You Only Live Twice

You Only Live Twice marks a turning point in the series, as it is the first James Bond film that was not based on an Ian Fleming story.

While Fleming’s novel of the same name is setin Japan and features Blofeld, little else remains apart from the characters Tiger Tanaka and Dikko Henderson – and while he is a colourful character in the book, the latter is completely wasted in the film.

Instead the screenplay was written by Roald Dahl,best known for his children’s stories.

The result? Some impressive action sequences and sets, the unforgettable Little Nellie, but a character that has started to become a cartoon, rather than the cold, blunt instrument envisaged by Ian Fleming.

This cartoonish quality starts with the pre-titles sequence, in which Bond is seemingly machine-gunned down in bed and buried at sea. However, typically for Bond – and lending the film its name -all is not as it seems and he lives to fight another day.

The plot is revolves around SPECTRE’s plan to cause World War III by hijacking American and Russian spacecraft, while making it look like the work of the other side.

It is notable that the same basic story was reused in The Spy Who Love Me and slightly less obviously in Moonraker,both with Roger Moore.

While the set design by Ken Adam is impressive- particularly the volcano set with working monorail – and some of the scenery good, it does lack visual punch.

And some of the comic elements that really took of with Roger Moore started to appear – there is a scene when a helicopter with a giant magnet picks up a SPECTRE car in pursuit of Bond and a girl- the driver, swinging the steering wheel wildly from side to side, only appears to realises the car is in the air when he looks out of the window and down at the ground – in other words nonsense.

While there are some good moments, You Only Live Twice just isn’t in the same league as the previous Bond films and marked the sad move towards making James Bond a comic character.