Thunderball (1965)

Thunderball is a British thriller film first released in 1965, directed by Terence Young.  The film stars Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi and Rik Van Nutter.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


SPECTRE, a syndicate of the most dangerous criminals in the world, puts into operation its most audacious scheme – the hijacking of a NATO bomber containing two nuclear bombs.  An ultimatum is delivered to the British and American governments that unless £100 million is paid in uncut diamonds, one of the bombs will be detonated in one of their major cities.  In London, the double-O operatives are assembled and tasked with locating and retrieving the bombs before the deadline expires.  James Bond suspects that Domino, the sister of the pilot of the missing plane, may be implicated and heads to the Bahamas to find her.  His hunch is correct: Domino is the mistress of Largo, SPECTRE’s No. 2 agent, who masterminded the theft of the bombs.  As Bond soon discovers, Largo is a formidable opponent, as deadly as the sharks he collects for his amusement...

Four films in and the format of the Bond movie is already pretty well cast in stone.  The crowd-pleasing formula established in the previous three films had made making a Bond movie a painting-by-numbers exercise, and providing audiences received what they were expecting - the usual cocktail of thrills, girls and gadgets – they, and the producers, were happy.  Thunderball is the film where surprise went out the back door just as complacency came in through the front.  After this point, if you’ve watched one Bond film, you have pretty well watched them all.

Interestingly, Thunderball was to have been the first of the Bond films, based not on an Ian Fleming novel but on an original screenplay developed by Fleming and two other writers, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham.  After the project had fallen through and Dr No adapted in its place, Fleming wrote a Bond novel (his ninth) based on the abandoned screenplay.  When Eon productions (the company that had made the first three Bond films) decide to adapt this novel, it was drawn into an acrimonious legal battle with McClory and Whittingham, which was only resolved when the latter were offered on-screen credits and a share of the profits.   McClory secured the rights to the original Thunderball story and would later adapt it as his own independent Bond film, Never Say Never Again almost twenty years later (with Sean Connery playing agent 007), the only remake of the original Bond films to date.  (We exclude Casino Royale, for reasons which are self-evident.)

Julie Christie and Raquel Welch were both considered for the part of the Bond girl Domino, but when the former was deemed unsuitable and the later unavailable, the role went to Miss France 1958, Claudine Auger, who was dubbed on account of her strong accent.   When Guy Hamilton declined the offer to direct the film (he was still recovering from the exhausting Goldfinger shoot), Terence Young returned to the director’s chair for what would be his last Bond film.  Young had directed the first two films in the series, Dr No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963).

It was towards the end of the making of Thunderball that its lead actor, Sean Connery, first made apparent his annoyance at the relentless press intrusion in his life that came with his high public profile as Agent 007.  He refused to give interviews, resenting the fact that he was becoming a merchandising commodity.  Connery’s dislike of the publicity that the Bond films brought him would compel him to give up the role after his next film You Only Live Twice (1967), although he would be enticed back to make one more film for Eon, Diamonds Are Forever (1971).  Despite his growing disillusionment with the role, Connery continued to give an impeccable performance and, even in his later Bond films, he still manages to out-class all of his successors.

Thunderball had a budget greater than the previous Bond films, $5.6 million.  Around a quarter of this went on the incredibly ambitious underwater sequences, which required the construction of a huge marine set.  As with its predecessors, the film handsomely recouped its production costs and was once again the most successful British film of the year.  It took $140 million at the box office, which, allowing for inflation, is the highest grossing Bond film to date.  It also won an Academy Award for its visual effects, the second Oscar to be awarded to a Bond film (Goldfinger won an award for its sound effects).

Thunderball is most memorable for the stunning underwater sequences which were not only incredibly costly and time-consuming to shoot but presented serious hazards for the actors involved.  (Sean Connery had a few very close encounters with a shark which could very well have necessitated a re-cast.)   The film has been criticised for its length and slow pace, which can be largely attributed to the dawdling underwater scenes, where the plot literally does tread water.  Although these sequence do slow the film down to a gentle crawl, they are extraordinarily well-choreographed and represent the only genuinely inspired element of the entire production.  Tom Jones’s rendition of the theme song is another crucial selling point of the film, although the main asset is, as with the previous Bond films, Sean Connery’s charismatic and energetic portrayal of the world’s most famous secret agent.  Nobody did it better.

© Chris Alderton 2009

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