Frenzy (1972)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, filmmakers began pushing the boundaries of sex and violence in mainstream cinema as censorship began to relax and the Hayes Code faded away with films like Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969), Mike Nichols's CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971), Peckinpah's STRAW DOGS (1971), Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) and John Boorman's DELIVERANCE (1972).  These films were visceral, hypnotic, and controversial. Whether it was stylized violence or frank sexual conversations, or even images of rape, audiences were both fascinated and repelled by these bold movies . So when director Alfred Hitchcock, famous for his classic studio thrillers released his first film in this brave new cinema world of the 1970s with FRENZY (1972), what did audiences expect from the director who originally pushed the boundaries of cinema by killing a naked Janet Leigh in a shower without ever showing the knife touch her body in PSYCHO (1960)?

The answer is Hitchcock was up to the challenge and ready to adapt to the new celluloid landscape. After the success and shock of Hitchcock's PSYCHO followed by his apocalyptic horror film THE BIRDS (1963), the remainder of the 1960s was a disappointment for the acclaimed British director. Hollywood was changing before Hitchcock's eyes. His favorite actors were becoming to old to be leading men (James Stewart, Cary Grant) and his favorite actress was retiring to become princess of a tiny European nation (Grace Kelly). Hitchcock tried the new generation of Hollywood stars like Sean Connery in MARNIE (1964) and Paul Newman and Julie Andrews in TORN CURTAIN (1966) with mediocre results. He wrapped up the 1960s with the tepid political thriller TOPAZ (1969). Was it time for the Master of Suspense to retire?  Hitchcock's answer was a resounding no. 

With FRENZY, Hitchcock rediscovered his roots in more ways than one while staying relevant with the current trend in films showing explicit violence and nudity. FRENZY was a return to his birthplace, Hitchcock's first project filmed entirely on location in his home country of England since STAGE FRIGHT (1950). The story was a variation of the Jack the Ripper story that was the basis for Hitchcock's first film, THE LODGER (1927). FRENZY had the familiar Hitchcock theme of a wrong man falsely accused of a crime. What was different was FRENZY not only had explicit nudity for the first time in a Hitchcock film, it had a shocking rape/murder sequence that shocked even the most fervent Hitchcock fan and made Janet Leigh's murder in PSYCHO look like child's play.

With a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer (SLEUTH) based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern and directed by Alfred Hitchcock's, his 52nd and first R-rated film, FRENZY opens in London, England. The naked body of a young woman with a necktie around her throat is discovered floating in the Thames River, another victim of the Necktie Murderer. We cut to ex-RAF pilot and barman Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) putting a necktie on at the Globe Public House. Blaney's having a bad day, fired by the pub owner of the Globe Felix Forsythe (Bernard Cribbins) for nicking a swig of brandy and sleeping with the barmaid Barbara "Babs" Milligan (Anna Massey). Blaney runs into his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) who runs a fruit and vegetable wholesale business at Covent Garden Market. Rusk gives Blaney a sure fire horse racing tip that Blaney fails to capitalize on. He doesn't have enough money to buy a ticket. Blaney wanders over to his ex-wife Brenda Blaney's (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) dating agency the Blaney Bureau (her slogan is "Marriage and Friendship") to pay her a visit.

Blaney tells Brenda he lost his job and complains about his recent rotten luck. They argue. Brenda sends her nosy assistant Monica Barling (Jean Marsh) home. She treats Blaney to dinner at her club and sneaks fifty pounds into his pocket. Blaney spends the night at a Salvation Army. The next day, Rusk shows up at Brenda's office, under the alias Mr. Robinson. Rusk seeks women who enjoy sadomasochism. Brenda tells Rusk her agency can't help him. Rusk attacks Brenda, raping her before strangling her with his necktie. Rusk is the Necktie Murderer. Rusk leaves down one alley and Blaney shows up from a different alley to see Brenda. The door is locked to her office. Miss Barling returns from lunch and sees Blaney depart the building. Miss Barling discovers Brenda's body. Barling is interviewed by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen). She identifies Blaney as the man leaving Brenda's office before she discovered her employer's body. 

Unaware Brenda's dead, Blaney calls Babs and asks her to grab his belongings from the pub. He picks her up in a taxi and treats her to a stay at the Coburn Hotel with the money Brenda gave him. They make love and spend the night. The hotel porter (Jimmy Gardner) reads the newspaper article the next morning about the latest Necktie Murder and recognizes the description of Blaney and his jacket. The police show up at his hotel room but he's gone. Blaney and Babs have fled to a nearby park (the morning newspaper headline under their door tipping them off). Blaney swears to Babs he didn't murder his ex-wife. An old RAF friend Johnny Porter (Clive Swift) runs into Blaney and invites them to he and his wife's hotel room. Porter's wife Hetty (Billie Whitelaw) is less enthusiastic about Blaney. She tells Babs the deceased Brenda divorced Blaney on the grounds of "cruelty." Babs returns to the Globe to pick up her belongings. She runs into Rusk who invites her to stay at his flat while she figures things out. Rusk murders Babs (offscreen) as Hitchcock's camera quietly pulls away from the second story room and back down the stairs and into the busy, unsuspecting Covent Garden Market. 

That night, Rusk disposes of Babs's corpse in a burlap sack placed in a truck full of potatoes. Rusk returns to his flat and realizes Babs grabbed his monogrammed tie pin. Rusk rushes back to the truck to find the pin. The truck drives off with Rusk in the back.  After some struggle, Rusk manages to find the pin and exits the truck during a rest stop, leaving the truck gate down. Babs's body falls out of the potato truck, right in front of a following police car. Hetty reads about Babs's murder the next morning and orders Blaney out of their hotel room. Blaney realizes he now has an alibi. He never left the Porter's room. But the Porter's have a business deal in Paris and they can't afford the bad publicity. Blaney turns to his friend Rusk for help. Rusk offers Blaney his place to hide then turns him into the police, incriminating Blaney by stuffing Babs's clothes in Blaney's bag. Blaney's found guilty by a court of law. He screams Rusk's name as he's taken out of the courtroom. Inspector Oxford begins to have his doubts. Oxford's gourmet cooking wife (Vivien Merchant) believes Oxford arrested the wrong man. Oxford begins to investigate, learns Rusk was a client of Brenda's dating service. Blaney injures himself on purpose in prison, escapes from the prison hospital, and hurries to Rusk's flat to kill him. Blaney finds another dead girl in Rusk's bed, strangled with a necktie. Oxford arrives in pursuit. It looks bad for Blaney again until Rusk shows up, lugging a trunk large enough to hide a body. Oxford looks at the killer and remarks, "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie." 

For Hitchcock, FRENZY was a return to comfortable territory and familiar themes. Jon Finch was another in a long tradition of Hitchcock heroes wrongly accused of a crime like Robert Donat in THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS (1935), Robert Cummings in SABOTEUR (1942), Henry Fonda in THE WRONG MAN (1957), and Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959). Bob Rusk, the serial necktie rapist/killer played by Barry Foster in FRENZY, is another charismatic if not the most creepy murderer in the Hitchcock tradition of Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943), John Dall and Farley Granger's Leopold and Loeb like homosexual killers in ROPE (1948) or Robert Walker's Bruno Antony in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951). Rusk is most like Anthony Perkins's Norman Bates in PSYCHO, driven by repressed sexual impulses with impotence Rusk's major issue. Lastly, FRENZY is another successful one word Hitchcock title in the vein of NOTORIOUS (1946), VERTIGO (1958), and of course, PSYCHO. 

While Hitchcock was coming off three box office failures in a row, he had the good sense to hire playwright and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer who was on a winning streak to write FRENZY. The mystery SLEUTH (1972) adapted by Shaffer based on his 1970 play, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz was a big hit. The team of Hitchcock and Shaffer proved a winning combination for FRENZY. Shaffer picked up on Hitchcock's dark sense of humor to offset the heinous murders. Critics and fans alike trumpeted that Hitchcock was finally back with this clever thriller. After FRENZY, Shaffer penned Robin Hardy's cult horror classic THE WICKER MAN (1973) with Edward Woodard and Christopher Lee and finished the decade with a solid adaptation of Agatha Christie's mystery DEATH ON THE NILE (1978) directed by John Guillermin with an all star cast including Peter Ustinov as Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, Mia Farrow, David Niven, Bette Davis, and FRENZY'S Jon Finch.

What makes FRENZY unique in the Hitchcock canon is how modern it feels. Yes, most of his films were set in the time they were made - the 1930s thru the 1960s. But most were filmed on a studio soundstage or back lot with little real location filming. FRENZY makes full use of London. Hitchcock even opens FRENZY with a helicopter shot (minus the shaking due to new technology) as Gil Taylor's (DR. STRANGELOVE) camera soars down the Thames to a crowd gathered next to the river, listening to a politician. He puts us right in the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden Market (where Hitchcock's father worked and Hitch wandered around as a kid), an English pub, and a real English courtroom among other locations. Gone is Hitchcock's dependence on rear projection shots (I only noticed the use of rear projection once or twice) that marred MARNIE so badly. FRENZY'S characters are no Madison Avenue executives or socialites in Edith Head gowns. Blaney and Rusk are working class, their clothes rumpled, patches on their jackets, conversing in London slang, and wearing the style at the time long sideburns. 

