Sword Of Sherwood Forest

Baldry Tales

Sword Of Sherwood Forest
UK 1960 Directed by Terence Fisher
Hammer/Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

Sword of Sherwood Forest is the first of two films presented in beautiful new transfers (and all the usual, hefty trimmings the Indicator label tends to provide for such handsome releases) making up their recent two film boxed edition Robin Hood At Hammer - Two Tales From Sherwood Forest, along with A Challenge For Robin Hood. Actually, Hammer Studios made three films based on the famous English outlaw but, for some reason, their first go round, The Men Of Sherwood Forest from 1954, isn’t included. I can only assume a particular other label (who shall remain nameless here because I’ve no idea if this is the case or not), are clinging onto the rights to the first film and sitting on them, not bothering to do anything with the property themselves. Well, I wish said label would get up and actually sort themselves out with these kinds of titles or, you know, let the rights go to much more deserving labels such as Indicator, Arrow or Eureka Master Of Cinema to do something much better with.

This one, though, surprised me as I absolutely loved it. It’s not particularly dynamic or that great but, it has nice pacing and has Hammer über director Terence Fisher helming the thing. And, of course, this has Richard Greene playing Robin Hood, fresh off of the 144 episodes of the popular British TV show The Adventures Of Robin Hood, in which he also played the title character (Fisher also directed a fair few episodes of this, between films). Since he was already popular in the role, it must have seemed a good bet to put him in a colour film continuing the character’s adventures and it also allows the audience the respite, mostly, of telling the origins of the guy through the classic tale, once again. With the exception of Maid Marian, played here by Sarah Branch, who is introduced to Robin for the first time again here.

The film starts off with some interesting music (more on that in a while) with some titles comprising sketches of various characters and scenarios with strips of colour appearing and overlaying them, in which the credits then appear. It’s a nice enough effect and the imagery, supported by an uncial style typeface, further pushes the sense of period.

This tale sees Robin trying to thwart the Sheriff of Nottingham (played wonderfully well by Peter Cushing, looking way different to usual to the point where I didn’t recognise him for about a minute) who is trying to lay legal claim to a village called Baldry, to turn it into a castle as it is in a good strategic position, in direct contrast to what the wishes of the absent King Richard would be. A squire is shot by the Sheriff’s men because he carries a specific seal to gain audience with the
rather dynamic personification of the Archbishop Of Canterbury (played solidly by Jack Gwillim), to warn him so he can stop this madness. So it’s up to Robin, aided by his merry men (not to mention Marion) to throw a spanner in the works, protect the archbishop and make sure the evil sheriff doesn’t get his way.

And it’s a nicely put together movie with, not too much action but it certainly cracks on at a pace and Greene is certainly confident in the role, carrying Robin likeably through the film. And it’s got an excellent cast too, including Niall MacGinnis as Friar Tuck and, no less than the great Nigel Green as Little John. I’ve never understood why the tragically short-lived actor was given big muscular characters like Little John and Hercules (in Jason And The Argonauts, review coming at some point this year, fingers crossed) but, he’s always so likeable and has such a larger than life presence that he manages to get away with roles like this. Incidentally, both Greene and Green went on to play versions of Nayland Smith in the Fu Manchu series of movies made in the 1960s (check my main index to access the relevant reviews)... as did Douglas WIlmer, who was in the first Hammer Robin Hood movie, not presented on this set.

And the uncredited cast of the movie I discovered as I watched are just as good. We have Desmond Llewellyn, better known as Q in the majority of the Bond movies, as the squire who is shot at the start of the picture. He doesn’t have more than a couple of lines to speak before dying but it was nice to see him in something other than Bond. Also uncredited is Derren Nesbitt in another short lived role and, as one of the many villains dotted about the movie, regular Hammer actor Oliver Reed.

The film is pretty formulaic and, even though it’s not a faithful iteration of the more well known story, it still has a shooting contest where Robin has to prove how well he can shoot to gain dubious employment by another main villain in the film. This contest includes shooting arrows through the spokes of a fast spinning wheel to hit pumpkins, despite the wheel being stationary in one of the long shots before being shown spinning again in the next close up. It’s all good fun. Where the story certainly breaks tradition, though, is when Oliver Reed’s villain stabs Peter Cushing’s Sheriff Of Nottingham in the back several times, killing him before he gets any kind of chance to properly face off against Robin in the film’s finale battle, which takes place in a Nunnery. No sexy, lesbian nuns are in attendance, however... more’s the pity.

