Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008)

If James Bond had one person to thank for resurrecting his image after the tired finish of the Roger Moore era, the brief and frankly uninteresting Timothy Dalton era, and the up and down Pierce Brosnan era, that person would be...Jason Bourne? Doug Liman's THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002) based on the Robert Ludlum novel and starring Matt Damon as the amnesiac secret agent Jason Bourne (same initials as James Bond) provided the road map for the James Bond production team on how to reinvent 007. Make Bond grittier and more working class. Have more hand-to-hand fighting. Film the action in a more cinema verite aka natural, handheld style. And cast an actor the opposite of the audience's expectations of who should play the world's most famous spy. 

Little known British actor Daniel Craig was chosen as the 6th incarnation of James Bond. Blonde hair, muscularly slight in stature, and piercing blue eyes, Craig was a new twist on our pre-conceived notion of James Bond's usual appearance as tall with jet black hair. Craig's previous credits included as Angelina Jolie's ex-tomb raider boyfriend in Simon West's LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER (2001) and as cocaine dealer XXXX in Matthew Vaughn's LAYER CAKE (2004). Craig turned out to be an inspired choice. It turned out the Bond filmmakers had more interesting ideas for the direction of James Bond.  They were going to go back to the beginning with CASINO ROYALE (2006) based on author Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel written in 1952 that was first filmed in 1954 as a live television episode with Barry Nelson as an American James Bond and later as a spy spoof in Ken Hughes's (and two other directors) CASINO ROYALE (1967) with an All-Star cast and starring David Niven as an aging James Bond pulled out of retirement to fight an international crime organization called SMERSH. 

CASINO ROYALE was an opportunity for Bond Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli to start over again after 44 years and tell James Bond's origin story to a new generation of moviegoers. Director Martin Campbell, who directed Pierce Brosnan's excellent debut as Bond in GOLDENEYE (1995), was brought back for Daniel Craig's first foray as 007. CASINO ROYALE reveals how Bond got his Double O license to kill status and explores the mother/son dynamic between a now female M (Judi Dench) and the newly promoted Bond. CASINO ROYALE had so many storylines that the following film Marc Forster's QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) is essentially Part Two of CASINO ROYALE.  Even with the new direction for the Bond series, this reboot made sure to pay homage to Bond's past in regards to cars, villains, and women from past James Bond films. 

With a screen play by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Paul Haggis based on the novel Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and directed by Martin Campbell, CASINO ROYALE dispenses with a typical Bond pre-sequence and kicks right in Jason Bourne style in Prague, Czech Republic (and a first for a Bond film - a glorious black and white scene) as newly sanctioned to kill 007 James Bond (Daniel Craig) makes his first two authorized kills when he dispatches Dryden (Malcolm Sinclair), a traitorous MI6 section chief and his contact. The film jumps to Uganda where the mysterious Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) introduces private banker to terrorists Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) to Steven Obanno (Isaach De Bankole), warlord of the Lord's Resistance Army. Obanno gives Le Chiffre $100 million dollars to invest and increase his wealth. Le Chiffre gets on the phone and begins shorting the stock on a company called Skyfleet. The film switches to Madagascar where Bond is tracking a scarred bomb maker named Mollaka (Sebastien Foucan). Mollaka makes Bond and flees a crowded market. Bond chases him from a construction site to the Nambutan Embassy where Mollaka tries to hide under diplomatic immunity. Bond shoots Mollaka and creates a diversion to escape but not without causing an international incident that forces M (Judi Dench) to send Bond on an unplanned holiday. 

Bond traces a text on Mollaka's phone to Nassau, Bahamas and makes that his holiday destination. Coincidentally, Le Chiffre's yacht is moored off the beach in Nassau. Bond stays at the Ocean Club where he sneaks into their security office and matches the time code from the text to the hotel's surveillance video and finds the man who hired Mollaka, a shady Greek official named Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian). Bond beats Dimitrios in a poker game, winning the Greek's 1964 Aston Martin then seduces Dimitrios's wife Solange (Caterina Murino). Dimitrios visits Le Chiffre on his yacht and tells him he has another bomber Carlos (Claudio Santamaria) who can blow up the Skyfleet prototype jetliner for Le Chiffre. Solange tips off Bond that Dimitrios is headed to Miami. In Miami, Bond tracks and kills Dimitrios before chasing down Carlos driving a fuel truck with a detonator on the Miami Airport tarmac and preventing him from blowing up Skyfleet's prototype jetliner. Le Chiffre's stock shorting plan is thwarted. Le Chiffre has lost Obanno's $100 million dollars.

Due to Bond's intervention, Le Chiffre immediately sets up a high stakes poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro (with the Czech Republic standing in for the Balkan country). Buy-In is $10 million and the winner will walk away with $150 million. M has a microchip injected into Bond's forearm to better track her cocky new Double-0 agent. M authorizes Bond to enter the tournament and bankrupt Le Chiffre, forcing the Albanian banker to come to MI6 for protection and reveal his murky partners. On the train to Montenegro, Bond meets Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) from the British Treasury Department who will bankroll Bond's stake in the poker game. Bond and Vesper size each other up. Bond connects with his French Secret Service contact Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) who's keeping tabs on Le Chiffre. The poker game begins. One of the players is CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). Bond loses his first hand but picks up on Le Chiffre's twitch when he's bluffing and passes the information to Vesper and Mathis. The poker game takes a one hour break. Le Chiffre returns to his hotel room where Obanno and his bodyguard threaten to hack off Le Chiffre's girlfriend Valenka's (Ivana Milicevic) arm if he doesn't get Obanno's $100 million back. Le Chiffre guarantees he will.

Bond and Vesper encounter Obanno in the hallway. Bond kills Obanno and his bodyguard. Mathis cleans up the mess. Bond washes off the blood and returns to the poker game where Le Chiffre tricks Bond into going all in and beats him. Vesper won't bankroll Bond another $5 million. Leiter stakes Bond the money. In return, Leiter and the CIA get Le Chiffre when he loses. Bond wins the next hand. Valenka poisons Bond's martini, sending Bond into cardiac arrest. Vesper saves him. Bond returns to the table and beats Le Chiffre with a straight flush. Le Chiffre storms out. Vesper's called away by Mathis but it's a ruse. Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper. Bond chases after her and nearly runs her over as he turns a curve, flipping his sports car multiple times. Bond and Vesper are taken to an abandoned barge where Le Chiffre tortures Bond for his password to the $150 million poker winnings. Offscreen, gunshots are fired. Mr. White enters the room and kills Le Chiffre. Bond and Vesper are allowed to live. Bond recuperates at a Lake Como convalescent home.  He and Vesper fall in love. Bond submits his resignation to M. Bond and Vesper sail to Venice, Italy. When M calls and tells Bond the poker winnings have not been deposited, Bond realizes that he's been betrayed by Vesper. Bond chases Vesper and her blackmailers into a Venetian palazzo restoration where Vesper locks herself in an elevator as the building sinks into the canal. Vesper drowns and Mr. White escapes with the money. Or does he?

From CASINO ROYALE'S opening scene, the audience is aware this will not be your father's James Bond. The violence is brutal and jarring. Bond violently kills a man in a men's bathroom before coldly shooting a British intelligence traitor with a silencer. For the rest of the film, Bond will be bloodied and bruised in every fight sequence, sometimes using his bare hands, sometimes using whatever lethal looking object like a nail gun is available at that moment. Bond's torture scene in CASINO ROYALE is raw and Tarantino-esque, unlike anything seen in a Bond film before. Bound naked to a chair, Bond is brutalized by a desperate Le Chiffre who swings a knotted rope into Bond's body and genitals. In this reboot, every suspect that Bond needs to interrogate (like the bomber Mollaka) or person that Bond cares about (Vesper) is killed by Bond or because of Bond. Death is a constant companion in CASINO ROYALE.

With this Bond reboot, CASINO ROYALE introduces a fascinating mother/son dynamic between the newly promoted James Bond and his (mother) superior M (Judi Dench). Early in the film, Bond surprises M at her flat, showing off that he knows where she lives which pisses off M. Later, he steals and uses M's logins and passwords to locate information about his next target against M's orders. Throughout CASINO ROYALE, M is trying to rein in and teach Bond the intricacies of spy craft. She warns him his ego needs to be checked at the door. Bond is like a hot-headed teenager, pushing his parent to the limit. He thinks he knows it all and invincible. It catches up with Bond at the poker table when he boasts to Vesper and Mathis he's cracked Le Chiffre's ticks when bluffing. One of those two confidantes will betray Bond, causing him to lose $10 million and nearly his life. In the end, Bond puts too much trust in Vesper before thoroughly vetting her. His heart overrules his brain. He falls in love with Vesper and turns in his resignation to M.  He doesn't register that Vesper's been compromised. She's helping the enemy to save her actual boyfriend who Mr. White holds captive. CASINO ROYALE floats into John Le Carre territory. Bond defeats the bad guys (sort of) but his love interest Vesper dies in the process. The price of defending your country comes with a cost.

