# Which was the best Sean Connery Bond film? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722 "2012-10-24T13:07:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/21 "2012-10-24T17:54:45Z")
“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/22 "2012-10-24T17:55:14Z")
Pssst… **Stranger** , which one _do_ you prefer? I enjoy your analysis but would think similar criticisms could be made about most every Bond film. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/23 "2012-10-24T18:04:05Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > Never Say Never Again shouldn’t be in the poll it’s not even a real Bond movie You can never please everybody. Had I left it off inevitably there would have been half a dozen complaints of “Where’s _Never Say Never Again_?” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/24 "2012-10-24T18:51:44Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Pssst… **Stranger** , which one _do_ you prefer? I enjoy your analysis but would think similar criticisms could be made about most every Bond film. _From Russia With Love_ is my personal favorite, but I have great affection for _Thunderball_ for its elaborate underwater scenes and Connery’s last good performance in a Bond film. Plus the Tom Jones title song and John Barry’s incidentals are the best of the entire franchise. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/25 "2012-10-24T19:19:27Z")
I knew before voting that this was going to be a cage match between FRWL and Goldfinger but FRWL gets my vote, with Goldfinger a close second. FRWL was grittier where Goldfinger was beginning to swing into camp territory. I don’t have time to list all the reasons but a few spring immediately to mind… **Women** : I actually think Tatiana and Pussy (though it’s fun to hear Connery pronounce it as ‘Poosy’ over and over) are pretty even here but the gypsy cat fight tips the scales to FRWL. **Villain** : SPECTRE \> a blonde fat man with a laser. **Henchmen** : Red Grant (Robert Shaw) \>\> Oddjob **Allies** : Karim bey \>\>\> Felix and company. Karim bey steals every scene he’s in. (“I’ve had a particularly fascinating life. Would you like to hear about it? You would!”) **Locations** : Istanbul and Yugoslavia are more interesting and exotic locations than Florida and Kentucky. I generally hate it when Bond visits the US. (Don’t get me started on Diamonds are Forever.) Don’t get me wrong. Goldfinger is still a very close second and is my top 5 of Bond films overall. I just think FRWL edges it out. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/26 "2012-10-24T19:22:45Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > For all those with great gushing love for _Goldfinger_, you do realize that it portrays Bond as being terminally incompetent, right? > > For the count, Bond is: > > [ul] > [li]Almost killed three times (pre-title sequence, on the laser table in Switzerland, in the depository fighting Oddjob)[/li][li]Captured/incapacitated four times (in Miami after forcing Goldfinger to lose at gin, in Switzerland at the foundry, by Pussy after the briefing to the Mafia, again by Goldfinger in the jet)[/li][li]Gets both Masterson sisters killed (Jill in Miami, Tilly in Switzerland)[/li][li]Fails to get a message out to MI-6 or CIA after he uncovers Goldfinger’s plan (courier is killed and compacted by Oddjob)[/li][li]Completely prangs up his Aston-Martin DB-5 despite being equipped with smoke screen, oil slick, machine guns, bulletproof glass, and ejector seat) and totally fails to escape due to driving into a building[/li][li]Fails to disarm the bomb (disarmed in the last three seconds by a CIA technician)[/li][li]Defeats Oddjob virtually by accident (electrocution due to Oddjob’s hat being embedded in the bars and a power line being severed)[/li][li]Defeats Goldfinger only by accident (stray shot blows out a window, Goldfinger sucked into “outer space”)[/li][/ul] > > In fact, the only thing Bond genuinely succeeds at is blowing up the heroin processing facility in the pre-title sequence, cheating at golf, and seducing Pussy Galore from her man-hating lesbian (implied in the film, explicit in the novel) into betraying Goldfinger. (In reality, she probably realized how dangerously unstable Goldfinger was and how she and her circus were likely to be dispatched before receiving her reward, and opted instead to switch sides.) Bond nearly fails at every other task in the film. No wonder M is always threatening to send 008 to replace Bond. Goldfinger could be turned into a Rowan Atkinson film by changing a few names. The film has an iconic Shirley Bassey title song and some classic Ken Adam set design, but in every other sense it is absurd. > > Now, let me tell you why Dr. Jones should just stay home and grade term papers… > > Stranger There’s one other thing about _Goldfinger_ that bothers me a bit. All through the movie we’re told how much the titular character loves gold; not for its value or what he can buy with it, but merely for its own sake. He loves its color, its divine heaviness, or something like that. And yet the whole Fort Knox plot goes against that motivation. It will make his gold more valuable, yes, but won’t bring him any more of it. In fact, it will be that much harder for him to acquire more gold if the price goes up as he predicts. