Sex and Guns and Judi Dench — Diamonds Are Forever — A Reactionary Transcript #17

In the hunt for the finest of the Bond pictures, I must take notes during my viewing. Here are my notes for the seventeenth of these case studies; Diamonds Are Forever.

The results will be posted heeeeeeere.

Diamonds Are Forever spoilers ahead.

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ROAR
Aaaaaaand (after another logo) we’re off

Solid barrel sequence, felt the bullet that time

We are in…
Japan?
Certainly somewhere Asian

Ooo, guy gets thrown through the paper walls

A guy in a white suit wants to know where Blofeld is
He’s in Cairo apparently

Man in Fez playing cards loudly declares ‘CARDS’
He gets punched in the face, as is tradition
He tells the man in white to ask Marie

The man in white is Mr. Bond

So Marie is sunbathing and Bond goes up to her reaching round the back of her top and unhooks it and chokes her
This guy is on a mission
Tell him where Blofeld is, mate

Blofeld’s getting plastic surgery and he wants it done sharpish
Bond’s found him though
Posed as a doctor to get in to where Blofeld’s taking a mud-bath
Bond can’t see him
Blofeld can see Bond
So he lifts his gun from the mud
Bond sees that

So drowns him in mud
I don’t think it was Blofeld
Nah, just some geez actually

There’s Blofeld
With some muscle
They disarm Bond
OR TRY TO
BOND HAD LIKE A MOUSETRAP IN HIS PICKET
Then he kills the muscle with a load of scalpels

Blofeld comes at him with a machete
Bond evades and straps Blofeld to an operating table, sending him into some hot ass wax to drown and burn and presumably, die
Blofeld’s cat ain’t happy

OPENING CREDITS

MI6 are looking at some diamonds
They’re being brought in on a smuggling thing
Sir Donald is their contact now
Bond schools M on some Sherry, must have gone over huge in the 70's
M disses Bond back for not knowing a lot about diamonds

Lot of diamonds come from South Africa
And Sir Donald says they’ve got the best security on their mines or somet
But the workers are sneaking diamonds out and smuggling them to their dentist for a cash payout

Suddenly, two paedos in the desert looking at a scorpion
Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd
They call the scorpion nature’s finest killer and then go meet a guy riding a motorbike called Dr. Tynan
Tynan puts something in Kidd’s briefcase, and Kidd then has a toothache, and Tynan has a look at his wisdom teeth
That’s a bold play
While he’s doing that, Mr. Wint slips the scorpion down his top, and it kills him dramatically
They meet whoever Tynan was meant to meet and hand over the briefcase, but they’ve switched out the stuff and replaced it with a bomb

Then they diss the guy for being in a helicopter

Off they trot

Holding hands

Anyway
The smuggled diamonds aren’t gaan on the market, so Bond needs to work out where they’re gaan

Back to Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd
They go and meet some lovely Sunday School teacher, and they drop her the package

Anyway
Bond’s gotta go to Amsterdam and find a smuggler called Peter Franks
He found him and stole his identity
Moneypenny sees him off
Asking for marriage as she does
Then Bond heads off via hovercraft
Okay

Getting a river tour of Amsterdam here
We get to see a dead body being pulled out of the river
it’s the Sunday School teacher
Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd take pictures of it from afar

Anyway
Bond rings a bell as Peter Franks
The lady who lets him in tells him to make himself at home
She’s called Tiffany Case
She’s not wearing a lot
But she is wearing a wig cos her hair keeps changing
She seems pissed off when Bond makes a remark about the collars and cuffs matching
She takes his fingerprints

‘That’s a nice little nothing you’re almost wearing’

She runs his fingerprints and finds they match Peter Franks
he’s one step ahead

Her hair is red now
Blonde to brunette to red
She tells him to shut the fuck up

He’s gotta smuggle 50,000 carrots into Cali

Bond gets back to his hotel
Calls Q to thank him for the fake fingerprints
He appreciates it
The real Peter Franks has escaped
Killed a guy and has made it to Amsterdam
Bond watches him from afar and does the old making out with yourself routine to evade his gaze — stunning

Bond does his worst German accent
Pretends to be foreign with the strongest Scottish accent of all time

