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James McMahon --
Connery, overweight and jowly, sleepwalks through a dull film set in Las Vegas, where elegant Euro-Bond should never be. But it is still Connery and that alone elevates this film. This was the first film in the series to look tired. The film is actually good until the story reaches Las Vegas, at which point it lost any James Bond style. Bond in a Mustang, outrunning dozens of crashing police cars belonged in a Smokey and the Bandit film. Jill St John at 31 was sexier than many Bond Girls far younger (as long as the collar and cuffs match). It s great to see Dikko Henderson back again, and actor Ed Bishop too, but casting Jimmy Dean was unwelcome.
Robert Cotton --
Connery plays Connery playing James Bond, but it worked for me as my first Bond in the theatre. May not hold up in the real world, but for me a sentimental favorite.
Michael Reed --
Another ridiculous plot but played with much better gusto by Connery. Tight, witty dialogue and a captivating, undervalued score that is my second favorite soundtrack in the series. You can smell the alcohol during the casino scenes.
Paul Baack --
This film has so much working against it that it's hard to remember it as a James Bond film. To start with, you have a jowly, paunchy, very badly dressed Sean Connery no longer looking very much like James Bond. The film's primary setting, Las Vegas at it's 1970s nadir of shabbiness, is a distant outcropping of Ian Fleming's glittering fantasy universe. The film's primary villain and Bond's nemesis, the previously formidable Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is played lightly-in-the-loafers by Charles Gray and eventually winds up dressed in drag. Bond girl Tiffany Case, played by the delicious Jill St. John, apparently suffers brain damage midway through the picture; she starts off as a cool, competent criminal, but ends up running around in a bikini and saying "eek!" a lot. There are some upsides to the project: Tom Mankiewicz's screenplay is stuffed with truly witty dialogue; and John Barry's music score is among the very best of the series (as is Shirley Bassey's theme song.) But Ken Adam's sets are unremarkable this time, and the film's special effects are on a par with contemporaneous TV shows. A very sad state of affairs.
And don't get me started on Connery's pink pie!
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Bill Koenig --
Connery is back, showing more enthusiasm that YOLT, but not his best Bond. Tom Mankiewicz's rewrite of Richard Maibaum's first draft has many witty lines, though doesn't hold together (how did the fake diamonds not melt as Peter Franks's body was being cremated?). Film resembles Fleming's novel during the first half until we see it's another Blofeld plot.
Ed Werner --
The series started vering way off course here. Many feel that slapstick coincided with the
Moore era, but thats not the case. Unfortunately, instead of just some comedic elements,
the producers, writers and director decided to go for humourus scenes. IMHO, cinematically
the Bond's need some lighter moments to prepare you for the action elements. In the past,
this had been done with quick one liners, not with the keystone cops who actually show up
in the Las Vegas car chase. There are other scenes that represent this as well, but they are
too painful to go into here.
Apart from being out of shape in this film, Connery had aged considerably in the four years
since YOLT. The costume designer should be shot! We know we are in trouble during the
pretitle sequence when Bond walks poolside to Marie, wearing the precurser of a leisure
suit (unfortunately, we will see many Moore of them in the next few films). Then there is that
damned pink bib (sorry, I guess that was supposed to be a tie) that Bond runs around in.
Jill St. John looks great in this film, but can't act her way out of a paper bag. In general the
casting in this film sucks, Noman Burton as Felix Leiter, Charles Gray as Blofeld, Jimmy
Dean as Willard Whyte and how about the Wint and Kidd characters...
Bottom line...Bubble gum Bond.
Tom Zielinski --
EON and UA, disappointed with the box office return of On Her Majesty´s Secret Service and with no viable replacement in sight, offer Sean Connery the largest salary ever to return as 007. The Scotsman couldn´t refuse, though from an artistic standpoint perhaps he should have. John Barry, Ken Adam, Bernard Lee, and Guy Hamilton are also signed on, and new screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, is brought on board to co-write with Richard Maibaum. Mankiewicz´s contributions(?) precipitate the beginning of the Dark Ages (1971-1985) for the series. He demonstrated little feel or respect for the Fleming character, scant knowledge of the cinematic icon, and wrote the character and film with a curiously comic approach. The difference in tone between Diamonds are Forever and On Her Majesty´s Secret Service is the most obvious of any successive films in the series.
I admit, Diamonds are Forever is a guilty pleasure of mine, as it was the first Bond film I saw in the cavernous and sold out Schaumburg, IL - Woodfield Theater. It initiated me into the Bond phenomenon. The film does have some great and witty dialogue, but overall does not hold up well at all. The horrid costume design is particularly conspicuous, odd in a film series that had at one time been the epitome of fashion cool. Perhaps the worst example of all, the depiction of the previously ruthless Blofeld in drag is simply unforgivable.
Never Again.
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