This new James Bond film may have a new leading man and a new grittier style yet the filmmakers and writers make sure to honor the past. In CASINO ROYALE, Bond wins a silver Aston Martin identical to the car Sean Connery drove in GOLDFINGER (1964) in a poker match. The Bahamas stands in for Madagascar during Bond's pursuit of the bomber Mollaka. That sequence was filmed near the same locations where THUNDERBALL (1965) was shot. Although it wasn't meant to be a homage, Daniel Craig's walking out of the water in a speedo-like swimsuit to gaze at Caterina Murino as Solange on horseback hearkens back to Ursula Andress's watery introduction to Sean Connery on a Jamaican beach in DR. NO (1962). 

Daniel Craig was an inspired choice to play James Bond in CASINO ROYALE, an atypical casting choice that revitalized the franchise. Craig gets the chance to play Bond at the start of his Double-O status. His Bond begins as a cocky and petulant British agent. He thinks he knows everything about spy craft already. In reality, Bond's a bull in a china shop, killing suspects he's supposed to question for information. He's responsible for collateral damage like the death of Dimitrios's wife Solange after Bond prevents the prototype plane bombing. Bond acts before considering all the possibilities. It's Vesper who sizes up Bond's true background on the train to Montenegro. "My guess is you didn't come from money, and your school friends never let you forget it. Which means you were at that school by the grace of someone else's charity - hence that chip on your shoulder. And since your first thought about me ran to "orphan", that's what I'd say you are." Bond's orphan past will come to the forefront in the excellent SKYFALL (2012)

Eva Green, who plays Bond's love interest Vesper Lynd in CASINO ROYALE, may be the first lead actress to play a femme fatale in a Bond film. Bond has faced supporting femme fatale assassins from Karin Dor's Helga Brandt in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967) to Famke Janssen's Xenia Onatopp in GOLDENEYE. Initially, we're led to believe that Vesper has seduced Bond to steal the $150 million he won in the Montenegro poker winnings. We will later learn her actions have a more sinister motivation. Vesper should be James Bond's future wife. Fate will have other ideas. Green has gone on to play more seductive women in films including Ridley Scott's KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (2005), Noam Murro's 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE (2014), and Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR (2014).

Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is a strange villain in CASINO ROYALE as the duplicitous Albanian international banker and poker player Le Chiffre. Villains aren't normally shown to have disabilities. Le Chiffre has two. He bleeds from his tear ducts, making Le Chiffre almost reptilian. Le Chiffre also has asthma which pops up from time to time when he's stressed or under duress. Ironically, Bond is not the one to depose of Le Chiffre. It's the enigmatic Mr. White, representing a nameless crime organization, that kills Le Chiffre when Vesper promises to get him the money in exchange for Bond's life. Le Chiffre is just a piece of the unfolding puzzle. Mikkelsen has become an international star appearing in both Danish and American films including Louis Leterrier's CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010), Nikolaj Arcel's A ROYAL AFFAIR (2012) with Alicia Vikander, and more recently, James Mangold's INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (2023) opposite Harrison Ford.

One of the holdovers from the Pierce Brosnan period is Judi Dench returning as M, Bond's boss and head of MI6. Switching M from a male to female character beginning with GOLDENEYE was a genius decision. With CASINO ROYALE, the filmmakers eagerly explore the relationship between newly promoted, freewheeling Bond and the controlling and manipulative M. It's a mother/son like relationship, similar to a single Mom trying to keep tabs on her teenage son. The relationship is Shakespearean and Craig and Dench are especially good in their scenes together. Dench brings gravitas to CASINO ROYALE.  Movie fans have loved Dench from James Ivory's A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1985) to John Madden's SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998) and Madden's THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2011). 

This new James Bond era with Craig ushered in some top acting talent in his series five films. CASINO ROYALE just scratches the surface of what is to come. One notable addition to CASINO ROYALE is a familiar character in the Bond universe: CIA operative Felix Leiter played by acclaimed actor Jeffrey Wright. Like M's gender change from masculine to feminine, Felix Leiter (and his previous incarnations) changes from white to black (the Bond one-off NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN cast black actor Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter so it's not a first although it is new in the Broccoli/Saltzman/Wilson franchise). Wright brings a combination of calmness and sardonic humor to the role of Bond's intelligence adversary/friend. Catch the excellent Wright in Stephen Gaghan's SYRIANA (2005), Wes Anderson's THE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021), and Matt Reeves' THE BATMAN (2022). 

One last actor to mention in CASINO ROYALE is Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini who plays Bond's French secret service contact Rene Mathis. The character of Mathis was a regular character in many of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels including From Russia With Love and Thunderball. Mathis never appeared in any of the Connery/Moore/Lazenby/Dalton/Brosnan films. In CASINO ROYALE, Mathis is more a Le Carre character than a Fleming one. Mathis is an older agent, espionage weary who despite exhibiting loyalty to Bond is deemed a traitor and interrogated before Vesper's treachery is discovered. Giannini was an international star in the 1970s appearing in several films by Italian director Lina Wertmuller including SWEPT AWAY (1974) and SEVEN BEAUTIES (1975).  Giannini had a resurgence a few decades later with CASINO ROYALE, Ridley Scott's HANNIBAL (2001) with Anthony Hopkins, and Tony Scott's MAN ON FIRE (2004) starring Denzel Washington. A hidden talent of Giannini was that he was the actor hired to dub the voices of Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Dustin Hoffman among others for Italian releases of their films. 

Like it's gritty, darker tone, CASINO ROYALE'S theme song is more hard edged with Soundgarden's front man Chris Cornell singing the catchy "You Know My Name." It's a true rock and roll song in the tradition of Paul McCartney and Wings "Live and Let Die" Bond theme song from LIVE AND LET DIE (1971). CASINO ROYALE is the first Bond film not to utilize naked models in its credit sequence.  The locations are fresh with filming in Prague, Czech Republic; Lake Como and Venice Italy; and the Bahamas. The Bahamas stands in for the Mozambique sequence and the Czech Republic for Montenegro. In keeping with the physical action in the CASINO ROYALE, Sebastien Foucan who plays the first bomber Mollaka was one of the early founders of parkour or free running which involves interacting with the environment. Bond chases Mollaka through a construction site with Mollaka running and bouncing off walls, beams, and vehicles to stay one step ahead of Bond. Mollaka is like a human pinball and his skill is perfect for CASINO ROYALE'S new direction. 

Daniel Craig's second outing as James Bond is unusual in that QUANTUM OF SOLACE is Part Two of the CASINO ROYALE.  The filmmakers might have made a 3 1/2 hour film if they wanted. CASINO ROYALE ends with Bond tracking the enigmatic Mr. White to his Lake Como villa, shooting White in the leg and proclaiming to White (and movie audiences) "My name is Bond, James Bond." Bond may have tentatively thwarted Le Chiffre but he, M, and MI6 don't know who the nameless organization is that Le Chiffre and White work for. QUANTUM OF SOLACE continues the search to uncover the mystery organization. It is also Bond's quest for revenge to find the people who forced his love Vesper Lynd to betray her country and Bond and sacrifice her life. 

QUANTUM OF SOLACE is a curious entry in the Bond Universe at first glance. It is the shortest Bond film clocking in at one hour and forty six minutes. It picks up where CASINO ROYALE ended with Bond transporting the wounded Mr. White to a Siena, Italy safe room to interrogate him. When I first saw QUANTUM OF SOLACE, I was not a fan.  It felt like a jumble of individual set pieces and not a whole movie. After watching CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE back to back, QUANTUM has its own identity and moves the plot and themes of CASINO ROYAL forward. QUANTUM OF SOLACE continues the injection of Jason Bourne action with frenetic camera work and bone jarring and bloody fighting. QUANTUM OF SOLACE keeps up the tradition of great Bond action sequences whether it be via car chase, boat chase, and even a hair-raising plane chase. 