In keeping with the new cinema of the 70s, FRENZY is Hitchcock's most gruesome film. Not since Hitchcock's black comedy THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955) about a dead body that gets moved around unnoticed around a small Vermont town has the director revealed so many corpses (four in FRENZY). The rape/strangulation of  Brenda Blaney by Rusk is a grisly scene punctuated with a final shocking cut to Brenda's death mask, her eyes bulging out and her tongue protruding to the side of her mouth. Hitchcock makes his point. Rusk is a ruthless, psychotic sexual killer. Subsequent murders are done offscreen, the faces of the victims still briefly revealed with ghastly grimaces on their faces and half-naked. PSYCHO'S shower murder was a stylized virtuoso with Bernard Herrmann's screeching violin score over 52 edits in the forty five second sequence. Brenda's murder in FRENZY is in your face, brutally shocking and hard to watch even in this new era of graphic filmmaking of the 1970s. Hitchcock had shown in TORN CURTAIN how hard it was to kill a person. He goes full throttle in FRNZY. 

Hitchcock knows to alleviate these horrific acts, FRENZY needed humor. Macabre, black humor. It begins at the very beginning when a crowd rushes to look at the dead woman floating in the Thames. The well dressed politician mutters, "That's not my club tie, is it?" around the victim's neck. His posh club can't have bad publicity. The set piece with Rusk returning to the potato truck to retrieve his monogrammed jeweled pin from his victim is classic Hitchcock. Rusk's the killer yet we the audience side briefly with Rusk as we're afraid he might get caught. The corpse's foot kicks Rusk in the face as he tussles with her (making the audience snicker), the body shifting under the stack of spuds. Rusk will have to break Babs's finger to grab the pin from her, the snapping hideously loud. Later, when Inspector Oxford recounts to his wife how Rusk broker Babs's fingers to find his incriminating tie pin, Mrs. Oxford snaps a bread stick in two, the sound similar to fingers breaking, causing Inspector Oxford to wince. It's a darkly humorous scene. 

For FRENZY, Hitchcock turned to mostly unknown British stage actors (with some film credits) for his cast. Actor Jon Finch as Richard Blaney is no classic Hitchcock hero in the tradition of Cary Grant or James Stewart. Finch is good looking, a shaggy, working class Robert Donat with a thicker moustache.  Finch's Blaney is Hitchcock's first anti-hero.  He's down on his luck, an angry man, fired by his employer for pinching a small glass of brandy, who can't catch a break. Blaney's not very nice to his ex-wife or her assistant. Hitchcock paints Blaney in the first thirty minutes as the type of man who could fly off the handle and strangle a woman. When Hitchcock reveals the real Necktie Killer, the suspense switches to will Blaney be able to clear his name and catch the real killer.  Even when we know Blaney's innocent, he's still not likable. Finch's first big movie role was as the ambitious Scottish lord Macbeth in Roman Polanski's bloody version of Shakespeare's MACBETH (1971). Other film roles for Finch include a cuckold husband in Robert Bolt's LADY CAROLINE LAMB (1972) and one of the suspects in DEATH ON THE NILE.

Supposedly, Hitchcock offered the role of Bob Rusk to Michael Caine who turned it down (Caine thought the character repulsive). Later, Caine did play unsavory characters in Brian DePalma's DRESSED TO KILL (1980) and Neil Jordan's MONA LISA (1986). Caine's rejection was actor Barry Foster's good fortune. Foster is brilliant as the curly, red haired Rusk, one of Hitchcock's greatest if not most underrated villains. Foster's Rusk is charming, giving his down on his luck friend Blaney a good horse tip (which Blaney fails to capitalize on) and some fresh grapes to tide him over. Rusk even introduces a passing Blaney to his mother (a sweet, troll like looking woman that may explain Rusk's abnormal behavior). Rusk refers to himself as "Uncle Bob" (a subtle nod to Joseph Cotten's sinister Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT) to his friends and acquaintances. It's only when Rusk pays a visit to Blaney's ex-wife and professional matchmaker Brenda that Rusk's darker side is revealed in full force. Foster appeared with FRENZY co-star Billie Whitelaw in Roy Boulting's TWISTED NERVE (1968), David Lean's RYAN'S DAUGHTER (1970), and James Ivory's MAURICE (1987). 

Like Janet Leigh in PSYCHO, Hitchcock kills off FRENZY'S two most sympathetic women in Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Brenda Blaney and Anna Massey as Babs Milligan. Some might call Hitchcock a misogynist, but FRENZY is about a serial killer preying on women. It's to the actresses credit that we care so much about Brenda and Babs. Brenda and Babs (and we the audience) see a side of Richard that his ex-boss, his former friends, and the authorities don't see - a relatively decent guy struggling in the world to find his place. Leigh-Hunt is another Hitchcock blonde. Her murder in FRENZY is not as famous as Janet Leigh's in PSYCHO, but it's much more violent and unsettling, fitting in with this new age of cinema in the early 1970s. 

FRENZY was Leigh-Hunt's film debut. Other films Leigh-Hunt appeared in include HENRY VIII AND HIS SIX WIVES (1972) where she played one of Henry's wives Catherine Parr; THE NELSON AFFAIR (1973) with Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch; and a role in the Chevy Chase dog comedy OH HEAVENLY DOG (1980). Television was Leigh-Hunt's primary medium. Besides FRENZY, Anna Massey who portrays Babs Milligan began her film career in the controversial British equivalent to PSYCHO Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM (1960) about a killer who films his victims as they die. Massey had a long career in television and film after FRENZY appearing in George Roy Hill's A LITTLE ROMANCE (1979) and Oliver Parker's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (2002). 

Alec McCowen (NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN) and Vivian Merchant (ALFIE) as Inspector Oxford and his wife Mrs. Oxford provide the humor that FRENZY craves with all its terrible murders. The Inspector is a guinea pig to his wife's gourmet cooking class recipes (including fish heads and pig's feet with hilarious results). It's Mrs. Oxford, listening to her husband discuss the Necktie Murderer case, who first believes that Blaney's innocent. Rounding out the excellent British supporting cast are Clive Swift (EXCALIBUR) and Billie Whitelaw (THE OMEN) as Blaney's old friends Johnny and Hetty Porter; Jean Marsh (THE EAGLE HAS LANDED) as Brenda's nosy assistant Miss Barling; and Michael Bates (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) as Inspector Oxford's sidekick Sergeant Spearman. 

After proving that he wasn't old fashioned and irrelevant with the success of FRENZY, Hitchcock did a 180 degree turn from the extreme violence and sex in FRENZY and went lighter for his final film FAMILY PLOT (1976), a dark comedy about two sets of con men and women. One of Hitch's favorite screenwriters Ernest Lehman who wrote the screenplay for NORTH BY NORTHWEST would pen FAMILY PLOT. Like FRENZY, Hitchcock cast up and coming young actors in William Devane, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, and Karen Black instead of big movie stars. FAMILY PLOT was the first Hitchcock film I saw in a movie theater. I went with my parents and the film was engaging and entertaining. Although Alfred Hitchcock planned on making more films, working on various scripts with different screenwriters, FAMILY PLOT was his final film. He passed away in 1980. 

Some final FRENZY thoughts and tidbits.  I've never connected Hitchcock with the English horror studio Hammer Films. The last shot in FRENZY of Rusk dropping the trunk with a thud followed by the credits rolling over the trunk and composer Ron Goodwin's ominous score felt like how a Hammer horror film might end. Dramatic. Hitchcock appears twice in FRENZY, both in the opening scene.  We first see him wearing a bowler hat, listening to the politician talk about cleaning up the waterfront (as a dead body washes up on shore). Hitchcock is the only audience member not applauding. Soon after, he's still at the square watching the police retrieve the woman's body as bystanders around him comment about the Necktie Murderer. Hitchcock used female body doubles for his actresses Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anne Massey for a couple of the nude scenes in FRENZY. Director Brian DePalma whose films like SISTERS (1972), OBSESSION (1976), and DRESSED TO KILL (1980) were updated homages to Hitchcock films made a thriller called BODY DOUBLE (1984) set in the 1980s porn industry.

FRENZY is Hitchcock's last great film after nearly a decade of misfires. FRENZY was a gritty return to the PSYCHO landscape with an early horrific murder and a fascinating killer on the loose. With his big movie stars getting up in years, Hitchcock turned to young, English stage actors to carry the story while reminding critics and his fans he was still a visual virtuoso whether it was having his camera back away from Rusk about to strangle Babs in his second story flat (offscreen) and back down the stairs to the unsuspecting workers on the streets of Covent Garden Market or the overhead shot of a trapped and supposedly guilty Richard Blaney in his prison cell, the walls of justice closing in on the wrong man. With FRENZY, the Master of Suspense adapted to the current times, pushing the boundaries once again as Hitchcock had done for all of his distinguished film career. 

