This review of For Your Eyes Only (1981) is part of a wider rewatch of the James Bond series to mark its 60th anniversary. 007 has always been my favourite movie franchise, and I wanted to see where each film ranks within the series. Please check out the main blog post for my rankings of this and the other twenty-four official films and links to the movie reviews for the rest of the franchise.
Short Review
Looking back on the film, Melina is a better equal to Bond than Anya was in The Spy Who Loved Me. There are many music drops and sound effects that are over the top and frankly take away from the film. I love a good Q scene, so the identi-graph and the quips between him and Bond are very enjoyable. There are good car and skiing chase scenes, and way more crossbows than any other Bond film. I feel the pacing was a little off in the middle part of the film, with a lot of talking scenes. Overall, I liked this film, more serious than Moonraker, with some visuals from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and From Russia with Love themes. It’s funny and charming – a middle-of-the-road Bond film.
Long Review and Film Summary
Roger Moore is back as James Bond and brought down to earth in For Your Eyes Only – another film I don’t remember anything about. During the pre-titles, after visiting the grave of Teresa Bond, 007 is whisked away by helicopter, which unfortunately is being remotely controlled by a Bald man with a white cat. Bond removes the remote circuit and picks him up (let’s call him ‘Blofeld’, although they couldn’t due to legal reasons) by his wheelchair and drops him into a smokestack. We move into a brilliant and powerful song performed by Sheena Easton, accompanied by the usual silhouettes with a well-put-together underwater scene. Moving into the film, we find ourselves aboard a British surveillance vessel (St George’s) disguised as a fishing trawler off the Albanian coast, which decodes Russian satellite data on British and American submarine locations. Fishing nets on the ship pull in a bomb, which explodes and sends the vessel into chaos. The St George is equipped with an Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (A.T.A.C) to coordinate their fleet of Polaris submarines, and is a device the Russians want to get their hands on. The British have asked Sir Timothy (played by Jack Hedley), a marine archaeologist, to find where the ship went down. Before he can submit the report, he and his wife are gunned down by Cuban hitman Hector (played by Stefan Kalipha) flying a seaplane after he drops off their daughter Melina Havelock (played by Carole Bouquet).
Bond is sent to Madrid to follow Hector and find out who hired him; Hector is met by a man at a pool party and given cash as payment for the hit. He is then shot in the back with an arrow by Melina. She and 007 escape as the henchman attempts to break into his Lotus, and it explodes. They run through the forest, get into her Citroen 2cv and start an amusing car chase scene with many jumps, spins, rolls, push starts, blockages and gunfire. Bond meets up with Q (played by Desmond Llewelyn) back at MI6 to use the identi-graph to find out who paid off Hector. Bond describes the man and the computer creating an e-fit using magnetic tape cartridges and cross-referencing it with international databases, and comes up with Emile Leopold Locque (played by Michael Gothard), an enforcer in the Brussels Underworld who is currently working for Geek Smuggler. Bond heads to Northern Italy and meets his contact, Luigi Ferrara (played by John Moreno), who sets up a meeting with a Greek contact, Aristotle Kristatos (played by Julian Glover). As they chat, he tells James that Locque is an associate of Columbo (head of a crime syndicate). He also asks if Bond would escort his ice-skating prodigy, Bibi Dahi (played by Lynn-Holly Johnson), to a Biathlon later that afternoon. In this scene, we also meet Bibi’s skating coach, Jacoba Brink (played by Jill Bennett), as she is an older Russian woman, and if you look back at other Bond films, you would be forgiven for thinking she is involved, she isn’t, but its a nice curve ball.
