Sex and Guns and Judi Dench — Thunderball — A Reactionary Transcript #13

In the hunt for the finest of the Bond pictures, I must take notes during my viewing. Here are my notes for the thirteenth of these case studies; Thunderball.

The results will be posted heeeeeeere.

Thunderball spoilers ahead.

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ROAR

I’ve been shot

Maybe not, he’s not quite central

It’s JB’s funeral

But he’s watching

No, it’s some colonel

Jacques Bouvar

Bond didn’t like him though

Good of him to turn up then really cos it was pretty quiet

Without missing a beat, Bond flirts with a french lass

Then watches the widow drive off

Big stately home of the widow

Is this Spectre?

Bond’s waiting for her

In maybe the literally most unexpected move in any of these films so far, Bond punches her in the face

It’s a fella

It’s Colonel Bouvar

They throw furniture at each other quite nicely

Monkey flip

Bond chokes him out

Then chucks flowers on him, which allows him to be followed

Onto the balcony, he gets a helmet on and then slowly escapes via jetpack

Even though he jetpacked off the roof to the road below, the guards were able to run down just as fast

The car he gets in sprays water at the guards as it segues into the…

OPENING CREDITS

The most bad guy bad guy ever gets out of a car, eyepatch and all

This is Emilio Largo

He wanders through a secret door in a government building

Jacques Bouvar was Spectre Number 6

Largo is Number 2

They’re talking about how much illegal money they be getting at an evil meeting

But the Americans might be guilty of embezzlement

One of the two of them anyways

Number one (probs Blofeld) electrocutes the embezzling lad

SPECTRE wanna ransom some NATO blokes

They’ve sent one Count Lippe to the South of England to do some shit

Where Bond is getting a rub down and immediately notices Count Lippe’s baddie tattoo

Bond tells Moneypenny about the symbol

But Moneypenny’s being cheeky

What? After she was cheeky, Bond says that she’ll put her across his knee and Moneypenny’s response is ‘on yoghurt and lemon juice? I can hardly wait.’ I don’t get that one

Is that all he’s getting at the spa?

Whatever

Bond goes snooping in Lippe’s room

But someone else does as well

A bandaged man

But he fecks off

And Bond makes off with a notebook

And a grape

Ooo, bandaged man saw him

Oh no, Bond forces himself on a woman

So she puts him on a rack

The bandaged man is Mr. Angelo

She ties him to a rack and then says she feels safe, oh no

The rack is for therapy use in this instance, but I feel it may go awry

Bond gyrates back and forth for five minutes while being stretched on this rack machine and then someone turns it on full

He passes out

The doc saves him

Then blackmails her into sex in a steam room

Bond says ‘see you later, alligator’ really passive-aggressively as he leaves

He then encounters a man in a steam tank and locks him in without knowing if that’s the man that attacked him

Bond is now massaging the doc with a mink glove

Mr. Angelo is kissing someone

Angelo is a pilot

Knock at the door

Someone who looks exactly like Angelo

They kill the real Angelo

Lippe is there

His lass was in on it and sets the fake Angelo up with some poison

The fake Angelo wants more money and the lass says yeah, but she’s planning somet

Oh I see, fake Angelo was the bandaged man getting surgery to look like real Angelo

Fake Angelo is helping to train some NATO pilots

With bombs

Bond is still massaging the doc with a mink glove

While shitting the window, he sees Count Lippe bringing in a body

He tries to head them off but they hide so he goes a seeking

Bond finds the body, but no guards

He unbandages the bandaged man as the baddies ready their silencer

Bond pretends to call the police but uses the phone as a weapon to beat up a baddie

Bond sets off the fire alarm

Fake Angelo is setting up his evil plan on the NATO jet

Gets his gas mask on and lets the gas go, killing a load of folk before taking the plane where he wants to

Looks like he’s gonna crash it like

Nah, just flew below their radars

Largo watches it go from his boat

He lands it on the feckin water and then pops the wheels out as he goes underwater

