I was watching the Bond marathon on Syfy today and it reminded me of just how much I loved all the great zingers in those movies.
Anyway my favorite two come from Goldfinger.
The scene where Sean Connery kills a guy by throwing a lamp into a bathtub, and deadpans, “Shocking, positively shocking.”
And the scene at the end where he kills Oddjob by electrocuting him with a severed cable. When somebody asks what happened, Bond replies “Oh, he blew a fuse.”
So what are some of your favorites?
*Goldfinger *had lots of great ones:
“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”
“He had a pressing engagement.”
“I told the stewardess, liquor for three.” “Who are the other two?” “There are no other two.”
(Okay, that’s a three-liner, not a one-liner, but I still loved it.)
Well, the best line in all of Bond-dom is Goldfinger’s reply to “Do you expect me to talk?”, though that’s not a one-liner by definition.
My favourite line from Bond after (well, technically, just before) dispatching a villain is “That’s a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six.”
One of my favorites is actually from Goldeneye:
“Who is the competition?”
“Ah, an ex-KGB guy. Tough mother. Got a limp in his right leg. Name’s Zukovsky.”
“Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“I gave him the limp.”
Bond just finishes sleeping with a woman.
Woman: You wouldn’t kill me, not after what we’ve just done.
Bond: I certainly wouldn’t have killed you before.
Casino Royale:
“Skewered. One sympathizes.”
Robot Arm took my favorite, so I’ll just use my second favorite, from Thunderball:
Bond, to Emilio Largo, while skeet shooting: “Are you sure you didn’t have a visitor? Because this is a woman’s gun.”
Largo: “Oh, do you know a lot about guns?”
Bond: “I know a lot about women.”
Can’t remember the movie title. Bond (I think it was Connery) is at some formal event, a large outside patio area is filled with people dancing. The woman he is dancing with is shot by a sniper. He sets her down in an empty chair on the perimeter of the dance floor. He says to the man sitting in a chair nearby, “Do you mind if my date rests here? She’s just dead.”
(Okay, two lines…sheesh!)
~VOW
VOW: That one, like my post, was from Thunderball. The woman in question was a SPECTRE agent, hence his lack of concern for her condition.
Dalton, in The Living Daylights: “Georgi will pay.” Dalton’s delivery was perfect.
From “License to Kill” (another underrated Dalton film) - Drug king-pin Robert Davi to puppet el presidente Pedro Armendariz Jr:
“Remember: you are only president… for life.”
“Launder it”
“Put him out of my misery”
"Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him. "
Marie: “Is there somesing I can do for you”
James: “Mm-yes, there’s something I’d like you to get off your chest”
throttles her with her own bikini top
James: “Where is Earnst Stavro Blofeld?”
Marie: makes choking noises
James: “Sh-peak up darling, I can’t hear you”
What makes it is the James Bond theme in the background, and their respective accents. Marie is using some sort of sultry French accent, and Connery has a subtlety to his accent that really lets you know, he’s casual, cool, composed, as he methodically searches for Blofeld. The way she poses at the sight of him, he smoothly runs his hand down to her top with no complaint from her, the way he rips it off her, then throttles her. Do you get the point yet Marie, Bond really wants to find Blofeld.
Bonus single frame nipple shot on Network TV for the win. For a pre-teen, that’s pure gold.
Disclaimer: Violence against women is a serious issue in our society and should never be condoned or accepted in any cultural medium.
ETA
Sorry that’s a bunch of lines, I didn’t read carefully. Still, not really a dialog. Each line stands on its own. Best one: “something off your chest”
I find many of the one-liners and throw-aways in the Bond filmsa bit for ced, and not all that witty.
Arguably the most important one was in the 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale, at the very beginning, where Bond, played by Barry Nelson, about to enter the Casino, ducks behind a column to avoid gunfire from a passing car. Shortly afterwards, there’s this exchange:
“Aren’t you the man who was shot?”
“No, I’m the man who was missed.”
As my friiend, an extreme Bons fan, pointed out, prior to this exchange (throughout the book Casino Royale, and those that came out before this was released), Bond was an absolutely cold, humorless assassin. This was the first case we had of BNond lightening up – not merely of tossing off one-liners, but of warming up and being more human.
The beginning of the show, including that scene:
(In this first adaptation, Bond is “Jimmy” Bond, ann American agent, and Felix Leiter is British, instead of American. Weird stuff. Peter Lorre is great as the villain, le Chiffre.)
I know Moonraker gets a bum rap, but it does contain one of the greatest exchanges in the Bond franchise. Bond and Drax are out hunting, and Bond fires off a shot and fails to hit any birds.
Drax: You Missed Mr. Bond.
(a sniper falls out of a nearby tree)
Bond: Did I?
OK, so not exactlly a one-liner either, but as OP I’ll allow quick witty exchanges as well.
I kinda like this one from Diamonds Are Forever:
Girl: Hi I’m Plenty!
Bond: But of course you are.
Girl: Plenty O’Toole
Bond: Named after your father perhaps?
“Phuyuck?!”
For a one-and-a-half liner, there’s the bit in CASINO ROYALE where Bond – fresh from his first-ever kill, and talking with his section chief – starts getting told the second time is easier; Bond interrupts by shooting him, with a brisk “yes, considerably,” before the now-identified traitor actually says “easier.”
Love this as both an homage to and break from previous Bonds:
Bartender: Shaken or stirred?
Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?
Another from Diamonds Are Forever:
The crooks have just tossed Plenty O’Toole out the window, and she lands in the hotel pool.
Bond: Exceptionally fine shot.
Goon: I didn’t know there was a pool down there.
It’s one of the few lines in which Bond serves as the straight man, which is one reason I like it.