100 Rifles (1969) and Bad Girls (1994)

I would bet that most movie fans would pick Marilyn Monroe as their top cinema crush, and I would not disagree with their pick. But when CRAZYFILMGUY was a young boy just discovering how beautiful women were, my first cinematic crush was on Olivia DeHavilland (oh those round cheeks and long, flowing hair) as Maid Marian in Michael Curtiz's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1937). My second cinematic crush was around 1973 when I saw Raquel Welch in Richard Lester's THE THREE MUSKETEERS. I think the combination of Welch's sexy sounding name, voluptuous curves, and beautiful face turned me into jelly. I'm pretty sure I saw THE THREE MUSKETEERS before I saw the Raquel Welch poster for ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966) with Welch in a caveman style bikini. Either way, it was love at first sight.

Raquel Welch did not have quite the movie career as Marilyn Monroe (although Welch had a kinder private life than Monroe). Welch's film success was up and down with good films like Lester's THE THREE MUSKETEERS and THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1974) as well as Herbert Ross's star studded whodunit THE LAST OF SHEILA (also 1973). The not so good films for Welch include Michael Sarne's MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970) or Peter Yates' MOTHER, JUGS, AND SPEED (1976). One genre I think Raquel Welch was a groundbreaker for women and one of the first female action stars was the western. Welch's first western was Andrew V. McLaglen's BANDOLERO (1968) with James Stewart and Dean Martin but it's Tom Gries 100 RIFLES (1969) that Welch showed she was not only beautiful and sexy but one of the boys. 

Yes one could argue that Joan Crawford in JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) or Barbara Stanwyck in FORTY GUNS (1957) were strong western female role models and they were. But Welch is more than a pretty face in 100 RIFLES. Welch is a female action hero, riding fast on horses, shooting rifles, getting dirty and dusty tussling with the Mexican Army, and still finds time for one of cinema's first interracial love scenes with ex-football player Jim Brown. Welch came on the western scene just as actor Clint Eastwood and director Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns like A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) were rewriting the western genre.  100 RIFLES owes much of its style and plot to the Leone/Eastwood films (including filming in the same Spain locations as Leone's films) as well as Richard Brooks THE PROFESSIONALS (1966) and Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969). Besides exploring 100 RIFLES and its eclectic cast with Welch, Brown, and a young Burt Reynolds, CRAZYFILMGUY is going to review a more recent film that owes its roots to Welch's westerns with not one but four female western protagonists in Jonathan Kaplan's BAD GIRLS (1994).

But first Raquel Welch. With a screenplay by Clair Huffaker and Tom Gries based on the novel The Californio by Robert McLeod and directed by Tom Gries (BREAKHEART PASS), 100 RILES takes place in Sonora, Mexico in 1912. A beautiful Indian revolutionary Sarita (Raquel Welch) is forced to witness a group of Mexican soldiers hang her father. Sarita's brought into a nearby town where Mexican General Verdugo (Fernando Llamas) and German observer Lieutenant Franz Von Klemme (Eric Braeden credited as Hans Gudegast) are executing the local Yaqui Indian population so the railroad represented by American Steven Grimes (Dan O'Herlihy) can lay railroad tracks through the Yaqui lands. Watching from a hotel balcony is bank robber and Sarita's partner "Yaqui Joe" Herrera (Burt Reynolds). Joe is wanted for having stolen $6,000 from a Phoenix bank. Riding into town is black American Sheriff Lyedecker (Jim Brown) seeking to capture Joe for a $200 reward.

When Joe stiffs a local prostitute (Soledad Miranda), she makes a scene outside the hotel and Joe is grabbed by Verdugo but not before Joe encourages the Yaqui Indians to run. A skirmish ensues allowing Sarita to escape. Verdugo arrests Joe and Lyedecker and takes them onto his train. Joe reveals to Lyedecker he stole the $6,000 to buy one hundred rifles to arm the Yaqui Indians in their fight with the Mexican Army and the railroad. Joe's half Yaqui and half American. Lyedecker and Joe escape from the sitting train, steal some horses, and race into the hills, splitting up so the pursuing Verdugo can't catch them. They reunite at an abandoned Spanish church. Verdugo finds them. He orders one of  his soldiers to kill Sarita. Sarita kills the soldier as he attempts to rape her.

Verdugo brings Lyedecker and Joe back to his private compound/hacienda where he chains them together. Verdugo's soldiers have found the stolen rifles. Grimes brings the two men water. Grimes does not support Verdugo's slaughter of the Indians in the name of railroad. Lyedecker and Joe are about to be executed when Sarita and the Yaqui Indians engineer a sneak attack on the hacienda, rescuing Lyedecker and Joe and stealing back the rifles. They flee to the river and separate, agreeing to meet later. Sarita takes Lyedecker back to her Yaqui village where he meets her people and their children. Sarita tries to enlist Lyedecker in their cause. Lyedecker's not interested. Joe returns. Verdugo's men are close again. The three flee into the hills. Verdugo's soldiers burn the village and kidnap the children. Sarita and the Yaquis return the favor and lay siege on Verdugo's hacienda, killing the soldiers and reclaiming the children. Hiding in the hacienda, Grimes accidentally shoots Lyedecker in the arm, wounding him. Sarita dresses Lyedecker's injury which leads to Lyedecker and Sarita making love.

The Yaquis celebrate their brief victory by getting drunk and burning down Verdugo's compound. Grimes flees by horse during the commotion. Sarita, Lyedecker, and Joe ride into a white adobe town to meet up with the Yaqui leader General Romero only to learn Romero's been killed (in a sequence cut from the film). The rebels elect Lyedecker as their new leader. Lyedecker's first plan is to attack Verdugo's train bringing more Mexican soldiers to the fight. As the train heads toward a water tower, the soldiers see Sarita taking a shower. Distracted by the lovely Sarita, Lyedecker, Joe, and the Yaquis ambush the train, killing the soldiers.  Grimes arrives into town and warns Verdugo and Von Klemme the Yaquis are coming for them. Hiding behind the dead soldiers, the rebels ride into town on the confiscated train. Verdugo fires at the train with a cannon, causing the train to derail into the town's buildings. A final battle ensues with Lyedecker leading the cavalry and Joe and Sarita fighting alongside the Yaquis to defeat Verdugo and the Mexican Army with rifles and dynamite but not without a tragic loss to the group.

Welch is not just a pretty face in 100 RIFLES. Yes, Welch has one of cinema's first interracial love scenes with Jim Brown. She uses her curvaceous body in a shower scene at a water tower to distract the Mexican Army on a train before they're ambushed. But Welch's Sarita is a revolutionary leader and a Madonna figure for her people, the Yaqui Indians. Sarita leads them into battle against Verdugo, Von Flemme, and the Mexican Army. She rescues Lyedecker and Joe from execution. It's Sarita that Joe teams up with to distribute the rifles to the Yaquis. Welch rides horses over rocks and down steep cliffs, shoots rifles, kills a would be rapist with a knife, and tussles in the dirt and mud just like the men do. Sarita becomes fond of Lyedecker but I argue she uses her sexuality to seduce the black sheriff to join their cause. Sarita recognizes the born leader in Lyedecker. In 100 RIFLES most shocking moment (no, not the interracial love scene), it's not Lyedecker or Joe who dies fighting for freedom and justice It's (SPOILER ALERT) Sarita, her limp body carried by Humara (Michael Forest), her Yaqui compatriot to Lyedecker and Joe after Verdugo and his army are defeated. It's a bold decision to kill the sexiest, most beautiful rebel of the trio.  

Some cinephiles may argue that actress Claudia Cardinale was the first western action hero not Raquel Welch. As much as I am also in love (cinematically speaking) with Cardinale, she never raced around on horses or engaged in shootouts like Welch does in 100 RIFLES. Cardinale was another early Western sex symbol in films like THE PROFESSIONALS and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Cardinale played either Mexican mistresses or reformed whores (Cardinale was born in Tunisia but raised in Italy). I have no doubt Cardinale would have been right at home playing one of the boys and shooting guns and riding bareback. It just wasn't meant to be in the roles she was cast in. Besides BANDOLERO and 100 RIFLES, Raquel Welch had one other western role that provided her with another strong female character.  Welch starred in Burt Kennedy's HANNIE CAULDER (1971) as the revenge minded title character pursuing three outlaw brothers (Ernes Borgnine, Strother Martin, and Jack Elam) who raped her and murdered her husband.

There's no question 100 RILES is influenced by a few of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns including filming in the same Almeria, Spain locations that Leone made famous in his films. Like Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD,  AND THE UGLY (1966), 100 RIFLES has a trio of disparate characters that are ultimately drawn together for a common goal. Call Welch, Brown, and Reynolds the Beautiful, the Black, and the Brave. In THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY,  Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes bounty hunter pursues Eli Wallach's Tuco only to become entangled with Tuco and Clint Eastwood's Blondie's quest to find stolen gold. Greed is a motivating factor for them. In 100 RIFLES, it's Brown as American sheriff Lyedecker who's pursuing bank robber Burt Reynold's Yaqui Joe. Brown will ultimately join Sarita and Joe's cause to arm their people (the Yaqui Indians) with guns to fight the Mexican Army and the expanding railroad. 