Melina received a telegram to meet Bond in Italy (he didn’t send it). She arrives, goes off to buy another crossbow, and is set upon by motorcyclists. Bond uses roadwork barriers to take them out, forcing one into the window of a florist, where he had just ordered some Lilies, and sends Melina to Corfu. When returning to his hotel room, Bond finds Bibi coming out of his shower and tells her to “get dressed, and I’ll buy you an ice cream”. I like how uncomfortable he is in this scene; he is so not into it, probably because of the massive age gap. They go to the Biathlon and ski around. We meet Bibi’s other love interest, Erich Krieger (played by John Wyman). Bond goes to leave and is shot at by Erich. He is surrounded and forced to do a Ski Jump where henchmen are waiting for him at the bottom with a crossbow. Bond manages to hit Erich, and motorcycles (with guns mounted) chase him through the snow and into a Bobsleigh track, the team looking very uneasy with the situation. Bond goes over a roof, barrel rolls, and escapes. James meets with Bibi to get information on Erich, an East German Olympic-class biathlete – he is later revealed as Kristatos’s second in command. As she and Jacoba leave, the lights go off, and the Hockey players attack Bond. I love how the scoreboard keeps track of 007’s points (one with an ice-pollishing truck). Once he escapes, James finds Ferrara dead and a pin of a Dove in his hand (the sign of Columbo). Meeting up with Melina in Corfu, Kristatos tells Bond that Locque refines heroin destined for Britain. Columbo listens to the conversation via a recorder in the candle holder on their table. Columbo’s mistress, Lisl (played by Cassandra Harris), suspiciously makes a scene and leaves. She confirms at her house that it was for show, and Columbo wants her to get information from him. The morning after they have a walk by the beach, Locque and Claus (played by Charles Dance) turn up on dune buggies, and they hold 007 at gunpoint as Claus is shot in the back with a harpoon as Locque drives off. The Dove team comes out of the sea and knocks Bond out, he’s taken to meet Columbo on his big sailboat. He insists that Kristatos is the one playing Bond; they share a drink, and he invites Bond to Albania to see Kristatos’ operation.
Once there, they fight with the crew on the dock and find salvage equipment, drugs, and the same kind of Bomb that blew up the St George. Bond shoots at Locque’s car, pursuing him on foot, and manages to shoot him in the arm. The car hangs over a cliff, Bond throws in the Dove pin Locque left with Ferrara’s body, kicks the car, and it goes over the edge. 007 meets Melina on her parents’ boat and asks if she can help find the St George. They look in her father’s daily log and go down in Neptune (a mini-submarine) to look for it. Once they find St. George and the A.T.A.C., they try to remove it. Melina has her air supply cut by someone in an atmospheric diving suit. In the confusion, James sets an explosive timer, and a fight starts between him and this person. They manage to escape as the explosion goes off, a mini-submarine turns up and starts cutting the CO2 lines of Neptune. Bond and Melina push the mini-submarine into the hole in the side of the St George and leave. Once back on the boat, they are met by Apostis, Kristatos and Erich and taken to a speedboat, tied up and dropped into the water. Being towed at high speed back and forth, with Kristatos trying to rake them over the Coral to entice the sharks. James tries to get the rope snagged on a rock so he can break it – after a few attempts, they are free. Once back on board, the parrot (Max) says “A.T.A.C to St Cyril’s”. Bond visits a church and goes into the confessional. Q tells him that there are 439 St Cyril’s in Greece. Luckily, Columbo knows which one they are at, as they used to hide from the Germans there.
Once there, Bond starts to scale the cliff to the Monastery. Along the way, he gets caught and is kicked off the cliff, held in mid-air by his rope. James makes a makeshift winch out of his shoelaces as Apostis (played by Jack Klaff) breaks two more of 007’s anchor points, but James manages to throw a knife in his chest as he tries to break the third. Once at the top, Bond lets down a motorised basket so Columbo, his men, and Melina can get up to him. Santos tries to stop Bond and aims at the basket, but Melina shoots him with her crossbow. Now everyone is in the Monastery, and with help from Jacoba, they find where the A.T.A.C is. We get into an epic final fight scene between the two groups. While all this has been going on, General Gogol (played by Walter Gotell), head of the KGB, has been flying in by helicopter to pick up the A.C.T.A. When he arrives, Kristatos tries to escape with it, Columbo puts a knife in his back, Bond throws the A.C.T.A off the mountain, destroying it, and General Gogol quickly leaves. In the final scene, Bond and Melina are making out as Q sets up a satellite to reach Bond via his watch to be put through to then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (played by Janet Brown), Melina says, “Give us a kiss”, and Max throws the watch into the sea.