Movie Shelf: The Spy Who Loved Me (Page 2)

MOVIE SHELF: COMPARING FILMS TO THEIR LITERARY COUNTERPARTS

paul cooney

LEWIS GILBERT'S THE SPY WHO LOVED ME

based on the novel THE SPY WHO LOVED ME by IAN FLEMING

page 2

Apparently not! Princess drops right off after the hoods inexplicably let her have a room to herself! Bond too! Wow these murdering crooks really provide top notch service. Everyone knows they're killers but all 4 people continue with the charade of "Nighty night! Sleep well in your solo rooms everyone!"

Princess Stupid drifts off, "happily to sleep" in her words...but shockingly her sleep is interrupted when Sluggsy shows up and assaults her! Hmm...now wait a second, that wasn't really shocking since Sluggsy had repeatedly stated he would do just that! Ian Fleming I have to dig up your corpse and murder you! I hope some of your DNA still exists so you can be reanimated for the sole purpose of being bent over so I can drive my shoe right up your stupid fucking ass you goddamn hack!

Sluggsy knocks Dopey out and he and his partner use thermite bombs to set the motel ablaze in order to burn it down and collect the insurance money. Too bad for those two idiots that Bond is on the case! His incredible plan involved stuffing towels under his sheet to make it look like he was sleeping while he hid in the woods. Umm...why didn't you do that for the chick too idiot? Why the hell didn't you just escape with her you asshole? The hoods shoot up Bond's bed and set off to loot the place thinking he and the broad are dead.

Fools! After Bond wakes up the knocked unconscious girl and pulls her from her flaming room, probably sneaking a grope in as well, he goes off to find the two criminals and gets the drop on them, finally drawing his gun and telling them to freeze. Well lah ti dah only took you 12 hours, you dick. Sluggsy and Horror are holding televisions so they can't do anything but stand there, until that moron 007 inexplicably tells the girl to go up to Horror and frisk him for weapons. Pardon me, shithead, double-0-fucking clueless, you really think that's a good idea?

Of course it isn't and Horror grabs the girl to use as a shield. Bond fires anyway but doesn't hit shit cause he sucks, and Sluggsy throws a tv at him, striking him in the head. Holy shit. The world's greatest secret agent just got hit in the fucking skull by a thrown television. Are you fucking kidding me Ian Fleming? Were you drunk and wearing women's panties as you wrote this insipid nonsense?

The crooks take off and Bond retreats with Dopey, whereupon he confesses that he kind of botched that whole thing. Even Princess Stupidass agrees and asks why he didn't just shoot them. Fuckhead replies, "I've never been able to shoot anyone in cold blood."

Really asshole? You realize those two guys just tried to murder you and an innocent girl, after raping her no less, and the motel that is burning right now was supposed to incinerate your two corpses. You have qualms about shooting those dicks so you put her life in danger? No wonder so many people around you die you incompetent assclown.

A lame gun battle ensues when Sluggsy and Horror return and finally someone gets into a car, though it's not the chick and Bond who really should have done that hours before. Bond shoots Horror and the car careens into a lake. Mission accomplished! So babycakes, the motel is on fire, we've escaped death, twice, and I'm awesome...what do you say we...?

Get in a car and drive to the next town/police station/anywhere fucking else?

Wrong! Amazingly Bond suggests they get some sleep! Holy shit this cat really loves his shut eye! Luckily for Bond and Dopey some of the motel hasn't burned down so they find a flame free room to shack up in. How romantic. The whole place doesn't smell like burned motel? You really feel safe? You sure you don't want to get out of there? Why are you so retarded Ian Fleming?

Naturally Bond bangs this incredibly loose moron and they drift off to dreamland...

Until Sluggsy returns and sprays the room with machine gun fire! What are the odds? Luckily Dopey had awakened just before he shot the room up so they avoided his bullets and Bond was able to spring into action and kill him. Afterward he chastised himself for not making sure Sluggsy was dead but what are you going to do?