Railroad expansion is a catalyst to the plot for 100 RIFLES and Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969). Gunslinger Henry Fonda is hired by a railroad baron to kill an Irish immigrant family standing in the way of the railroad's progress in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. In 100 RIFLES, it's the Mexican Army exterminating the Yaqui Indians and burning their villages to make way for railway expansion. Both villains in each film use a train car as their office and to move back and forth in the landscape as they try to accomplish their nefarious goals. Director Gries in 100 RIFLES stages two good set pieces with a train: a sneak attack on a train carrying Verdugo's soldiers by Sarita and the Yaquis and later a runaway train that derails in the nearby town. 

What makes 100 RIFLES stand out for CrazyFilmGuy is the eclectic cast. Besides rising sex symbol Raquel Welch, 100 RIFLES gives us former NFL running back turned actor Jim Brown and soon to be major movie star Burt Reynolds. For Brown, 100 RIFLES was an opportunity for an African American actor to have a major role in a Hollywood film, a rarity at the time afforded only to the likes of Sidney Poitier (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT). Brown's Sheriff Lyedecker is the classic laconic hero. His actions speak louder than his words. Lyedecker arrives in Mexico carrying some baggage left behind in the U.S. (perhaps racism towards towards his authority role as a black man). In pursuit of bank robber Yaqui Joe, Lyedecker has traveled a long way for a $200 reward. Lyedecker tries to remain an outsider in the war between Verdugo and the Mexican Army and the Yaquis. He will be drawn in by the lovely Sarita and his own awakening that he's a born leader. By the film's climax, Lyedecker will return to the U.S. without Yaqui Joe but with a purpose to right some wrongs back home. 

Brown discovered he liked acting after appearing in Robert Aldrich's WWII adventure film THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and retired from the Cleveland Browns shortly after to pursue his dream. Ironically, two of Brown's greatest fears, riding a horse and heights, happen in 100 RIFLES. Brown is constantly on a horse (this is a western after all) and he and Reynolds have a fight scene on an actual cliff with Brown dangling Reynolds over the edge while handcuffed THE DEFIANT ONES style. Brown's film career included more westerns like John Guillermin's EL CONDOR (1970) to blaxploitation films such as the title character in Jack Starrett's SLAUGHTER (1972) to comedies that introduced him to a new generation in Keenan Ivory Wayans I'M GONNA GIT U SUCKA (1988) to big budget films like Tim Burton's MARS ATTACKS! (1996). 

Burt Reynolds was just breaking into film from television at the time of 100 RIFLES. On face value, Reynolds' Yaqui Joe is the prototype up and coming actor role in the vein of Jeffrey Hunter in John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (1956) or Ricky Nelson in Howard Hawks RIO BRAVO (1959) or James Caan in Hawks EL DORADO (1966) although Reynolds looks a tad older. Reynolds had been knocking around in mediocre movies like Arnold Laven's SAM WHISKEY (also 1969) and Gordon Douglas's SKULLDUGGERY (1970). Reynolds shows some range in 100 RIFLES as half breed Yaqui Joe transforming from a reluctant rebel to a man who finds his purpose and calling as the leader of his people. We see glimpses of Reynolds sense of humor in 100 RIFLES that he would carry throughout his career. Just three years later, Reynolds would be part of an ensemble cast including Jon Voight and Ned Beatty in John Boorman's harrowing DELIVERANCE (1972) and become a major movie star. Hit films like Robert Aldrich's THE LONGEST YARD (1974) and Hal Needham's SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977) followed and Reynolds never looked back.

Special mention to two supporting cast members who add flavor to 100 RIFLES. Fernando Lamas plays the role of the villainous General Verdugo with sadistic flair and relish. The only despicable thing Verdugo fails to do is twirl his moustache. Lamas's Verdugo puts our three heroes in 100 RIFLES through hell. He will receive a welcome comeuppance from the Yaquis in 100 RIFLE'S finale. Born in Argentina, Lamas began his career playing Latin romantic leading men in films like Curtis Bernhardt's THE MERRY WIDOW (1952) co-starring Lana Turner and John Brahm's THE DIAMOND QUEEN (1953). Lamas did not have a huge film career but found much success in front and behind the camera in television. Look for Lamas's young son Lorenzo Lamas (TV's FALCON CREST) in a brief role as one of the Yaqui Indian children. 

Dan O'Herlihy as the railroad representative Stephen Grimes is 100 RIFLES most complex character. Grimes plays both sides as he tries to stay above the killing and fighting between the Mexican Army and the Yaqui Indians. His only objective is to keep his train running. Grimes doesn't like Verdugo's murderous tactics. When Lyedecker and Joe are shackled in the heat, he brings them water. Later, Grimes accidentally shoots Lyedecker in the arm as the Yaquis besiege the hacienda he's hiding out in. In the end, Grimes warns Verdugo the Yaquis are coming on his stolen train to attack the army. He plays no favorites. After Verdugo falls, Grimes tells the new leaders Lyedecker and Joe he can repair the blown up train. Grimes is always working the angles. O'Herlihy's career was diverse with appearances in Orson Welles MACBETH (1948), Sidney Lumet's FAIL SAFE (1964), and as the Old Man in Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi thriller ROBOCOP (1987). 

Welch as a female action star did not ignite a series of copycat westerns with sexy female protagonists. In part, the death of the western as a genre in the early 70s can be attributed to that. Since 100 RIFLES (and Welch's HANNIE CAULDER), there have been a few instances of female western action roles. Sam  Raimi's THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (1995) cast Sharon Stone as a female gunslinger pitted against Gene Hackman in a loving homage to Leone's style and films. I had high hopes for Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg's BANDIDAS (2006) with red hot Latin actresses Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek as bank robbers in turn of the century Mexico. The film was dusty but not very sexy. It was Christopher Cain's YOUNG GUNS (1987), an all male Brat Pack western starring Kiefer Sutherland, Emilio Estavez, Charlie Sheen, and Lou Diamond Phillips that provided the inspiration for a female western ensemble six years later with not one but four female action heroes in BAD GIRLS (1994).

BAD GIRLS seems to have been a film written by committee.  Based on a story by Albert S. Ruddy, Charles Finch, and Gray Fredrickson with final screenplay credit to Ken Friedman and Yolande Finch (now Turner) and directed by Jonathan Kaplan (HEART LIKE A WHEEL), BAD GIRLS introduces us to four women, forced to turn to prostitution for different reasons, working at a saloon/brothel in Echo City, Colorado. We meet former outlaw Cody Zamora (Madeleine Stowe), recently widowed Anita Crown (Mary Stuart Masterson), southern belle (or is she) Eileen Spenser (Andie MacDowell), and spunky blonde Lilly Laronette (Drew Barrymore). When Cody saves Anita by shooting and killing Colonel Clayborne (Will MacMillan) who's abusing her, a lynch mob catches and prepares to hang Cody. The three other women disrupt the hanging with horses and a wagon and break Cody free, fleeing into the countryside. During a rest stop, Anita reveals she owns a deed to land in the Oregon Territory. She convinces the girls to join her dream to build a sawmill. Cody offers to fund the enterprise with $12,000 she has saved in a bank in Aqua Dulce, Texas.

The Colonel's widow Mrs. Clayborne (Zoaunne LeRoy) hires two Pinkerton Detectives, Graves (Jim Beaver) and O'Brady (Nick Chinlund) to track and capture the killer whore. The girls encounter prospector Josh McCoy (Dermot Mulroney) who warns them the Pinkertons are on their trail. At the bank in Aqua Dulce, Cody's withdrawal of her money is interrupted by a bank robbery led by Cody's former lover and crime partner Kid Jarrett (James Russo). Jarrett and his gang rob the bank and take Cody's money, taunting Cody to come retrieve it. Cody pursues after Kid Jarrett and his gang. Eileen is caught by the sheriff and put in jail where she's watched by a recently deputized rancher William Tucker (James LeGros) who takes a liking to her. Cody rides into the Kid Jarrett's hideout where she reconnects with the Kid's equally unpleasant father Frank Jarrett (Robert Loggia). Kid Jarrett toys with Cody, giving her money back then bullwhipping her for leaving him.  McCoy finds Cody unconscious on her horse and brings her back to Aqua Dulce to recuperate with the aid of a Chinese healer.

