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In fact, Dr. Evil is a more rounded and consistent character than Blofeld ever was. Blofeld is an enigma of the character, who has somehow managed to reach great heights as an icon, and such success as a villain in each film in which he has appeared, despite having no fixed personality. He can turn on a dime from shadowy puppetmaster to New York hoodlum to weird crossdressing BBC variety show host. How can he do all this and remain so beloved? I blame Ian Fleming. From the character´s introduction in the 1961 novel Thunderball, he has been a colourless plot device: the guy who organizes all the bad stuff that happens. Despite the fact that Fleming spends an entire chapter explaining Blofeld´s history, he´s never anything more than a dull presence. Even his physical description is prosaic – he´s tall, fat, and has black hair. Wow! His appearance changes in each succeeding novel – On Her Majesty´s Secret Service (1963) and You Only Live Twice (1964) – and Bond never meets him more than fleetingly. The novels are among Fleming´s strongest, but it´s not because of Blofeld, who is essentially window dressing. Only in You Only Live Twice does he take on something approaching a personality, reaching a weird Hitlerian peak of insanity during his brief appearance. Besides, it wasn´t the novels, as good as they are, that made Blofeld an icon. It was the films, and watching Blofeld´s progression as a villain throughout all seven (arguably, eight) movies makes for some weird viewing. What follows is a depressingly detailed rundown on the approach to Blofeld taken in each film, along with maybe a few insights into why and how he works so well. There will also be a feature called BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE, which will monitor the progress made by his pet lapcat – a snow-white Persian - through the films. The heartrending saga of one animal´s journey through triumph and heartbreak is gripping stuff. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) Here is our first exposure to the master of megalomania. The film´s director, Terence Young, deserves a lot of credit for doing what he did with the character; he´s just a deep voice, a pair of disembodied hands and the back of a chair. Young could have given him a face, but that would make him just another face in the crowd, and From Russia with Love contains a particularly colourful crowd of villains. This way, he´s a vaguely ominous presence, and for the most part, it works. As voiced by Eric Pohlmann (and represented in hand-form by Anthony Dawson), Blofeld makes an adequate impact in his brief scenes here; he executes a lackey, and gets a nice speech about Siamese fighting fish. Blofeld´s fish fetish here is in its formative stages; by 1967's You Only Live Twice, he would have graduated to an entire lagoon of piranha. And crediting him as being played by ? in the end-credits is just adorable. BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: in FRWL, Blofeld is bearing perhaps his most adorable incarnation of his cat. It has lovely big eyes and looks most unassuming, unlike the evil-looking beasts he would later acquire. The cat lives through the adventure, to reappear in: THUNDERBALL (1965) After sitting out Goldfinger(1964), and realizing that he´d missed out on Bond´s best adventure yet, Blofeld returned in Thunderball in a bungled attempt to reclaim the mantle of Mastermind Du Jour. This time, he upgrades from an office on a yacht to a full-blown Ken Adam conference room, and from poisoning a lackey to electrocuting him. His hands are Anthony Dawson´s again, but this time the voice sounds like Joseph Wiseman. For the record, he appears gaunt and with a full head of hair. I guess the failure of Operation Thunderball took its toll on poor Ernst, because when he reappeared in You Only Live Twice two years later he looked a little worse for wear. BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: assuming his previous cat didn´t get run over or lost, his From Russia with Love pet reappears, only slightly less cute this time. Maybe Blofeld changed his diet from Whiskas to Fancy Feast and he´s feeling low. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)
What´s most astonishing is that he only has a handful of lines and only a few minutes of screen-time, and still manages to dominate the entire film. The sheer pottiness of his villainous scheme has this Blofeld´s fingerprints all over it. The entire workings of SPECTRE bear his signature. It´s Blofeld´s hubris and overcompensation for his physical/sexual shortcomings that prove to be his ultimate undoing. If he hadn´t killed an innocent tourist for taking a snapshot of his HQ, Bond wouldn´t have a clue as to his location. Likewise, if Blofeld hadn´t sicced four heavily-armed helicopters onto him, Bond would´ve bypassed his volcano entirely. YOLT is one of the richest and most psychological Bond films, and that character is all in the plotting, even if it doesn´t appear to be in the dialogue or performances. And check out this admittedly bonkers pet theory: at no point in the film do any of the characters acknowledge that Bond´s “death’ at the outset is anything but literal. We can infer from this that Bond is actually dead, and the remainder of the film is his journey through the afterlife. The lyrics to the theme song say as much. And if Bond is dead, then what else can Blofeld be but Satan himself? He lives in an underground paradise of lava, after all. And if Blofeld is Satan, then obviously he´s Bond´s greatest villain. You could do a whole university paper on this damn movie. For miscellany´s sake, this Blofeld is incapable of blinking, has a piranha pool and knows how and when to use it, and loves his Mao clothing and loafers. Even if we didn´t have all this, Pleasance is eerie enough to make Blofeld qualify for a spot in the Bond Villain Hall Of Fame. This is the best Blofeld, and everyone knows it. Just ask Mike Myers, who parlayed Pleasance´s 10 minutes of screentime into an entire franchise of its own. BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: the cat finally sees some action in YOLT, and it isn´t pretty. When Bond´s ninja pals are shelling Blofeld´s control room, the roof caves in, and the cat absolutely freaks out. It would be sad if it weren´t so funny. What´s more, during some gunfire, it gets frightened and rushes out of Blofeld´s arms, presumably running off into the volcano complex. When the volcano self-destructs, the cat presumably destructs with it, the poor wee dear. I´d like to believe it found an escape route and lived a long happy life roaming the Japanese countryside, living off small birds and berries. But that´s a fool´s dream. Blofeld´s first and most beloved cat is dead, and Bond killed him. This means war. ON HER MAJESTY´S SECRET SERVICE (1969) It was Peter Hunt´s turn to direct, and because he was allegedly no fan of Donald Pleasance´s Blofeld, it was time to recast. While Telly Savalas is actually pretty great in the role, I´ll always miss Pleasance. Come on, how much fun would it have been to see him trying desperately to seduce Diana Rigg? Or to see him feverishly bobsledding? That´s comedy gold, right there. Or at least comedy bronze.
