Thunderball (1965)
Directed by Terence Young
A criminal organization has obtained two nuclear bombs and are asking for a 100 million pound ransom in the form of diamonds in seven days or they will use the weapons. The secret service sends James Bond to the Bahamas to once again save the world.
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What critics compared Thunderball to
In many respects, Last Night in Soho is a tale of two halves, with the first part being a slow build, where Wright submerges us into the style and ambiance of the 60’s, with mirrors, feathery dresses, large billboards for Sean Connery in Thunderball , and music that is peak 1960’s London sound.
Her first nocturnal encounter shows the talented chanteuse meeting Matt Smith’s louche talent manager Jack and falling for his honey-tongued promises, while around them, Wright lovingly explores his own fandom of the era through the plush, mirrored interiors and a gargantuan, brightly lit marquee for Thunderball .
Walking through the city in her pajamas, Eloise gazes up and sees a marquee for Thunderball (1965) as the cars whiz around her; she wanders into a night club only to look in the mirror and see not herself but Sandy.
Also watch out for a few nifty nods to James Bond, with a huge Thunderball poster featured prominently, while everyone drinks the Vesper Martini created by Ian Fleming in the novel Casino Royale .
The setup is seductive, and the production design is sumptuous; Wright’s claim that he was inspired to recreate old-school Soho by the Los Angeles–plays-itself imagery of his pal Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood contextualizes the luminous beauty (and detail) of Eloise’s foray into the past, including a rapturous view of a movie theater marquee advertising Sean Connery in Thunderball .
Eloise’s naïve downhill descent into a hell of blaring horns, vomiting drunks and battered hookers wearing hideous clothes is illustrated by marquees of the James Bond movie Thunderball, interminable musical reprises of gushy, lugubrious rock tunes like “Downtown”, and violent scenes of carnage and bloodshed that have no meaning.
Of the Bonds, it riffs (and lifts) most from Thunderball, especially in the central relationship between Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh; he’s a world-class Russian (or something) villain, she’s the trophy wife he won’t let go, and at one point, just like in Thunderball, it looks like he’s going to torture her in her cabin on his gorgeous motor yacht.
If Inception’s climax was an ode to the iconic ending to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (one of the best Bonds), Tenet is tribute to Thunderball , Sean Connery’s worst outing as the character that was bogged down by a production team who discovered underwater cameras and decided to shoot half the movie using them regardless of whether the whole story suffered.
These themes were toyed with in the non-canonical Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again, which saw Connery return to action 12 years (and one broken "never" vow) after Diamonds Are Forever.
Thunderball and Moonraker both have that, but Skyfall does it better.
For one, a shadowy company meeting of SPECTRE agents seated at a long wooden table is more reminiscent of a parallel scene in Austin Powers than the original it parodied from 1965’s Thunderball.
Director Sam Mendes, back for his second tour on the 007 beat, presents the story as a summing-up, a procession of elements that clearly echo the early Bond films—chiefly Thunderball , but also From Russia with Love (a fierce train fight) and Goldfinger (a funny riff on Bond's gadget-packed Aston Martin).
It just makes you wish you had those last two and a half hours back, so you could watch “Thunderball” and “Live and Let Die” and “Goldeneye” again, and at least enjoy the theme song.
Blofeld's plans for Bond once he's captured him isn't a Thunderball castration, but rather a partial lobotomy intended to render our hero incapable of...recognizing faces.
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Frank relates how as a kid (a cherubic Thomas Robinson) he invented a pre-"Thunderball" jet pack to take to the 1964 New York World's Fair where he meets a mysterious, British-sounding girl named Athena (a cool, confident Raffey Cassidy).
After that, starting with “Thunderball,” producer Cubby Brocolli got hung up on stunts and Special Effects.
The Schwarzenegger-Stallone school of quippy violence always had its roots in the series (Thunderball: "I think he got the point" follows harpoon to chest), but Bond's tussle with a couple of thugs here leaves his undershirt messily bloodied, he has a glass of whiskey to steady himself.
Furthermore, I consider Daniel Craig to be the most effective and appealing of the six actors who have played 007, and that includes even Sean Connery, from his (and the franchise’s) debut in 1962 with Dr. No, through From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) and, after a one-picture hiatus, Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
By the mid 60s it began a move toward gadgetry, special effects and spectacle ("Thunderball," "You Only Live Twice").
En route to the incomprehensible but action-packed finale on a “Thunderball”-ish remote island, Bond encounters new friends (a slinky and engaging Ana de Armas) and old enemies (Christoph Waltz in full Hannibal Lector mufti as Ernst Blofeld).
In the 1965 “Thunderball,” a woman who has turned down Bond’s advances, is essentially blackmailed into having sex with him.
Fleming introduced SPECTRE in 1961’s Thunderball , specifically designing it to be unlinked to any nation-state.
Looking considerably older and a bit embarrassed, he top-lined the non–Saltzman-and-Broccoli Thunderball knockoff Never Say Never Again , a film whose title goofed on the actor’s noble, broken promise to himself.