Bond-arama: No. 006 You Only Live Twice (1967)

It has become fashionable to dislike You Only Live Twice. The plot is ridiculous! There’s a volcano lair! How can Bond possibly pass for Japanese? Heck, Connery himself admitted he phoned in the role in this one because he was getting sick of the rock star treatment. Still, for the public at large, this is essential Bond. And frankly, if this film hadn’t proven so strong, then it wouldn’t have been copied again as The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker and Tomorrow Never Dies. This film has earned its place at No. 006 of 0023.

Plot Quality: The plot begins well. The story opens with Bond taking a woman to bed in Hong Kong. Some gunmen enter the room and shoot the bed full of bullets. The police appear and announce Bond dead moments later. He gets a burial at sea in full view of the public. Of course, Bond isn’t dead. The idea is to fake Bond’s death so SPECTRE will think he’s dead and turn their attentions elsewhere. And this is a pretty smart way to start the film... only, Bond does nothing to maintain a low profile after this.

Meanwhile, on an American spaceship in orbit, one of the astronauts is doing a spacewalk. This goes off without a hitch, until a mysterious blip appears on their radar. That blip is an unidentified spacecraft which opens up and swallows the American spacecraft. The Americans think the Soviets are behind this, but the British have their doubts. They believe the unidentified spacecraft originated and landed in Japan.

Bond is sent to Japan to investigate. Upon arrival, he is contacted by a woman named Aki. She is an assistant to the leader of the Japanese Secret Service, Tiger Tanaka. Aki introduces Bond to the local MI-6 operative, Henderson (Charles Gray). Gray claims to have proof that a Japanese organization is behind the spaceship hijacking, but before he can share that proof with Bond, he is killed. Bond follows the assassins back to the corporate offices of Osato Chemicals, where a fight ensues and he steals some documents. Bond then flees the scene and is picked up by Aki. Bond is suspicious of Aki and follows her when she flees into the subway. Once there, he falls through a trap door, which takes him to meet Tiger.

Tiger has the documents examined and finds a microdot which indicates that a tourist was killed for taking a seemingly harmless picture of a freighter, the Ning-Po. In light of this, Bond decides to investigate Osato Chemicals by posing as a buyer for a foreign chemical company looking for a license to manufacture. Bond plays cat and mouse with Mr. Osato and then gets chased by thugs. After his escape, he decides to investigate the docks because of the connection to the Ning-Po. There he is captured and taken to Mr. Osato’s secretary Helga Brandt who seduces him and then tries to kill him in a staged plane crash.

Up to now, the plot has been pretty solid. Yes, there are some silly bits, like why Bond wouldn’t know what Tiger looks like or why Osato didn’t just shoot him in his office or why Brandt didn’t just shoot him when she had him tied up. But all told, the story holds together very nicely. Sadly, that is about to change.

Bond decides to investigate the area where the Ning-Po was docked when the photo was taken. To do this, they stage an elaborate wedding, after a training sequence, so Bond can pose as a local fisherman. This feels like padding and its very, very hard to believe Connery could pass as Japanese; nor does it make sense that he would waste time doing this. Bond then discovers that something is strange with a dormant local volcano. Bond investigates and an aerial dogfight takes place between helicopters and Bond in a mini-copter. Then Bond realizes he must take a closer look at the volcano, so he climbs to the top and discovers that the lake in the volcano is fake.

Bond breaks in and discovers a secret base, complete with launch facilities. He tries to get onboard the rocket that is about to launch and gets caught. Then he is taken to the mastermind behind all of this, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence). Pleasence hams it up and tells Bond he’s going to kill him. But just then, Tiger’s ninjas attack the volcano. Pleasence flees. A titanic battle ensues with color-coordinated henchmen. Bond and Kissy (who replaced Aki when she was killed) escape and the film ends with them kissing in a raft.

It’s easy to see why this film is slowly falling out of favor with some people. The film has the travelogue feel we all like and a good deal of action and the first part of the plot is good. BUT, much of the plot ends up being pointless, e.g. why fake Bond’s death if he’s not going to keep a low profile? And unfortunately, once we get to the fishing village, things start going off the rails. For example, the idea that Bond would take time out to perform a fake wedding with only hours left before the next launch is ludicrous. Nor is there any reason for it, i.e. why not just snoop around the normal way? The volcano lair is WAY over the top, though it will become a common feature in these films. Blofeld turns out to be a total moron and coward, which diminishes him a lot. And then you have the Austin Powers effect. Austin Powers parodied the elements at the end of this film so well that it’s made it hard to take the last thirty minutes of this film seriously.

Still, the scene of him following the assassin to Osato Chemicals and doing some spying there is some of the best work in the series. They idea of the hijacked spaceship is extremely cool, even by today’s standards. The stakes are high as the US and Russia are on the verge of going to war over this. And the whole thing really does feel right for a Bond film. Moreover, this is one of the five films they always show in prime time during Bond-a-thons, attesting to its continued popularity. This film has earned its place.

Bond Quality: Connery has claimed that he didn’t take his role seriously in this film, but honestly, Connery at half-speed is better than most of the others at their best. What’s more, Connery puts in a truly awful performance in Diamonds Are Forever, which makes his performance here seem quite normal by comparison, i.e. it’s hard to see this as a poor performance given what he does next. Moreover, Connery’s lack of intensity actually kind of works in this film because it gives his character a sense of calm which makes the unreality of the rest of the plot easier to take. Had he been as serious as he was in Dr. No in this film, he would have felt out of place.

I also wonder, quite frankly, if Connery really did tank his performance as he indicates or if that was simply a self-serving claim for an actor who wasn’t able to handle the pressure of the role? Comparing his performance here to his performance in Diamonds Are Forever, I can’t help but think that Connery really did do his best.

The Bond Girl: The Bond girls here are not a strong suit. Aki is played by Akiko Wakabayashi and she doesn’t stand out. The role is less than challenging and the actress doesn’t add much. In this film, Bond’s relationships with M and Q and Tiger are more important. Aki is replaced by Kissy Suzuki after Aki gets poisoned and I dare you to tell the difference.

The other possible Bond girl is Karin Dor as Helga Brandt, but honestly, she’s a little too old and too, uh, East German to be sexy. She’s barely in the film and when she is, she spends more time letting Bond escape than doing anything constructive.

Villain Quality: Oy vey. I’m a big fan of Donald Pleasence in horror films, but he’s really out of his league as a villain in a Bond film. He plays Blofeld in such a near-cartoonish fashion that he became the obvious choice for Mike Meyers to parody as Doctor Evil. He has none of the menace of the prior Blofeld or Largo or Red Grant or the mathematical precision of Dr. No. He is like Goldfinger’s weaker brother. This is too bad too because Blofeld’s scheme is ingenious.

This is also the first time in a Bond film where you feel like Bond should have died. Various characters in prior films could have killed Bond, but defects in their characters saved Bond, e.g. Grant’s sadistic ego in wanting to see Bond admit Grant was better before he killed him, Dr. No’s arrogance in dismissing Bond as a threat, and Goldfinger’s insecurity in keeping Bond around as insurance. Nothing like that saves Bond here. Blofeld could have shot him dead at several points in this film, but didn’t for no good reason. That hurts this film.

All in all, this is a top Bond film. It has one of the best moments in the franchise in it, the scheme is one of the best, and despite claims to the contrary, Connery does an excellent job as Bond. There are negatives, and the Austin Powers films have parodied those heavily, which may ultimately drag this film down a couple notches. But right now, this film sits where it belongs at No. 006 of 0023.