You Only Live Twice (United Artists, December 18, 1969)
Cast
Julian Glover as James Bond, 007
Donald Pleasance as Blofeld
Peter Finch as Dikko Henderson
Joanna Lumley as Patricia
Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki
Ilse Steppat as Irma Bunt
Tetsuro Tamba as Tiger Tanaka
Bernard Lee as M
Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny
Desmond Llewelyn as Q
Music by
John Williams (
'You Only Live Twice' performed by
Lorraine Chandler, written by Jack Ashford, Mike Terry & Randy Scott)
Screenplay by
Richard Maibaum (Based on
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming)
Produced by
Harry Saltzman and
Albert R. Broccoli
Directed by
Peter R. Hunt
Opening Sequence
An American spacecraft is hijacked from orbit by another, unidentified spacecraft. The U.S. suspects it to be the Soviets, but the British suspect Japanese involvement since the spacecraft landed in the Sea of Japan.
Cut to the theme song: “You Only Live Twice” by Lorraine Chandler
The film opens on a longshot of “Patricia” (Joanna Lumley), sitting in a rented flat on a sofa reading a magazine.
Joanna Lumley as Patricia
A man enters the flat, back turned to the camera. It's clear he is armed. After some buildup, we realize, it’s none other than...James Bond! (Julian Glover).
He realizes the "intruder" in his flat is Patricia, his current flame. She is quite irritated with Bond as this appears to have happened more than once. Bond, as usual, is dapper but looks weary after the events of the previous film
On Her Majesty's Secret Service*. After some banter between Lumley and Glover, the usual Bond hanky panky ensues. The phone rings, but Bond refuses to answer it.
Bond and Patricia later head out to a fancy nightclub, where he gets inebriated and loses his money on a bad bet at the card tables. It is revealed that Bond has resorted to alcohol to ease his pain over losing Tracy. Back at the flat, Patricia has enough of Bond’s drunken antics and calls him out on it, finally leaving him. As the door slams shut, the phone rings yet again. A very drunk, very irritated 007 picks it up. It's M (Bernard Lee). He grills Bond over his recent behaviour: drinking, gambling heavily, botching up missions and showing up late for work. He has a mission for Bond and expects him to show up ASAP.
The usual banter with Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) is shown. Bond then meets with M who has a mission for him. Bond is to investigate the events shown prior to the opening sequence. After some banter with Q, (Desmond Llewlyn), Bond is sent to Tokyo after faking his own death in Hong Kong and being buried at sea from HMS Tenby (F65).
Bond is introduced to Tiger Tanaka (Tetsurō Tamba)—and to the Japanese lifestyle—by an Australian intelligence officer, Dikko Henderson (Peter Finch). When Bond raises the purpose of his mission with Tanaka, it transpires that the Japanese have already penetrated the British information source and Bond has nothing left to bargain with. Instead, Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, who operates a politically embarrassing "Garden of Death" in an ancient castle; people flock there to commit suicide. After examining photos of Shatterhand and his wife, Bond discovers that "Shatterhand" and his wife are Tracy's murderers, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance), and Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat), both returning from the previous movie. Bond gladly takes the mission, keeping his knowledge of Blofeld's identity a secret so that he can exact revenge for his wife's death. Trained by Tanaka and Henderson and aided by former Japanese film star Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama), Bond plans to infiltrate Shatterhand's castle. Tanaka renames Bond "Taro Todoroki" for the mission. The next scene shows Henderson being called away, where he is ultimately murdered by Blofeld’s henchmen.
After infiltrating the Garden of Death and the castle where Blofeld spends his time dressed in the costume of a Samurai warrior, Bond is captured, and Bunt identifies Bond as a British secret agent and not a Japanese coal miner. Bunt's henchmen tie Bond up and lower him under a pool of piranhas. Bond escapes, killing the henchmen and pushes Bunt into the pool. Bond exacts revenge on Blofeld. Blofeld however, has escaped the castle, placing a bomb inside it. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas escape the castle before it explodes, and are rescued.
From Forgotten Films, 1966-1971 by Nolan Hendricks
"While the film is fondly remembered today, audiences at the time were turned off at the sight of a grieving, alcoholic James Bond who seemed human--"
"Eon became concerned when
You Only Live Twice underperformed at the box office. While no blame was placed on Julian Glover, the actor was not offered any further Bond films. However, Glover would get the last laugh with a string of highly acclaimed character parts--"
"To make matters worse, usual Bond composer John Barry had worked on another project instead--Columbia's
Nothing Lasts Forever. While Lorraine Chandler's theme song became a huge smash on the British Northern Soul circuit, it wasn't exactly remembered as a classic. Neither was John Wiliams jazzy score--"
"For the next projected James Bond vehicle,
Diamonds Are Forever, Broccoli was determined to hire back Sean Connery. When that failed, the producer went after Roger Moore. Broccoli also decided to go for a more star-studded cast to back Moore up--"
*If you missed the
OHMSS post, go check out the threadmarks. It's there.