Franks is gaan up to see Case
Bond tries to swing for him, but goes so hard that he breaks the glass with his elbow, giving him away

Elevator brawl stops the elevator
Then we carry on, not a lot of room to navigate
Gaan down now
And up again
Bond’s gonna get decapped
Stops it, beats Franks down and fights a piece of glass out of his hands
Bond sprays him with a fire extinguisher and throws him down the stairs

Tiffany Case saw the whole thing

Bond switches his identity card
So when Tiffany pulls it off the dead guy, she all like, ‘mate, you just killed James Bond!’
Real Bond goes along with it
Tiffany’s gotta get the diamonds outta there
She was keeping them safe as a light fixture

Bond and Tiffany get on a plane to LA
Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are a few seats behind
Mr. Kidd says that ‘Miss Case is quite attractive… For a lady’ then laughs
Mr. Wint just looks at him

Anyway
Felix Leiter is working in the airport to meet Bond
Felix checks over the body of Peter Franks (transported in a coffin via airplane) for the diamonds
Bond says they’re up his ass
Felix lets him go

Bond gets a lift in a hearse
From three gangster lookin guys
They prod him to sit in the front

Then take him to Slumber Inc., a chapel and crematorium
Oh, the guy who owns it is called MORTON SLUMBER, sensational

They send Peter Franks into the oven
Bond pretends to be sad
That was quick
Bond sits in Morton’s office waiting for the ashes in silence
Gets ’em in like two seconds
Quickest cremation of all time

In the urn are the diamonds that were up Franks’ ass

Bond goes for a wander through the gardens
Wint and Kidd are about
They knock Bond out
Bond leaves his urn of ass diamonds and someone comes along to pick it up
I think it was the hearse driver from before

Bond is being locked in a coffin and sent into the oven

This film is rattling along like

Wint and Kidd make some cremation puns and Bond goes into the fire
May he rest in peace
oh he’s woken up

Gettin a bit warm, Sean?
Didn’t mean to do that after he just died

The guy who nicked his urn opens the lid
The diamonds were phonies

Slumber was apparently in on it to get the diamonds, but Bond switched them out, so they still need him
Bond casually goes to his hotel and calls Felix

Q has got to LA with the real diamonds
No idea how he did that
But okay

Bond goes to see a show in a casino owned by Willard Whyte
I think we’re in Vegas
Or at least Nevada

The guy who nicked his diamond urn and let him out the coffin is doing stand-up with some showgirls
Wint and Kidd are watching as well

The comedian’s name is Shady Tree
Wint and Kidd presumably kill him cos the manager comes back and tells ’em they need him alive
Kidd says ‘that’s most annoying’

And yeah, he’s dead

Bond starts gambling as Peter Franks
gives the manager a flash of his Slumber Inc. payout
Some gold digger gets wind of him chattin big numbers as well

I think I know her name
Yeah, it’s Plenty O’Toole
‘named after your father perhaps?’
creepy

She rolls for Bond

and…

does poorly

I don’t know how craps works though

Bond does

Bert the manager calls Willard Whyte upstairs, who wants the diamonds
So they all know Bond has the diamonds and they’re going along with his Peter Franks shit
I don’t know why
To keep him about?

Bond tips Plenty 5 grand
And now she won’t let him go
She’s very enthusiastic

They make out
He unzips her

The Italian hearse drivers are in Bond’s room when he flicks the lights on
They throw Plenty out the window and into the pool

Bond knocks one of them out and then’s like ‘let’s get down to business then’
But they all back off and out the room
Maybe they just found Plenty annoying

Bond’s alone

No he ain’t
Tiffany Case is on his bed
They chat about the diamonds
Tiffany wants to know where they are
So naturally they have sex

They negotiate a deal to escape together with the diamonds

Bond tells Tiffany where the diamonds are and she goes to pick up the diamonds but they’re apparently at a circus

Tiffany is milling about
Bond and Felix have eyes on her
Felix says that they’ve got tonnes of agents about and that a mouse with sneakers couldn’t get through
Then they get hypnotised by the rotating acrobats

Tiffany hits a blackjack table
At the circus…

The dealer sends a signal to get her over to the water balloons, so she fecks off over there

Bond fecks off the get a rental car to her and Tiffany can make their escape
Felix don’t reckon she’ll show up

Tiffany goes to water balloons
It’s rigged so she wins
She gets a soft toy
The kid next to her ain’t happy that he didn’t win
Tiffany tells him to go blow up his pants
What?