Largo and his boys dive down to go get the stuff

Fake Angelo can’t get his seatbelt off

Largo comes down to help

BUT CUTS HIS OXYGEN LINE

And makes off with whatever it was he needed

Then his boys nick the atomic bombs on board

Written on the side of the atomic bomb it says ‘Handle like eggs’ — brilliant

They make off with the bombs on their little underwater buggy before pulling a camo net over the plane wreckage

Little shark

Ladislav Kutze is their scientist and is looking over the bombs for Largo, just some nerd really, beige suit and flat hair

SPECTRE order the execution of Count Lippe who just so happens to start following Bond out of the spa

Lippe shoots at him and Bond’s like ‘huh’

Same shot again for the second gunshot

Now a motorbike joins the chase and fucking blows up the back of Lippe’s car, sending it into a field where it blows up

Cyclist ditches the bike and it’s the same lass who was doing Angelo before

Brilliant moment where Bond enters MI6 HQ and goes to throw his hat on the rack, but it’s been moved to right next to the door

Moneypenny’s American

All the 00 agents are in a meeting and Bond is late

They listen to a tape sent to the Prime Minister saying that two bombs are in the possession of SPECTRE and they want 100 million squid for em

This is Operation Thunderball

Get some photos in the file and Bond recognises Angelo, says he has a sister called Dominique

So Bond jets off to find her in Nassau, Bahamas

Bond is out for a swim and spies a diver, keeping an eye on her

She’s riding a turtle

And then nicks a starfish

But gets caught in some rocks

Bond frees her

And tells her she swims like a man

Bond’s with another lass called Paula

He then pretends that their boat is knackered so he can get a lift with Dominique

But Bond abandons Paula

Why was she there?

I have a feeling she might die later

Bond and Dominique get followed onshore

Then…

THEY LUNCH

Bond has Conch Chowder

Dominique keeps banging on about her guardian

Everyone calls her Domino

As she leaves, Bond threatens to bite her

CASINO TIME

Bond saddles up to a table with Largo

Bond makes a comment about a ‘spectre on his shoulder’

Very clever

He keeps saying spectre

He gets it James

I don’t get the game they’re playing

Largo turned over a nine and a jack and apparently that hand equalled 8

Domino is with Largo cos Largo is her ‘guardian’ (but actually his mistress)

So Bond takes her for dinner while Largo keeps playing

Bond and Domino go a dancing

Largo pops by and don’t like it

But Largo invites Bond for lunch

Next morn

I swear Terence Young told every woman on camera to look at Sean Connery like she wanna bone him

Maybe every guy too

Bond has a recording device in his hotel room bible

Someone walked in just before he did

Someone knocks at the door but Bond answers it and punches the sunglasses’d man in the gut

Then goes to turn the shower on, boiling a goon that was hiding in there

Bond knocks him out

Oh shit the sunglasses’d man is Felix

Bond sends the shower goon back to Mr. Largo

Mr. Largo who has a swimming pool of sharks

The shower goon disappointed Largo so he’s swimming with the sharks

Bond, Paula and Felix meet up with Pinder, the MI6 Bahamas operative

Paul is apparently Bond’s Bahamas assistant

IT’S Q

WOOP WOOP

Geiger counter watch comes first, nice and waterproof

Underwater camera

Q is excellent

A flare

An underwater breather

A homing beacon that he has to swallow

Nothing flashy but plenty useful

Largo’s boat is called The Disco Volante which is lovely

They got 55 hours to find the bombs I think

So Bond goes diving under the Disco

Bond narrowly misses getting harpooned

Fights off the harpooner

Takes some photos

Largo throws some hand grenades at Bond

Efficient

Bond is fast forwarded away

A boat goes after him

But Bond ditches his tank and swims off with his breathing device

He’s got a lovely red top half of a wetsuit

Bond gets to the beach and then the road and hitchhikes, but the lass who picks him up is the lass who was doing Mr. Angelo/the motorcyclist

