Well I have finally reached the last official Sean Connery Bond film and after the slighly off key On Her Majesties Secret Service it is back to the usual with this Bond outting.
The packaging as usual is the black on gold but as you look at it on your shelf, the title is not as bold as some of the others.
This film starts off with Bond looking for Blofeld and seeing as he killed Mrs Bond in the previous film, Connery beautifully portray's Bond with a bit of a vengeful streak. Having 'killed' off Blofeld in the mud bath, it would appear that his mission is over.
Upon getting back to London, bond is tasked by M to try and track down some diamonds that are being smuggled out of South Africa. To do this, Bond assumes the identitfy of Peter Franks, who is detained by MI6. Bond makes contact with the girl, Tiffany Case (Jill St John) and assumes the role of Franks, but then has to kill him as he escaped the British authorities. This is performed in a very quick and exciting fist fight in a lift.
Bond then uses the dead Franks to smuggle the diamonds into America, meeting Felix Leiter on the way. Little does Bond know though, that he is being tailed by two gay hitmen, Mr Kidd and Mr Wint, who are cleaning up the smuggling operation.
Bond, who is delivering the diamonds, is then nearly cremated by the hitmen, but saved when the diamonds he delivered are found to be fakes.
Tiffany case is then set up to collect the real diamonds and followed to see where the diamonds go. These are picked up by a scientist who is working for Willard Whyte, a Las Vegas recluse, and used to build a satellite which Bond finds in a desert installation. When it is found that he is an intruder, he escapes in a moon buggy to be picked up after the desert chase by Tiffany Case.
Upon getting back to Las Vegas they are spotted by the LVPD and so begins on of the most exciting chases in the Bond series where Bond single handedly wrecks most of the LVPD police cars in a car park.
Suspecting Whyte of involvement in the diamonds thefts, he mountaineers outside the Whyte house hotel to gain access to the penthouse at the top and confront Whyte, who turns out to be non other than Blofeld and Blofeld. It appears that Bond killed a look alike at the start of the film and that Blofeld had been creating doubles to avoid detection. Bond sucessfully kills on of the Blofelds but is then rendered unconcious when leaving the penthouse at gunpoint.
Enter our two gay hitmen again, who dump the unconcious Bond in a sewerage pipe in the desert, where he is promptly 'buried'. The line about the tarts handkerchief being the line later on that gives away the hitmen.
Escaping from the pipe, Bond rescues the real Whyte and then works out where Blofeld's HQ is. Cue the rescue of Tiffany case and the destruction of Blofeld and his oilrig lair.
Again this films restoration has been meticulously done by computer and the film print is almost as new. The sound again has been spruced up and in unison this gives an 'as new' look to the film, far surpassing the original 'Special Edition' release.
The features are again split into the seperate options, giving you the new features and the old ones, the original features far surpassing the new.
The original Patrick McNee maming of feature is by far the best and is worth a watch, while the usual trailers and radio spots are at best a time killer.
The newer features are centred around interviews and making of spots that encompass the stunts and action sequences. The best of these are the interview with Connery where he explains why he came back for this one film.
On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed this film and now wait for the delivery of the next film, Live and Let Die, starting the Roger Moore era.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Action/Adventure - Director: Peter Jackson - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring:Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Andy Serkis
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Mr Willard & Mr Kidd make this film for me, two great performances
clownfoot 05.09.2006 17:52
Some detailed stuff, but I'd prefer to hear more of your reasoning regarding why you consider this a five star movie. What makes it so special that it's worth recommending to other consumers? Alboy
IanM73 05.09.2006 17:19
Good review. I haven't seen this in a little while now. ian
A fortune in stolen diamonds thrusts James Bond into action in this thrilling adventure! ... more
Sean Connery returns as Agent 007 and teams up with the beautiful Tiffany Case (Jill St John) to prevent his nemesis Blofeld (Charles Gray) from using the diamonds...
![James Bond - Diamonds Are Forever (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [DVD] [1971]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78489382.jpg "James Bond - Diamonds Are Forever (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [DVD] [1971]")
![Diamonds Are Forever [Ultimate Edition]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/98677577.jpg "Diamonds Are Forever [Ultimate Edition]")
Sep 5th, 2006
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