Bondathon: Thunderball

The fourth Bond film sees MI6’s best having a nautical adventure with Thunderball.

SPECTRE has stolen two nuclear bombs from the RAF and blackmail NATO for £100 million or they would attack a major city within seven days. Due to the urgency of the situation, MI6 bring in every 00 agent in Europe, including 007. Bond believes he has a lead and goes to The Bahamas to investigate.

After three excellent films, Thunderball was a big downgrade for the series. This was due to three main factors: the underwater sequences, the overabundance of characters, and the editing. There were many pointless side characters like Paula (Marine Beswick) and Pinder (Earl Cameron) who did nothing in the film and many could have been merged together. The worst example of this was when a minor character, Kutze (George Pravda), suddenly decided to rescue Domino (Claudine Auger) – it was like the writers had to come up with a reason to free Domino for the climax. The editing suffered a lot due to the speeded-up footage which comes across as unintentionally comedic. There were so many swipes in the film it looked like George Lucas broke into the editing suite.

The big problem with the film was setting most of the action underwater. The scuba diving sequences were impressive for the time but being underwater meant people moved a lot more slowly. This slow movement made many of the action scene drag. Future Bond films kept underwater down to one or two sequences, like in Tomorrow Never Dies. The best action sequence was at the beginning of the film when Bond fights a SPECTRE agent who faked his death.

Thunderball won an Academy Award for Visual Effect and nominated for a BAFTA for Best Production Design. Thunderball excels in these areas. As stated above the underwater sequences were a technical achievement and there were lots of stunts, explosions, and model work, i.e. the Vulcan plane in the sea and the detachment of Largo’s yacht. Ken Adam was an important figure in the Bond series and he deserved his nomination. Thunderball gave us one of the most iconic SPECTRE meeting rooms and the MI6 conference room was a great mix of classic British grandeur due to the giant paintings and that classic Ken Adam look thanks to the reveal of the maps.

Thunderball does have a decent plot due to SPECTRE stealing some nuclear bombs. It’s a standard plot for an action film – films that used this set-up include The Fourth Protocol, True Lies, Broken Arrow, and The Peacemaker. Even The World is Not Enough had villains who stole nuclear weapons and On Her Majesty’s Service Secret had a plotline where SPECTRE was extorting the world for money through threats of terrorism. There was a sense of urgency because of SPECTRE’s threat and MI6 getting so many 00 agents to investigate.

However, when SPECTRE announced they were going to threaten the world for £100 million I thought of Austin Powers. This wasn’t helped by the announcement being made in the SPECTRE room and Blofeld electrocutes one of the SPECTRE members. The scenes in the spa felt like a parody because the equipment was ramped up to their maximum settings. It reminded me of The Simpsons episode “Day of the Jackanapes” where Homer got locked in a sauna.

Thunderball does bear some similarities to Dr. No. Both films see Bond going to the Caribbean to investigate a villain and find some nuclear items. Thunderball also got to act as a travelogue by showing The Bahamas’ beaches and clear blue seas, the Colonial architecture of Nassau, and Bond got to use Junkanoo parade to evade the villains. Bond films got to show off other festivals in later films like the Rio Carnival, the Palio di Siena, and Mexico City’s Day of the Dead festival.

The big criticisms levelled at Thunderball were the pacing and the audience were ahead of Bond when he was investigating. This was due to the aforementioned scuba diving scenes and the scene when the Vulcan goes underwater. If the underwater Vulcan scene was cut then the audience would have known as much as Bond.

Connery was still great as Bond at this point. He was able to fight the bad guys and lots of great lines throughout the film. Some of the most notable was Bond’s shy reference to SPECTRE when playing baccarat, and Bond saying he ‘knows a lot about women.’ He also got to show off a more emotional scene when he had to tell Domino that her brother was dead. Although he made sure he shagged her first.

Thunderball had two major Bond girls. Domino was a tragic Bond girl because was forced to stay with Largo as his partner. She was more of a damsel in distress character, but she did have a satisfying resolution. Luciana Paluzzi stole the show as Fiona Volpe, the first true evil Bond girl. She was entertaining as a SPECTRE agent who relishes being working for the dark side.

Thunderball famously had a lot of legal issues that needed to be settled before it could be made. Before Dr. No was made Ian Fleming wrote a screenplay with Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham for a Bond film. When the project fell through Fleming used the ideas to write the Thunderball novel which led to McClory suing. As part of the settlement, McClory got a producer credit and the rights to make his own Bond film. This lead to the production of Never Say Never Again which was a remake of Thunderball and was a lesser film, yet Never Say Never Again at least had a reason to why Bond was at the health spa.

Thunderball had the first true Bond title sequence. Instead of having the credits projected on or near some women Thunderball had silhouetted women swimming underwater as Tom Jones bells out the theme song. It had that classic Bond style and whilst I have seen the Thunderball theme ranked low on Bond theme lists I personally enjoyed it.

Thunderball was a film decent enough and a lot of money was spent on the production. But it was a film that needed more variation with its set pieces and polish with the screenplay and editing.