You Only Live Twice (1967)

Today, for my James Bond marathon, I'll be reviewing the 5th official James Bond film, You Only Live Twice (1967).

SYNOPSIS:
An unidentified spacecraft has been capturing US and Russian space shuttles orbiting the earth and then disappearing from radar.  Both nations accuse the other of the foul deed, bringing them to the brink of war.  The more level-headed UK sends James Bond (Sean Connery) to Japan to investigate a possible lead, bringing him face-to-face with his mysterious arch-enemy and leader of SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld! (Donald Pleasence)

REVIEW:
This was a big film!  Blown up to be the biggest Bond production yet, because Sean Connery announced he was quitting the role of James Bond forever after this film.  You see, the producers, expecting that Connery wouldn't be able to keep up the role forever, decided to hold secret auditions for a potential replacement actor for Bond.  But Sean Connery caught wind of it.  He was so outraged, he announced the end of his role as James Bond once this film was over.  Which led to a mad rush to find a replacement actor.  But more on that in the next official Bond film review.

Sean Connery had defined the character of James Bond on the big screen.  Knowing this would be the final Sean Connery film (and potentially the end of their franchise if they couldn't find an actor to live up to the role), they decided to make it as spectacular as possible.  James Bond will meet Blofeld for the first time and Blofeld's face would finally be revealed.  James Bond will get married.  James Bond will become Japanese and learn martial arts.  James Bond will die.

James Bond's Japanese look.

On top of that, the studio built a massive $1 million studio for Blofeld's secret volcano lair.  It was one of the largest stages every produced for a film at the time and could be seen for miles.  It attracted a lot of curious onlookers to Pinewood Studios.  It was also the inspiration for grandiose evil lairs in many future supervillain films, including Austin Powers, where Dr. Evil had his own volcano lair.

The granddaddy of all evil lairs!

Speaking of Dr. Evil, the character's look was inspired by the appearance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in this film, who finally revealed his face!  He was a serious-looking bald man with a rather large scar running over his droopy right eye and down his cheek.  He didn't sound as intimidating as his previous iterations in other films, and being shorter than Sean Connery, it was hard to see him as a threat while he's looking up into Bond's face.  But he lived up to his infamy all the same.  His volcano lair also had a pool of piranhas, which he used to dispose of his employees who disappointed him.  Classic supervillain move.

The face that defined supervillains for decades to come!

I mentioned that James Bond dies in this film.  That's not exactly a spoiler, as it happens at the very beginning of the film.  Bond is flirting with a woman in a fold-out bed when she flips his bed up into the wall, trapping him.  Two men run into the room and unload machine guns into the bed.  When police arrive, they find a bloody Bond and pronounce him dead.  After receiving a proper burial at sea (he was a Navy Commander, after all), Bond's body is retrieved by MI6, only for us to discover he was alive and well, breathing through an air tank in his body bag.  And thus, the world believes him dead, taking some heat off him and giving him the freedom to go undercover once again.  I guess it's hard to be a SECRET agent when everyone knows your name.

Blargh.  I am dead.  No, seriously guys.

The first time I saw this film, I knew the next film would have a new actor as 007.  So when this scene happened, I though they were killing off James Bond for real, so they could introduce a new character to take his place.  But no, it negated his death almost immediately with a flimsy excuse.  I guess this was the film's way to make sense of its title.

You Only Live Twice, Ian Fleming's 12th novel, was the last novel he'd publish in his lifetime.  In an almost suiting manner, the story was practically one of finality for James Bond.  In Fleming's previous novel, James Bond actually got married, but his wife was murdered mere hours after the ceremony by Blofeld.  In You Only Live Twice, Bond has become practically useless as a spy, letting depression and apathy take him over.  As a last chance for redemption, M sends Bond to Japan to persuade them to share intercepted Russian radio transmissions.  The Japanese agree, but only if Bond kills a mysterious Dr. Shatterhand who has been plaguing them.

It turns out Shatterhand is Blofeld in disguise!  Bond swears revenge for his wife and eventually kills Blofeld once and for all, but suffers a head injury in the process.  Suffering from amnesia, he ends up settling down as a Japanese fisherman, while the rest of the world declares him deceased.  But he's unable to get a Russian name out of his head and he travels to Russia to learn about his past and hopefully regain his memory.

The next two novels were released after Ian Fleming's death; one being an incomplete manuscript that publishers did their best to flesh out into a full story, and the other being a collection of unreleased short stories concerning Bond.  So the story of Bond officially ended at You Only Live Twice, where Bond is granted a second chance at living a normal life.  Fortunately, the films did not end here, despite Sean Connery passing on the role.

Q (Desmond Llewelyn) makes his return in this film, equipping Bond in the field again.  James Bond requests the delivery of "Little Nellie" and her father.  It turns out Little Nellie is the name of a tiny personal helicopter armed to the teeth with machine guns, flame throwers, aerial mines, rockets, and heat-seeking missiles.  Her father, of course, was Q, the man who invented her.  Besides the helicopter, Bond is given a cigarette rocket by the head of the Japanese Secret Service, Tiger Tanaka.  It's a cigarette that, when lighted, shoots a mini rocket from within it.

Little Nellie (helicopter) and her father (Q, left)

As usual, this film has a beautiful self-titled theme song.  You can watch/listen to it here:

RECOMMENDATION:
This film completed the classic supervillain tropes, with a secret volcano lair and an evil villain with a face scar.  If you want a taste of the classic super spy films, you absolutely have to watch these first 5 official James Bond films for the complete effect.  If you love action films, you must see the originals that set the stage for all secret agent action films to come!