With that bit of nastiness behind them Bond suggests...anyone? any guesses?

They get some sleep! Ian Fleming I hope you are being raped wherever you are! What time is it anyway? How long is this fucking night? How could this broad possibly think of going to sleep again, much less successfully do so! This is the dumbest shit I've ever had the displeasure of reading! The motel is half burned down! There is a dead body outside their door and another in the lake! She was assaulted five separate times during the night by two hideous felons who repeatedly told her how they were going to rape her! And yet she successfully goes to sleep three different times during the night! Twice her sleep is interrupted with attempts on her life by the guy who said he was going to rape and kill her before she slept the first time! How could anyone, much less a super successful author, write something so patently terrible?

Bond lamely apologizes, "I nearly got you killed again."

Lamentably she doesn't rejoin, "Yeah you did. You fucking suck."

Instead she seriously asks, "James, what's a bimbo?"

Lamentably he doesn't hold a mirror in front of her face and laugh scornfully.

So they sleep, again, but this time it's Bond who wakes up early and skips out! Real nice 007, this dopey chick has been molested, assaulted, and almost killed several times through the night, and you have her wake up in the morning all alone in this burned out motel with a corpse ten feet away and you vanished. Classy move. He left her some stupid note or some bullshit but it was fucking dumb and I hate it.

The editor and publisher who allowed this travesty to get printed should have their corpses dug up and ground into powder by bulldozers driven by a thousand monkeys with a thousand I-pads.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME - THE MOVIE

You're in the 70's, porn and cell phones aren't around yet so you spend most of your free time sneaking peeks at Playboys and sniffing dead animals in random parking lots. You're a loser but you can't wait to see the next James Bond movie cause it promises to be more titillating than the Waltons which is the only thing your dumb ass parents watch and there is only one tv in your stupid friggin' house!

Lucky for you the fine folks who made The Spy Who Loved Me for the big screen were forbidden from using the novel because that prissy idiot Ian Fleming was so embarrassed by it he forbid them. So instead of the flick opening with some silly chick whining about pine trees you are treated to a fantastic scene of a super spy bolting from a tramp's bed and skiing down a mountain with Russian agents in hot pursuit! Awesome! F U Ian Fleming! See how easy it is? Do you really think your fans, the idiots who made you rich, want to read about some space cadet chick who whines a lot or do they want to see Bond nail some skank and then use his ski pole to shoot a KGB man who is firing at him while shussing 70 miles an hour down some snow covered mountain?

You're an idiot and I'm glad you're dead!

No prologue shifting the blame for your shitty fucking book on its fictional retarded heroine for these producers - you don't need to blame anyone for sheer awesomeness.

Thankfully the opening to the film features the fantastic stunt of Bond skiing right off the side of the mountain to certain death but wait! He's got a goddamn parachute! Totally slick, though marred by the fact that the chute is a giant Union Jack, which just reminds the discernible viewer of all the global travesties England is responsible for. Perhaps the greatest travesty England has ever perpetrated may in fact be the ridiculous yellow and red ski outfit Bond has been wearing the entire time. Wtf? Umm...Jimbo...just cause Saville Row doesn't make alpine wear doesn't mean you break out the Ronald McDonald mountain collection. That goddamn jumpsuit was an embarrassment and the disco soundtrack was fucking horrendous too.

All in all a great beginning and mere minutes into the film one is already treated to more entertainment than in the entire 150-plus excruciating pages of that terrible book.

Unlike the novel's silly whiny frequently loose heroine the film treats the viewer to supple and deadly Russian Agent Triple X, played by none other than the future Mrs. Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach. Often ridiculed as the joke Beatle, Mr. Starr managed to wed a woman who was not only a communist super spy, but also had rather fantastic natural tits.

George Harrison? Married to the sea. Gay.

