The Spy Who Loved Me [VHS] [1977]

The spy who loved me is old, but that doesn't mean its bad, just the effects are low key, which one would expect for 1977 era. I quite enjoyed it, having not seen it for a long time. It has a lot going for it. The soundtrack is really good, with the famous Carly Simon song. Some moody music in the pyramids, where Jaws turns up looking for the microfilm. Again some good scores in the Atlantis journey and strombergs tanker. The action is satisfactory with all the old favourite production team we came to love for those of my age. Plausible story actually as Q explained. Barbara Bach shows her acting skills and a lot more. She was some Russian agent, who played the part well. Some parts wooden. Caroline Munro in a bikini, also a helicopter pilot that chases bond into the water in his now famous lotus that can turn into a mini sub. Curt jurgans as Stromberg was a good choice of villain. His hit list was higher than Bonds. For me it all adds up, with the entrance of Jaws, and that old Sherpa van(I owned on, no power steering!!!!) great fun this, if a little behind in cinema tech now. 👍

James Bond and a beautiful Soviet officer Major Amasova combine to investigate what happened to two of their countries submarines that disappeared.One of the all time great adventures of the series with many legendry moments. The first thing to say is just how great the film looks, cinematographer Claude Renoir does a magnificent job creating an atmosphere and some of his locations are superb and set designer Ken Adam also does an excellent job creating the enormous blockbuster Bond sets. Roger Moore is excellent and by now has made the role his own, Barbara Bach as Major Amasova is also wonderful, she is one of the most well rounded "Bond girls", she's not only tough and self-sufficient but his equal in many ways and Curd Jurgens is a great bond villain. Lewis Gilbert return as director and does a great job maintaining the excellent pace and keeping the balance of action and drama just right, Marvin Hamlisch's score is very entertaining and very in keeping for time plus Carly Simon's theme song is certainly one of the best. There are other outstanding things about this film that make it stand out, Jaws played by Richard Keil is almost certainly the most memorable villain in Bond history, not just because of his enormous size (7ft 2in) but because the character was superbly played and written. Then there are the stunts and set pieces of which there are many, firstly the Lotus Esprit the car that turns into the underwater vessel,one of the most memorable scenes not just in Bond but movie history and then opening ski sequence and cliff jump both are just as amazing as you remember.Re-watching this movie again I was struck by just how well done it was in all departments, I couldn't find a single thing I didn't like about it. A real classic that is well acted, brilliantly shot and written and lavishly produced spy thriller, one of my top 3 Bond movies. 5/5

The Spy Who Loved Me contains some of THE iconic images from the James Bond film series - the Lotus Esprit, the skiing stunt complete with the Union Jack parachute - as well as Roger Moore in top form as our hero, James Bond. The film also has one of the great BOnd villans in Jaws, here genuinely menacing before he was reduced as a comic villan in Mookraker as well as a top quality Bond lady in Barbara Bach.This DVD has cleaned up the original film and this copy of The Spy Who Loved Me is sparkling. However, I do have reservations in this Ultimate Edition DVD in comparing this DVD with the Special Edition release of five years ago. In my opinion there is not that much difference between the two, both have the same excellent documentaries and photographs and contain the same commentary from the makers of the film. There are only two significant differences - firstly, the menus are different, but not necessarily better, and secondly, the DVD contains a commentary from Roger Moore. For this alone the DVD is worth buying as the commentary is excellent and shows Moore as the charming man he is.However, if you are not interested in the Moore commentary but already own TSWLM on DVD, then this DVD is not worth buying as it is not radically different from the previous release. For this reason alone, I have deducted one star from my rating as undoubtedly TSWLM is defintely a five star film.

The Spy Who Loved Me was the 9th in the Bond Releases and the 3rd of Roger Moore's appearances in the role of 007. Some people were critical of Roger Moore's appointment to succeed Sean Connery but, in this film he showed he was capable of the challenge and stamped his mark on this, putting in a first rate performance as Britain's main Super Spy. There is no need to go into the plot (surely everyone knows it by now), suffice to say it is very much back to the basic premise of James (GB) v Villain (The World) intent on world domination. There is plenty of action, suspense, special effects and chases. There is the truly menacing Jaws (Richard Kiel), a beautiful Russian Agent XXX (Barbara Bach), main villain Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) and perhaps one of the strongest Bond music scores, with opening titles to Carly Simon's great rendition of "Nobody Does It Better", it's all here. By the way the 7-note refrain from this theme turns up in "For Your Eyes Only" (see my next review). Oh and of course OO7 gets the lady in the end. All the original and traditional ingredients that made Bond one of the great British exports of its time. It's hard to find a weakness in this film production (for it is 5 star entertainment) so my only reason for not giving this a 5 star rating overall is that it slightly lacks in originality. It's just like making an omelette though, you expect eggs to be in it.

So we set ourselves the task of getting through all of the bond films by the time the new (and last) Daniel Craig movie came out. The thing is all the story lines for Roger Moore’s films have largely been the same. So good movie but once you have seen one you’ve seen them all…

The most complete, and best Bond movie, period.