Again, the CASINO ROYALE trio of Paul Haggis and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade provide the screenplay for QUANTUM OF SOLACE based on a short story Quantum of Solace by Ian Fleming.  For Craig's 2nd Bond film, Marc Forster (WORLD WAR Z, MONSTER'S BALL) took over for Martin Campbell as director. QUANTUM OF SOLACE picks up from CASINO ROYALE with James Bond (Daniel Craig) transporting Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) to Siena, Italy for interrogation (after evading machine gun wielding assailants chasing his sports car through a marble quarry). In a safe room underneath the Piazza del Campo, Bond joins M (Judi Dench) to question White. White tells her his organization's people are everywhere. On cue, M's bodyguard Craig Mitchell (Glenn Foster) turns out to be a double agent. He tries to kill M but fails. Bond chases Mitchell above ground from the horse race Palio to a restored church where Bond kills Mitchell. Back in London, Bond uncovers Mitchell was communicating with an Edmund Slate (Neil Jackson) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Bond flies to Haiti (with Panama standing in for the Caribbean island) and finds and kills Slate in a violent fight before he can question him. Slate left a suitcase at the front desk which Bond takes. As Bond leaves Slate's hotel, he's picked up by Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), a Bolivian agent who thinks Bond is Slate. Bond opens the suitcase. It has Camille's photo and a gun.  Slate was meant to kill Camille for Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), CEO of Green Planet and her ex-lover. Bond jumps out of her car before she can shoot him.

Bond tracks Camille to the Port-au-Prince docks where she confronts Greene and his henchman Elvis (Anatole Taubman). Greene meets with deposed Bolivian dictator General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio). Greene promises to help Medrano be reinstated as President of Bolivia. In return, Medrano will sign over rights to a desert that Greene covets for some mysterious reason. Greene hands Camille over to Medrano. Medrano killed Camille's father and raped and murdered her sister and mother. Camille seeks revenge. Bond borrows a speed boat and rams Medrano's boat, rescuing Camille before she can kill Medrano. Bond calls M and her Chief of Staff Tanner (Rory Kinnear) for information about Greene. M calls the CIA Section Chief of South America Gregg Beam (David Harbour) for information about Greene. Beam pretends the CIA has no interest in Greene. In reality, Beam and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) sit in a private jet with Greene. The CIA has agreed not to interfere with Medrano's planned coup in Bolivia or Greene's pursuit of Bolivian oil stocks. Greene wants Bond dead. Beam considers the request. Bond follows Greene to Bregenz, Austria where Greene takes in a performance of the opera Tosca. During the performance, Bond uncovers a group of individuals including Greene called Quantum discussing Greene's Tierra Project and obtaining some mysterious precious resource. Bond breaks up their clandestine meeting.

As the secret members of Quantum flee the opera, Bond snaps their photos, forwarding them to M and Tanner for identification. One of its members is Guy Haines (Paul Ritter), special envoy to the Prime Minister. Bond crosses paths with Haines' bodyguard, killing him before discovering he's connected to Haines. M is pressured to cancel Bond's passport and credit cards, ordering Bond to come in and debrief. Bond disobeys her order.  Bond travels to Talemone, Italy on the Italian coast to visit his retired friend Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini). Bond apologizes for suspecting Mathis was the traitor in CASINO ROYALE. He tells Mathis he needs new credentials. Mathis asks to join Bond on his mission.  They fly to La Paz, Bolivia (with Chile doubling for Bolivia) to follow Greene and learn more about his Tierra Project. In La Paz, Bond is greeted by Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) with the British Consulate, sent by M to keep Bond under wraps. Bond seduces Fields. Bond, Fields, and Mathis attend a fancy party thrown by Greene to woo big donors to contribute to his supposed environmental Tiera Project. Camille crashes the party and embarrasses Greene. Mathis is betrayed by the local police and murdered.  The police try to frame Bond for his murder. Camille rescues Bond and they head out to the desert.

Bond and Camille rent an old plane and fly over the desert tract that Greene's interested in. They're pursued by a Bolivian fighter jet and a helicopter, both trying to shoot them down. Bond and Camille parachute out of the plane before it crashes. They land in a sinkhole and discover Greene's secret. Greene's after water and not oil. Greene has stealthily built an underground dam to cause a drought to the Bolivian people and cripple the government. Bond and Camille walk back to town and catch a bus back to La Paz. M and her team are waiting for Bond at his hotel room. Fields lies dead on his bed, killed by Greene, drowned in crude oil. M has orders to bring Bond back to London. Bond escapes M's agents and tells M he's going to take down Greene. Bond meets with Felix at a La Paz dive bar. Felix reveals Medrano can't begin his coup until he pays off the National Police. The payoff is at an exclusive desert resort called Perla de las Dunas. Bond and Camille head to the resort for a final, fiery showdown with Bond facing off with Greene and Camille extracting revenge on Medrano. 

QUANTUM OF SOLACE continues the hard edged, almost Tarantino like violence that CASINO ROYALE started. The ousted Bolivian dictator General Medrano may be one of the most evil minor villains in a Bond film. We learn Medrano murdered Camille's father the first time he was leader of Bolivia and raped her mother and sister before killing them.  Medrano's about to rape a member of the hotel staff (Oona Chaplin) after the money exchange when Camille bursts into his room to kill him. Greene is a psychopath hiding behind the facade of an Eco-CEO.  The murder of Fields is heinous, her body covered in oil, her lungs full of crude. Laying prone on the hotel bed, it's a dark homage to GOLDFINGER when Sean Connery discovers Sue Eaton's body painted in gold. Greene's demise will be the second time that Craig's Bond did not kill the baddie himself (although he does wound Greene). Bond lets Greene crawl away in the Bolivian desert he desired. M later reports Greene's body was found days later with a couple of bullets in his skull. Quantum does not take failure lightly. 

There's a cynical undertone to QUANTUM OF SOLACE that feels like John Le Carre territory.  One example is the relationship between the British MI6 and America's CIA. Gregg Beam (David Harbour), CIA section chief of South America and Leiter's boss, lies to M about the CIA's view of Greene. Beam (and a taciturn Leiter) are in cahoots with Greene and Medrano's political coup plot. Beam even contemplates Greene's request to have Bond killed. Leiter's relationship with Bond will overcome Beam's blurred alliances. Leiter will point Bond to where he can find and defeat Greene resulting in Leiter replacing Beam after Greene and Medrano's failure. Even more cynical is the plight of Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini). Mistakenly suspected of turning on Bond in CASINO ROYALE (he's tasered as he visits a recovering Bond), Mathis is given a beautiful villa on the Italian coast and retirement as reparation. When Bond needs Mathis's help, Mathis reluctantly agrees, hoping to redeem himself to his spy partners. Mathis's return is short-lived as he's betrayed by the Bolivian Police Chief and shot, discovered in the trunk of Bond's car and his body discarded in a garbage dumpster. Is Mathis's fate a premonition for all secret agents like Bond when they grow older? 

QUANTUM OF SOLACE has a tidy epilogue that resolves Vesper's seeming betrayal and shows the maturation of Bond from CASINO ROYALE to QUANTUM. At the end of CASINO ROYALE, M reveals that Mr. White's organization had kidnapped Vesper's boyfriend prior to the poker tournament, threatening to kill him if Vesper didn't either help Le Chiffre beat Bond. Vesper allows herself to drown in the sinking palazzo rather than face the consequences from either Mr. White or MI6. At the beginning of QUANTUM OF SOLACE, M informs Bond that Vesper's boyfriend's body was found only his DNA didn't match his name Yusef Kabira (Simon Kassianides). It's a casual aside we almost forget about until QUANTUM'S post-mortem. In the snowy Russian city of Kazan, Yusef and his beautiful girlfriend Corrine Veneau (Stana Katic) return to his apartment. Bond waits for them. He informs Corrine (a Canadian secret agent) that her cover has been compromised by Yusef who seduces female agents to blackmail them. Bond tells her Vesper's fate and lets Corrine leave. When Bond exits Yusef's apartment, a waiting M assumes Yusef's dead. Bond assures her he's alive (possibly roughed up offscreen) for her agents to take him.  Bond has learned a lesson from M after two films. "I need you back, " M tells him. "I never left," Bond assures her. 

