Bond Remastered - Diamonds Are Forever (1-disc) [DVD] [1971]

This is the Seventh outing for superspy James Bond, and marks a return to the series for Sean Connery, for the last time.

After George Lazenby's departure (he feared he would be typecast) the producers managed to tempt Connery back into the fold one more time with a $10M paycheck (which Connery gave to charity) and the opportunity to make a film of his own choosing (the powerful `Offence').

This time out Bond is investigating the smuggling of diamonds, and finds that Blofeld is yet again manufacturing some weapon with which to hold the world to ransom.

The film is big and lavish, and marks what I consider to be the start of a downwards slope for Bond. The emphasis is less on plot, and more on big stunts and humour. The stunts are big exciting and the humour (especially Mr Kidd and Mr Wint are generally well done, but the tone is very different to the glory days of `From Russia With Love', or even the preceding `On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. There is less atmosphere, and less of a feeling that Bond and the world are really in any kind of danger. Personally it is not wholly to my taste.

The guest stars shine - Charles Gray is an effective Blofeld. Slightly camper than his predecessors in the role, but he still manages to exude an aura of evil genius. Jimmy Dean (a country singer who originally sang Big Bad John) makes a decent good ole country boy Texan millionaire and Jill St John makes a decent Bond girl, a bit less of a damsel in distress than most which makes a pleasant change. Three stars for the film itself.

This digitally restored edition really is the best version of the film I have owned. The picture has been lovingly restored and cleaned up, and looks amazing. Really, I am not just saying that. It looks superb. The sound has been similarly treated and there is an option to listen to it in 5.1 DTS surround, which is truly exceptional.

Diamonds Are Forever is directed by Guy Hamilton and adapted to screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz from the novel of the same name written by Ian Fleming. It stars Sean Connery, Jill St John, Charles Gray, Bruce Glover, Putter Smith, Joseph Furst, Norman Burton and Jimmy Dean. Music is scored by John Barry and cinematography by Ted Moore.

Bond 7 and 007 is assigned to find out who is stock piling all the black market diamonds. This leads him to a sinister weapon being manufactured in space that can destroy major cities, the architect of such vileness? SPECTRE chief Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the man who murdered Bond's wife and someone Bond thought he had already located and killed.

With George Lazenby withdrawing from the franchise after just the one film, off to massage his ego and take further bad advice from those around him, Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzman set about making Bond sustainable box office in the 1970s. American actor John Gavin (Psycho/Spartacus) had signed on to fill the tuxedo, but armed with wads of cash the producers managed to entice Connery back to the role he had previously fell out of love with. Helped, too, that Connery's post Bond movies, his last outing had been You Only Live Twice in 1967, had hardly set the box office alight. It seemed a long shot, but Connery stunned the movie world by agreeing to once again play the role that many would come to know him for.

Back came Connery, back came director Guy Hamilton and back came Shirley Bassey to sing the title song (a true Bond classic it proved to be as well), these were reassuring signs, as was having Blofeld remain on villain duties. However, stung by the criticism of Lazenby's humanesque On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the drop in box office profits compared to Connery's latter Bond films, the makers decided to play this Bond as fantastique, something that would define Bond until Timothy Dalton tried something different at the end of the 1980s. Roger Moore would replace Connery as Bond two years later and it's widely thought that his arrival as 007 ushered in the "ridiculous" era of overt humour, preposterous sight gags and cartoonish escapades, not so, it began with Connery's Diamonds Are Forever. The moment Bond drives a Ford Mustang on two wheels, all bets were off in the franchise.

Artistically "Diamonds" is a disappointing movie, fun for sure, but the screenplay refuses to let the film take itself seriously. It's often camp and the picture lacks dramatic thrust and spectacular action, with the finale a rather tepid affair. Connery's presence gives the film some warmth, but his charisma and vocal delivery can't detract from the fact he looks to be doing it purely for the money. His weight, like his hair colour, fluctuates, and much of the vibrancy of his 60s Bond portrayals had disappeared. Charles Gray turns in the worst Blofeld of them all, saddled with a screenplay that has him cloning and cross dressing, Gray has Blofeld as charming and wry, gone is the menace and machismo so wonderfully portrayed by Pleasence and Savalas respectively in the previous two Bond movies. Felix Leiter in Norman Burton's hands has been reduced to being a bit of a doofus, the baddies are either too fey or over the top, while Jill St John's main Bond girl, Tiffany Case, descends from being a steely femme at the beginning, to a voluptuous caricature.

