The 007 Files: The Spy Who Loved Me

007 fans would experience the biggest lull so far in between Bond pictures at two and a half years between The Man with the Golden Gun and the tenth film, 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. As the old adage says, good things come to those who wait.

The Spy Who Loved Me is easily the best Bond movie since Connery’s heyday. The excitement starts right away in the pre-title credit sequence, with Bond performing an awesome ski stunt complete with the British flag parachute.

We then move immediately to one of the greatest Bond theme songs, “Nobody Does It Better”, by Carly Simon.

And this one actually has a cool plot no less, unlike Roger Moore’s first two entries in the series. The main villain, Stromberg (in a fine performance from Curt Jurgens) intends to use two nuclear weapons to destroy the world. The twist this time around? He doesn’t want ransom. Stromberg is a madman who wants to start the world over with an underwater civilization. His main henchman is Jaws (7’4″ actor Richard Kiel) who is the best secondary villain since Oddjob in Goldfinger. 

Then there’s the Bond girl Anya. She’s a Soviet spy who can hold her own with Bond. The writers (veteran Richard Maibaum and first-timer Christopher Wood) give 007 the best female counterpart since at least Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Barbara Bach is solid in the role. The character of Anya also provides a dynamic never seen before in the series. It turns out Bond killed Anya’s lover in that cool opening ski scene. Anya vows to kill Bond after they complete their mission. This adds another new twist in Bond world and it’s a great development in the screenplay.

Again, it’s very necessary to focus on the production design of Ken Adam. Stromberg has an underwater hideout called Atlantis. Simply put, it’s really sweet looking. And the interiors of Atlantis and all the other sets prove once again that Adam is the best in the business and such an important figure in 007 history.

Of course, that scene shows that Stromberg likes to use sharks to off his victims, but once again, they do not have giant laser beams attached to their frickin heads.

Besides the wonderful looking Atlantis and submarine sequences, the early part of the film set in Cairo is gorgeously shot and they put that locale to perfect use. We even get a cool scene at the pyramids. And this great scene where 007 tries to find out the whereabouts of a key contact. It never goes quite as planned.

Piling on, we get a now-classic Bond car in The Spy Who Loved Me: The Lotus Esprit which turns into a freaking submarine! We discover this in a kick-ass action sequence.

The great usual Bond composer John Barry was unavailable this time around so the late Marvin Hamlisch was brought in to replace. He does a first-rate job, even though we do get a bit of disco mixed in occasionally. It’s a little disconcerting at first, but hey it was 1977! That’s the year Saturday Night Fever came out and there’s a couple of moments in Spy Who Loved Me where I thought the Bee Gees might start harmonizing over the soundtrack.

The budgets of 1965’s Thunderball and 1967’s You Only Live Twice were in the $9 million range, before the next three (Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, Man with the Golden Gun) all were around $7 million. The Spy Who Loved Me was the most expensive Bond by quite a margin at $14 million. We see it on the screen. The action sequences are top notch as always. It looks like the most expensive Bond flick so far. Lewis Gilbert returns to direct his second 007 feature, ten years after You Only Live Twice. 

If you’ve noticed I haven’t complained in this post… you’re right. The fact is that The Spy Who Loved Me clicks on all cylinders. I found it to be most compatible to Thunderball for a couple of reasons. First, the underwater elements, but more than anything else it’s just a hell of a good time and a wildly fun popcorn movie.

The last element of my highly complimentary ramblings: it’s Roger Moore’s finest performance as Bond we’ve seen so far. Moore would say in later interviews that Spy is his favorite Bond movie and he seems to relish having a good script, something that can’t really be said for his two original go-rounds.

Moviegoers really liked it as well. It grossed $185 million worldwide, nearly double the amount its predecessor, Golden Gun, made. Earning $46 million in the United States, it was the 10th highest grossing picture that year.

The Spy Who Loved Me is a triumph. I highly suspect it will rank right up there with some of the early Connery entries when I do my rankings upon this blog series concluding.

Here are the facts:

Film: The Spy Who Loved Me

U.S. Release Date: July 13, 1977

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Screenplay: Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum

Bond: Roger Moore

Main Bond Villain: Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens)

Main Bond Girl: Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach)

Theme Song: “Nobody Does It Better” – performed by Carly Simon

Budget: $14 million

Worldwide Box Office: $185.4 million

My James Bond blog series will return in “The 007 Files: Moonraker”