Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond

1/09/2019

For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond

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The action-surrounded pair of firm, tanned female legs wearing a bikini bottom backwards, with Roger Moore's 007 centered, make up this effective poster for John Glen's For Your Eyes Only

SPOILER Bond villain par excellence, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is killed by getting dumped into a chimney in the title sequence. The story thereafter circles around the sinking of a British ship.

- Maybe, it could be added with some confused doubt, because the link between the ship, the wacky action and kitschy love scenes are never more than precarious.
For Your Eyes Only is the 12th film in the Bond franchise, written by Richard Maibaum (Zarak (1956)) and Michael G. Wilson (The Living Daylights (1983)), based on two short stories from Ian Fleming's (Moonraker (1955)) For Your Eyes Only (1960) story collection, and directed by debuting John Glen (The Point Men (2001)), who had previously served as editor on 3 Bond pictures.
Roger Moore (Paper Orchid (1949)) does fine as the gold-lined spy, whom he portrays for his fifth time here, but the film nearly works as a Bond spoof in itself, - it is that silly. Charles Dance (Your Highness (2011)) is a minor villain, and the funny final scene has British prime minister Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot.
For Your Eyes Only is funny and features lots of well-made action, (as well as down-played, dull sets, as regular Bond art director Ken Adams wasn't available and was replaced by Peter Lamont.) It is a lesser entry in the series.

Related posts:

John Glen: Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) - The ill-fated but entertaining ensemble adventure
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
A View to a Kill (1985) or, Once a Gentleman, Always a Gentleman!

Watch the title sequence for the film here

Cost: 28 mil. $
Box office: 195.3 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 6.97 times the cost)
[For Your Eyes Only premiered 24 June (London, UK) and runs 127 minutes. The creators attempted to get Bond back to basics and a more reality-based story after the wild fantasy of preceding film Moonraker (1979). Shooting took place in Greece, Italy, the UK, including London, and in the Bahamas from September 1980 - February 1981. A 23 year-old stunt man was killed during filming of the bobsleigh chase. The film opened #3 to a 6.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 54.8 mil. $ (28.1 % of the total gross). It set a new opening day record in the UK and became the second-highest grossing Bond picture overall, following Moonraker's 210.3 mil. $. Bill Conti and Mick Leeson's title song was nominated for the Best Song Oscar, lost to Arthur's Theme from Arthur. It was nominated for the equivalent Golden Globe. Glen returned with the next Bond film, Octopussy (1983), also Moore's next film. For Your Eyes Only is fresh at 72 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of For Your Eyes Only?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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1/09/2019

For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond

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