Austria – James Bond Connections

30 MAY 2023

JBC rating: ***

James Bond Connections (4):

Featuring Britt Ekland (Bond girl Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun) as the heroine Gina Ericson.
Featuring small roles for David Bauer (uncredited as an American diplomat in You Only Live Twice and as Morton Slumber in Diamonds Are Forever) and David Healy (uncredited as the Vandenburg Launch Director in Diamonds Are Forever).
Second unit director William P. Cartledge (2^nd unit on You Only Live Twice, Producer on The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker).

With its Alpine setting, spectacular ski sequences and a storyline involving a spy with a personal agenda, The Double Man anticipates the Bond classic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by two whole years (ironically, it was released between the spoof Casino Royale [1967] and the tonally opposite Bond extravaganza You Only Live Twice). This British-produced straight thriller follows tough guy CIA agent Dan Slater (played by Hollywood star Yul Brynner, pictured above) as he visits Austria to investigate the suspicious death of his teenage son. This is all part of an incredible Soviet plot – his son was murdered by Russian spies in order to lure Slater out of the USA and replace him with a Communist-trained double – alluded to in the film’s title. However, future Oscar winning American director Franklin J. Schaffer manages to ground a fantastical story by adopting a low-key, realistic directorial style and maintaining naturalistic performances from the cast. The result is an effective and quietly gripping Cold War-era spy thriller.

23 MAY 2023

JBC rating: ****

James Bond Connections (2):

Featuring Timothy Dalton (James Bond, 1987 – 1989) as Foreign Office official Charles Lord.
Director of Photography Freddie Young (DOP, You Only Live Twice).

A decade before his casting as 007, rising Welsh leading man Timothy Dalton appeared in Permission to Kill, an ensemble spy drama with some similarities to Munich (2006), another espionage thriller featuring a future Bond (Daniel Craig). Opposite in tone to the comedic and increasingly fantastical Bond films of the 1970s, this dark and gritty spy movie contains themes reflecting a morally uncertain world dominated by increasing cynicism about Western governments following Vietnam and the leaked Pentagon Papers. The presence of Dalton, playing a British Foreign Office official with the same depth, coolness and world-weary nature he would later bring to 007, anticipates the more grounded films of the 1980s. The film also points toward the moral complexities of the Daniel Craig era.

Tag: Austria

The Double Man (1967): Goodnight skiing

Permission to Kill (1975): the Timothy Dalton spy movie you need to see