McCoy tells Cody he has a score to settle with Frank Jarrett who stole his father's claim. Lilly shows up to break Eileen out of jail only to have Tucker just let her walk free. Lilly and Eileen ride to Tucker's ranch followed by Cody, Anita, and McCoy. Kid Jarrett and his gang hijack an army wagon train and take the army's prized new Gatling machine gun. Cody, the girls, and McCoy spy nearby. They ambush Kid Jarrett and his men. Anita rides off with the wagon full of weapons. Tucker is wounded in the firefight. Lilly's snared by Kid Jarrett's whip and taken back to his hideout. McCoy wounds Frank and they grab him as a bargaining chip for Lilly

Anita regrets getting involved in Cody's revenge plan. Frank tries to get into Anita and McCoy's head. McCoy shoots and kills Frank, angering Cody. Kid Jarrett and his posse toy with Lilly, tormenting her mentally before forcing her to change into a fancy red dress. Anita rides into Aqua Dulce and discovers her claim is no good without her dead husband per the law. McCoy rides to Kid Jarrett's hideout and breaks Lilly out by using some of Tucker's dynamite. Lilly escapes by horse but McCoy is captured by Kid Jarrett. The Bad Girls ride to Kid Jarrett's hideout to make a swap. The Gatling machine gun and guns for McCoy. True to his nature, Kid Jarrett reneges on the deal and shoots McCoy in the back. The Bad Girls and Kid Jarrett and his posse shoot it out with the Bad Girls coming out victorious in the end. Eileen decides to stay and marry Tucker. Cody, Anita, and Lilly head west to pursue their dreams, riding unnoticed past the still pursuing Pinkerton detectives.

It should come as no surprise that the four female protagonists in BAD GIRLS are prostitutes. Westerns have been fascinated with the world's oldest profession from Claire Trevor in John Ford's STAGECOACH (1939) to Claudia Cardinale in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. I presume they're cinematically more eye catching than four frontier schoolteachers. BAD GIRLS does not sugar coat their profession or how they are viewed. BAD GIRLS reminds us that prostitution is not a choice these four women made. They had previous lives that fell apart due to circumstances, death, or desperation. Most of the men in BAD GIRLS are depicted as misogynists, calling them "whores" and "sluts" without regard that they're human beings or to their situation. The catalyst for BAD GIRLS is Cody having to shoot and kill Colonel Clayborne, a married john who's abusing Anita. 

These BAD GIRLS are no wallflowers. They shoot pistols, rifles, and even a Gatling machine gun; ride horses over land and water, and drive horse drawn wagons at a fast clip.  Welch's Sarita in 100 RIFLES would be proud of these strong women. They use their feminine charms to get what they need but they're not looking for love (except Eileen who finds it by accident). BAD GIRLS steers away from any sexiness except for a scene where McCoy stumbles across Cody bathing naked in a stream or Kid Jarrett forcing Lillie to strip down to her underwear to wear a red dress he wants to see her in. 

Originally, BAD GIRLS was to be directed by a woman, director Tamra Davis (GUNCRAZY) and included a gang rape scene and some violent retribution by the prostitutes toward their clients. The studio 20th Century Fox got cold feet with that storyline and replaced Davis with Jonathan Kaplan to make a more traditional western with a feminine slant. Although a male director, Kaplan was highly regarded for his work with actresses and powerful female storylines including HEART LIKE A WHEEL (1983) about female drag racer Shirley Muldowney (Bonnie Bedelia) and THE ACCUSED (1988) starring Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis. Kaplan's BAD GIRLS is an all-girl THE WILD BUNCH as the four women march into an enemy compound (like William Holden and company in THE WILD BUNCH) to rescue their comrade McCoy from Kid Jarrett (there's even a Gatling machine gun involved). Besides inspiration from Peckinpah's classic, BAD GIRLS owes a nod to THE PROFESSIONALS which like THE WILD BUNCH had four main characters taking on a group of bad guys. 

The four actresses in BAD GIRLS are engaging with one surprising me with her performance and one the least believable of the four. For the most part, the four women are plainly appealing (save one) which makes them a little more realistic than sex symbol Raquel Welch in 100 RIFLES. Madeleine Stowe is the perfect choice as the alpha female ex-bank robber Cody Zamora. Stowe proved she was adept at action alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in Michael Mann's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992). Mary Stuart Masterson as recently widowed Anita Crown played some tomboys early in her career like Howard Deutch's SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL (1987). Masterson shows toughness and vulnerability as a frontier woman trying to survive in the Wild West. Although I'm a huge fan of Andie MacDowell (FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL), her Eileen Spenser is the weakest role in BAD GIRLS. I never quite figured out what her character was about (a former Southern belle?). MacDowell was too good looking to be a prostitute. A saloon dancer or singer might have suited her better.

My preconceived notion was Drew Barrymore as Lilly Laronette would be the odd girl out, the weakest link. But if you get past the beach blonde hair, Barrymore's Lilly is sassy, funny, and has one of the sadder back stories of the four in BAD GIRLS. It's a grown up, mature role for an actress I grew up with when she was six years old as Gertie in Steven Spielberg's E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTIAL (1982). What love interests there are for the four women include Dermot Mulroney as Josh McCoy, a prospector seeking revenge on Frank Jarrett. McCoy and Cody have a few brief romantic moments but it's a doomed relationship. Mulroney has the distinction of appearing in both YOUNG GUNS as Dirty Steve Stephens and BAD GIRLS. James LeGros (DRUGSTORE COWBOY), a minor league looking version of Brad Pitt (in a good way) as kind rancher William Tucker will go from keeping an eye on Eileen in jail to winning her heart and marrying her as the film concludes.

Every western needs a good villain and BAD GIRLS provides two of them: the charismatic but sadistic Kid Jarrett and his equally despicable father Frank Jarrett played by James Russo (EXTREMITIES) and Robert Loggia (REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER). Russo's Kid Jarrett is a plus for BAD GIRLS.  We first meet Kid Jarrett as he and his gang rob a bank where his ex-lover Cody Zamora happens to be withdrawing her life savings. Russo's Kid Jarrett comes across initially as a rogue and a charmer. He takes Cody's money making her pursue him back to his hideout. The Kid's just toying with Cody, hoping to steal not just her money but a kiss.  When we think Kid Jarrett's going to return the money back to Cody, he bullwhips Cody almost to death for deserting him, leaving her for dead on the range. Having started his career playing villains and gangsters in films like Martin Brest's BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984) and Francis Coppola's THE COTTON CLUB (1984), Russo's experience playing bad guys after a decade shows as Kid Jarrett is a more layered baddie, a jilted boyfriend who happens to be a sociopath. 

Kid Jarrett's upbringing makes sense when we're introduced to his equally heartless father Frank Jarrett played by the excellent supporting actor Robert Loggia. Loggia's appearance in BAD GIRLS is brief yet every scene Frank appears in he oozes venom and hate. Frank's like the modern obnoxious Little League baseball father, questioning Kid Jarrett's every decision. We learn Frank stole a mining claim from Josh McCoy's father leading to Josh's vendetta on Frank.  Loggia's distinguished career included roles as gangsters, generals, and toy executives in films like Brian DePalma's SCARFACE (1983), Penny Marshall's BIG (1988), Roland Emmerich's INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), and David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY (1997). Loggia makes BAD GIRLS better even if it's not a great film.

With its switch from an all female directing and screenwriting team to multiple new screenwriters and a new male director, BAD GIRLS has a truncated, uneven feel to it. A few scenes feel unfinished or shortened.  The Pinkerton detectives tracking the girls subplot disappears for the middle part of the film only for them to pop up as a token reminder at the very end.  What BAD GIRLS makes up for its choppy narrative is a couple of good action set pieces: the Bad Girls heisting the guns from Kid Jarrett's men and the classic penultimate gun battle between the Bad Girls and the Bad Guys. BAD GIRLS carries on the tradition that Raquel Welch began in 100 RIFLES that women could be just as physical and action oriented as the John Wayne's, Clint Eastwood's, and Gary Cooper's in a western.  Welch had Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds to fight alongside.  BAD GIRLS gives us four women who fight for their independence and a chance at a better life than the prospect of prostitution for the rest of their lives.  Connecting both 100 RIFLES and BAD GIRLS is composer Jerry Goldsmith who provided the music for both westerns. Thanks Jerry.  Long live the female action western heroine!

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

I think I can trace my love of knights wearing suits of armor not back to a distant relative who fought in the Crusades or the Battle of Agincourt but one of the first movies I remember seeing in a movie theater. It was the Fox Theater (now gone) in downtown Portland, OR. My mother took my sister and I to a matinee. The film was BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS (1971) from Walt  Disney Studios directed by Robert Stevenson (with animation sequences directed by Ward Kimball). Capitalizing on the success of MARY POPPINS (1964 and also directed by Stevenson) with its combination of live action and animation, BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS was a strange mix of World War II drama, fantasy, and witchcraft. If I recall correctly, we saw BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS as part of a double feature with another Robert Stevenson directed film IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS (1962), a live action Disney film that was spring boarding off the success of Ken Annakin's SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1960), another Disney family adventure film. 

