You Only Live Twice (1967) United Artists/Action-Adventure RT: 117 minutes No MPAA Rating (mild language, violence, some sexual content) Director: Lewis Gilbert Screenplay: Roald Dahl Music: John Barry Cinematography: Freddie Young Release date: June 13, 1967 (US & UK) Cast: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Tetsuro Tamba, Mie Hama, Teru Shimada, Karin Dor, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, Charles Gray, Bernard Lee, Donald Pleasence. Opening Song: “You Only Live Twice” by Nancy Sinatra Box Office: $43M (US)
Rating: ****
It’s not considered a plot spoiler if I tell you James Bond (Connery) is killed before the opening credits of You Only Live Twice, is it? And would it also be a spoiler if I told you MI6 faked his death so he could carry out his latest assignment? Well, ask yourself this? What kind of James Bond movie doesn’t have James Bond in it? It would be like a Jason Bourne movie without Jason Bourne. Oh wait, they did that already with The Bourne Legacy. You saw how that turned out, right?
You Only Live Twice, which marks the entry of director Lewis Gilbert (Alfie) to the series, is when things started going OTT. A mysterious spacecraft has swallowed up an American space shuttle and the Russians are being blamed for it. British intelligence suspects otherwise as the craft landed somewhere in the Sea of Japan. The “late” 007 goes right from his burial at sea to MI6 HQ (temporarily relocated to a ship) where M (Lee) sends him to Tokyo to investigate. The Americans plan to launch another shuttle in three weeks’ time so Bond doesn’t have all the time in the world to figure out what’s going on. If he doesn’t, it could mean WWIII.
No surprise here, the evil organization SPECTRE is behind the whole thing. Somebody wants to start a war between the US and the USSR. The baddie conducting the operation is none other than SPECTRE head Blofeld himself played by Donald Pleasence of the Halloween movies. Yes, we finally get to see the supervillain face-to-face. It was worth the wait. He’s the biggest bad guy of them all in the Bond-verse. We’re talking about a guy who feeds people who fail him to piranha. This is the fate that befalls female assassin Helga Brandt (Dor, Topaz) after Bond survives her attempt on his life (after she sleeps with him, of course). Pleasence does a great job in the role. He gets off good lines like “This organization does not tolerate failure.” and “I shall look forward personally to exterminating you, Mr. Bond.”
You Only Live Twice, in all its silliness, is a four-star spy movie. Among other things, it has ninjas. That’s right, NINJAS! No, Sho Kosugi isn’t among them [insert sad face emoji here]. Bond takes a two-day crash course in ninjutsu before heading to the island where Blofeld and his minions are carrying out their evil plan from his hidden base in a hollowed-out volcano. As far as final battles go, this is a good one.
Naturally, gadgets guy Q (Llewelyn) stops by to outfit Bond with his latest invention, a really cool mini-helicopter (“Little Nellie”) that can fire machine guns, launch rockets, heat-seeking missiles and aerial mines. It comes in handy when Bond finds himself in an air battle with four helicopters. If there’s one thing You Only Live Twice doesn’t lack, it’s action. There’s a lot of it here.
The majority of You Only Live Twice is set in Japan in 1967 which means you’re going to see some blatant political incorrectness here. At one point, somebody says, “In Japan, men always come first, women come second.” to which Bond replies “I just might retire to here.” That’s nothing compared to what happens a little later. Bond is made up to look Japanese in order to gain access to the island without raising suspicion. He looks about as convincing as C. Thomas Howell posing as a black student in Soul Man. Some would consider this offensive; I am NOT one of them. I think it’s just silly. Also, this whole PC thing has gotten out of hand.
The usual elements are all present and accounted for in You Only Live Twice from the cool gadgets to John Barry’s classic score. The theme song by Nancy Sinatra is terrific. Bond still manages to sleep with almost every female character, some of whom are lethal and all of whom are gorgeous. He still likes his vodka martinis “shaken not stirred” although he’s not above drinking sake as long as it’s served at room temperature. Connery is the quintessential James Bond. No, let me rephrase, he IS James Bond. Sadly, he would (temporarily) leave the series after this outing. I’ll talk about that more in my next review, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
The plot of You Only Live Twice is like something out of a spy comic book. Gilbert keeps things moving fast with a plot that reveals itself in its own time. The script, by Roald Dahl (YES, that Roald Dahl!), is smart and well-written. It’s one of the best of the early Bond films.
