length hair and drooping walrus moustache he wore in his countless TV appearances with Cher, that he’s a walking anachronism. And the scenes featuring Elliot Gould as a fast-talking American showman, complete with straw boater hat and vaudeville hucksterism, are decidedly unfunny. Making matters worse, some of the top-billed players, notably Cardinale, Niven, and Roundtree, get lost entirely because their roles are underwritten and lack distinct impact. It’s true that a few of the action scenes are passable, and Powers is appealing-ish as a showgirl using her wiles to make the best of a bad situation, but neither of these elements feels compatible with the other. Despite its obvious eagerness to please, Escape to Athena is so undisciplined that watching the cavalcade of lame humor, random stars, and sporadic action eventually becomes numbing.

Escape to Athena: LAME

Diamonds Are Forever (1971) & Live and Let Die (1973) & The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) & The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) & Moonraker (1979)

          After scoring in the ’60s on the strength of Sean Connery’s he-man swagger, the James Bond franchise spent the ’70s creeping toward self-parody with a series of gimmicky films that tried to latch onto then-current trends, often with embarrassing results. Luckily, two solid entries appear amid the dreck. Having previously ceded the Bond role to the underrated George Lazenby (the franchise’s only one-time 007), Connery was lured back with a big paycheck for the forgettable Diamonds Are Forever. Also returning to the series was Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, who helmed Diamonds as well as the next two 007 flicks. Dull and garish, Diamonds features an overused Bond villain (Ernst Blofeld) in one of his least interesting incarnations, a vulgar choice of setting (Las Vegas), and crass flourishes like Bond’s showdown with two high-kicking kung fu babes. The movie is also incredibly mean-spirited, right down to the offensive characterizations of two gay hit men who trail Bond across the globe. Even leading lady Jill St. John’s outrageous body, which is on ample display, can only sustain interest for so long. Especially since the previous film in the series, the Lazenby-starring On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), is one of the best-ever 007 flicks, it’s depressing to watch Connery sleepwalk through an entry as halfhearted as its leading actor’s performance.
          Then came Roger Moore, the debonair British actor previously known for the Bond-ish TV series The Saint. Moore cut a great figure with his raised eyebrow, tailored wardrobe, and velvety speaking voice, and at least at the beginning of his run he seemed intense enough to wield 007’s license to kill. Unfortunately, along with Moore came a new style largely set by screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who inserted so many verbal and visual winks that Bond started to become more of a joke machine than a killing machine. Moore’s first Bond outing, Live and Let Die, was designed to piggyback on the blaxploitation craze with a turgid story that begins in drug-infested Harlem and continues down to the voodoo-drenched Caribbean, but the producers hedged their bets by featuring a Caucasian leading lady, Jane Seymour, whose presence in the storyline makes no sense. The combination of a rotten musical score (excepting Paul McCartney’s kicky theme song) and stupid puns (Bond visits the “Oh Cult Voodoo Shop”) makes Live and Let Die feel flat, and main villain Yaphet Kotto was miscast as a speechifying mastermind. Worse, the insipid “comedy” scenes featuring Clifton James as a redneck sheriff illustrate how far the film deviates from what makes a Bond movie a Bond movie.
          Team 007 got back to basics with the next entry, The Man With the Golden Gun, which flips the usual Bond formula by making 007 the hunted instead of the hunter. Hammer horror stalwart Christopher Lee costars as suave assassin Francisco Scaramanga (whose distinguishing characteristic is a third nipple!) and future Fantasy Island sidekick Hervé Villechaize plays Scaramanga’s diminutive henchman, Nick Nack. When Bond lands on Scaramanga’s hit list, 007 begins an unauthorized investigation, taking place mostly in Hong Kong, to smoke out his would-be killer. Hamilton stages several stylish sequences, notably the bookend scenes in the assassin’s funhouse hideout; the picture features colorful locations including a fortress inside a half-sunken ocean liner; and the focus on a worthy mana-a-mano duel keeps the storyline tight. The movie gets a bit logy during the climax, but Moore plays the material straight (for once) and Lee actually musters enthusiasm during several scenes, a rarity for the generally stoic performer. Best of all, The Man With the Golden Gun eschews the distractions of gadgets and murky subplots, focusing instead on the core elements of death-defying escapes, exciting fight scenes, and smooth seductions. Happily, the reprise of Clifton James’ redneck character is fleeting.
          When Bond returned to the big screen three years later in The Spy Who Loved Me, producers added tremendous visual opulence in the form of grandiose location photography and cutting-edge special effects. By far the most visually impressive of Moore’s 007 flicks, Spy has a silly plot and a forgettable villain (something about stolen nuclear submarines and an international extortion scheme), but it boasts one of the best opening sequences in the franchise’s history. That spectacular bit, a ski chase concluding with an amazing skydive, is complemented by a moody foot pursuit through the Egyptian pyramids, as well as an exciting shootout in a submarine bay (at the time the largest set ever constructed for a movie). And then there’s Jaws (Richard Kiel), the towering assassin with the metallic mouth; he’s such a preposterous character that he’s amusing every time he walks onscreen. Spy also features one of the series’ best attempts to match Bond with a woman who equals him in every way. Lovely Barbara Bach, who in real life later became Mrs. Ringo Starr, appears as a Russian agent out to avenge her lover, who died at 007’s hands. Bach isn’t up to the task of portraying the character’s shadings, but it’s still a relief to see a woman in the franchise who is more than a sexual plaything.
          Sadly, everything that went right in Spy went wrong in Moonraker, a pathetic attempt to capitalize on the success of Star Wars by sending Bond into space. Poor Lois Chiles has to play a character named “Holly Goodhead,” and during the climax, extras limply float around the exterior of a space station while shooting laser guns at each other. The highlight, if that's even the right word, is a scene of Moore getting trapped in a G-force simulation chamber, his jowls flapping as his capsule zooms around a circular track at insane speeds; in addition to the way the scene demonstrates the series’ growing reliance on production values over narrative inspiration, the scene’s unflattering closeups illustrate how quickly Moore was aging out of the 007 role. It all got much worse in the ’80s, but Moonraker represented the nadir of the franchise up to that point. Still, Bond’s ’70s adventures are fascinating when screened in sequence, because viewers can see the production team trying to completely rethink the series with each new movie.

Diamonds Are Forever: LAME

Live and Let Die: FUNKY

The Man With the Golden Gun: GROOVY

The Spy Who Loved Me: GROOVY

Moonraker: LAME