I have not seen BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS since I saw it for the first time 54 years ago. When we added Disney to our streaming selections recently, I wondered if BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS might be among their vast titles available to stream. It was. About a year ago, out of curiosity, I decided to watch it. I should say I tried to watch it. Whatever magic BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS provided me as a child did not return to me as an adult at that moment. I barely made it through 15 minutes of the film (my favorite part with the suits of armor coming to life doesn't happen until the climax). I must not have been in the right mood to watch the film. The pacing was slow, the early scenes mostly on soundstages and not real English locations, and the Cockney accents a bit hard to follow. But I swore I would give BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS another try, from start to finish, and with a fair, objective viewing. So here we go.

With a screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi based on two novels by Mary Norton The Magic Doorknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks and directed by Robert Stevenson, BEDKNOBS and BROOMSTICKS takes place during the Blitz in August of 1940 in the quaint village of Pepperinge Eye on the Dorset coast in England. While the locals (mostly old men) train for a possible German invasion, Miss Eglantine Price rides into town to pick up a parcel from postmaster Mrs. Hobday (Tessie O'Shea).  Miss Price is recruited by Mrs. Hobday to take home three orphans from London  who have been sent to the country to avoid the nightly bombings - 11 year old Charlie Rawlins (Ian Weighill), middle child Carrie Rawlins (Cindy O'Callaghan), and the youngest 6 year old Paul Rawlins (Roy Snart). Miss Price reluctantly agrees. When Miss Price believes the children are asleep, she opens up her parcel.  It's a broomstick from the College of Witchcraft. Miss Price is an apprentice witch. As the Rawlins kids try to sneak out of the house to go back to London, they see Miss Price attempting to fly. The children decide to stay. Charlie tries to blackmail Miss Price for better food and fewer showers only to be transformed temporarily into a rabbit.

Miss Price is waiting for one last final spell from the College so she can protect England from the Nazis. She makes a deal with the kids. She agrees to help them get back to London with a transportation spell she places on a bedknob that Paul had nicked from his room. In return, the kids promise to not reveal her secret. Miss Price receives a telegram from the College of Witchcraft that it's closing due to the war. She won't receive her final spell. Miss Price decides to use the magical bedknob to transport to London and find her correspondence teacher Emelius Browne (David Tomlinson). Paul turns the bedknob and they fly on the bed over the countryside to London where they discover Browne is just a con man street magician and not a very good one. When Miss Price tells Browne his spells work, Browne reveals he just wrote them down from an old Book of Spells he had bought at a bookstore. 

Browne brings them back to an empty house next to a live bomb he currently resides in. While the children explore the nursery and discover a story book called Island of Naboombu, Miss Price learns that Browne's magic book is missing a key page for Miss Price to use the Substitutiary Locomotion spell. Browne takes them to a market on Portobello Road where he bought the book. A knife wielding thug Swinburne (Bruce Forsythe) leads them to the Bookman (Sam Jaffe), a mysterious old man also searching for the same spell as Miss Price. He has the missing page but it reveals nothing further. The Bookman tells them a legend foretells that the spell is written on a medallion known as the Star of Astoroth, named after a sorcerer. The medallion is believed to be on an island called Naboombu, inhabited by talking animals. Paul confirms the island's existence by showing everyone the storybook. Before the Bookman and Swinburne can stop them, Miss Price, Browne, and the children turn the bedknob and command the bed to fly to the island of Naboombu. 

They crash land underwater in the island's lagoon where they meet a bevy of animated sea creatures including Mr. Codfish (Bob Holt). After Miss Price and Browne win a dance contest underwater, a giant fishing hook cast above water by Bear (Dallas McKennon) pulls the bed onto shore. Humans are not allowed on Naboombu but the lion King Leonidas (Lennie Weinrib), wearing the Star of Astoroth allows it when Browne volunteers to referee the Royal Cup soccer match. King Leonidas's team wins. During the ceremony, Browne switches his referee's whistle around Leonidas's neck for the Star of Astoroth. The group hurry to the bed and depart Naboombu before Leonidas can stop them returning to Pepperinge Eye. They discover the Star of Astoroth did not travel well from one world to another and it vanishes. Miss Price regrets not memorizing the spell on the medallion. But Paul shows her the spell's words are written in the storybook. The Germans show up offshore at night in a submarine and row to shore led by Colonel Heller (John Ericson). Their raid is to cause mischief in the village. Miss Price uses the Substitutiary Locomotion spell to bring all the nearby museums suits of armor and military uniforms to life to fight the Germans and force them to retreat back to their submarine.  The village is saved and a new family is formed consisting of Miss Price, Mr. Browne, and the three Rawlins orphans. 

For a Disney film, BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS tackles some serious subjects from World War II but works around it's darker tones in typical Disney fashion. The London Blitz was a horrible period early in WWII where the Germans bombed London night after night.  70,000 civilians were killed in the Blitz. The film never states it point blank but the Rawlins children's parents were killed in the Blitz.  That's why they're orphans and have been sent to the countryside for their safety. The Germans aka Nazis in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS are not portrayed as sadistic, evil invaders. Their most devious act is cutting the phone lines. Col. Heller is serious but he doesn't torture any of the villagers. When the suits of armor and war uniforms come to life, the Germans are shown to be clumsy and buffoonish as they deal with the supernatural army. It's a comic retreat for the Third Reich. Their darker deeds will happen offscreen and after BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS is over.

For a quaint musical fantasy, BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS has quite an interesting history and a lot in common with Disney's first live hit action/animated film MARY POPPINS.  Both films were developed at the same time in the early 1960s. MARY POPPINS has a magical nanny; BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS an apprentice witch. Both films were helmed by Robert Stevenson who directed numerous Disney movies from the pirate film KIDNAPPED (1960) based on the Robert Louis Stevenson (no relation) novel all the way to THE SHAGGY D.A. (1976).  Screenwriters Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi wrote both screenplays. When MARY POPPINS ran into some early movie rights issues with Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, BEDKNOBS AND BROOSTICKS was prepped to take its place. Disney and Travers eventually worked out their differences and MARY POPPINS was made first. Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman provided the music and lyrics for both MARY POPPINS and BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS. I would suggest the songs are a little better in MARY POPPINS but don't brush off the musical numbers in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS. 

Julie Andrews who became a star after appearing in MARY POPPINS initially turned down the opportunity to star in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS.  Andrews would have a change of heart but when she let Disney Studios know she was interested in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, they told her that Angela Lansbury had already been hired. Rumor has it Dick Van Dyke was offered the David Tomlinson role of Mr. Browne but Van Dyke felt it was too similar to his character in MARY POPPINS. BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS was released in theaters with a running time of 119 minutes.  It's original running time was 141 minutes.  When Disney wanted to celebrate BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS 25th Anniversary, the longer version was assembled which included more musical numbers and some additional scenes with actor Roddy McDowell as the local vicar Rowan Jelk. 

Poor Roddy McDowell. McDowell has third billing in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS but his role was reduced dramatically from the longer version to the released theatrical version. In the longer version, McDowell had more scenes with Lansbury's Miss Price with a subplot that McDowell's Jelk was an interested suitor in Miss Price. In the theatrical release most saw, Jelk appears in only two scenes (one at the beginning and one two thirds in) barely more than two minutes in total running time. McDowell started out as a child actor in John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941) and grew up into a solid adult actor in films like Joseph L. Mankiewicz's CLEOPATRA (1963), Franklin J. Schaffner's PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and it's four sequels, and Tom Holland's FRIGHT NIGHT (1985). 

Later in her career, Angela Lansbury played matronly, great aunt like roles such as author and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the CBS mystery show MURDER SHE WROTE (1984-1996) or as Mrs. Potts in the animated BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991).  Earlier in her film career, Lansbury's roles were darker like the manipulative mother of Laurence Harvey in John Frankenheimer's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) or a cheating wife in George Roy Hill's THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (1964). As Miss Price in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, Lansbury displays another side to her talent - singing and dancing (Lansbury was an accomplished Broadway star in both dramas and musicals). Lansbury's Miss Price is a slightly dotty but benevolent, patriotic witch determined to learn spells to protect Great Britain from the Germans. Lansbury doesn't come off as sweet as Julie Andrews in MARY POPPINS. Lansbury's Miss Price is practical and her heart eventually thaws for the three orphans she reluctantly agreed to take care of at the start of the film.

Another MARY POPPINS connection is actor David Tomlinson who plays magician con artist Emelius Browne in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS. Tomlinson was a favorite of Disney Studios and director Robert Stevenson. Tomlinson appeared in MARY POPPINS as Mary Poppins employer Mr. Banks and also in Disney's THE LOVE BUG (1968). Tomlinson is another in a long line of English character actors like John McGiver (BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S) or Robert Morley (THE AFRICAN QUEEN). In BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS, Tomlinson's Browne is a charlatan yet Browne never appears sinister or acts like a rogue. He's generally shocked to learn what he thought were useless spells turn out to work. Browne turns out to be an amicable, adaptable bloke whether it's flying on a magical bed or refereeing a soccer game between two teams made up of talking wild animals. Browne will become a father figure to the three orphan Rawlins kids. There's an underlying romance that evolves between Browne and Miss Price. In typical Disney fashion, it's subtle. The steamiest their relationship gets is Browne and Miss Price dancing together in the Naboombu dance contest. The finale of BEKKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS hints that Price, Browne, and the Rawlins kids will become a family. 

