Nobody Does it Better by Edward Gross

Author:Edward Gross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

OCTOPUSSY (1983)

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983)

It may have been the year of Return of the Jedi, WarGames, Risky Business, Scarface, Flashdance, The Right Stuff, The Big Chill, and Superman III, but 1983 also goes down in cinematic history as the Battle of the Bonds, with Roger Moore returning as 007 for the sixth time in Octopussy and, four months later, Sean Connery for his seventh in Kevin McClory’s rival production, Never Say Never Again.

While Octopussy may not have been an “All Time High” for the 007 films and continues to get a bad rap from some fans who loathe the fact that Roger Moore dresses up as a clown in the movie, we adore this film. With a fabulous pre-title sequence in which Bond uses a miniature Acrostar Mini Jet to complete his mission in a faux-Cuban Latin American country (“So you’re a Toro, too?”), the Cold War–era plot is credible and compelling. A crazed Russian general, Orlov—played with scenery-chewing abandon by an unhinged Steven Berkoff—wants to detonate a nuclear bomb on a NATO airbase to turn Europeans against the United States and pave the way for a lightning-strike Soviet invasion of Europe.

All of this takes place against the backdrop of a traveling circus, which is a front for a smuggling operation run by Octopussy (a very sexy Maud Adams, making her second and far more memorable appearance in a Bond film), who in turn is being manipulated by exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), who is using her operation to carry out Orlov’s plans. Mixed in as a kind of MacGuffin is a valuable Fabergé egg that everyone wants. Elements of the plot came from the Ian Fleming short stories “Octopussy” and “The Property of a Lady.”

RAY MORTON

Following the success of For Your Eyes Only, Richard Maibaum and Michael Wilson, along with George MacDonald Fraser, again combined two Fleming short stories into a single narrative, but this time their efforts were much less successful. The overall narrative has two separate plot strands, the first involving General Orlov and his plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on a U.S. airbase, and the second involving Octopussy, Kamal Khan, and the smuggling of Fabergé eggs.

Returning as director was For Your Eyes Only’s John Glen, who right from the start had to deal with the fact that there was, once again, no guarantee that Roger Moore would be returning as Bond.

JOHN GLEN

(director, Octopussy)

Every film we did, there was always a big discussion of, would Roger be doing the next one? Of course, that was hard bargaining between Cubby and Roger’s agent, but fortunately good sense prevailed and we kept staying with Roger. At the same time, he was getting a bit old, and we knew we’d have to replace him soon. We looked. We couldn’t find anyone, quite honestly, who was in his class at that time. But I was very happy that he stayed on. Roger and I got on ever so well together. We had great fun, and we improvised some wonderful humor in the film.

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