Question: "Name the five worst Bond girls."
Andrew's Answer:
1. Dr. Christmas Jones - The World is Not Enough (you're kidding, right?)
2. Stacey Sutton - A View to a Kill
3. Pam Bouvier - License to Kill
4. Plenty O'Toole - Diamonds Are Forever
5. Tiffany Case - Diamonds are Forever
Scott's Answer: In no particular order...
1. Jinx - Die Another Day (I'm sorry but Halle Berry did nothing for me in this movie - hard to believe they were considering a Jinx spinoff movie at one point!)
2. Mary Goodnight - The Man with the Golden Gun
3. Dr. Christmas Jones - The World is Not Enough
4. Stacey Sutton - A View to a Kill
5. Tiffany Case - Diamonds are Forever
22 comments:
I guess it would be too much to ask you two to mention why they made your list. Remember, at least as far as the films are concerned, a bond girl is essentially asked to be "hot" and swoon over J.B. Acting chops are not part of the equation. So, for example, anyone who saw "Swordfish" and saw Halle Berry in her tidy whitey panties cannot claim she deliverers the goods on that count. Same for Denise in Wild Things. So what the heck is the problem? As Ricky Ricardo use to say "s'plain!" ;)
Jed, Apparently, it was too much to ask. I have no idea why we didn't.
I would have thought Plenty would have been spared on the name alone.
Jed, read the Diamonds Are Forever review. She's shrill, pointless and unpleasant.
Agree about Mary Goodnight. She's a Matt Helm character transplanted into a Bond movie:the dumb broad spy who's half comic relief and half lazy plot complication. She bookends the southern sheriff clown in turning the movie into a farce.
Don't remember a lot of the character's names, been a long time since I have seen many of the films so:
1. Tanya Roberts (who I believe got her SAG card in a Cheerios box) A View to a Kill, flat, flat, boring.
2. Dr. Goodhead: Moonraker (I do remember one very funny thing in MAD's parody "Moneyraker." In typical fashion they change the character's name to "Dr. GoodTUSH." At one point Bond addresses her as Dr. Greattush!)
3. Maryim D'Abo, whom a lot on this site apparently like, but I found her rather uninspiring in "Living Daylights."
4. Maud Adams in Octopussy. As the great Mr. Lee of comic book fame would opine "nuff said."
5. The aforementioned pair from "Diamonds are Forever."
Jed -
Interesting observation, yet if we judge only on looks, then there wouldn't be any "worst" Bond girls!
But some actresses are better than others, and some Bond girls are better written than others.
And for some reason, Halle Berry in short hair doesn't do anything for me. Long hair, yes. Short hair, no. :-)
K -
The Man with the Golden Gun might be my least favorite Bond film (at least for the first two decades of the franchise's existence). Miss Goodnight is part of the reason why.
Christopher Lee and composer John Barry aren't enough to save it!
guys, I was just kidding you-- your choices are as good as any
K, Yeah, she certainly fit right in in The Man With The Golden Gun.
PikeBishop, Great choices. I don't understand the love for D'Abo. Was she supposed to play narcoleptic or was she just a horrible actress?
And yeah, Maud Adams is truly flat. Talk about phoning it in!
Scott, Yeah, I don't think looks are what matter in this one, total lack of screen presence is what matters.
Consider my list to be all the girls who's names are sex puns. That's just too much for me.
But I still love the Christmas joke. LOLOLOLOL!!!!!
tryanmax, Sadly, most of the sex puns lack cleverness.
1. Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) A VIEW TO A KILL --crass, dull and just overall bad... never cast a black hole as your leading lady.
2. Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards) THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH --a pneumatic child playing dress-up as a professional scientist, badly.
3. Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN --an embarrassing bimbo, who apparently wandered in from a Benny Hill chase sequence. Too bad, as Ekland has been decent in some other, prior films (THE DOUBLE MAN, MACHINE GUN MCCAIN, the original GET CARTER).
4. Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) MOONRAKER --a charisma-free mannequin, programmed to bore.
5. Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER --ultimately, a plastic ditz.
Maud Adams, Maryim D'Abo and some others didn't bother me, as they were merely forgettable, rather than outright bad or insipid. And I kind of like Pam Bouvier, it's just that her part wasn't very well written. I'd put all of these characters/actresses at various mid-range levels in an overall list.
I didn't count characters like Plenty O'Toole or Rosie (from LIVE & LET DIE), as they were smaller supporting roles. If I had, 'Bibi Dahl' (Lynn Holly Johnson), from FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, may well have snagged the 'worst Bond girl' title away from Tanya.
Backthrow, I guess that technically, they are all Bond girls, but I hadn't thought of Bibi Dahl. Wow, she sucked.
Just to clarify, I consider a "Bond Girl" or "Bond Woman" (as they must be referred to in this new age of Thought Nazis) to be the one who is in Bond's arms just before the credits roll, assuming she survived to the end of the movie. Anyone else he takes for a roll in the hay is just a mid-movie stepping stone to nailing the bad guy. To quote from (I think) You Only Live Twice, "Oh the things I do for England!"
So Honor Blackman and Jill St. John are Bond Girls, like it or lump it. Shirley Eaton and Lana Wood are not.
Dave, Ok. LOL! Clearly the term is ambiguous.
Went to see RiffTrax Live! (former MST3Kers Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett) have some fun with Starship Troopers last night. It took a little while, but the "Bond Girl" Denise Richards jokes finally did start to fly. I found the coincidence of this article and the RiffTrax show happening on the same day quite interesting. Or should I be like Leroy Jethro Gibbs and think that there are no such thing as coincidences?
PDBronco, LOL! Yes, there are no coincidences! Clearly, the RiffTrax guys and CommentaramaFilms coordinate. :P
I didn't know they do live shows. I'll have to look for that! :D
It was performed live in Nashville and simulcasted in theaters by Fathom Events. It will be reshown Sept. 12. Check fathomevents.com. They will be doing Night of the Living Dead in October.
This show was actually funded by Kickstarter. They had hoped to do Twilight, but couldn't get the rights. So they went after this piece of epic cheese. Unfortunately they couldn't get the digital rights, so you won't be able to get it from the RiffTrax website. You'll have to catch the Sept. reshow at your local theater.
PDBronco, Thanks! I'll check that out.
"Night of the Living Dead" should be good. I think they do better with awkward movies than they do with slick ones, but "Twilight" would have been great... that film is calling out for a beatdown.
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