Disney films have introduced audiences to some good child actors from Bobby Driscoll in Byron Haskin's TREASURE ISLAND (1950) to James McArthur in SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON to Kurt Russell in Robert Butler's THE COMPUTER WORE TENNIS SHOES (1969). The child actors in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS would not go on to become famous movie stars (the two young male actors never made another film). But for two hours, Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, and Roy Snart play their roles as blue collar, London orphans perfectly and realistically. Early in the film, Weighill as Charlie has the stronger part. Later, the younger Snart as Paul steals the film. His character plays the biggest role in confirming the existence of Naboombu (he found the storybook) and discovering the magic words for the final spell on the Star of Astoroth in the storybook. 

A fantasy film about an English apprentice witch, I couldn't help but see a connection between BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS and the phenomenon that ruled movie screens 30 years later for over a decade with the HARRY POTTER films beginning with Chris Columbus's HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (2001). Although older, Miss Price studying witchcraft and learning spells through a witchcraft correspondence school hearkens to Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley studying magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. One can imagine BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICK'S Miss Price growing up to become like Maggie Smith's Professor Minerva McGonagall in the HARRY POTTER films, teaching future young witches and wizards spells and charms. HARRY POTTER author J.K. Rowling would have been six years old in 1971, almost the same age as I was when BEKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS was released. Could BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS have been her first introduction to magic and witchcraft? It's an interesting theory. 

Some final thoughts on BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS. One of the film's surprises are how good the animation and special effects are. CGI was not around in 1971.  Rear projection was still the workhorse for the movie industry.  The animated sequences in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS matching real actors with animated characters looks very seamless. Credit to Ward Kimball who directed the animation sequences in BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS. It's not a surprise that Kimball was an animator on MARY POPPINS for its animated sequences. The suits of armor and other battlefield uniforms brought to life by Miss Price marching and chasing the Germans off the island is well executed and makes for a rousing finale. BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS was rewarded with winning the Academy Award for Best Special Effects in 1972 for Alan Maley, Eustache Lycett, and Danny Lee. 

It should not come as a surprise that Walt Disney who began his film career and studio on the animated side with the Mickey Mouse short STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928) followed by full length films like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES (1937) would eventually merge animation with live action. MARY POPPINS receives most of the acclaim for this combination and its well deserved as its a fun, entertaining film with great performances by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke and songs that stick in your head. But BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS is a sneaky fun film with better animation and visual effects and equally fine performances by Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson.  It deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as MARY POPPINS. The fact that both films have the same director, screenwriters, and lyricists unites BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS and MARY POPPINS in a way that doesn't normally happen with two films seven years apart. Little did I know the convoluted history of BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS when I saw it as a young boy. I just know it enchanted me as a kid and that enchantment was ignited again five decades later. 

 

Die Another Day (2002)

For as long as I can remember watching the James Bond series, the entity or country that has most tried to "Kill Bond!" (as Blofeld shrieks in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) are either the crime organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E or the Soviet Union aka Russia. But with the disintegration of the old Soviet Union into satellite countries during its "glasnost" period in the 90s, the Bond filmmakers were going to have to find some new "bad players" for Bond and MI-6 to tussle with. Enter North Korea. North Korea has been anti-West since the Korean War. It's secretive, isolated, and ruled by a dictatorial family for decades. Only of late has it become a little less shy and a little more saber rattling, threatening the West with ominous threats and launching numerous missile tests near its neighbors Japan and South Korea. China had never been sexy for the Bond filmmakers (except for a lone Chinese representative Burt Kwouk in GOLDFINGER). North Korea was to be the new villain for the 20th film in the Bond series, DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002).

After a positive, exciting start with a brand new James Bond in Pierce Brosnan for GOLDENEYE (1995), the next two Bond/Brosnan films in the franchise were positively disappointing. TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997) and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999) were directed by capable English directors (Roger  Spottiswoode and Michael Apted), had interesting locations (Thailand, Azerbaijian, Turkey), well respected actors as the main baddies (Jonathan Pryce and Robert Carlyle), and pretty, diverse Bond women (Michelle Yeoh, Teri Hatcher, Sophie Marceau, and Denise Richards). But the stories were tired and uninteresting, the action sequences tepid, and the momentum Brosnan and company brought with GOLDENEYE had evaporated. Luckily, the fourth and last Brosnan entry DIE ANOTHER DAY would end on a slightly higher note with North Korea as the new dangerous adversary, non-stop action, and the lovely Halle Berry as a Bond Girl named Jinx. 

With a screenplay by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (who had become the Bond franchise's go to writers) and directed by Lee Tamahori (MULHOLLAND FALLS), DIE ANOTHER DAY opens with Ian Fleming's ageless British agent James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) surfing onto a North Korean beach at dawn. Bond impersonates a South African diamond courier bringing illegal conflict diamonds to Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee) in exchange for weapons. Moon shows off his fleet of hovercrafts that can float over land mines separating North and South Korea. Col. Moon's trusted associate Zao (Rick Yune) receives notification that Bond is a spy. Bond's arrested and about to be executed when General Moon (Kenneth Tsang), the younger Moon's father arrives. Gen. Moon is unaware of his son's business dealings. Bond sets off a booby trap, exploding the case full of diamonds. Bond escapes on a hovercraft, chased by Col. Moon and his soldiers. Moon's hovercraft goes over a waterfall and is presumed dead. Bond is caught by Gen. Moon and made a prisoner for 14 months, interrogated and tortured. Moon wants to know who corrupted his son. Bond wants to know who betrayed him to the North Koreans. A prisoner swap is arranged. Bond is traded for an incarcerated Zao, now bald with pieces of diamonds imbedded in his face from the earlier explosion.

Recuperating in Hong Kong, Bond's boss M (Judi Dench) is not happy to see Bond. The Americans led by NSA superior Damian Falco (Michael Madsen) believe Bond gave up one of their agents. Bond sneaks away from his confinement, cleans up, and connects with a Chinese agent Chang (Ho Yi) who tells Bond that Zao is now in Cuba. Bond flies to Cuba (actually Spain) and encounters an American NSA agent named Jinx Johnson (Halley Berry). After a frisky one night stand, Bond follows her the next morning to a clinic on Isla Los Organos just off the coast. A Dr. Alvarez (Simon Andreu) is performing extensive DNA gene therapy that can give people new identities. Jinx shoots Dr. Alvarez. Bond finds Zao in the clinic with a gene therapy mask on. Bond and Zao fight. Zao escapes by helicopter and Jinx jumps into the ocean where a boat awaits her. Bond discovers a host of diamonds bearing the insignia of Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), a British billionaire who's recently emerged on the world scene for discovering a diamond mine in Iceland. 

Bond returns to London and visits the Blades Club where fencing instructor Verity (played by Madonna, yes that Madonna who also sings the film's title theme song) points Bond to Graves and his personal assistant Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike). Bond and Graves get into a heated fencing duel that evolves into an actual sword fight with real blades. Bond barely wins. Impressed, Graves invites Bond to his Iceland Ice Palace where he plans to make a big announcement. M reinstates Bond to his double O standing. Bond swings by MI-6 to see Q (John Cleese) who updates Bond with a camouflage Aston Martin that can become invisible and some other more useful gadgets. M meets with Frost who's actually an MI-6 agent. M wants Frost to keep an eye on Bond in Iceland. 

Bond and Jinx arrive at Graves's Icelandic Ice Palace separately. Frost warns Bond not to try to seduce her (it doesn't work but ...). Graves reveals his pet project to the world called Icarus, a giant reflector satellite that can bring intense solar power to areas of the world to help make crops more sustainable. Jinx is caught by Graves and Zao trying to sabotage the device. Bond rescues Jinx and discovers that Graves is really Col. Moon with a new face courtesy of the DNA gene therapy. Bond kills Zao and Graves flees with Frost who turns out to be a double agent, the person who betrayed Bond to the North Koreans. Graves destroys his Ice Palace. Bond and Jinx fly back to the Korean DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between North and South Korea where they are ordered by M and Falco to take down Graves/Moon who unveils his real purpose for Icarus: blast a solar path thru the DMZ so North Korean troops can attack South Korea. Bond and Jinx sneak onto Graves cargo plane for a final showdown with Graves/Moon and Frost.

For Brosnan's final Bond film, the DIE ANOTHER DAY filmmakers pulled out all the stops, some good and some a little too unbelievable even for a Bond film. The good was DIE ANOTHER DAY'S nostalgic nod to past Bond films from Halle Berry's Jinx emerging from the sea like a water nymph similar to Ursula Andress's Honey Ryder introduction in DR. NO (1962) to the facial identity change of Col. Moon to Gustav Graves plot line that echoes THUNDERBALL (1965) when a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agent was transformed to look identical to a NATO pilot to steal a nuclear warhead or villain Blofeld duplicating himself two times over in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971). There's John Cleese channeling the recently deceased Desmond Llewelyn as Q (Cleese first appeared as Q's protege R in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH), providing Bond with his favorite, trusty sports car the Aston Martin V12 but with a catch (and the beginning of the unbelievable parts of DIE ANOTHER DAY).

