 | Octopussy Producer: EON Best Line: Worst line: |
Good Cut
Undercover
The special effects unit had rigged an airplane with dynamite and were
pulling the aircraft down a trolley to explode against some rocks in Utah, but
the plane actually took off unexpectedly. Crewmen chased after it in a
helicopter, to see it finally explode about three miles away.
There
were no good cuts. Here are some cuts that should have been made
-- Bond yelling like Tarzan as he swings away from attackers on a vine; a camel
doing a double-take as Bond flies past in a souped-up golf cart; the previously
mentioned 'sit' command to a tiger; Vijay Amritraj (a professional tennis player
in real life) inexplicably hitting an attacker with a tennis racket during a chase
(what is this - Airplane?); stupid dialogue (critic Roger Ebert: "Bond's
dialogue has never been worse"); Bond and Q stealthfully attacking a heavily armed
castle in a hot-air balloon with the Union Jack... that's it -- I can't go on...
Again a Bond
film seems to be drawing more inspiration from parodies than from the Fleming
books: Casino Royale like parody scenes abound:
In a the film's now-standard-but-ridiculous Q scene, Moore is given a videowatch
and a deadly pen (both were issued to Peter Sellers in Casino Royale),
prompting the "poison pen letter" line that was first used in the aforementioned
spoof (at least Sellers' character was chastised for using it)! Both movies feature
lots of in-jokes and movie parodies and lame stunts like someone sliding down
a bannister while wiping out tons of enemies. With these similarities, Charles
Feldman should have recieved a co-producing credit.
Unlike
For Your Eyes Only, very little Fleming material was used:
just situations from the short story The Property of a Lady. The character
Octopussy is now the daughter of the main character in Fleming's short story of
the same name (which I guess proves that they at least read the book). In fact
the plot closely parallels Ernest Cuneo's original treatment for James
Bond of the Secret Service, in which the Russians plan to blow up a NATO
airbase with an atomic bomb.
At
Octopussy's big opening (sorry), Cubby Broccoli chided feminists and others
protesting the film's title as "very naughty for trying to read something into
it that isn't there."
Moore and co-star Maud Adams
were again rumored to be having an affair.
Adams
always shied away from revealing the somewhat embarrassing name of her character,
only saying that she had "the title role." Finally before the Royal Premiere,
Prince Charles demanded to know her part. "I didn't know how to answer him until
I just blurted out: Your Highness, I am Octopussy!"
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Music: "All Time High"
Music: "All Time High"
