Unsurprisingly, it's all the work of Blofeld and here we see him for the first
time, in the guise of the late Donald Pleasance. The character has since been
portrayed by two other actors who have now passed away - firstly by Telly Savalas
in 1969's
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
and by Charles Gray in 1971's
Diamonds Are Forever (review to follow), the latter incidentally
cropping up here in a cameo as Bond aide Henderson. Perhaps someone had the technology...
Perhaps someone could rebuild him?
With Bond getting married for the first time, a script written by the late fantasy-specialist
Roald Dahl, a then-expensive £400,000 set of Blofeld’s operational base, complete with
the rocket laucher, helicopter landing pad, monorail and massive shutter to give it the
camouflage of a crater lake, not to mention Q's inventions, such as "Little Nellie", one-man
miniature helicopter, which leads to some great aerial chase sequences over the Japanese
Islands, even if they seem a little basic compared to today's SFX standards.
An anamorphic looking-a-bit-more-than-2.35:1 widescreen ratio, with seemingly more flecks
on the print than normal, even if the film is 33 years old. The average bitrate is a
so-so 5.22Mb/s, briefly peaking at 9Mb/s.
For
Thunderball we were blessed with a remixed
Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, when it was originally recorded in mono. Sadly, no-one's
bothered here. My amplifier states the sound is in Dolby Surround, but it may as well be
in mono for all the difference it makes as there's little reason to suggest there's any
stereo steerage.
And yes, the theme tune was used for Robbie Williams' godawful Millennium song.
Extras :
Chapters :
The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVD
companies could take a lesson from this one.
Languages & Subtitles :
English is the only language on the disc - in Dolby Surround - and there are subtitles
for English (and hard of hearing).
And there's more... :
MGM seem to be pulling out all the stops for their Bond collection and starting with the
first Bond film made we have a great amount for you to sink your teeth into.
Featurette: Inside You Only Live Twice (30 mins): Another
documentary narrated by Patrick MacNee with interview clips from
production designer Ken Adam, director Lewis Gilbert, Karin DorDana
Broccoli, wife of the late Cubby, Patricia Neal and her late hubby
Roald Dahl in a black-and-white clip.
Silhoutettes: The James Bond titles (23 mins): a look at the most
famous part of each film, with irreverent comments from Ken Adam, Roger Moore,
title designer Danny Kleinman and again narrated by Patrick Macnee.
It's a look at the process involved with clips from each film's titles, but sadly not
each of the opening titles in full which would have been a nice addition.
Storyboard: The Plane Crash Sequence (2 mins): The original storyboards,
showing two differences from the film.
4 Trailers (10 mins): Two theatrical trailers (one with UK narration, the
other North American - the content is mostly identical and both are in anamorphic 2.35:1),
a double bill of this film with Thunderball (cropped to 1.66:1) and the same again
but as a shortened TV spot (cropped to 4:3). The latter two states the film is rated
"GP", so consult your doctor before watching them...
Radio spots (6 mins): 7 radio adverts from United Artists to promote
the film in the USA, the first five lasting nearly a minute each, but the last two are
much shorter.
Audio Commentary: from director Lewis Gilbert and members
of the cast and crew.
Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, aren't exactly first-rate
in terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic quality
and all the interviews are clear enough.
Menu :
Another excellent brightly-coloured effort following in the footsteps of
all those that have gone before it, this one effecting the Interceptor rocket
and its actions.
The initial screen offers you the choice to start the film, select a scene,
choose a language or watch the extras.
Before Michelle Yeoh got to work in Tomorrow Never Dies, her oriental
predecessors were high-kicking it up twenty years earlier. Film No.5 was the one
after which Sean Connery said he was giving up the role. Of course, we know he was to
make two more:
Diamonds Are Forever (review to follow)
and the unofficial
Never Say Never Again.
In this film, there's a fair bit of action but it does tend to drag a bit in
the mid-section, particularly around the time when Bond is married off.
There's not quite as many extras this time round, but still scores more than most DVD
releases so sit back and enjoy.
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL
The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order
with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