Initially, I was not a big fan of Olga Kurylenko as Camille in QUANTUM OF SOLACE. I should have realized that the Bond Girl was evolving in this reboot. Camille is Bond's partner in fighting the bad guys rather than his love interest. Camille comes from a line of Bond Girls avenging a loved one killed by a villain like Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet) seeking Goldfinger's death for killing her sister Jill Masterson (Sue Eaton) in GOLDFINGER or Barbara Bach seeking vengeance on Bond for unknowingly killing her Russian spy lover in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977). Camille wants retribution on General Medrano who murdered her family. Kurylenko has grown on me with more viewings of QUANTUM OF SOLACE and she looks pretty darn good covered in dust and sweat. Bond and Camille team up for each other's quest to avenge people they loved. When both villains are dead, Bond will give Camille one quick kiss, better than a handshake. Kurylenko had a good run after QUANTUM OF SOLACE appearing in Terence Malick's TO THE WONDER (2012) with Ben Affleck and Joseph Kosinski's sci-fi action film OBLIVION (2013) opposite Tom Cruise. 

Like Kurylenko, French actor Mathieu Almalric who plays envirionmental billionaire and CEO of Green Planet Dominic Greene also did not win me over the first time I watched QUANTUM OF SOLACE. More viewings reveal Greene as vicious and smarmy as a Bond villain can be. Greene's a pint-sized Elon Musk before we knew who Musk was. Greene's not at all hesitant to hand over his ex-girlfriend Camille to the brutal dictator Medrano for his sadistic pleasure (and this is after Greene put out a hit on Camille that Bond accidentally foiled). Amalric as Greene has great, wild eyes that often make him resemble a trapped animal when cornered by Camille or Bond. Like CASINO ROYALE'S Mikkelsen,  Almalric (who slightly resembles director Roman Polanski) has juggled a career both in Europe and the U.S. in films like Steven Spielberg's MUNICH (2005) with Eric Bana and Daniel Craig, Julian Schnabel's THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007), and Wes Anderson's THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014). 

Bond films are good at discovering new talent (think Benicio Del Toro in 1989's LICENSE TO KILL). QUANTUM OF SOLACE has two supporting roles played by actors that have gone on to successful careers. David Harbour is perfectly cast as the corrupt CIA South American bureau chief Gregg Beam who oozes contempt for the good guys. The over confident Beam turns a blind eye to bad guys Greene and Medrano who play him with plans to overthrow the Bolivian government and oil exploration. Beam's disdain for his British intelligence allies is palatable. Beam barely trusts his CIA partner Felix Leiter. Harbour can play any role from a serial killer in Scott Frank's A WALK AMONG TOMBSTONES (2014) to an FBI agent in Scott Cooper's BLACK MASS (2015) to most recently as the gruff but heroic Police Chief Jim Hopper in the Duffer Brothers Sci-Fi Conspiracy/Adventure series STRANGER THINGS (2016-2025).

The closest to a real Bond Girl in QUANTUM OF SOLACE is Gemma Arterton who plays British embassy employee Strawberry Fields (although she's only called Fields in the film). Fields is all business when she greets Bond at the La Paz airport. Bond preys on Fields's youth and naivete to disobey M and sleep with him. Arterton only has a few scenes in QUANTUM but she stands out right away and we the audience like her. When Fields turns up murdered, her dead body covered in oil, it's shocking. Besides tripping Greene's accomplice Elvis, she hasn't done anything to hurt anyone. Unfortunately, once Fields became part of Bond's world, she became collateral damage. The red headed Arterton has gone on to a great film career appearing in films like Mike Newell's PRINCE OF  PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME (2010), Stephen Frears TAMARA DREWE (2010), and Neil Jordan's vampire film BYZANTIUM (2012). One last new cast member to mention is Rory Kinnear who joined the series as M's Chief of Staff Tanner in QUANTUM OF SOLACE and subsequent Bond/Craig films. Kinnear is the son of the late British comedy actor Roy Kinnear (THE THREE MUSKETEERS). In CASINO ROYALE, another solid British actor Tobias Menzies (HBOs ROME) played M's assistant Villiers.

The gamble to shake up the Bond franchise and turn it upside down, reimagining Bond as he began his secret service career worked. Daniel Craig was an original choice to play this new James Bond, ruggedly handsome and a little rough around the edges.  Craig had a feral quality as the new Bond and audiences accepted the change. Craig's first two films CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE took an edgier, darker tone, taking a page from the Bond clone THE BOURNE IDENTITY on how to modernize the Bond series from its earlier, glitzier past. CASINO ROYALE and QUANTUM OF SOLACE provide Bond's arc from unpredictable new agent in M's MI6 to her main weapon against today's sophisticated and vile villains.  The films lay the groundwork for a mysterious organization Quantum that will shed its snakeskin to reveal its true self soon. With these first two films completed, the new Bond series will take a gigantic jump forward with Craig's third entry in Sam Mendes' SKYFALL, in my estimation the best Bond film ever with the exception of Guy Hamilton's GOLDFINGER, a film that will bring Bond's orphan past to the forefront. 

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967) was a late night horror film staple on television that I would see listed in my TV GUIDE every six months or so. The title always intrigued me. Even more intriguing was that it had a subtitle which was THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS OR PARDON ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK. As it turns out, before Mel Brooks was satirizing the Frankenstein films in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974) or vampires films in DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995), THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS was beating Brooks to the punch spoofing the British Hammer horror films of the late 50s and early 60s as well as throwing in some Eastern European Jewish humor for good measure. What was even more surprising was that this vampire farce was directed by Roman Polanski, a rising young director more associated with serious psychological films than horror film satires.

The Polish born Polanski burst onto cinema in the first half of the 1960s with several excellent psychological thrillers including KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962), REPULSION (1965) starring Catherine Deneuve in Mod 60s London, and CUL-DE-SAC (1966) starring Donald Pleasence. THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS was Polanski's first color film and he goes all out with in gorgeous MetroColor. THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS has an interesting history for a minor horror film. In the United Kingdom, it was released as DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES. For the United States version, Executive Producer Martin Ransohoff and MGM cut 12-20 minutes from Polanski's British release, redubbed some of the actor's voices, and added an animated prologue before the credits to play up the film's humorous elements without Polanski's consent. The American version was roundly badmouthed by critics and disowned by Polanski.  In the early 1980s, MGM found a print of Polanski's original version that has since been rereleased in theaters and on DVD, garnering new fans and more favorable reviews from critics. 

Due to no fault of its own, THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS also has a bit of notoriety connected with director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate. In true Hollywood fairy tale style, Polanski fell in love with his beautiful co-star Sharon Tate (VALLEY OF THE DOLLS) during the filming of THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS. They were married, Tate became pregnant, and the two were expecting their first child when Tate and four others were murdered in Polanski's San Fernando, California  home in August of 1969 by disciples of Charles Manson's cult. Tate was eight and a half months pregnant with Polanski's baby. THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is a reminder of happier times for both Polanski and Tate.

With Screen Story and Screenplay by frequent Polanski collaborator Gerard Brach (THE NAME OF THE ROSE) and Roman Polanski and directed by Roman Polanski (CHINATOWN), THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS are Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran), recently of Konigsberg University and his bumbling assistant Alfred (played by director Roman Polanski). The two arrive at night by sleigh to a snow covered village in Transylvania, searching for signs of vampires. They are granted lodging by Yoyneh Shagal, the innkeeper (Alfie Bass) and his plump wife Rebecca Shagal (Jessie Robins). Abronsius notices garlic hanging from the rafters. He asks if there's a castle nearby. The villagers shake their head but the village idiot (Ronald Lacey) confirms a castle exits in the vicinity. Abronsius is confident they're close to locating a bloodsucker. Shagal takes them to their room where they encounter Shagal's beautiful daughter Sarah (Sharon Tate) taking a bath in their bathroom. Alfred is immediately smitten with the red-headed Sarah. Later that night, Shagal sneaks out from his bed and tries to sleep with his busty maid Magda (Fiona Lewis) who rejects his advances. Mrs. Shagal suspects her husband's shenanigans. She looks for him in Magda's room but only finds the maid mending his shirt. Shagal is hiding behind the door. 