And that’s me just about done on the film but, if it’s a not particularly challenging but light weight and entertaining Robin Hood adventure you are after, then Sword Of Sherwood Forest certainly fits the bill. The boxed edition of this and the other film come with an 80 page booklet containing essays about the films, a double sided poster highlighting the original poster art for each and swathes of extras. One good one which I watched is David Huckvale’s appreciation and musical summary of the key parts of the score, written by a composer I’ve not encountered before called Alun Hoddinott. Apparently this guy was an extremely famous concert hall composer in Wales and Sword Of Sherwood Forest was one if his very rare dalliances with feature film scoring. So, yeah, it’s a great set to be sure and another valuable release from Indicator.

The World Is Not Enough

Enoughing Doing

The World Is Not Enough
1999 UK/USA
Directed by Michael Apted
EON Blu Ray Region A/B/C

Warning: Okay, as unusual as it is for a Bond film to need 
any kind of spoiler warning, this one needs one, I think.

Right then. I think this may turn out to be a fairly short review because I don’t have much to say about it either way but, I think what we have here is, probably, the last great Bond movie. That is to say, the one where the producers, writers, actors, actresses, composer and director got the formula absolutely right and as it should be for Bond... for the very last time, to date.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not the best Bond movie since sliced bread and it’s not even, quite, the best of the Brosnan Bonds, I believe that honour goes to GoldenEye... but it certainly runs GoldenEye a close second and I believe one of the winning factors is that it gets the mix between action and the pauses for breath, character and plot development absolutely right once more, as it was with Brosnan’s debut movie. My main problem with Tomorrow Never Dies was that, spectacular as that movie was (and it really was), the action scenes kinda took over and it was too top heavy in that department. Here, Brosnan’s Bond is firmly back in 007 territory and playing a secret agent with an action bent... not just another action hero.

I knew Michael Apted from his work on Gorky Park and, though this movie is nowhere near as good as that one, he certainly injects a sense of real people into the proceedings, even though at least one of them has almost superhuman abilities... in the shape of Robert Carlisle’s Renard who, due to a bullet in his head which is shutting down parts of his brain, can feel no pain and is therefore not hampered by that in a fight. Actually, that character trait was originally earmarked for the blonde henchman in the previous film but it somehow got lost in the mix, so to speak.

There are some nice performances in here... Judy Dench, Samantha Bond, Michael Kitchen, Colin Salmon and Robbie Coltrane are all back in roles from previous movies, as is Desmond Llewellyn who is training his Q branch replacement, John Cleese. Actually, Cleese’s scenes don’t really work that well, it has to be said, but Llewellyn’s quips about retirement and his exit from his last scene here, drifting down and out of shot on an elevator while telling 007 to “always have an escape plan”, becomes doubly poignant when you know that, even though this was not pegged as being his swan song from the series just yet, he had died before the next movie got made and Cleese took over on that one too (though, to be honest, not even Llewellyn could have sold me on the idea of an invisible car, I reckon).

Now I remember seeing this at the cinema and watching the first part of the opening sequence in disappointment, as Brosnan escapes Douglas Fairbanks style from the window of an office using a henchman as ballast... but the sequence carries on to a debriefing session which is interrupted by, frankly, one of  the best action sequences in the series. Now I have a theory about this because, once the utterly brilliant speedboat chase is over and Bond plummets onto the “not yet opened at time of shooting" Millennium Dome, literally falling into the opening credits sequence, the post credits sequence is more debriefing. However, the pattern of the previous two Bond films, which also had incredibly strong pre-credits sequences, were immediately followed post-credits by another explosive action sequence... the car race in the case of GoldenEye and the sinking of the Devonshire in the case of Tomorrow Never Dies. However, my theory is this...

I reckon the original opening sequence was supposed to conclude with the office window jump and then go into those titles. However, I suspect when the producers saw a rough cut of the movie they were left similarly underwhelmed by this and decided to move up the speed boat chase... to become what is, arguably, the best pre-credits sequence in Bond history, actually. I don’t know for sure if that’s what happened, obviously, but that’s what I’d put my money on.