An elephant starts playing a one-armed bandit
Yes

Two dudes are following Tiffany and her soft toy
She wanders in to see Zambora — ‘the strangest girl ever born to live’
She was apparently captured in Nairobi, South Africa
Which don’t sound right
Apparently she turns into a gorilla
She only goes in to get away from the guys following her
But they go follow her in

We watch as Zambora…
slowly transitions…
Into a gorilla
Scary
That sends the kids running
But Tiffany slips out through the back
The two guys follow her with like eighty more guys
All the CIA agents
They lost her

Bond goes to her place
Tiffany gets there and see him and plays dumb about the whole thing
Then asks what her black wig is doing in the pool
That ain’t no black wig
It’s a woman
Plenty O’Toole

So Dr. Tyman or whatever is dead
Then that Sunday School teacher
Then Shady Tree
And now them two
everyone involved with the diamonds is being knocked off

Bond slaps her
He wants her connection to the diamonds
It’s business time now, he really don’t give a shit

Some guy picks up the diamonds from the airport
Bond has to follow them

It’s Bert the casino manager from before
Willard Whyte’s right hand man

Bond jumps into the back of his car

Tiffany follows on

They head into some Government restricted area so Tiffany has to stop
The car with Bond in goes underground

Bond sneaks beyond the doors
Charms his way in
Like a reverse snake
Ekans, I suppose

The guy who drove Bond in is Professor Dr. Metz
Naturally

Metz has a call from Willard Whyte
He confirms that all the diamonds are knocking about

Bond finds a tape titled ‘World’s Greatest Marches’
The guy Bond was impersonating walks in just as Bond leaves

Uh-oh

There’s a moon landing re-enactment gaan on
Bond runs across it and as the astronauts try to stop him, they can only move as if they’re on the moon
Huh

Bond hops in a moon buggy
And he threatens some guards with it
And he’s aff into the desert
The guards pursue him

As they go, they take out their own patrol tower

The moon buggy is faring better on sand
The cars just seem to fall to pieces
So they deploy little trikes
Iddy-biddy sand trikes, and now the chase is on

Three tiny trikes against one mammoth moon buggy

One trike just does himself in by going for an ambitious stunt
Idiot

Another one runs outta gas or somet but can’t restart in time, so Bond gets out of his buggy and kicks him off, then driving off himself
He drives back to Tiffany and they take off
The guards saw them leave though
So they call the sherrif

‘THERE GOES THAT SON OF A BITCHIN SABATOEUR’

Bond gets pulled over
Waits for the cop to get up close
And then drives away
Cops are on him now

I thought a police chase in Vegas would be a bit cooler, a bit more tense, but there’s no traffic and no music
Good stunt driving though
Gaan round a car park pretty swishly lark

These cops keep crashing into each other
Maybe they should stop driving at top speed towards one another

The Sheriff is till on him
Bond’s heading for a dead end
Not quite dead
He gets on two wheels and slips through a narrow crack
Sheriff is unable to do the same
Off he pops

Bond and Tiffany go and have sex in the bridal suite of Willard Whyte’s casino
That’s like Bin Laden banging his partner in the White House lobby

Felix wants to arrest Tiffany
House arrest anyways

Bond makes his way upstairs via the outside of the elevator
But he didn’t think it all the way through and he nearly gets smushed
But he doesn’t and he hangs on to be able to make his way inside with the help of a flimsy grapple hook thing that looks like it should be used for slicing cheese

There’s gotta be an easier way in

He makes it though

Lands right on a throne
Gets spied on by a camera who tells him to disarm and then come on inside

In he goes to Willard Whyte’s office
And it’s Blofeld
Two Blofelds
He did manage to replicate himself and Bond only previously killed the other double
Blofeld’s been posing as Willard Whyte for ages
But Whyte’s still alive

Bond needs to take a chance here
SO HE KICKS BLOFELD’S CAT
Blofeld catches the cat but Bond shoots him
And he dies incredibly dramatically

But I think it was the wrong Blofeld, cos the other Blofeld is now holding a gun at Bond
It was a clone cat as well
Real one wears a diamond necklace obviously