The next morning, Abronsius observes a mysterious hunchback Koukol (Terry Downes) purchasing wood in the village. Koukol notices Sarah staring at him through an upstairs window. Alfred tries to wave her away from the hunchback's sight. Abronsius orders Alfred to follow Koukol to find out where he lives. Alfred sneaks onto the back of Koukol's sleigh only to fall off in the snow before discovering Koukol's home. That night, Sarah flirts with Alfred so she can take another hot bath in the bathroom. Koukol returns to the village with an aristocratic stranger in his sleigh, his master Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne). Von Krolock descends from the skylight above the bath, biting Sarah on the neck. Alfred hears a noise and peers through the keyhole, seeing the vampire von Krolock for the first time. He tries to wake Abronsius who's in a deep sleep. Von Krolock whisks Sarah away to his castle.  Shagal races into the frigid night to rescue his daughter. Three woodcutters bring Shagal's frozen body back the next morning. Abronsius inspects Shagal's body and finds puncture bites all over. Abronsius tries to have Mrs. Shagal put a stake through her husband's heart. She won't do it. Abronsius and Alfred attempt to drive a stake into Shagal. Shagal, now a vampire, awakens and escapes through a trap door into the wine cellar. Abronsius and Alfred chase after Shagal on skis as he leads them to von Krolock's castle. 

Abronsius and Alfred manage to sneak into the castle only to be locked in a room by Koukol. Koukol returns later and escorts them to a large study where von Krolock greets them. A little bat and mouse proceeds between Abronsius and von Krolock as they dance around who they are and what their true intentions are. The Count shows them to their rooms where they meet von Krolock's son Herbert (Iain Quarrier), who happens to be homosexual and interested in Alfred. As they prepare to sleep, Alfred hears a woman singing a haunting melody. He wanders the hallway but can't locate the woman. Koukol assists von Krolock and Herbert into their coffins in the crypt.  Shagal drags his coffin in to join them.  Koukol makes Shagal sleep in the stable. Morning arrives. Abronsius is positive von Krolock is a vampire. Abronsius and Alfred search for the vampire's lair and Sarah. They spy on Koukol building a coffin. Koukol blocks their way to the crypt. The vampire killers climb to the top of the castle, crossing ramparts until they find a small, circular window leading down to the crypt. The smaller Alfred squeezes through the window. Abronsius tries and becomes stuck. Abronsius tells Alfred to kill von Krolock with a stake through the heart. Alfred tries but chickens out. 

Alfred exits the crypt and returns to the castle to go pull Abronsius back out of the window. He hears the mysterious woman singing again. Alfred finds Sarah singing in a bathtub. She tells him she's preparing for the Midnight Ball. Alfred looks out the window and sees the Professor's legs dangling out the window. He forgot about his master. Alfred retrieves the almost frozen Albronsius but clumsily loses the professor's bag with stakes and crosses over the wall in the process. The sun begins to set. Sarah can be heard singing again. Alfred goes to her room only to find Herbert waiting for him. Herbert attempts to seduce Alfred. He goes to bite Alfred who blocks Herbert's fangs with his book of love advice. Herbert chases Alfred who grabs Abronsius and they escape back up to the ramparts. Looking down at the courtyard, they see dozens of von Krolock's vampire family emerge from their coffins in their best costumes. Von Krolock surprises them on the ramparts. He tells the vampire hunters they will not be leaving...ever. Von Krolock locks them out on a tower. Von Krolock addresses his vampire flock and reveals that after some formal dancing, they will be dining on the young Sarah now wearing a beautiful crimson dress. Abronsius and Alfred escape the tower by using one of the castle's cannons to knock down the heavy oak door.  Abronsius and Alfred secure a couple of suits and wigs from two older vampires and sneak into the Midnight Ball where they risk their lives to rescue Sarah and escape von Krolock and his family of vampires.

Known for his more serious, psychological thrillers, director Polanski surprises in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS with a deft touch for physical comedy. Professor Abronsius and Alfred are the Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy of vampire hunters. Abronsius is the intellectual but absent-minded academian obsessed with proving vampires do exists. Alfred's his clumsy assistant, providing much of the physical comedy constantly dropping and tripping over the Professor's bag of vampire weapons. Actors MacGowran and Polanski make a good inept, comic duo, succeeding in their endeavors despite themselves. Director Polanski fills THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS with all the horror film tropes horror film audiences love including thick cobwebs, melted wax dripping from gothic candles, a spiral staircase, superstitious villagers, upside down bats in the castle's bowels, and even a hunchback servant!  Polanski and cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (THE LADYKILLERS) channel Hammer's horror films like THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) or THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) with deep, thick colors from Krolock's black and red cape to the costumes of the vampires at the Midnight Ball. I almost thought Polanski was going to make his first feature film with a happy ending with THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS as Abronsius and Alfred escape with damsel-in-distress Sarah from von Krolock's castle on their sleigh. Only Sarah reveals razor sharp fangs as she bites into Alfred's neck, dashing my hopes of an Alfred/Sarah wedding. 

Like Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, some of the humor in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS has its roots in Jewish Eastern Europe (remember, Polanski was born in Poland). One running subplot involves the lecherous Jewish innkeeper Shagal and his wandering eye for his busty maid Magda while trying to hide his lustful intentions from his suspicious wife Rebecca. Naturally, Magda rejects Shagal's advances by slapping him. The scene plays out like a Jewish joke which it very well might be. Rebecca wanders up to Magda's room to throttle her missing husband only find Magda alone, mending Shagal's shirt. If Rebecca had looked behind the door, she would have found Shagal cowering in fear. When Shagal becomes a vampire, the first person he goes to bite is Magda. In one of THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS funniest gags, Magda tries to fend off Shagal with her crucifix. Shagal shakes his head at her. The crucifix won't work on a Jewish vampire. Oy!

The filmmakers are dialed in to vampire lore with garlic hanging from the inn's rafters to keep vampires away, a medical bag full of wooden stakes and crucifixes, and several scenes where the vampire killers notice their hosts cast no reflection in the castle's mirrors. But Polanski provides vampire horror film aficionados with some surprises in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS. Not only does the film have a Jewish vampire in Shagal (who looks like Topol from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF), there's also a gay vampire in Herbert von Krolock, son of the Count, who has eyes (and fangs) for the meek Alfred. Director Polanski stages two well-crafted set pieces for a vampire spoof. Von Krolock's attack on Sarah in the bathtub is the film's first scary scene. We see von Krolock gazing down at her from the skylight, scraping snow away from the glass for a better view. Sarah notices snow flakes falling on her from inside before she looks up to find von Krolock descending in his black and red cape. The second bravura set piece is the dance of the vampires at the Midnight Ball. It's an intricate dance sequence, expertly choreographed as Abronsius and Alfred weave their way around multiple dance partners to sneak Sarah away from her blood sucking captors. Special kudos to composer Krzysztof (Christopher) Komeda for his musical score that straddles the line between eerie and humorous.

The cast for THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is eclectic and not exactly household names for American audiences. Irish actor Jack MacGowran as Professor Abronsius resembles a spindly Mark Twain with his fluffy white hair and moustache. MacGowran made his film debut in John Ford's THE QUIET MAN (1952) and had worked with Polanski earlier in CUL-DE-SAC. As Abronsius, MacGowran bounces between absent-minded, klutzy professor and occasionally astute vampire killer (he and Alfred never do kill a vampire in the film). With Abronsius's frailness, a running gag in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS involves Abronsius becoming frozen quite easily if he's out in the frigid Transylvanian air too long. Ironically, MacGowran's final role was as film director Burke Dennings who dies suspiciously after visiting the demon possessed Regan in William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST (1973). MacGowran himself died soon after completing THE EXORCIST and some conspiracy theorists are convinced the THE EXORCIST production was cursed by the devil himself.

Like James Dean, Sharon Tate's film career was as brief as her life. THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is an opportunity to appreciate Tate and contemplate a career that might have been. Tate was already becoming famous for her beauty and she's ravishing as the village beauty and innkeeper's daughter Sarah. Tate as Sarah exudes innocence as a young woman coming of age, unaware of the evil that exists outside her insulated world. It's interesting to imagine what kind of career Tate might have had. She appeared in Mark Robson's sex potboiler VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) for her stunning looks yet exhibited she was adept at physical comedy in a supporting role in the James Bond spoof THE WRECKING CREW (1968) starring Dean Martin as U.S. Government agent Matt Helm. Would her husband/director Polanski have cast her in one of his future dramatic films? Tate's last appearance in a film was a cameo as a party guest in husband Polanski's serious horror film ROSEMARY'S BABY (1969) starring Mia Farrow.  Tate was only 26 year old when she was murdered. Quentin Tarantino revived the memory of Sharon Tate and immortalized her in his revisionist take on Hollywood and the Manson Cult in 1969 in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate. 

