Lewis Gilbert: A Bond Nerd’s Salute
Director Lewis Gilbert died a few days ago at the not-too-shabby age of 97. Discovering this today, it’s my pleasure to take a minute to pay tribute to a guy whose films added a good bit of fun to my childhood. Gilbert made the classic Michael Caine sex comedy ‘Alfie,’ and was known primarily for that and three James Bond movies.
His Bond films all tell the same exact story: evil organization (SPECTRE, and then rando rich dudes once the producers lost the rights to SPECTRE) hijacks nuclear submarines/space shuttles, tries to take over world, James Bond does his thing, a big battle with armies in color-coordinated outfits ensues. And dammit, what more do you need in a movie when you’re ten? (I definitely haven’t watched any of these things recently, I promise!)
‘You Only Live Twice,’ was set to be Connery’s last 007 outing at the time, and it’s not exactly hard to spot how bored he’d become with the role. Set in Japan, its portrayal of Asians hasn’t exactly aged well either (nor has the bit where they try to pass Bond off as Asian, along with the requisite sexism of the era). It was the series beginning to slide heavily into camp, and though everything I just mentioned separates the film from the best of the franchise, this movie also has a cool fake-out intro (James Bond dies!), a sweet little gadget-laden gyrocopter, a spectacular volcano set that cost as much money as the entire budget for the first Bond film and, best of all, the sublime Donald Pleasance giving the best and most iconic portrayal of Bond’s arch nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
‘The Spy Who Loved’ was the best of Gilbert’s 007 pictures, a lovely bit of adventure cheese that’s always ranked with my favorites in the series. It’s got the amazing ski-parachute jump, Richard Kiel as the towering steel-toothed henchman Jaws, a terrible disco score, a great theme song by Carly Simon, the underwater car, and the then-biggest-ever set, which required the creation of Pinewood studios and for which the producers enlisted the help of Stanley Kubrick to light (who agreed on condition this was to be kept quiet for years, and he not be associated with such a commercial series).
Then there was ‘Moonraker,’ James Bond’s response to the success of ‘Star Wars,’ and by far the silliest entry in the series, which is saying something if you’ve seen any of Roger Moore’s other pictures. (At one point there’s a pigeon that double-takes after seeing Bond ride a gondola up onto the shore and through Venice Square — if you needed an idea of just how silly I’m talking.) When children wrote fan letters after ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ saying they wished Jaws was a goodie instead of a baddie, Lewis said sure, and redeemed the villainous giant in the next one.
All that being said, ‘Moonraker’ remains technically impressive (it was nominated for an Oscar for its special effects) years later and features one of the best 007 opening sequences — a free-falling duel which took ten weeks to film with skydiving stuntmen operating 35mm cameras. So rest in peace, Lewis; thanks for the good times!