Blofeld lets Bond leave
Goes down in his personal lift
Blofeld knows everything that Bond’s been doing
And now Bond expects a trap
No trapdoor in the middle
Gas from the ceiling, of course
Goes all the way down to the basement where Wint and Kidd drag him away

Slap him in the boot of a car

They drive him through a tunnel and out into the desert
Then they dump his body in the middle of some piping construction
But a glass jar of Bond’s smashed in their boot
Hmm

Bond awakes to the sound of construction
But not before the piece of pipe he’s laid in is laid down on the pipeline, closing him in

Bond says he smells like a tart’s handkerchief
Then he follows a rat to run away from a pipe machine that’s coming after him
It looks a bit electric but I have no idea what it is
Two guys go in to fix it
Bond pops out though
Got lost walking his rat

Bond heads back to Felix, AND Q
James disguises his voice as Bert the manager and calls Blofeld
James finds out where the real Willard Whyte is and now Blofeld wants him dead, sets ‘Bert’ on it

Q adds that he made a voice changer for the kids last Christmas
Good lad, Q

Blofeld’s heading to the lab

Bond’s gaan in to find Whyte without back-up
Well, back-up’s hanging back anyways

Bond slinks inside
He don’t see nobody
But he ain’t prepared for combat
He’s got his jacket slung over one shoulder

He is then greeted by Bambi
a gymnast
And Thumper
a gymnast
They tell Jimmy where Willard is

Thumper kicks him in the nuts
Bambi flips across the room and kicks James in the chest
They’re flipping everywhere
And they’re doing him in
Very stylishly
Bambi’s strong legs are holding him in place while Thumper kicks the shit out of him
Then they throw him in a pool and try to drown him
But he’s physically stronger
They had the advantage and really fecked themselves over
Felix bursts in and Bambi and Thumper tell ’em where Whyte is

He seems real chill
Good thing, Blofeld sent the world’s oldest sniper to do him in
It was Bert the manager
Willard fires him as the CIA shoot him deed

Q wins big on the one armed bandit
Tiffany knows him quite well apparently
Q is winning on all the one-armed bandits
He’s got an RPM controller
He explains it very interestingly but Tiffany sees a white cat and runs after it
But she gets kidnapped
The white cat was being carried by a woman
But it was Blofeld in women’s clothes
Had to be in disguise, but that disguise?

Bond and Felix go after Metz in the underground lab
It ain’t there
Metz as well
I’ve lost track a bit

So
Blofeld was posing as Willard Whyte and sending out all these evil instructions
One of them being a satellite gaan into space
The real Willard has now just found out that it got launched like a half hour ago
i still dunno what the plan is with it though
i assume they needed diamonds to power it somehow

the satellite starts gaan mental
premature separation
happens to all of us

Can’t abort
Blofeld’s in control now
Bond’s mate draws a nice picture of it though

The satellite blows up a rocket in North Dakota

I don’t know who Willard Whyte is
I thought he owned a casino

Submarine blows up next
Cracking effect

Willard Whyte gets a phone call back in his office but wants to take it on the toilet
Felix goes to look for Blofeld

Some guys set on fire and missiles blow up in an Asian country

‘Would you believe that this whole country is being held to ransom and we’ve got ’til tomorrow at noon to pay up?’
Wowzers
Willard sounds so folksy and makes everything sound not as bad as it is

Bond finds a mistake in Willard’s properties, as he owns nothing in Baja, so that must be where Blofeld is
Foolproof
Begs the question why Blofeld was keeping him alive at all

Anyway
In Baja, Blofeld sits on his oil rig listening to the radio
He calms Metz down about all the approaching military and tells him that they’ve got it, so chill out

A plane gets close to the rig
It drops somet
Erryone on the rig watches this silver hexaball roll towards them
Bond’s inside
He plays sarcy as he’s dragged away
He’s so chill
KILL HIM
Or take him to the epicentre of your evil where he can put an end to everything

Tiffany is sunbathing on the oil rig
Lovely purple bikini
There’s been a nice bit of style in this film
Including Blofeld’s beige onesie
Excellent use of beige

So the tape of marching music from before was actually a tape with the satellite control tape in
Bond was gonna switch it for some actual marching music, but Blofeld caught him