Count von Krolock in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS may be one of my new favorite non-Dracula vampire characters.  As played by German actor Ferdy Mayne, Krolock is urbane and well-educated like Dracula. Unlike the reclusive Dracula, Krolock has a family and relatives and with that the usual family problems.  His son Herbert is gay. His relatives all sleep in a graveyard in the center of the castle and they're thirsty for blood. Except for the occasional woodcutter, the Krolock's are having trouble finding fresh prey until the Count discovers Sarah.  Mayne's deep voice and aristocratic looks (and white hair) make Krolock memorable. Other Ferdy Mayne roles to check out include as a Nazi general in Brian G. Hutton's WWII thriller WHERE EAGLES DARE (1968) with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood and teaming up again with Polanski in his pirate action/satire PIRATES (1986) with Walter Matthau. The most humorous character in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS besides Alfred is the innkeeper Shagal played by Alfie Bass (THE LAVENDER HILL MOB). I mentioned Bass's Shagal looked like Topol from FIDDLER IN THE ROOF. Bass actually took over the FIDDLER IN THE ROOF role from Topol on the London stage. Shagal's henpecked by his wife as a human and gets no respect from the hunchback Koukol when he becomes a vampire, forced to sleep in his coffin in the stables instead of the crypt like the Krolock's.

Some final trivia and tidbits. Director Roman Polanski was quite comfortable both in front of the camera and behind it. In THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS Polanski plays the cowardly vampire hunter Alfred. Polanski starred as the main character in a few films including as Trelkovsky in his psychological film THE TENANT (1976) co-starring Isabelle Adjani. Polanski has a memorable cameo in his own film noir CHINATOWN (1974) as a sniveling crook who slices up private eye Jack Nicholson's nose with a knife when he gets too nosy in his investigation. CRAZYFILMGUY did see the tacked on animated sequence on the U.S. version for THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS as a special feature on his Blu Ray copy. The short segment is terrible and does not belong with the rest of the movie. What is funny and belongs is MGM's lion logo morphing into a vampire bat which occurs at the beginning of the opening credits. That transition sets the tone for the film's humorous (at times) tone. THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS has a RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) connection. Director of Photography Douglas Slocombe and actor Ronald Lacey worked on both films. Lacey has a brief appearance as the village idiot in THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS. Lacey played the Nazi Toht in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Terry Downes who plays Krolock's hunchbacked servant Koukol had been a former World middleweight boxing champion. Although most of THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS was filmed at Elstree Studios in London, England, some of the outdoor snow sequences and the exterior of Krolock's castle were shot in the Dolomites of northern Italy, adding to the film's European feel.

Often, spoofs and satires can be over the top and outrageous such as Mel Brooks' BLAZING SADDLES (1974), Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam's MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975), or Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers AIRPLANE! (1980). Maybe it's a European thing but THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS comes off as a serious Hammer like horror film that contains slapstick gags and pratfalls and two amateurish protagonists who stumble their way into the home of the supernatural creature they are seeking. Polanski manages to make both elements work in his homage to vampire films. THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS also gives us another chance to appreciate the beautiful Sharon Tate, a promising young American actress who's life was cut too short just two years later. Movie fans are fortunate that MGM uncovered Polanski's original vision of THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS for future generations to appreciate this irreverent vampire film. 

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

When I was in my teens, I was a voracious reader, sometimes reading a book a day for a short time. I scoured my parents library for interesting book titles (discovering Agatha Christie and Ray Bradbury on their shelves) to read. I borrowed from family friends libraries. One of my mother's good friends had two books in her library that I recall borrowing and reading. One was Stephen King's magnum opus The Stand, a 1,000 page horror novel that I read over a weekend while sleeping over at a friend's house. The other book was a World War II non-fiction book called A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan. I remember I couldn't put it down. It was my first foray into World War II history (besides watching John Sturges' THE GREAT ESCAPE numerous times). The cover on the hardback was a burnt orange with black silhouettes of paratroopers parachuting from the skies. In the center of the book were black and white photographs of the real life soldiers and locations that Ryan wrote about. 

A Bridge Too Far is a detailed account of a failed Allied mission dreamed up by British Field General Bernard Montgomery called Operation Market Garden that hoped to end WWII by Christmas. Ryan was one of the first writers that I recall chronicling World War II battles that now has become a cottage industry with hundreds of World War II books filling book store shelves today including Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers and Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation. Ryan wrote one of the first accounts of D-Day in his 1959 book The Longest Day which was adapted into the epic WWII film THE LONGEST DAY (1962) starring an All-Star cast including John Wayne, Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, and Rod Steiger. Which brings me back to A Bridge Too Far. After having read the book, I was thrilled to discover that British actor Richard Attenborough (who plays a British POW leader in THE GREAT ESCAPE) was directing the film version of A BRIDGE TOO FAR in 1977 with an All-Star, Who's Who cast of the biggest British and American stars of the 1960s and 1970s. 

From Left to Right: Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neal, Michael Caine, Edward Fox, and Dirk Borgarde

A genre that became popular and lucrative in the 1970s were blockbuster films with All-Star casts, mixing screen legends from the Golden Age with current box office stars and rising up and coming talent (today, every Wes Anderson film has an All-Star cast). George Seaton's AIRPORT (1970) reinvigorated the trend followed by Ronald Neame's THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972). THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE had Academy Award winner Gene Hackman (THE FRENCH CONNECTION) mixed with veterans Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters, Red Buttons, and newcomer Carol Lynley. John Guillermin's THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) may be the greatest All-Star film with mega stars Steve McQueen and Paul Newman together in a film for the first time along with William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones, and O.J. Simpson. For A BRIDGE TOO FAR, producer Joseph E. Levine snagged one of the biggest stars of the 70s with Robert Redford (THE WAY WE WERE) and followed up with more heavy hitters including Ryan O'Neal (WHAT'S UP, DOC?), Sean Connery (THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING), Michael Caine (GET CARTER), Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION), James Caan (THE GODFATHER), Edward Fox (DAY OF THE JACKAL), Elliott Gould (THE LONG GOODBYE), Dirk Borgarde (THE NIGHT PORTER), Liv  Ullmann (CRIES AND WHISPERS) and Shakespeare legend Laurence Olivier (HAMLET). 

With a screenplay by Academy Award winning screenwriter William Goldman (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN) based on the non-fiction book A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan and directed by Richard Attenborough (GANDHI), A BRIDGE TOO FAR begins in September 1944 with the Germans on the run after D-Day, retreating back to Germany through Holland. Hoping to end World War II by Christmas, Field Marshal Montgomery convinces Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower to greenlight Operation Market Garden, a mission to drop 35,000 men 300 miles behind enemy lines from England into Holland, seize several key bridges, and secure them until Allied ground forces can hook up with the paratroopers. Overseeing Market Garden is Lieutenant General Frederick "Boy" Browning (Dirk Borgarde). Browning unveils Market Garden to Scotsman Major General Roy Urquhart (Sean Connery), American Brigadier General James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) and Major General Maxwell Taylor (Paul Maxwell), and Polish Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski (Gene Hackman).  Taylor's 101st Airborne will secure the bridge in Eindhoven; Gavin's 82nd Airborne will take Nijmegen Bridge; and Urquhart followed by Sosabowski a day later are responsible for the bridge in Arnhem. Reconnaissance photos and information from the Dutch underground indicate that there may be two battle tested German Panzer divisions led by Lieutenant General Bittrich (Maximillian Schell) lingering in the Netherlands than originally suspected.  Browning dismisses the photos from his Intelligence Officer Major Fuller (Frank Grimes) as just a few tanks.

Overseeing the ground assault are Lieutenant General Horrocks (Edward Fox). Horrocks addresses the British XXX (30) Corp at his headquarters on the Dutch/Belgian border which will be led by Lieutenant Colonel Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine) and Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Frost (Anthony Hopkins) with the 1st Airborne. Horrocks and Vandeleur will be managing the roads and supply lines in the Holland. Before the operation begins, there are concerns about radios working, finding landing zones for the troops close enough to the bridges, and if the mission has enough transport aircraft. The American and English troops board their planes and the first wave of paratroopers drop into the Netherlands. Brig. Gen. Gavin lands hard and tweaks his back. Lt. Col. Frost connects with his men and they head for Arnhem. Lt. Gen. Bittrich watches the paratroopers landing all over the countryside. He orders Major General Ludwig (Hardy Kruger) to take his men to Nijmegen and hold the bridge. Bittrich will deal with the Allies in Arnhem. Maj. Gen. Urquhart receives the first bit of bad news upon landing. The jeeps to take him to Arnhem haven't arrived and the radios to communicate with Browning back at Dutch headquarters are not working.

