Release Date - May 24, 1985
Plot - From Siberia to San Francisco, 007 chases after microchip industrialist Max Zorin. Zorin is in the process of cornering the world's market on microchips. His plan is to create an earthquake in San Francisco, which would destroy Silicon Valley and cause his company to increase in value literally overnight.
Villain - Max Zorin, a former Russian KGB agent, Zorin became one of France's wealthiest industrialist. Blond hair and blue eyed, Zorin is the results of a 1945 German laboratory experiment. Sort of an early form of a test tube baby. He cheats at horse racing by sending a radio controlled signal to the horses leg, where a surgically planted microchip injects steroids into the horses blood system.
Bond-Girls - Stacey Sutton, a beautiful blond geologist and oil heiress. Zorin is trying to scare her into selling the remaining part of her property for his diabolical purposes.
Kimberly Jones is a sexy blond agent working with OO7 in Siberia. She helps Bond escape from the KGB by eluding them in a disguised iceberg, they spend five days traveling to Alaska.
Pola Ivanova is a KGB agent working to uncover the same activities Bond is investigating. She and Bond enjoy a hot bath together while listening to Tchaikovsky.
Henchmen - May Day is Zorin's bodyguard and lover. Extremely strong and dangerous.
Scarpine is Zorin's head of security. He monitors all activities at Zorin's horse sale in France, and helps gun down Zorin's men in cold blood.
Bond's Friend - Sir Godfrey Tibbett helps OO7 in exposing Zorin's secret on horse racing.
Minor Characters - M, Major Boothroyd, Miss Moneypenny, Frederick Gray, General Gogol, Dr. Carl Mortner, Chuck Lee, Achille Aubergine, W. G. Howe, Bob Conley
Highlights - The pre-credit sequence with Bond being chased by Russian skiers in Siberia. The car chase in Paris. The on-screen personalities between long time friends Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee. The battle between Zorin and Bond on top of the Golden Gate bridge.
Most Memorable Dialogue
- While having lunch at the Eiffel Tower restaurant, Zorin's henchwoman,
May Day, kills Bond's contact by a poisonous fish hook attached to a plastic
butterfly.
Waiter: "What happened?"
Bond: "There's a fly in his soup"
Trivia - The original idea for this film was to have Zorin manipulate Halley's Comet into crashing down into Silicon Valley. The late western actor Lee Van Cleef was considered for the role of Zorin.
Cast -
Personal Comment About This Film - If the plot sounds a little like Superman and Goldfinger, you're right. The film starts well with a classic ski chase but falls flat when the song "California Girls" by the Beach Boys begins to play while Bond eludes his Soviet skiers. The credit sequence is below par for Maurice Binder. Although somewhat creative, the women just do not look sexy with ultraviolet light bodypaint. The best parts of this film are the roles of Max Zorin (played to the hilt by Christopher Walken) and Sir Godfrey Tibbett (played by Patrick Macnee). Tanya Roberts gets the award for the worse Bond girl in this series. Her hoarsed screams made this fan wish Bond would leave her behind. This was Roger Moore's last Bond outing and it shows. His age has caught up with him and it is hard to believe that he is doing these incredible stunts (which he isn't). Fortunately, the Dalton years were approaching with the best Bond film of the 1980s, The Living Daylights.
On A Scale From 1 to 10 - I give this film an OO2
U. S. Style A Poster
The End Of A View to a Kill
But James Bond Will Return In