Her name is Fiona Volpe

Bond tries flirting

She ain’t having none of it and drives really fast to freak him out

Bond spies her Spectre ring

They’re staying at the same hotel

Bond gets the photos developed

They show an underwater hatch

Felix and Bond discuss the plan

Then Paula talks but gets cut off by the scene transition

Largo is skeet shooting with Fiona

Bond and Felix helicopter over and scope the place out

Then Bond goes there for dinner

Domino is swimming

Bond has a gander

Largo introduces Bond to Mr. Vargas and Mr. Janni, two of his goons

Vargas doesn’t drink, smoke or have sex, but he apparently does somet

Bond eyes Domino up right in front of Largo

Bond then skeets without looking

Gets introduced to Largo’s sharks

Largo then tells Bond to take Domino to a party that’s occurin that night called The Junkanoo, like Mardi Gras

In Bond’s hotel room, Paula is chilling out

Then Fiona Volpe comes to visit

Fiona says she has a date with Bond too

Paula is suspicious

But Janni and Vargas then break in to knock her out

Bond and Domino are knocking about at the Junkanoo, but Felix gets Bond and tells him that Paula’s gone

He leaves Felix with Domino and goes to look for Paula by breaking into Largo’s house

He orders a power cut for Largo’s island then goes about breaking in

But they got an emergency generator

Bond finds Paula with Kutze and Vargas, but she’s dead, having done the false tooth/cyanide capsule thing

Alarm goes off, Vargas and Kutze leave

Bond takes a moment before making a lot of noise to escape

He gets on’t roof

Then fights a guy into the pool, not the shark one

But Largo shuts the pool roof on ’em both

Oh no, the sharks have a tunnel in

Bond stabs the goon

And the sharks are loose

Bond utilises his breathy thing

Then thinks he sees an escape hatch, but it’s a shark hatch

Luckily they don’t see him

That is lucky

And he did just make the other fella bleed

Back at the hotel

Pinder gives Bond a lift there

But Bond’s got Fiona knocking about

She’s in the bath and wants something to put on

Bond gives her some shoes

Bond spies the SPECTRE ring again

Then they bang

She keeps biting him

Back to The Junkanoo and now Bond and Fiona are going together

A lot of the bad guy knowing the good guy is good but still hanging out and vice versa going on in this film

Bong goes to leave but there’s a goon at the door

He shuts the door in his face but Volpe’s got a gun on him noo

It’s Vargas and Janni

He calls her out for his vanity

She calls him out for his

Bond says he had sex with her for king and country and got no pleasure out of it

Volpe has a mad good monologue about Bond and his women, kinda

The baddies are gonna take Bond to Largo’s house but they get held up by The Junkanoo

While held up, Volpe lights up a fag

A guy comes by to offer the baddies some rum but he spills

Bond knocks Volpe’s ciggy into the rum

FIRE

Bond makes his escape

Bond gets shot in the leg

And apparently bleeds red paint

Tommy sauce looks more convincing

They race through the parades of the Junkanoo

Bond hides on a parade float full of bikini-clad women

The music is still dramatic

But not so much the search

Though Volpe now sees blood on the float

So Bond escapes into the crowd

He runs into the Kiss Kiss Club where a woman is dancing in fire

Bond rinses the red paint off his leg

The baddies have found him though

And he’s cornered

A bit

Circled

Surrounded

Volpe wants to dance now

They have a bit of a cha-cha

The surrounding baddies are pulling guns

The drummer’s gaan mad with his beats

So much so I’m assuming a gunshot can’t be heard

Gun pointed at Bond from behind a curtain

But Bond sees and spins Volpe to take the bullet

I know there is a good one-liner to come, but this might be the worst one in any film — Bond sits the corpse of Volpe down at a table where a couple are seated and says ‘Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She’s just dead’ and the delivery just makes you take it at face value

14 hours 50 minutes to find the bombs

Bond and Felix are flying over the bay in a chopper

And they come across the wreckage of the NATO jet

He looks nice in baby blue does Bond

Bond dives down to the jet

Keeping oot the way of sharks very efficiently

As it goes on mind, I do question the shark’s eyesight

Bond’s in the jet

Finds the bodies, including Fake Angelo

Nicks his bloody watch

But no bombs on board so Bond thinks they’re in Largo’s boat, The Disco Volante

Needs to ask Domino about ‘em

Bond and Domino meet underwater for… Underwater sex? A load of bubbles go up anyway whatever

