Sean Connery
(James Bond)

Donald Pleasence
(Ernst Stavro Blofeld)

Akiko Wakabayashi
(Aki)

Tetsuro Tamba
(Tiger Tanaka)

Karin Dor
(Helga Brandt)

Lois Maxwell
(Miss Moneypenny)

Desmond Llewelyn
(Q)

Charles Gray
(Henderson)

Bernard Lee
(M)

Alexander Knox
(The President of the United States)

Director:
Lewis Gilbert

Screenplay:
Roald Dahl

Based on the novel by:
Ian Fleming

Producers:
Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli

Big James Bond production with first look at arch-nemesis Blofeld (Pleasence), Japanese locales, but plot (SPECTRE out to cause major powers to declare war on each other) and lack of convincing, clever crisis situations are liabilities film can't shake off.

---LEONARD MALTIN'S MOVIE & VIDEO GUIDE

Great location photography; theme sung by Nancy Sinatra. Implausible plot, however, is a handicap, even though this is Bond.

---VIDEO HOUND'S GOLDEN MOVIE RETRIEVER

AMAZON.COM: Popular online seller offers the video in NTSC format. A DVD is also offered in Region 1 format.

BEST VIDEO: Rental service allows US customers to rent the NTSC video by mail.

BLACKSTAR UK: UK based seller offers the video in PAL format. A DVD is also offered in Region 2 format.

DANTE'S SEAN CONNERY HOMEPAGE: Dante's fan site devoted to actor Sean Connery, the original James Bond, with a filmography, photos, and more.

THE INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE: Cast and crew information is available at this popular film database.

JAMES BOND, AGENT 007 OHMSS: Kimberly Last's web site is arguably the most comprehensive James Bond resource online: updated news, articles, links, and more.

MR. KISS KISS BANG BANG: Organized by the Ian Fleming Foundation, this self-described "Premier James Bond web site" is an excellent stop for the latest series news.

THE OFFICIAL JAMES BOND WEBSITE: The "official" web site for the James Bond film series - sponsored by MGM/UA.

THE OFFICIAL ROALD DAHL WEB SITE: Fantasy author Roald Dahl's "official" web site - sponsored and maintained by the Roald Dahl Foundation.

ROALD DAHL FANS.COM: Kristine Howard's excellent fan resource for Dahl with information galore.

SALUTE TO JAMES BOND--SEAN CONNERY: Steven Birnbaum's shrine to Sean Connery's rendition of 007 with photos of the actor, his leading ladies, and his adversaries.

Although there's a lot more science-fiction than there is first-vintage James Bond in You Only Live Twice, the fifth in a series of veritable Bond films with Sean Connery, there's enough of the bright and bland bravado of the popular British super-sleuth mixed into this melee of rocket-launching to make it a bag of good Bond fun. And there's so much of that scientific clatter - so much warring of super-capsules out in space and fussing with electronic gadgets in a great secret underground launching pad - that this way-out adventure picture should be the joy and delight of the youngsters and give pleasure to the reasonable adults who can find release in the majestically absurd.

Are your nerves frayed and mind bewildered by the war in the Middle East? Give them a rest via this violent excursion with Double-O Seven in Japan. Go with him on this crucial mission to find out whence come those cannibal capsules that move in to devour those American spaceships that are innocently orbiting the earth, and plunge with him into the strange crater of that dead volcano on the Japanese coast to discover it isn't the Russians who are doing the mischief and save us by a hair's breadth from World War III. You may find the noise slightly deafening when the chasing autos scream around those Tokyo curves, or the four massive enemy helicopters loose their machineguns on the minicopter carrying Bond, or especially when the Japanese commandos rain down upon that secret launching pad and assist Bond in happily blasting this Spectral installation to smithereens.

This noisy and wildly violent picture, which opened yesterday at the Astor, the Victoria, the Baronet and Loew's Orpheum, is evidently pegged to the notion that nothing succeeds like excess. And because it is shamelessly excessive, it is about a half-hour too long.