Blofeld of course takes him on a tour, revealing his evil plan along the way
Tiffany wants to come along and grabs the tape as she goes, helping Bond out

Blofeld disses Kansas

They let Bond walk up to the control bank and eject the coded tape
Like they just watch him do it
Then he just switches the tapes
Bad guys ain’t even trying

They take Bond to the brig
But Bond slips the real tape into the back of Tiffany’s bikini bottoms under the guise of calling her a bitch
He says her problems are all behind her now

Bond gets escorted out
And immediately escapes cos he scares the guards by releasing a balloon
One guard tries to shoot it down and Bond just pushes him out the way
Bond tries to run but immediately gets taken out
Can anyone do their job?
Apparently not, Tiffany comes along and says she switched the tapes, meaning the real one’s back in

EVERYONE IS USELESS

Could’ve just broken the tape, Jimmy

Felix sees the released balloon and heads for it in a chopper
But they also think the balloon means Bond has neutralised the threat

So Blofeld’s gonna blow them up

Bond is sat in the brig looking like he wants to be anywhere else
Just stay in there, Jimmy, wait it out, let Felix sort this one
You’ve worked out the diamond business, let Felix deal with the Blofeld business

Felix’ choppers have a go at the oil rig

One guy’s job is just to count down to blast off, nowt else

Metz is mad at Blofeld for not firing the weapons peacefully enough? i dunno

Blofeld spies the extra tape in Tiffany’s bottoms and wants it back, then he sends Metz to destroy it
Why was she trying to change it in front of him?

The guard escorting Tiffany to the brig is shot by Felix’s helicopters

The brig where Bond is has an escape hatch
Why?

A helicopter gets blown up
kinda

Bond nearly gets shot as he dangles under the rig
How are the bullets getting under there?

Couple of ‘splosions sends folk flying

Bond clambers back up the rig

Blofeld’s chill about his rig gaan up in flames
But then he heads for his Bathosub
whatever that is

He wanders out onto the body-laden rig and gets in his bathosub, but he needs the crane to lift it into the water
Not the safest time to be swinging around, but okay

Bond stops the crane driver from lowering Blofeld down
Lifting him back up

One minute to launch

Tiffany makes a run for something
Bond swings Blofeld in his bathosub around
Not exactly stopping the satellite from hitting DC though are ya?

Bond gives Tiffany a gun and tells her to shoot some guards
But the shaking of the gun rattles her off the edge of the rig
Bond don’t give a shit

He wanted her to jump anyways

Bond swings Blofeld into the control room and blows it and probs him up
Then he jumps into the sea after Tiffany

Rig goes up

And that scene’s over

James and Tiffany are on a ferry to England
Willard and Felix wave them off
Wint and Kidd are also on board

Tiffany’s got an important question for James
Interrupted by room service
Load of nice food
Fancy anyways, maybe not nice

It’s Wint and Kidd
They didn’t order anything
They say it’s from Willard Whyte
There’s a bomb in the meringue though

Wint and Kidd sit ’em down
Pour em some wine

Bond recognises Wint’s aftershave
That must have been the vial broken in the boot of their car
AND WHY HE SMELLED LIKE A TART’S HANDKERCHIEF IN THE TUNNEL, I GET IT
That’s good

Mr. Kidd ain’t feckin about
They’ve been found out
He sets some kebabs on fire and runs at Bond
a very measured approach

Bond gets strangled by Wint’s chain
Tiffany’s reaction to all of this is ‘Yee’
not even an exclamation mark from the subtitles

Bond smashes some liquor and covers Kidd in it
fire spreads over him
He is very ablaze and jumps overboard
He deed
Wint is sad, but continues to strangle Bond
Tiffany throws the meringue at him, revealing the bomb
Bond uses the distraction to throw Wint off, tie his jacket between his legs, attach the bomb to him and flip him overboard
Wint liked the first bit
Didn’t like it when he exploded on the way down

Anyway
The question Tiffany had for Bond was
‘How do we get those diamonds down again?’
Cos they’re still up in the satellite
That is somehow still in space

Strong finish

Strong fin

FIN

RIP Mr. Bond

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Keep it streets ahead,

C.L.R.