The mid seventies were troublesome times for Albert R. Broccoli. The disappointing results of The Man with the Golden Gun and the breakup of the partnership with Harry Saltzman took their toll on him. Yet, despite many problems in the development of the tenth Bond film and the financial worries Broccoli had to deal with, in 1977 BOND was back in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.
Ian Fleming’s original story told about a bad situation a lady had come into, and how a man called James Bond happened to arrive on scene and extricated her from this predicament but due to an unusual story structure, the story differed greatly from the other Bond novels and Fleming may have been disappointed with it himself. In any way, he wanted nothing from the story to be used, but the title was free for use.
The story of The Spy Who Loved Me had gone thru many changes but what ended up on the screen seemed to be the perfect blend of action, suspense and humour to define Bond for the 1970s. (Interestingly enough though, one can make an argument that it is basically a better made version of You Only Live Twice, think it through, even down to the same director.)
Roger Moore was certainly at his best in this film, which was initially written by veteran screenwriter Richard Maibaum. When director Lewis Gilbert was brought in, he suggested screenwriter Christopher Wood to do a rewrite on it to resolve some issues. Afterwards, the story told of nuclear submarines disappearing off the face of the earth. Both the Russians and the British send out their best agent, pitting Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) against Bond in a competitive race for the knowledge and control of the facilities to make these disappearances possible. Bond impresses Amasova not only with his cool but also with his LOTUS ESPRIT, which turns out to have many additional features, probably not intended by the original designers. They soon identify Karl Stromberg as the villain and inside his lair, Stromberg shows himself to be a megalomaniacal sociopath who wished to destroy the world and create a new world order from his nautical bases. It is then up to Bond and Amasova to take out Stromberg and destroy his operation.
It is unfortunate however that John Barry is absent from the film but Marvin Hamlisch manages to update the Bond theme adequately and underscores the film to a T, even quoting Lawrence of Arabia in the Egypt sequence. The production design by Ken Adam is again sumptuous and spectacular, certainly in the latter half of the film.
Richard Kiel plays JAWS, a tall metal-toothed henchman in the services of the villainous Stromberg. Jaws was one of the few villains to pass over to the next Bond film and although it was thru no fault of German character actor Curd Jurgens, it is unfortunate that Stromberg comes off as a weak caricature of Auric Goldfinger, the prototypical villain. But because Roger Moore’s Bond films favour a tongue in cheek style of humour, both Jaws and Stromberg do not negatively affect the high level of entertainment value this film brings to the series.
For many, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is the best Bond film that Roger Moore ever starred in. (Roger Moore believes so himself as well, as he says in his recent autobiography.) For me, it was the first Bond film I ever saw in the cinema or outside the cinema. So I also carry a soft spot for this Bond film.
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