This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Anglo-Soviet Cooperation
Plot Overview
Über-rich shipping magnate Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens)
is enamored with the sea and has constructed a miniature city Atlantis
beneath its waves where he believes mankind is destined to live. To
help them along, he's hatched a diabolical plan to hijack two nuclear
subs—from east &
west—from which to launch Armageddon. British agent 007,
James Bond (Roger Moore) and female Soviet agent XXX, Major Anya
Amasova (Barbara Bach) are tracking his bread crumbs, first as adversaries
and then as a joint venture. Anya is a major first and a woman second,
until the end of the mission when she plans a vendetta against Bond
for having eliminated her lover on a deadly mission (“It was
either him or me.”)
The salient features of this movie seem to correspond to a weathered cowboy's talk on the meaning of life in the Tom T. Hall song, “Faster Horses,” released a year before this movie came out. To wit, when asked about “the mysteries of life, He spit between his boots and replied, ‘Son, it's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money.’” In an early scene, one can see on the mantel behind Bond's chief M (Bernard Lee) a figurine of a mounted horseman. Likewise in a later scene, one may see on the desk where is seated M's Soviet counterpart General Gogol (Walter Gotell) another figurine of a mounted horseman. Horses were once cavalry, instruments of war. Here in this movie Q (Desmond Llewelyn) provides Bond with a tricked-out Lotus instead.
“Younger women” are the Bond
girls: young, beautiful and plenteous. “Older whiskey”
or such is for Bond's discriminating palate in drinks. “More
money” was what Stromberg's naive assistant tried to get with her
boss' purloined plans, which ultimately led the agents to the source.
There's a bonus money theme for us later (2022) viewers but it's somewhat
technical. Bond's submarine car had to go off the internal combustion
engine and switch over to its two electric motors for its underwater
foray. An underwater mine caused some pinprick leaks in the roof
through which water was spraying in. Expansion of the water would
have made it super chilled, but Bond wasn't going to chance turning
on the electric heater to further deplete the battery. When they crept
out onto shore, he rolled down the windows right quick to get some
warm air in there; he wasn't going to wait for the sunshine to
heat up the interior. In the nineteenth century radiant heat
was investigated. It was thought that greenhouses were kept warm
by the glass siding trapping in radiant heat. Science writer Alan
Siddons in a chapter on “A Long List of Misconceptions”
writes of that theory, “It is 19th century
poppycock” (62.) In reality, greenhouses merely
suppress convective heating loss, preventing the heated air from
dissipating. It is air that's trapped, not radiation; glass's response
to infrared (IR) has nothing to
do with it
(63.) The movie “The
Martian” in fact shows Earth scientists having got wise
to greenhouses staying warm from blocking convection, not radiation
as was thought in the 1800s. Today's (2022) climate scientists talk
a lot of hooey about man-made carbon emissions blocking heat radiation
from escaping our planet, when it's gravity and the vacuum of space
that seals in atmospheric heat from convective release. This 1977
Bond movie was not panicked about supposed global warming, only about
nuclear holocaust. Lots of money for someone to make playing
on the fears of the former.
Ideology
Stromberg's head henchman is a seven-foot,
four-inch giant (Richard Kiel) aptly dubbed “Jaws” for his
metal dentures. While other baddies show a modicum of respect to women
before they do what they do to them, Jaws 
gets right to it, slapping them
senseless and biting them bloodless. He's evidently never known the love of
a woman, so we figure he hasn't got any family to come home to after a hard
day's work. He's as relentless as the Energizer bunny, getting up for
endless overtime after Bond seemingly nails him. (Eccl. 4:7-8) “Then I returned, and I saw
vanity under the sun. There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea,
he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour;
neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I
labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore
travail.”
(Eccl. 4:9-12) “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” Together the agents enhance the era of cooperation. Bond saves Anya's life in her encounter with Jaws on the train, but she also saves his by telling him to duck from a thrown heavy object. For that matter after 007 has blown off Q wanting to explain the features of his Lotus, and their pursuers are gaining on them, XXX herself activates its defenses having studied the blueprints some time ago. With Q's ergonomic design, 007's innate driving ability, and XXX's preparation, they can't be beat.
Major Amasova enlightens Commander
Bond about her “surviving course in Siberia” where she
learned to endure the cold. Bond asks, “What did they teach
you?” Her lessons included, “When necessary, shared -
bodily - warmth.” Okay. The opening scene showed Bond in the
sack with a babe in a chalet in the Austrian alps, with a roaring
fire in the fireplace. Gotta keep each other warm. In a later
scene the camera passes through the sleeping quarters of the British
submarine Ranger with sailors sleeping singly in narrow bunks. The
nuclear fire keeps them warm, but they've got pinup pix on their walls. Later the two agents team
up and check into a hotel under cover as a married couple. When the
receptionist tells them they're booked into a suite with two
bedrooms, Bond enlightens Anya about, “Moneypenny
being a little over efficient.” Yes, but the night is young.
It's a matter of physics. Take two bodies and adjoin two of their exterior surfaces, and you've eliminated that amount of surface area exposed to the outside while keeping the same volume. Combined they will retain their heat longer. The same principle in reverse applies to Bond's martini shaken not stirred. Shaking it will chip the ice cubes creating more surface area for the same volume, absorbing the heat of the liquid faster thus cooling the drink quicker.
Production Values
“” (1977) was directed by Lewis Gilbert and adapted for a screenplay by Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum from characters in Ian Fleming's novel, The Spy Who Loved Me. It stars Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens, Richard Kiel and Walter Gotell. Moore adequately portrayed the hero Bond. Moore and Bach were excellent with great chemistry together. Jürgens was a low-key villain with limited screen time. The film had a great cast.
It's rated PG and you can probably figure out why. Real Russian spy literature features a family man faithful to his wife, but this is Hollywood decadence. It's 2 hours 5 minutes long. The cinematography is above average with nicely-filmed scenes and interesting camera work. Music was scored by Marvin Hamlisch and cinematography done by Claude Renoir. Its production values were first rate.
The missing Russian sub was named the Potempkin after an officer of Catherine II, known for having constructed sham villages for her along the train tracks so visitors could look out their windows and see seeming prosperity in the facades they were passing. His name has entered our vocabulary in the phrase “Potempkin village” meaning deceptive appearances hiding an inferior reality. Today (2022) there's an easy application in electric vehicles, which are touted as green but hide the environmental damage caused by mining for the needed Lithium batteries, rare earth minerals in countries without environmental regulation, resulting in environmental devastation out of sight, out of mind.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
The action in this movie keeps one fully engaged without being overwhelmed. Nice balance there. It's another in a stable of successful Bond flicks following tried formulae. You know what to expect.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Five stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quotations are from the Authorized King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print, software.
Ball, Timothy, & Alan Siddons, Claes Johnson et al. Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory. Mount Vernon: Stairway Press, 2011. Print.
Hall, Tom T. “Faster Horses” from his album: “Faster Horses” (1976.) Web.
bibles.n7nz.org