On the plus side. Barry's score and Ken Adam's sets are still franchise joys, the byplay between Bond and M (Bernard Lee again) reminds us of once great characterisations, while Desmond Llewelyn's Q is nicely sent out in the field for a change. Action wise there's some fine moments. The pre-credits sequence as Bond chases down Blofeld starts things off excitingly, a fight in a lift is up with the best of the Bond movie dust-ups and the dirt bike and Mustang chase sequences are well put together by Hamilton. Good gadgets, too, if you like that side of Bond? There was enough good parts here, and the return of Connery, to ensure Diamonds Are Forever was a monster success at the box office, where it grossed over $115 million worldwide. It proved that Bond had longevity, but with a new actor to come to the Bond role in two years time and the big shift to comedy action over tough guy missions, would Bond turn off the movie loving public? 6/10

Connery's last Bond film for Broccoli and Saltzman is very familiar stuff. Diamonds Are Forever is one of those once popular Bond films whose reputation among the faithful seems to drop every year as OHMSS's rises. Certainly it makes for a poor follow-up and the weakest of the `Blofeld Trilogy.' Its biggest sin is the incredibly lazy pre-title sequence of Bond tracking down and disposing of one Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Aside from the lazy TV-movie look, this isn't a man hunting the murderer of his wife but someone having a bit of a laugh at work. The sequence only really makes much sense if you regard it as a sequel to You Only Live Twice that's determinedly pretending OHMSS never happened after Lazenby incurred the producers' wrath by walking out on the series.

Once you can get over the massive shift in tone from the previous film, or the fact that the film rarely makes much of an effort in its determination to part you from your money, it's still moderately entertaining in its very undemanding way. But there's no disguising the fact that after the first half the film becomes increasingly reliant on Connery's starpower, leaving a shoddy patchwork of half-hearted setpieces and weak puns as the filmmakers imaginations dry up. Unfortunately Connery walks through it all with the satisfied laziness of a man who knows he's being paid too much and is on triple-overtime while Guy Hamilton directs like a man determined to finish on the dot of 6:00pm come hell or high water rather than lose those restaurant reservations. It's particularly telling that when Bond trips slightly when walking with M after the title sequence they didn't even reshoot the scene - too much of the film has a "Nah, that'll do" feel to it.

It's also one where the rejected motive for the film's diamond smuggling - to stockpile enough to perpetually blackmail all the diamond companies with the threat of flooding and destabilizing the market - is rather more promising than the giant space laser-weapon that they opt for instead. It's not helped by the distinctly unthreatening villains, who take camp to new lows. Despite having a few good quips, by turning Charles Gray's Blofeld into a virtual standup comedian it's hard to take him seriously long before he turns up in drag, while the film's pair of camp killers, Wint and Kidd, are an even more unmenacing pair, played purely for cheap laughs. The sight of Putter Smith shuffling towards the camera with a pair of burning kebabs in the post-plot murder attempt that became a regular feature of Moore's outings and which here looks seemingly tagged on as if an afterthought, certainly qualifies as one of the series lowpoints. Still, there are a few nice moments like the opening smuggling montage or the fight in the elevator, John Barry delivers a nice score and there are a couple of nice Ken Adams designs - particularly the Slumber Chapel of Rest, designed like a stained-glass diamond. Connery's worst Bond film is still better than Moore's worst, but you really need to dial your expectations down low for this one.

This repackaged two-disc Ultimate edition boasts a fairly modest upgrade in extras from the original release - a 1971 BBC interview with Connery, a featurette on the elevator fight, a few alternate and expanded angle scenes, some test footage and an additional couple of deleted scenes.