Lt. Col. Vandeleur and his XXX Corp quickly run into German tanks. A firefight ensues. Vandeleur prevails for the moment. The road becomes clogged with burning vehicles. Lt. Gen. Bittrich requests to German Field Marshal Walter Model (Walter Kohut) to blow up the bridges at Arnhem and Nijmegen. Model denies his request. At the Son River, American Colonel Bobby Stout (Elliott Gould) with the 101st Airborne are halted when that bridge is blown up by the Germans.  Colonel Vandeleur and his men are cheered like liberators by the Dutch people passing through Eindhoven. Col. Stout finds Vandeleur and asks for their "Bailey Bridges", portable truss bridges to build so Vandeleur can cross the Son. Vandeleur agrees. Lt. Col. Frost and his men reach the Arnhem bridge. They confiscate some homes near the bridge with good vantage points. Maj. Gen. Urquhart sneaks into a town to try and connect with other Allied troops. He's forced to hide in an attic when a German patrol shows up. Polish Maj. Gen. Sosabowski and his troops are delayed by fog in England. American Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun (James Caan) with the 101st Airborne locates his superior Captain Glass (Nicholas Campbell) lying dead in the field. Dohun had promised Glass he'd not be killed. Dohun carries Glass to his jeep and races through German lines to an American medical tent where he orders a U.S. Army Surgeon (Arthur  Hill) by gunpoint to inspect Glass. The surgeon is surprised to discover Glass is not dead. He removes a bullet from Glass's skull and saves him.

Col. Stout and the 101st work all night to build the temporary Bailey Bridge. Lt. Col. Vandeleur and his XXX tanks finally move forward across the Son River. They're only 36 hours behind schedule. Lt. Col. Frost and his men are pinned down at the Arnhem bridge by Lt. Gen. Bittrich and his Panzers. The Germans ask Frost to surrender. The Brits politely decline. Maj. Gen. Urquhart manages to escape back to the Dutch Allied headquarters where he learns his troops are short on supplies, ammunition and Maj. Gen. Sosabowski still hasn't arrived with his Polish paratroopers. Maj. Gen. Ludwig watches Nijmegen Bridge, ready to blow it if the Allies try to go across. Brig. Gen. Gavin asks Lt. Gen. Horrocks for boats and tank support for his 82nd Airborne. Horrocks grants Gavin's request.  Gavin assigns Major Julian Cook (Robert Redford) and his regiment to cross the Waal River under supporting fire and take Nijmegen Bridge from the Germans. It's a suicide mission in broad daylight that Cook and his men accomplish with many casualties. Ludwig orders the bridge blown. The explosives fail to detonate. Allied tanks roar into Nijmegen. In Arnhem, Dr. Spaander (Laurence Olivier) asks family friend Kate Ter Horst (Liv Ullmann) if the Brits can use her house for a temporary hospital. She agrees. Spaander arranges with Bittrich a brief truce to evacuate casualties before the fighting resumes. With most of his men wounded or dead, Frost surrenders to Bittrich. Sosabowski finally parachutes into the Holland, right into German gunfire waiting at the landing zones. Horrocks orders all troops to pull back. Urquhart and his men sneak across a river at night back to the Dutch Allied headquarters. The next day, Lt. Gen. Browning reflects to Urquhart that he always thought the operation tried to go "a bridge too far." Even though 90 percent of Operation Market Garden was considered a success, more men were killed in Operation Market Garden than the D-Day invasion. The Allies did not enter Germany...yet.

What makes A BRIDGE TOO FAR unique among war films is that it's about a military failure.  The good guys (the Allies) don't win. As screenwriter William Goldman says in one of the DVDs special features, A BRIDGE TOO FAR shows that "war sucks." Unlike most World War II films like THE LONGEST DAY or Robert Aldrich's THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967), the mission or in this case Operation Market Garden fails. Real life characters like Lt. Col. Frost (Anthony Hopkins) and his 1st Airborne fail to take Arnhem Bridge and ultimately, either die or are taken as prisoners of war (like Frost). Maj. Gen. Urquhart (Sean Connery) never connects with Frost, his troops hampered by lack of ammunition and radios that won't work.  Urquhart spends a quarter of the film hiding in a house attic from the Germans, useless in the grand scheme of the mission.  Even when a plan does work like Brig. Gen. Gavin's (Ryan O'Neal) sending Maj. Julian Cook (Robert Redford) and his Regiment in broad daylight across a river to take Nijmegen Bridge, dodging bullets and mortars, the result of their heroism is a bureaucratic British officer telling Cook he has orders not to move forward. A BRIDGE TOO FAR is an anti-war film with good intentions turning into a quagmire of futility. 

A BRIDGE TOO FAR spotlights both Allied and German leaders making crucial mistakes before and during the battle.  Although he's not a character in the film (shown at the beginning in actual black and white newsreel footage), British Field Marshal Montgomery deserves the blame for conceiving a rushed, ill-prepared plan in Operation Market Garden.  Montgomery and American General George Patton both had huge egos and wanted to be the first to reach Berlin. Montgomery somehow prevailed in convincing Eisenhower of his plan. In the film, Lt. Gen. Browning (Dirk Borgarde) controversially is shown to be the scapegoat, dismissing intelligence from Dutch Resistance and photographs from a British Spitfire that there were more German troops and Panzer divisions around the landing zones than Browning was communicating to his commanders. When the Germans begin to see paratroopers falling from the skies, they assume it's Patton in charge.  Patton's the better general. They can't comprehend Eisenhower put his trust and faith in Montgomery. Oh, but Eisenhower did. German command makes mistakes too.  A German soldier comes across the full plans for Operation Market Garden inside a crashed American glider. The plans are given to Field Marshal Model (Walter Kohut) who immediately declares they're fake much to Lt. Gen. Bittrich's (Maximillian Schell) surprise. Operation Market Garden may have been a total disaster had Model realized what he had in his hands.

Besides focusing on just big battles and war strategy in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, director Attenborough and screenwriter Goldman (from Ryan's book) also highlight personal stories of heroism during the fighting such as James Caan's Staff Sgt. Dohun driving his presumed dead captain from the battlefield through shifting enemy lines to an American hospital tent where Dohun forces a U.S. military surgeon (Arthur Hill) at gunpoint to inspect his superior. The surgeon discovers the captain is still alive and removes a bullet from his skull, saving him.  Movie critics cried it was made up. It's a true story from Ryan's book. A BRIDGE TOO FAR shows the plight of innocent Dutch civilians caught up in the battle. Liv Ullmann's Kate Ter Horst sacrifices her home to the British as a makeshift hospital.  The house is torn apart by German shelling. Dr. Spaander (Laurence Olivier), a local Arnhem physician becomes a emergency room doctor, trying to save British soldiers. Spaander even negotiates a brief truce with German Lt. Gen. Bittrich to evacuate British wounded from Arnhem Bridge. In one of the film's most poignant scenes, a Dutch teenager (Eric Van't Wout) who has helped his Dutch Underground father (Siem Vroom) monitor the German retreat and count the number of German troops is killed in town by German gunfire. The father picks up his son's body and lays him on top of other dead Dutch civilians as human obstacles to block oncoming German tanks. War is hell!

For most of the big stars in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, it's a chance to play real people who were unable to win a real battle like in a John Wayne or Audie Murphy movie. Sean Connery's Maj. Urquhart is against type for the actor. Except for one moment where he shoots a passing German through a kitchen window, Connery is anything but James Bond, stuck hiding in a Dutch family's attic from the Germans when his reconnaissance mission goes awry. When Urquhart escapes and makes it back to camp, he learns his team is lacking supplies, ammunition, jeeps, and radios that can't communicate with Lt. Col. Frost who's pinned down on Arnhem Bridge. Urquhart is a heroic figure yet impotent to make a difference due to circumstances beyond his control. Connery has the distinction of the only actor in A BRIDGE TOO FAR to also appear 15 years earlier in the film adaption of Cornelius Ryan's THE LONGEST DAY in 1962, one of Connery's first feature films. Connery played Private Flanagan in that film. At least Connery was promoted to a Major General for A BRIDGE TOO FAR. 