Probably its profligate producer's, Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli, figured they had spent so much on it - on that fantastic launching pad set, which could be put down at Expo 67 and be a hit pavilion; on a sparkling color production and some beautiful location shooting in Japan - that they wanted Lewis Gilbert, the director, to keep it going as long as he could.

As a consequence, there is a lengthy build-up of tooling around Tokyo with Bond, buzzing through a wrestling arena, stealing secrets from a chemical company's safe, firming a Japanese contact and trifling casually here and there with a few girls, before it gets to an even lengthier playout of the discovery and raid on the launching pad.

Through it all, Mr. Connery paces with his elegant nonchalance a little more non than usual (he is evidently getting slightly bored), but altogether able in the clinches and in tossing off the gags of Roald Dahl. Able as conspirators and scenery are several lovely Japanese girls whose names are so superfluous and difficult there is no point in spelling them out. A fellow named Tetsuro Tamba is dandy as a Japanese partner - a spy, and Donald Pleasence is grandly grotesque as the evil genius who would rule the world.

It is notable that only Bond, the title and location of an Ian Fleming book have been used by Mr. Dahl in writing his screenplay. The rest, with just a Dahl touch here and there, is blueprint Bond stuff cum science-fiction. The sex is minimal. But, then, Bond is getting old. And so, I would guess, is anybody who can't get a few giggles from this film.

Review © 1967 THE NEW YORK TIMES. All Rights Reserved.

Budget-wise, the James Bond movies are certainly on the rise. In the latest, You Only Live Twice, the production of a giant volcano that houses a space rocket, monorail, and helicopter platform, cost $1,200,000 - more than the entire expense for the initial 1962 venture, Dr. No. Unfortunately, however, as the price has gone up, the quality has gone down.

In Sean Connery's fifth film, very loosely based on Ian Fleming's 11th book, 007 is sent to Japan, which gives him a chance to drink not only vodka martinis [stirred, not shaken], but cups of sake served at the correct temperature [98.4 degrees Fahrenheit]. The newest insidious SPECTRE plot is to set the United States and Russia on a collision course by kidnaping their space capsules with a device that looks like an aluminum alligator.

Sent into the breech as a one-man Oriental Express, Bond is first "killed" as a cover and subsequently displays his blase bravado by posing as a chemical company executive, which enables him to get whacked with a samurai sword, trapped in a burning plane, and threatened with dripping poison and a plastic surgeon's knife. He also runs into a good girl spy [Akiko Wakabayashi] and a bad girl spy [Karin Dor], gets "married" to an almond-eyed charmer [Mie Hama], and squares off against SPECTRE's number one honcho - the bald-headed, scar-faced Ernst Blofeld [Donald Pleasence] - and other villains who all seem like kamikaze alumni.

Directed by Lewis [Alfie] Gilbert in his first Bond attempt, the film contains several moments of entertaining escapism - a helicopter dogfight, a Japanese martial arts training course sequence at the Ninja Commando school, and a high-budgeted, frenetic finale in the volcano that looks like Disneyland Far East.

There are also a few, but effective, Bond gimmicks to appease Bond boosters - an electronic safe-cracking device, a high-powered cigarette with plenty of unpleasant aftertaste, a magnetized helicopter that serves as an automobile disposal and another compact helicopter-arsenal that looks like a drop-out from a carnival ride.

However, a large percentage of You Only Live Twice is disappointing, lacking the wit and zip, the pacing and punch, of its predecessors, especially the first three. Roald Dahl's script is larded with sex-slanted jokes that are either pathetically feeble or sophomorically coarse, Bond's patented puns are punier, and even Connery's enthusiasm for his shrewd, suave, and sensual character seems to have waned. In addition, some touches - such as the diabolical use of piranha fish and even the climax - have already been worn out in inferior Bond parodies, such as the Matt Helm and Derek Flint series.

Producers "Chubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who own the screen rights to seven more Fleming novels, recently announced a world-wide search for a new protagonist, since Connery has concluded that enough is enough. Judging from his final venture, his decision seems to be a sound one. Still, with Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball, it's been great. Sayonara, Sean-san.

Originally published in the June 16, 1967 edition of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Review © 1967 THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. All Rights Reserved.

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