Action set pieces are the norm in any James Bond film. Director Tamahori in DIE ANOTHER DAY stages several fine sequences (assisted by expert 2nd Unit Director Vic Armstrong) including the military hovercraft opening that harkens back to the exciting tank chase in Brosnan's first Bond film GOLDENEYE (1995) and an exhilarating finale in Graves/Moon's out of control cargo plane as it avoids the deadly Icarus ray. Bond action sequences sometimes teeter on the brink of unbelievability but try to stay closer to reality. With the advances of CGI by 2002, DIE ANOTHER DAY pushes that over the limit. First, Bond's Aston Martin has a camouflage device that can make it invisible. It's a little too science fiction even for Bond. A car chase between Bond and Zao that begins on ice and moves inside Graves's Ice Palace lair borders on the THE BLUES BROTHERS absurd. And Bond will be propelled to the edge of an ice shelf, hanging on by his fingernails before wind surfing to safety on a tidal wave caused by the collapsing ice shelf to safety that defies reality. 

Greek mythology plays a part in DIE ANOTHER DAY, raising the quality of this film above the previous two Brosnan/Bond films. Graves/Moon's deadly Icarus Satellite is aptly named. In the Greek myth, Icarus was a young man who escaped King Minos's labyrinth on Crete by making wings out of feathers and wax to fly away. Icarus is warned by his father Daedalus not to fly too close to the sun which Icarus fails to heed, soaring higher and higher until the sun melts his wings, causing Icarus to fall into the ocean and drown. Icarus's tale was a metaphor for overreaching and self-destruction which sums up Graves/Moon. He wants to impress his father General Moon and carve a new path through the DMZ for North Korea to destroy its neighbor South Korea using the sun power of the Icarus satellite. Like Icarus, Graves/Moon overreaches, flying too close to the sun in his cargo plane with the sun represented by the satellite's solar powered laser beam. Graves/Moon is defeated by his own hubris (with some assistance from Bond and Jinx). 

Graves/Moon has an Icarus complex. As the brash young colonel at the beginning of DIE ANOTHER DAY, Moon defies his father like Icarus had with his father Daedalus's warning, trading in conflict diamonds for weapons, the diamonds for a more sinister use.  It's a deal the older, wiser General Moon knows nothing about and doesn't support. After it's revealed young Col. Moon did not perish over the waterfall back in North Korea and has stealthily transformed himself into wealthy entrepreneur Gustav Graves, that metamorphosis courtesy of a gene therapy mask making Graves/Moon even more overconfident and overreaching. Graves/Moon is so wired he never sleeps, making him more violent. A friendly fencing duel for a wager between Graves/Moon and Bond turns into a bar room battle at a posh fencing club. Graves/Moon's recklessness like Icarus will lead to his downfall. 

Pierce Brosnan's run as James Bond was hit and miss over the four 007 films he appeared in but Brosnan never gave less than one hundred percent. For DIE ANOTHER DAY, Brosnan has some added motivation for his character when Bond's betrayed behind enemy lines by someone, leading to over a year of torture and interrogation by the North Koreans before he's released in a spy swap for Zao. We've never seen Bond humiliated like this. Bond's betrayal will fuel him to search for the traitor and regain his reputation in the intelligence community and his license to kill status reinstated by M. Brosnan parlayed his stint as James Bond (after playing a similar suave character on television in REMINGTON STEELE) into a successful film career that's still going strong today with roles in John McTiernan's remake of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1999) co-starring Rene Russo, as the bad guy in Edgar Wright's THE WORLD'S END (2013), and most recently playing an M like intelligence bureaucrat in Steven Soderbergh's BLACK BAG (2025) with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender.

One of the delights of DIE ANOTHER DAY is having Bond team up with an American agent to battle Graves, Frost, and Zao. Even better, the American agent Jinx is played by the beautiful Halle Berry. After getting to know each other in bed first (hey, we're talking James Bond here), Bond and Jinx discover they are rival spies fighting against the same common enemy.  Jinx will not be Bond's first interracial relationship. Roger Moore has that honor in LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) when he slept with fellow agent Gloria Hendry. Berry's introduction in a bright orange bikini pays homage to Ursula Andress's white bikini entrance in DR. NO. But Berry is not just a pretty face as Jinx as she punches and kicks the baddies in DIE ANOTHER DAY just as hard as Bond himself.  Berry had been underutilized in films like Bryan Singer's X-MEN (2000) or not used correctly in CATWOMAN (2004). A breakthrough performance and Academy Award for Best Actress winner in Marc Forster's MONSTER'S BALL (2001) starring Billy Bob Thornton and Heath Ledger let the world know Berry is the real deal as an actress. 

It's not uncommon for Bond films to have two actresses involved with Bond. One is usually on the good side and one on the bad side. DIE ANOTHER DAY has the good fortune of not only having Halle Berry but also a fresh, relatively unknown at the time British actress named Rosamund Pike as the other possible love interest Miranda Frost. We're misled at first thinking that Jinx might be the bad apple and double agent Frost who's imbedded with Graves is the good one. But that belief will be turned on its head mid-way through the film.  Like her name, Pike's Frost is icy, remote, possibly a young version of what M (Judi Dench) was like at her early spy beginning, perhaps using sex to further her career no matter the side. Only Frost is a traitor to MI-6. Frost is the one who betrays both Bond to the North Koreans and corrupts North Korean Gen. Moon's son Col. Moon to the possibilities of the decadent West. Pike has become an accomplished actress, in a long line of accomplished British actresses appearing with Brosnan in THE WORLD'S END, as the missing wife in David Fincher's GONE GIRL (2014) with Ben Affleck, and as a war correspondent in Matthew Heineman's A PRIVATE WAR (2018).

Toby Stephens as megalomaniac billionaire Gustav Graves may not be the most well known Bond villain in the series. What the Shakespeare trained Stephens brings to DIE ANOTHER DAY is a youthful energy. Graves is Bond's evil doppelganger. Like Bond, he's dashing in a tuxedo, excellent at most things from setting land speed records in a rocket car to fencing, and easy on the eyes for the ladies (although there's something asexual about him). The fact that Graves is the presumed dead Col. Moon with a new face is a nice touch. Other projects to catch Stephens in include the popular pirate streaming series BLACK SAILS (2014-2017) and Donovan Marsh's submarine thriller HUNTER KILLER (2018). 

As usual, the supporting cast for DIE ANOTHER DAY is eclectic with one mega pop star popping up unexpectedly for a cameo.  Judi Dench (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) returns as MI-6 boss M for the 4th time (just like Brosnan). Dench is so good in the role. We will learn more of M's backstory in future Bond films. Who would have thought Quentin Tarantino's favorite blue collar killer Michael Madsen (RESERVOIR DOGS) would be cast in a Bond film. Yet the gravelly voiced Madsen is perfect as M's American counterpart NSA boss Damian Falco. Monty Python's John Cleese as the new gadget master Q channels the great, late Desmond Llewelyn who had passed away in 1999. Rick Yune is creepy as the man with the diamond studded face terrorist Zao. And yes, that's Madonna as fencing instructor Verity in DIE ANOTHER DAY. Madonna may set the record for the first vocalist to appear in the same Bond film she sings the theme song for. Madonna's song Die Another Day is heavy on the electronics. I needed her credit to tell me she was singing the theme song. 

Some final DIE ANOTHER DAY trivia tidbits. This was Rosamund Pike's feature film debut as Miranda Frost.  There had been plans to make a spinoff movie with Halle Berry's character Jinx Johnson in a solo film.  But the poor box office reception to McG's all girl action film CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE (2003) made MGM Studios change their mind. Toby Stephens who plays the villain Gustav Graves is the son of actress Maggie Smith (THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE) and actor Robert Stephens (THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES). With all its outrageous stunts and CGI, there is one scene at the end of DIE ANOTHER DAY where we think the impossible is finally happening: Miss Moneypenny passionately kissing James Bond, something that has never happened in a Bond film. It turns out Miss Moneypenny is wearing Virtual Reality goggles, playing out her fantasy. She's interrupted by Q. It's a funny scene to end Pierce Brosnan's run as the world's greatest spy. 

I was a fan of the Pierce Brosnan era as James Bond even if some of the films were disappointing. Although not as good as Brosnan's first outing GOLDENEYE and borrowing some plot from other Bond films like DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and MOONRAKER, DIE ANOTHER DAY is a decent enough sending off for the fifth actor to portray 007. But was James Bond beginning to show signs that the franchise was beginning to show signs of wear and tear? Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli were going to have to find a new Bond and even more, find a way to recharge the series for it to survive in the 21st century.  Little did they know another action film was going to show them the way.