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > He causes most of these “setback” through incaution, indifference, and at times unbridled incompetence. If he had just followed Goldfinger to the foundry, overheard the conversation with Mr. Ling, and informed the MI-6 or CIA to intercept the convergence of Mafia figures delivering components to Goldfinger’s Kentucky farm the bomb would have never made it into the gold depository. To be fair, when Bond follows Goldfinger to Switzerland, he’s only out to discover how he’s smuggling gold out of England. From the time he sees Mr. Ling, he never has the chance to get a message out to HQ (leaving the grounds he surprises Tilly into activating the tripwire, more incompetence); and doesn’t know about the Mafia heads coming to Kentucky until he’s there, himself. Must give a tip of the cap to Richard Vernon as the gold expert who briefs Bond about gold smuggling at dinner. He could go from steely cold to befuddled (Slartibartfast in the 1981 TV version of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_) without even having to restyle his mustache. And no love for Luciana Paluzzi in _Thunderball_? She’d make it into the top tier of Bond girls on voice alone (although I think it was probably dubbed). ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/27 "2012-10-24T19:32:38Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > **Allies** : Karim bey \>\>\> Felix and company. Karim bey steals every scene he’s in. (“I’ve had a particularly fascinating life. Would you like to hear about it? You would!”) All the more remarkable since the actor, Pedro Armendáriz, had terminal cancer at the time. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/28 "2012-10-24T19:40:53Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > And no love for Luciana Paluzzi in _Thunderball_? She’d make it into the top tier of Bond girls on voice alone (although I think it was probably dubbed). Looking at the IMDB page, if I read it right, it states that Largo’s (the main villain, played by Adolfo Celi) voice, and Domino’s voice (Largo’s naive squeeze, played by Claudine Auger) were dubbed, but Ms. Paluzzi’s purr was all hers. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/29 "2012-10-24T20:02:01Z")
I think Goldfinger is a more pop-culturally known Bond movie because of its theme song, the murder by gold paint, the laser scene, Odd Job, and Pussy Galore. I admit that it was the first movie I thought of when thinking of Connery’s Bond films. Despite that, I think From Russia With Love edges it out. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/30 "2012-10-24T20:09:40Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Though Andress’s bikini scene is [iconic](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3250386.stm), and helped cement the series in popular culture. It would have been better if she’d been nude - well, a belt an a knife - as in the book. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/31 "2012-10-24T20:12:01Z")
I must be the only Bond fan alive not enamored with Tatiana. In fact her lack of appeal (sloppy, whiny) likely tempered my overall ranking of that film. I am however firmly in the Robert Shaw, Pedro Armendáriz appreciation club. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/32 "2012-10-24T21:05:00Z")
For me, it’s _“From Russia with Love.”_ I hesitate to use this term with any James Bond film, but it is the most believable. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/33 "2012-10-24T23:24:44Z")
_From Russia With Love_, no question. It’s not just a Bond movie, but a genuinely good thriller. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/34 "2012-10-25T01:11:21Z")
I personally prefer _Thunderball_. I like the plot, I like Domino, and I prefer the villain to Goldfinger, though admittedly one of the best lines ever is “I expect you to die.” ---
**Author:** ![phxjcc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phxjcc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phxjcc)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/35 "2012-10-25T01:46:44Z")
Goldfinger is favored by critics, but I prefer Thunderball. Best two bond girls. Auger is stunning. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/36 "2012-10-25T05:57:20Z")
I think Goldfinger’s overrated. Literally nothing the eponymous character does in the film makes the slightest bit of sense and Bond only saves the day by raping ethics into Pussy. Now Bond villains are rarely fountains of rationality and Connery always played Bond a wee bit rapey, so I’m not really arguing that Goldfinger was a bad Bond movie, it just isn’t in the same league as From Russia With Love. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/37 "2012-10-25T09:27:32Z")
I’m going with _From Russia, With Love_. I’m not a fan of the gadgets, and this was a relatively low-tech movie. The only really implausible gadget was the rifle scope, and it wasn’t terribly beyond what the real world has produced. (OK, the periscope in the embassy was a little silly, but not outrageously so, IMHO.) Robert Shaw’s version of Red Grant was better than the novel, yet still faithful to the novel. And Kerim Bey was utterly cool. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/38 "2012-10-25T09:51:55Z")
I went for **Diamonds are Forever**. Love the theme, the ‘smooching couple’ disguise thing that Bond does, and the rising-music-while-being-cremated episode in the funeral home. Then again, I went for **Live & let Die** as my favourite Moore film, so I clearly have a thing for trash. ---
**Author:** ![MacdaddyC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@MacdaddyC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacdaddyC)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/39 "2012-10-25T14:04:53Z")
_Goldfinger_ followed by _Diamonds are Forever_ ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722/40 "2012-11-14T04:58:27Z")
I downloaded the entire series from iTunes and am now watching through them all. I’m watching _Dr. No_ right now for the first time in a _very_ long time (at least 20 years) and noticed they’re really giving the theme music a workout. I’m only 20 minutes in and they’ve played it at least 5 times, including the opening credits. Otherwise, I’m really enjoying the Sean Connery performance and the old-school 1960s filmmaking style. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-was-the-best-sean-connery-bond-film/638722.md?page=3)