Yaphet Kotto and Barbara Carrera; any others?
Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe) in License to Kill.
Boris Grishenko. May Day. Hugo Drax. Mr. Kidd (or was it Mr. Wint?) Stamper.
Franz Sanchez doesn’t actually explode but he does go up in a ball of flame
Obviously, these people need a lesson in How Not To Be Seen.
Stranger
Yeah, lots of little problems like that.
How about Oddjob carrying a 3,500-lb block of Lincoln Continental in the back of his El Camino? By the way, you gotta rip out all the seats and remove the engine block before you cube a vehicle.
And why would Goldfinger risk losing $1 million in gold by giving it to Mr. Solo, and then having it crushed in the trunk of a brand new Lincoln, only to be be “extracted” at a later date when you are probably trying to get out of Kentucky ASAP? In the book they just throw Solo down some stairs.
Then there’s the gold paint on Jill Masterson. Oddjob didn’t get any paint on the sheets? He must have spent a good 2 or 3 hours doing that.
But those are just little flaws that are typical for movies, especially Bond movies.
Still, what bugs me is the assembling of mob bosses just to gas them. Didn’t he already have enough on his plate? Maybe he was working for Bobby Kennedy busting the mob.
Ooh, I forgot about that one. Gives a new meaning to the term “money laundering”.
Stranger
as should be obvious by now, you’re overanalyzing these films. Even the books, which were in the main better, were just intended as filler for airplane flights and the like. Fleming himself said something to the effect of writing these for bored businessmen, and aiming them between the knees and the solar plexus. They’re male wet-daydreams, adult superheros. If you start to analyze them a little bit, they fall apart.
I still love them, of cours. – you just can’t look too close. as I’ve said many times on this Board, the premise of Emilio Largo’s ship, the Disco Volante from Thunderball, makes no sense. It’s meant to be a superfast hydroplane, running with its hull mostly out of the water. But if the hull comes out of the water, you reveal the Secret Underwater Hastch (I don’t care howc carefully you build it – it’s gonna be visible). So Largo has this supeerfast, superneat feature he can never use.
That’s got to be galling when you’re a high-flying member of the Caribbean elite.
“Hey Emilio, why don’t you open 'er up and show us what the Disco can do!”
“Oh, uh, not today. We have visitors aboard.”
“C’mon, I’ll race you. I’ll bet I can give you a run for the money.”
“No, I cannot now.”
“Hey, Emilio, I think you’re chicken. I’ve got ten thousand big ones says I can pound your boat.”
“That is an interesting offer. Let’s discuss it here by my shark tank.”
I think the boat (not a ship…too small) is supposed to appear be a luxury motor yacht that disguises the true nature of the hydroplane section, which can only be used after they eject the coccoon.
But yes, it’s all very silly. Guns, gadgets, girls, and grog. And underground lairs! I wanted so to be James Bond when I was in third grade.
Stranger
IIRC the “Coccoon” is a creation of the first film. The book has the Disco being a hydroplane (pretty neat, that – I thought that was a creation of the movie, but it’s in Fleming’s book), so the premise for my mini-drama holds in the universe of Fleming’s literary creation.
I’m still annoyed that they translated the name to Flying Saucer for Never Say Never Again – it loses its flair. And the ship wasn’t a hydroplane in that one, either.