The one actor who does have a heroic set piece in A BRIDGE TOO FAR is Robert Redford who plays Maj. Julian Cook of the 82nd Airborne. Cook and his regiment manage to pull off a perilous mission, rowing pontoon boats across the strong Waal River in broad daylight and heavy gunfire, overtaking the Germans defending Nijmegen Bridge so the British XXX Corps tanks can cross. It is Redford's John Wayne instant but it's temporary. A stuffy British officer tells Cook that he has orders for the tanks to wait and not proceed further down the road. Cook's men risked their lives (and many died) only to be told to wait (and eventually retreat). Producer Levin and director Attenborough went after Steve McQueen originally for the role of Cook. Attenborough and McQueen were friends having worked on THE GREAT ESCAPE and Robert Wise's THE SAND PEBBLES (1966) together. But McQueen balked at A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Redford was paid two million dollars for three weeks of work which was unheard of in 1977. His presence in A BRIDGE TOO FAR makes this war film that much better. 

In CRAZYFILMGUY'S humble opinion, A BRIDGE TOO FAR has some of the best acting ever in a war film. Besides Connery and Redford, a few other excellent performances to point out include Anthony Hopkins as Lt. Col. Johnny Frost (who was alive when the film was made and served as an advisor on the film). Hopkins gives a nuanced, subtle performance as Frost who desperately wants to complete his mission only to see it come up short, surrounded by comrades either wounded or dying. Hopkins internalizes Frost's emotions. Like almost everyone's performance in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, there's no screaming or histrionics. Watching Frost's dust covered face as he accepts chocolate from the German Bittrich before surrendering is heart wrenching. Director Attenborough and screenwriter Goldman must have noticed Hopkins excellent acting as they cast Hopkins in their next film together MAGIC (1978) with Ann Margaret about a ventriloquist and his creepy, life-like dummy. 

I knew Dirk Bogarde was recognized as one of Britain's best actors like Richard Burton or James Mason but had only seen one of his early films years ago. As Lt. Gen. Browning in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, Bogarde is the unofficial villain of the film (besides the German S.S. Army). Like Hopkins, Connery, Hackman, O'Neal, and Michael Caine, Borgarde's performance as Browning is quiet, understated, and often tinged with irony or sarcasm. Browning rationalizes the obstacles and shortcomings of Operation Market Garden, choosing to ignore the hard truths. Browning even tries to quietly have his Intelligence Officer Fuller, who has cast doubts about Market Garden, placed on R&R by a military psychiatrist (Gerald Sim). Browning puts his trust in men like Urquhart, Gavin, and Horrocks to complete the mission. As competent leaders as they were, they can't get Market Garden over the finish line. Bogarde started out in the 1950s appearing in British crime films like Basil Dearden's THE BLUE LAMP (1950) before becoming an art house sensation in the 1960s in films like Joseph Losey's THE SERVANT (1963), John Schlesinger's DARLING (1965) with Julie Christie, and Luchino Visconti's THE DAMNED (1969).

Some big stars were willing to take smaller roles in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, knowing they had a few juicy scenes to act in this ensemble epic but they weren't required to carry the movie. One example is James Caan (THIEF) as Staff Sergeant Dohun who risked his life and the possibility of going to military prison when he forces a U.S. Army surgeon by gunpoint to look at his presumed dead friend who turns out to still be alive. Caan plays the part with a calmness not always associated with the actor. Caan's scenes with the great character actor Arthur Hill as the surgeon are some of the film's best. The great Laurence Olivier only has three or four scenes as Dr. Spaander in A BRIDGE TOO FAR. His character (along with Liv Ullmann) represent the bravery and humanity of the Dutch people caught in the middle of a bloody war zone. Olivier had just appeared as a Nazi forced out of hiding in John Schlesinger's MARATHON MAN (1976) and was fighting cancer at the time of A BRIDGE TOO FAR. He was told he didn't have much time left.  Miraculously, Olivier rebounded from his health scare and lived 12 more years with fine roles as modern day Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman in Franklin J. Schaffner's THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978) with Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele and as Dr. Van Helsing in John Badham's DRACULA (1979).

At first glance, Richard Attenborough would not jump out as the director to make a David Lean epic like A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Attenborough had only directed a couple of film prior including a World War I musical comedy OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR (1969) starring a host of British actors including Dirk Borgarde, Maggie Smith, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, and Laurence Olivier. Attenborough had appeared in John Sturges THE GREAT ESCAPE which has similar characteristics to A BRIDGE TOO FAR with multiple characters and a sprawling story that must have stuck with him. With A BRIDGE TOO FAR, Attenborough proved to be adept handling large crowd scenes, big battles, and juggling numerous characters, and storylines. It didn't hurt that Attenborough had an excellent producer in Joseph E. Levine who let him do his directing and top talent in all production aspects including Director of Photography Geoffrey Unsworth (2001: A SPACE ODYSEEY), Film Editor Anthony Gibbs (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF), and Production Designer (DR. ZHIVAGO). Attenborough's experience with a big production like A BRIDGE TOO FAR helped immensely with his pet project GANDHI in 1982 which garned him Academy Awards in 1982 for Best Picture and Best Director.  Attenborough became famous to a new generation of fans when Steven Spielberg cast him as multi-millionaire John Hammond in JURASSIC PARK (1993).

What I love about A BRIDGE TOO FAR are the pairings and groupings of one of the greatest array of movie stars to ever appear in a film. In some cases, this was the only film where these actors and actresses appeared on film together.

Dirk Borgarde/Sean Connery/Gene Hackman/Ryan O'Neal

Sean Connery/Gene Hackman

Dirk Borgarde/Sean Connery

Michael Caine/Edward Fox

Michael Caine/Elliott Gould

Hardy Kruger/Maximillian Schell

Dirk Borgarde/Edward Fox/Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'Neal/Robert Redford

Ryan O'Neal/Michael Caine

Laurence Olivier/Liv Ullmann

Sean Connery/Laurence Olivier

Dirk Borgarde/Michael Caine/Edward Fox/Gene Hackman/Ryan O'Neal

Hardy Kruger/Laurence Olivier/Maximillian Schell

Some final trivia and tidbits about A BRIDGE TOO FAR. As I mentioned, film critics did not believe some of actual events shown in the film happened like the James Caan scene.  Another critique they had was that Ryan O'Neal was far too young to play Maj. Gen. James Gavin.  In fact, Gavin was the youngest American ever to become a Major General at the age of 37. O'Neal was 36 when A BRIDGE TOO FAR was released. Some of the A BRIDGE TOO FAR stars had appeared in previous war films. Elliott Gould burst onto movie screens as eccentric Army Surgeon "Trapper" John McIntyre in Robert Altman's black comedy MASH (1970) set in the Korean War. Robert Redford's first feature film was WAR HUNT (1962) also set in the Korean War with John Saxon and future director and Redford friend Sydney Pollack. And Michael Caine made his cinematic debut in Cy Enfield's ZULU (1964) set in South Africa in 1879 where 150 British troops held off 4000 Zulu warriors at an outpost called Rorke's Drift. Composer John Addison (TOM JONES) was actually a tank commander in Operation Market Garden. Addison was on the fringes of the action yet his experience inspired him when writing the score for A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Look for these actors in early supporting roles including John Ratzenberger (TV's CHEERS), Denholm Elliott (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK), Ben Cross (CHARIOTS OF FIRE), and Alun Armstrong (THE MUMMY RETURNS). 

In the summer of 1977, the film that most teenagers my age (including a 13 year old CRAZYFILMGUY) remember was George's Lucas's Sci-Fi fantasy STAR WARS. I have a feeling there was a smaller group of teenagers like myself who also remember A BRIDGE TOO FAR which was released just a few weeks after STAR WARS on June 15th, 1977. I introduced my son to the STAR WARS universe in 1999 when STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE came out and he never looked back. My son became interested in war history when he was a teenager so I showed him A BRIDGE TOO FAR on DVD.  To this day, it's his favorite war movie. A BRIDGE TOO FAR is an anti-war film. It does not glorify war. What Richard Attenborough and his production team accomplish is a realistic depiction of war using real tanks, planes, a massive recreation of the parachute drop into the Netherlands, actual Dutch locations where the battles took place and the bridges exist, and humanizing the emotional and psychological damage war took on the every day citizens of the town of Arnhem.  A BRIDGE TOO FAR is gritty and no doubt the blueprint for more recent realistic WWII films like Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) with Tom Hanks and a cast of up and coming young actors or Christopher Nolan's DUNKIRK (2017) about another famous British retreat. While the beaches of France, the deserts of Egypt, the black sands of Iwo Jima, and the forests of Belgium captured most of the attention of WWII history, A BRIDGE TOO FAR shed light on an ambitious plan with good intentions that fell short in the lowlands of the Holland.