John Lennon? Yoko Ono. Good god man. Internationally revered as a genius and you marry Yoko Ono? No wonder Jared Leto shot you. Score another one for Ringo.

Paul McCartney? Bravo sir, you managed to outdo Lennon in the "colossal mistake in picking a woman" department. Incredibly rich and famous, could have had your pick of the 3 billion-plus women on this planet, and somehow you marry some shrew with one leg, and then compound that bit of ridiculousness by letting her take half your dough. Was her one-legged fucking really worth that Sir Paul? What's the English word for twat? Oh what's that? It's twat? Thanks. Paul McCartney you are a giant effete twat and Wings sucked!

So Ringo did all right after all and Miss Bach really deserved special commendation for the amazing amount of cleavage she displayed throughout the film, with bonus points for frequently getting wet. That is a performance! Are you paying attention Judi Dench?

The novel features idiotic ravings like "I hate pine trees" and spastic musings like "jazz is decadent," while the movie has a slew of Moore quips too saucy to recount here. I do recall with fondness the moment when he goes into an opulent tent of some sheik and is offered a nubile young lady to defile. He drinks the dame in with a leer and mutters something about delving into a nation's treasures! Oooo this cat has sass to spare!

The Bond in the book is an incompetent lazy moron while the one in the film is the ass kicking drunken lothario the world has come to love. Instead of being trapped in gross and depressing upstate New York cinema's 007 is going all over the fucking place doing all kinds of awesome shit.

They take a boat, they ride a train, none of this cooped up in a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere nonsense Fleming seems to prefer. On the train Moore can't help but notice Bach's amazing ta tas, and the sexual tension is high as they go to separate compartments and wait for the other to come a knocking, a scene later stolen by that thief Stevie Spielberg in Temple of Doom! Why do you steal other peoples things, you bad man?

The book doesn't have any of this dynamite shit. That's why it fucking sucks if you haven't been following!

Fun tidbits from the film...Triple X refers to Q as Major Boothroyd! Holy shit that guy has a name? [he was named after weapons expert Geoffrey Boothroyd, the man who suggested to Fleming that Bond use a Walther PPK -- john]

Bond uses an alias...well lah ti dah...Fleming inexplicably avoids that in the books and all too often has secret agent Bond using his real name when booking hotel rooms, renting porn, etc. It's downright stupid!

Speaking of dumb, the film isn't quite as perfect as a peerless masterpiece like MacGruber. (In an aside...who would win in a fight, MacGruber or Bond? My money's on Grubes! He's not distracted by coos and booze!)

The film has flaws...Stromberg, the rather lame super villain, kills his assistant through the use of a trap door is his elevator which opens up and shoots her into a water tank where a waiting shark eats her! That's badass!

Then he kills two nerds in a helicopter with the press of a button! Kaboom! He even gets to watch it all from where he sits! Pretty slick Curd Jurgens!

But then when he has the famous James Bond and the notorious Triple X in his clutches he instructs Jaws to kill them..."when they get back to land." Umm...why? Wouldn't it be best to press a button and have a shark eat the evidence?

Instead we have a motorcycle shoot an explosive side car at them...pretty slick but completely ineffective. Next up is Jaws and a bunch of stiffs in a jalopy leaning out the windows and firing pistols. Now wait just a fucking minute! Some no-name chick gets the "trick elevator eaten by shark" treatment, two nerds get the "push a button and make the helicopter go kablam" business, but Bond and Triple X get the...shoot at a moving car with pistols?

That is Ian Fleming style weak! Things pick up a bit when the helicopter strafes them with machine guns, a chopper piloted by a bikini-wearing bimbo no less! Now we're talking! This sets up an amazing transformation as the Lotus goes from slick sports car to deadly submersible! Instead of reading about some tramp making bacon and eggs three different times we get to see some really cool ass shit. Good job filmmakers!