They get out the water and Bond hopes he didn’t frighten the fish

Then he gives Domino a neck kiss that must have tasted like salt

Then Domino steps on a Sea Egg Spine, which are poisonous

Bond sucks ’em out

Then he tells her that his brother (Angelo) is dead

He says Largo did it

Vargas finds them on the beach

Bond needs Domino’s help

Vargas readies his gun

Domino needs to find out when the bombs will be on board the Disco Volante

Hands her the geiger counter

Domino sees Vargas

Bond harpoons him

BOOM

I THINK HE GOT THE POINT

There’s the good one-liner

Domino tells Bond of an unused canal bridge that’s important to Largo and now the plan is on

That evening…

Domino boards the Disco Volante

Largo and his wet boys prepare to dive from the canal bridge

Bond knocks one out and joins the wet boys

They dive down and head for the Volante underwater

Bond and the wet boys get on board and then The Disco Volante heads fo where the bombs are being held in a fake rock

They retrieve them onto their little bomb buggy but Largo recognises Bond and 007 has a scrap with some wet boys

Bond gets trapped in the fake rock

Domino turns on her geiger counter on’t boat

Largo wants her back in her room

He don’t like her geiger camera

Dunno why he wanted her to come along really

I’d be intrigued to know how underwater flares work

Bond finds a little cave to escape into

Largo ties Domino up

And he wants info

Kutze interrupts some mild torture as they’re activating the bombs

Bond just sits tight in his cave

But Felix finds him cos of his tracking pill and then his flare

Q just knows exactly what sort of trouble Bond’s gonna get into

As the Disco Volante heads for its target (Miami), Kutze spies some parachutes dropping from above

I assume good guys?

Cos Bond told Felix to tell command

The good guys face the bad guys, but the bad guys have underwater buggies with mounted guns

It’s harpoons against harpoons

Baddies are winning here

Felix tells Bond that he looks good in everything, good chums

Bond dives off for the Disco

Largo sees him and follows

Bond leaves a big ol bomb for the baddies to find and then continues his journey to the Disco, helping out the goodies a bit on his way

Treading water a bit now

Though a guy does get harpooned in the eye

Underwater fights are rarely gripping

Lot of cutting oxygen lines, harpooning, and slow punches to the face

Wriggling and not knowing what’s going on n all

Right, Bond and Largo are not heading for The Disco Volante

The bad guys surrender but Largo gets away

Bond pursues

Finally

Another 30 seconds of useless scrapping first

If this was out of water, it’d be good

But they’ve literally just transferred a lot of shit into water, and it don’t work

Prolly one of the first to do it though, so fair play

Largo gets on The DV and fecks off

Bond’s hanging on though

And The DV are being fired at by the feckin HMS Belfast by the looks of it

The Dv splits in half and Largo gets away with some lads, leaving the others to get blown to feck

They don’t seem to mind though

Kutze releases Domino cos Largo’s insane and Kutze was a hostage

Kutze threw the arming device away

Bond raids the cockpit

Or the boat equivalent

Beats up erry cunt

It’s all fast forwarded

Somehow steering them out of trouble at the same time as fighting here is Largo

Largo finds a gun

But Domino has a harpoon

Largo dead, Kutze, Bond and Domino jump off as the boat crashes into some rocks

KABLAMMO

Bond and Domino get a raft dropped for them, with no sign of Kutze

Bond flies a balloon and attaches it to his wetsuit and a plane comes along and grabs the string, hoisting Bond and Domino away as she hangs onto him

I’m sure that would rip his spine out

It’s over

Like I knew we were near the end

And this has happened with a few early films

It just kills the bad guy then races to a conclusion

The credits didn’t even finish rolling!

Why they in such a rush!?

Anyways

FIN

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Keep it streets ahead,

C.L.R.