Savalas never reaches the batty, iconic heights that Pleasance did, but is a more than satisfying substitute, and has a terrific chemistry with the new Bond, George Lazenby. Also note the classic continuity bungle, wherein Blofeld does not recognize Bond, despite the fact they met at length in the previous film. This is because the filmmakers were smart enough to know that trying to solve petty concerns like that is just insulting to the audience´s intelligence, and decided to just make the damn movie. And what a movie it is. BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: Blofeld made a trip to the local SPCA and picked up another Persian cat. Sadly, it was not to be, as no sooner does he adopt him into the Blofeld family than Bond blows up Blofeld´s mountaintop lair, presumably killing the cat in the process. Savalas´ hoarse cry of anguish when he sees the place go up in flames takes on a true poignancy when one realizes that his beloved pet is still inside. In a way, this justifies Blofeld´s murder of Tracy. If some smug secret agent had killed two of my cats, I´d be out for revenge too. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) Blofeld makes his final official Eon appearance in Diamonds Are Forever, and I hate to admit it, but it´s his least effective. Despite its increasingly crappy reputation, DAF is actually a near-brilliant movie – slick, entertaining, intelligent and very, very funny. So funny, in fact, that it remains the only James Bond movie not to have a
This Blofeld plans to use smuggled diamonds to create a laser to blackmail the United States, and it´s not so much a grand enterprise for him as it is a mild annoyance in which he has little real interest; it´s just a way for him to raise some money to finally make a down-payment on his plasma TV. He has no real hard feelings towards Bond, or vice versa. After all, this isn´t the same Blofeld who murdered his wife in the last movie. Indeed, this Bond didn´t even get married in the last movie – YOLT, OHMSS, and DAF all exist in their own hermetically-sealed universes, each more concerned with entertaining the audience than filling in continuity gaps for obsessed nerds. He´s well-played by Gray, who has a premium on funny lines courtesy writer Tom Mankiewicz, and who manages to invest this Blofeld with a few layers beyond Charming Bad Guy; he can be surprisingly cruel, get really pissy at times, and isn´t afraid to run away when the going gets tough. Ultimately, though, this characterisation just isn´t as memorable as Pleasance´s. He also has way too much hair. BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: Blofeld not only has another cat, but has picked up cats for all the various clones he has made of himself. This leads to squabbles amongst the cats, possibly caused by the fact that Blofeld has given his own cat a diamond necklace, while the other cats go unadorned. Cats can be so bitchy. 007 manages to kill Blofeld´s cat again, by blowing up his oil rig with the cat still on it. Jeez, Bond is kind of a dick. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977) Blofeld was originally slated to appear as the villain in this Bond classic, but copyright got in the way, so they renamed him Stromberg and continued as is. Stromberg here is clearly Blofeld, right down to his fish tank, bonkers scheme for world domination, and his sage manner. Had Curt Jurgens´ character been named Blofeld rather than Stromberg, he would actually be the closest to Fleming´s original, more grounded conception. But it´s a moot point. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981) Blofeld makes a beautifully unofficial appearance here as “Wheelchair Villain’." He is played by John Hollis, is bald, and is confined to a wheelchair and neck brace. He concocts a poorly thought-out plan to kill Bond by trapping him in a helicopter and then making the helicopter fly around in circles, or something. Bond escapes and exacts revenge on Blofeld by dumping him into a chimney. Blofeld tries to bargain with Bond by infamously offering him, “a delicatessen… in stainless steel!’" This is clearly a step down from a hollow volcano or mountaintop fortress, and this, combined with Blofeld´s new invalid status, elicits more sympathy for the guy than ever before. The concept for this sequence is interesting, and plays like a mini-sequel to On Her Majesty's Secret Service: it begins with Bond visiting Tracy´s grave before evening the odds with Blofeld. Blofeld´s injuries is clearly intended to be a hangover from Savalas´ condition at the end of OHMSS. It´s a noble attempt to follow up on what had for too long been the black sheep of the series, but is too slight and clumsy to have any real impact. It could also be interpreted as a stab at Kevin McClory, who had co-created Blofeld with Fleming and who now held the rights to the character. In dismissing Blofeld so easily, Eon´s Cubby Broccoli likewise dismissed McClory´s attempts to mount a rival Bond franchise… in stainless steel! BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: the cat survives for the first time in ages, but winds up lost and alone somewhere in the Becton gasworks in London. I like to believe it was adopted by a hobo, whereupon the two of them hitchhiked across Europe getting into adventures and living happily ever after, thereby giving The Saga of Blofeld´s Cat the happy ending it deserves. