After being out of the role for over a decade, Sean Connery decided to step into the shoes of James Bond one last time. It seemed like a strange project to remake Thunderball, but some legal wrangling allowed it to happen. The even greater coup was snagging everyone’s favorite Bond to go into action one last time.
James Bond (Sean Connery) is getting a bit long in the tooth. MI6 has a new M (Edward Fox) and he has little respect for Bond’s antics. He sends Bond to a health clinic to eliminate all his “free radicals.” Bond happens upon a masochistic nurse and a patient with an odd eye.
We learn that the naughty nurse is assassin Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera) and she’s watching Jack Petachi (Gavan O’Herilhy), an air force pilot, who has had an operation on his eye to simulate the eye patterns of the President of the United States. Petachi is taking part in an exercise of nuclear warheads and succeeds in turning the dummy bombs into live warheads via his new eye.
Blush is an operative for SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) that is run by Ernst Stravro Blofeld (Max von Sydow).
Now that SPECTRE has two live warheads they can hold the world for ransom. Blofeld’s other operative is Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who has possession of the bombs and is charged with placing them for maximum destruction.
M puts Bond begrudgingly into action and he discovers that Petachi’s sister Domino (Kim Basinger) is Largo’s girlfriend and he suspects that Largo is involved in SPECTRE’s nefarious plans. Time to save the world once again.
Ian Fleming was having trouble bringing his character of James Bond to the screen (seems odd now) and collaborated with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham on a screenplay. That screenplay would again not make it, but Fleming turned the story into his novel Thunderball.
Eventually, Bond (James Bond) would make it into theaters but Fleming would get sued by McClory and Whittingham and would lose the rights to Thunderball to them. Producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman would pay McClory and Whittingham to allow them to make Thunderball into a film, but the rights to the story would stay with McClory.
Fleming would get the rights to the character of James Bond, but McClory would hold the rights to Thunderball, which had James Bond in it. McClory would continue to shop the novel around until his death in 2006 (reimagined as Warhead and hoping to have Timothy Dalton redo Bond).
McClory did succeed in getting a competing Bond film onto the screen in 1983 and even having Sean Connery step back into the designer shoes that made him famous. Is it a perfect return? Nope. It’s missing the grand score and music of a Bond film. However, Connery actually looks better in this film than he did in his last Bond outing, Diamonds are Forever (1971).
I’ve always been intrigued to the thought of if Connery would’ve stayed with the role how Bond would’ve aged into the spy business. Never say Never Again actually explores Connery at middle age, which is something I didn’t catch when I watched the film the first time in my youth.
That aspect is now interesting as an older, creakier Bond pulls up his socks to save us all once again. I’ve come to appreciate the film a little better than when I first watched it.
Barbara Carrera is having a helluva time prancing around as the assassin and that’s somewhat infectious. Sadly, she’s out of the picture and Kim Basinger isn’t as fun. I always miss SPECTRE and Blofeld in our current Bond universe and think that their absence has to do with McClory’s lawsuit.
It was good to see them again even though Blofeld is just pretty much a cameo in Never say Never Again. This time around we actually get some special features to go with our farmed out Bond.
Never say Never Again is presented in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a commentary with director Irvin Kershner and Bond historian Steven Jay Rubin. The 16-minute “The Big Gamble” details the troubled production.
The 8 minute “Sean is Back” is about working with the star and the 10 minute “The Girls of Never say Never Again” is about the Bond girls in the film. Finally we get the 88-second theatrical trailer and a photo gallery.
Connery said he’d never play James Bond again, but as his wife said (and titled the picture) never say never again. I’ve come to appreciate the film a bit more, but it’s still not as iconic as the EON Productions.
Never Say Never Again is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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