{"id":3782,"date":"2024-09-02T21:46:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T21:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3782"},"modified":"2024-10-13T19:12:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T23:12:03","slug":"diamonds-are-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/02\/diamonds-are-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamonds Are Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Diamonds Are Forever <\/strong>(1971)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 120 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, sexual situations)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Guy Hamilton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Barry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ted Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 17, 1971 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood, Jimmy Dean, Bruce Cabot, Lois Maxwell, Norman Burton, Joseph Furst, Bruce Glover, Putter Smith, Marc Lawrence, Laurence Naismith, David Bauer, Sig Haig, Desmond Llewelyn, Bernard Lee, Leonard Barr, Lola Larson (Mary Hiller), Trina Parks. Opening Song: \u201cDiamonds Are Forever\u201d by Shirley Bassey\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $43.8M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0After George Lazenby’s lackluster performance as James Bond in On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service, Sean Connery returned to do the role one more time in Diamonds Are Forever<\/strong>. He aged a little during his four-year absence, but it\u2019s still great to see the OG back in action. Welcome back, Sean! We really missed you.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Connery isn\u2019t the only one returning to the fold for Diamonds Are Forever<\/strong>. Guy Hamilton, the chap who directed the highly entertaining Goldfinger, is back behind the camera for this sixth outing. I\u2019m pleased to report he brings the fun back to the series. It\u2019s a relatively light-hearted affair that has our hero taking on an international diamond smuggling ring. But first, he has some old business to take care of.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The movie opens with Bond looking for his archnemesis Blofeld (Gray, The Rocky Horror Picture Show). He made it personal when he murdered 007\u2019s wife at the end of the previous film. He \u201cinterrogates\u201d several of the villain\u2019s criminal associates before finding him at a medical facility that specializes in creating lookalikes. Long story short, Bond drowns Blofeld in a pool of superheated mud…. or so he thinks. It\u2019s not over, not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now that Blofeld has been dealt with, M (Lee) gives Bond a new assignment. He\u2019s to find out who\u2019s behind the aforementioned diamond smuggling ring. It\u2019s not going to be easy seeing as how everybody who comes into contact with the latest shipment ends up dead at the hands of hitmen Mr. Wint (Glover, Chinatown) and Mr. Kidd (jazz bassist Smith). Posing as smuggler Peter Franks, Bond goes to Amsterdam to meet his contact Tiffany Case (John, Tony Rome) for the handoff. Together, they smuggle the goods into the US where they\u2019re to be passed off to another smuggler. Naturally, it doesn\u2019t go down as smoothly as it should.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Somehow, the diamonds are connected to Willard Whyte (country singer Dean), a reclusive millionaire who lives atop a luxury Las Vegas hotel-casino. Nobody\u2019s seen him in years. Take a guess what real life millionaire he\u2019s modeled after. When Bond goes poking around, he gets the surprise of his life. Guess who else is involved in what\u2019s going on? Yep, you guessed it, BLOFELD! Now would you like to guess what\u2019s in his evil mind this time? Ah, you got it again, WORLD DOMINATION!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Diamonds Are Forever<\/strong> has some interesting characters including Bond\u2019s CIA ally Felix Leiter (Burton, Bloodsport) on hand to assist his British counterpart in taking down the bad guy(s). But nobody is as interesting as Messrs. Wint and Kidd, the original ambiguously gay duo. They get off some of the best lines in the picture. While tailing Bond and Tiffany to the US, Kidd comments, \u201cI must say Miss Case seems quite attractive [pause] for a lady.\u201d He follows it up with a \u201cHeh heh heh heh!\u201d while his partner just glares at him unamused. You gotta hand it to these guys, they love their work. I\u2019m also quite fond of the two female assassins, Bambi (gymnast Mary Hiller) and Thumper (dancer Trina Park), Bond encounters late in the game. These babes are true bad asses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It just wouldn\u2019t be a James Bond picture without the Talking Villain. You can always count on Blofeld to play the part which he does here. Gray does an excellent job as the supervillain although second to Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice. He has this air of quiet menace about him as he details his nefarious scheme to 007. Writers Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz, adapting Ian Fleming\u2019s 1956 novel, up the stakes by giving us more than one Blofeld (body doubles) which makes it difficult for Bond to know who to shoot. It\u2019s pure silliness, but that\u2019s what makes these movies fun.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Connery does his usual great job as James Bond. At this point, I need to explain something. Diamonds Are Forever<\/strong> is the last official <\/em>Bond movie he starred in. He would reprise the role one more time in 1983\u2019s Never Say Never Again which is NOT part of the series proper. It\u2019s the second of two Bond films not to be produced by Saltzman and Broccoli, the first being the 1967 spoof Casino Royale. As good as he is here, he looks ready to pass the torch. Jill St. John makes an okay Bond Girl. She\u2019s not altogether trustworthy or all that bright, but she\u2019s hot. I wanted to see more of Plenty O\u2019Toole (Wood, Peyton Place), the girl 007 meets in a casino. Their hook-up is made brief by a thug throwing her out a hotel window right into the pool below. I just love her name!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Diamonds Are Forever<\/strong> has plenty o\u2019action (see what I did there?) with the topper being a chase involving a moon buggy in the desert which leads into a second sequence where every cop in Vegas chases Bond through the Strip. All of it is extremely well executed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I enjoyed Diamonds Are Forever<\/strong> very much. It\u2019s what a James Bond movie should be, fun and entertaining and silly. It\u2019s a great send-off for Connery who would be replaced by Roger Moore (The Saint) in the next movie Live and Let Die.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 United Artists\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 120 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, sexual situations)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Guy Hamilton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Barry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ted Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 17, 1971 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sean Connery, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood, Jimmy Dean, Bruce Cabot, Lois Maxwell, Norman Burton, Joseph […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-james-bond-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Diamonds-Are-Forever-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4814,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions\/4814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}