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983) Kevin McClory finally got his rival production off the ground. Never Say Never Again is a lot of fun, from Sean Connery´s sprightly reappearance down to the brief cameo by good old Ernst. Here he is played by noted character actor Max Von Sydow in a manner that some have called a transparent imitation of Sigmund Freud. I don´t know enough about Freud to comment on this connection, but Von Sydow is an effective, if too gentle, Blofeld in his brief scenes. He´s more a kindly grandfather who offers you a bowl of Werther´s Originals every time you go around to his house than an international terrorist. BLOFELD´S CAT UPDATE: there´s really not much to say, except that this is Blofeld´s least official cat yet! And it´s intriguing that McClory is copying stuff from the official Bond films rather than from the novel, which is supposedly the basis of the whole enterprise. Well, as you can see, Blofeld has made a fascinating, if messy and awkward, journey through the Bond films. Because his appearance and persona change from film-to-film, it´s impossible to get a handle on Blofeld´s character – depressingly, but also impressively, his iconic nature can be traced down to Pleasance´s 10 minutes of screentime in You Only Live Twice, also, not coincidentally, the only occasion where he truly steps up to the mantle of Bond´s opposite number. Excitingly, Eon once again has the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE. Even more excitingly, the most recent film at the time of this writing, Casino Royale, promises to lead Bond face-to-face with the figurehead of a mysterious terrorist organization. SPECTRE? Blofeld? Dare we hope? This, combined with the fact that the thoroughly bald Ben Kingsley has expressed a great desire to play a Bond villain, opens a lot of fun doors. Is Blofeld James Bond´s greatest villain? Insofar as Bond´s greatest villain can have no fixed personality, yes. His cat, on the other hand, has been a consistent pleasure, and his legacy has been a joy to watch unfold. I hereby dedicate this article to those cats who couldn´t be here with us today; and I raise a bowl of jellimeat to you all.
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Now this is what we came to see. Blofeld is finally given a face, and it´s the creepiest shit ever. As played by Donald Pleasance, Blofeld is the polar opposite of James Bond; he is a small, frail nightmare of a villain; almost stillborn; a sadist; a bully; strangely asexual, and compensates by living inside a huge vagina (volcano), firing a large silver phallus out to do
his dirty work, and stroking his pussy. His surroundings and actions say more about him than any long-winded expository dialogue possibly could, and we have that most economical of Bond directors, Lewis Gilbert, and that most witty of writers, Roald Dahl, to thank for that.
Savalas´ Blofeld is more human and realistic. He´s obviously an American this time, versus the vaguely Middle-European grottiness of the previous Blofelds, and the effect is that this Blofeld is more of a hoodlum than a megalomaniac. He´s like a brutal former school bully trying desperately to come off as smarter, more elegant and more cultured than he really is, and the results are effective and quite fascinating. Blofeld´s entire scheme this time – straight from the pages of Fleming – involves trying to win the official title of Count. And what more could this Blofeld possibly want than a vain title? Savalas never lets the pretentious mask slip, except in the final scene; beaten, broken, and all his snobbish dreams in ruins, Blofeld reverts from aspiring Count to street thug, and classlessly does a plain old drive-by on Bond and Tracy. No fancy piranha tanks this time. This is nasty stuff, and it contributes to the absolute gut-punch that is the ending.
serious bone in its entire body. That extends to Blofeld, who – as played now by Charles Gray – becomes a charming, rather fey crossdresser.
He´s not even remotely the same character we saw in OHMSS (just as that Blofeld was clearly not the Blofeld of YOLT), and to be honest, that character wouldn´t work here. The film´s tone is so consistent and smooth that anything as creepy as Donald Pleasance or as realistic as Telly Savalas would have undermined the entire enterprise.