Triple X even manipulates some of the Lotus' controls to drop undersea mines... explaining to Bond that she stole the blueprints for the car two years prior! You saucy little bitch! That is so much more entertaining than reading about some dipsy broad riding a scooter near Albany, and much more impressive than simply saying "Nice car!"

Bach later showers on a submarine and gives the sailors jack off material for months. Good for you Triple X. Way to improve Cold War relations!

Whereas the novel fizzled to an insipid close the flick winds down with a big ass battle. There is an especially comical moment during the grenade and machine gun apocalypse when we get to watch the British sub commander get shot to death. Then his lieutenant steps up and utters something idiotic like "leave it to me sir!" as he tries to play hero. One hero per movie hotshot! He is promptly cut down and killed as Bond takes a breather for a few moments and watches this. Nice job 007...way to let that loser die. It's almost like he takes a perverse pleasure in seeing lesser men fail at the superman business.

Bond subsequently disarms a nuke, rides a jet ski, spoils Stromberg's dinner by killing him and beds Triple X in rapid succession. That final act is witnessed by the heads of both the KGB and MI6, and when Bond is questioned as to just what the hell does he think he's doing he says, "Keeping the British end up sir!"

Ho ho! He's referring to his penis of course, and that's what makes it deliciously whimsical. Curtain falls, credits roll, and Carly Simon sends the audience home happy! Top 5 Bond ever! Suck it Fleming!

Paul,

That is a nice moment where Triple X manipulates the Lotus' instruments. But one thing always bothered me was her reaction when Bond initially plummets the car into the drink. She gasps as any reasonable person who expects to die would, but wouldn't she know from the blueprints that the car was a submersible transformer? If so, why would she gasp in terror? It's a minor point but one that always bugs me. Perhaps it just slipped her mind.

Anyway, on to more important things. Barbara Bach in that get-up Curd Jurgens puts her in at the end of the movie? Forget it. That imagery went further towards ruining me for all women than Princess Leia's golden bikini-thong.

What were the other Beatles thinking? Literally millions of hyperventilating female fans across the universe and they each managed to end up with the homliest of star fuckers.

Bach's twin symphonies were the best thing to happen to the Roger Moore era, at least until the debut of Carole Bouquet's crossbow. How did she end up with the universally-judged "worst Beatle?" Just being with her automatically makes him the best Beatle! Did none of the other "Flab Four" ever take a look at her? Did John Lennon need new glasses? He must have, otherwise he would have dumped that pretentious boy-lookin band-wreckin Asian bitch and swiped the lovely Miss Bach right out from under Ringo's giant fucking nose.

Ringo is my fucking hero. I'd like to be in his octopussy's garden (see what I did there?)

Did you know she comes from Queens? Born in Rosedale! Grew up in Jackson Heights!

The Queen of Queens! Not since Lucy Liu charmed the shit out of everyone in Lucky Number Slevin has a Queens goddess reigned so supreme on the big screen.

Babs Bach's outfits in Spy are phenomenal. I remember as a wee lad looking at the movie reverentially and thinking about how fantastic her tits looked...when all you got is free tv those ta tas are a real treat!

Another great perf in Force 10 From Navarone. I always found it heartbreaking as a boy seeing her get shot in the back like that by Omar Sharif. Was that Omar Sharif? [Franco Nero -- john.]

Triple X shouldn't have been surprised by the car if she stole the blueprints! You're right! She does have a shocked look at first like, "Oh snippety snaps! This car is badass!"

I always wondered why subs in WWII didn't invent something that could shoot at ship's depth charging them while submerged...or at least release mines that float to the surface or home in on propellers or something instead of just sitting there waitin' to be blowed up.

I can understand Johnny Lennon falling for Yoko though, he first met her when she was crawling around in a sack as some sort of performance art. Adorable.

McCarts is an idiot and I have no idea who Harrison was with.

The Monkees really cleaned up from what I heard. Incredibly I only recently realized they were American aside from Davy Jones! The fact that they never had English accents was lost on me.

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