Okay, so this Bond features a new element to the narrative with the introduction of a “twist” villain... or in this case, villainess. It’s not until about three quarters of the way in that Electra King, played brilliantly by former D’Artagnan’s Daughter Sophie Marceau is, in fact, behind all the shenanigans that 007 is trying to put a stop to (including the elimination of her father) and that Renard, her former kidnapper, is in fact working for her. I believe this is the first time that this tactic has been used in a Bond film and it hits home very well as the revelation comes with the brutal gunning down of various key members of MI6 and the kidnapping of M.

The other Bond girl in the movie is played by Denise Richards and, honestly, I think she does an okay job and is not nearly as bad in the role as people seem to like to say she is. I quite liked the clone Lara Croft costume she sports throughout the majority of the movie and she does come across as someone who knows what she’s doing and can help Bond get out of a tricky situation with her science-tech knowledge. So I think her role and her performance on this film has been much maligned in the past.

The other truly great thing about this movie, of course, is David Arnold’s wonderful score. As well as bringing back a little cameo of the Barry Bond Is Back theme, which he reintroduced in Tomorrow Never Dies (read my review highlighting this here), he also has some of the more romantic John Barry style compositions which wouldn’t have seemed out of place in any of the 1960s big screen Bond adventures (although the main one I’m thinking of seems sadly missing from the soundtrack release). Of course, he also weaves in his trademark techno shenanigans, which he does so well, and all I can say is that he manages to match the kinetic cocktail of speed and power in that opening speed boat chase with one of the best action cues the series has ever had. It even works in, as does much of his score, the melody from the title song, which was performed by Garbage but written by Arnold and regular Barry collaborator Don Black. Arnold lost the title song battle on his first Bond feature but won it on this one and the film is much stronger for it. Also, the song is pretty good stuff and, I might add, due to it’s lyrics and dark but theatrical tone, an excellent background song to use during D/s play, as it happens (not that I would ever admit to indulging in that kind of activity I’m sure - wink).

And that’s about all I’ve got to say about The World Is Not Enough, it seems. At time of writing this, it’s the last great Bond movie, as far as I’m concerned. Well worth a watch and a much better way to remember the Brosnan era by than his fourth and final film, which I will be having to sit through again to review for you soon...

EON James Bond Movie Reviews on NUTS4R2

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice  

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

Live And Let Die

The Man With The Golden Gun  

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View To A Kill 

The LIving Daylights 

Licence To Kill  

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World Is Not Enough  

Die Another Day 

Casino Royale

Quantum Of Solace

Skyfall
S.P.E.C.T.R.E

Tomorrow Never Dies

Died In The Wool

Tomorrow Never Dies
1997 UK/USA
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode 
EON Blu Ray Region A/B/C

When I first saw this movie on the weekend of its release, back in 2007, I think I was overly harsh on it. Certainly, after the sheer brilliance of GoldenEye, I saw this as something of a pigeon step back from the full-on Bondness of that first Brosnan movie. At the time I compared GoldenEye with veering off in the direction of the kind of Bond films Sean Connery would have happily gotten away with making whereas, Tomorrow Never Dies feels like it’s trying to channel the look and feel of a Roger Moore era Bond adventure.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the flick, far from it, and I’ve certainly appreciated it more over the intervening years, but I can still acknowledge that my initial comparison, at any rate, still holds true. I think what I was responding to, though, more than anything, is the amount of action the people responsible crammed into this movie. It doesn’t exactly hold back in the spectacle stakes and, frankly, is definitely guilty of that old Roger Moore school of keeping the spy/detection scenes to a minimum and leaving them insultingly simple, and then use them merely as glue to hold all the action sequences together. Guilty as charged, I think.

However, I have to acknowledge also that it’s certainly far above the Moore films in terms of quality and ultimately, if you’re into well choreographed, well scored action sequences, then this is the Bond film for you. There’s loads of them. I think at the time I was lamenting the fact that the studios were up to their old tricks and trying to turn the Bond character into some kind of action hero again, rather than a spy character who has a lot of action thrown at him. The Bond films aren’t Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Rambo or even Jason Bourne films... and there’s no reason why they should be (other than income I guess).

So what do we have here then?

Well, the gunbarrel music takes a different part of the Bond theme to the bit usually played in these sequences prior to this... that’s a bit of a blow really, but considering the outstanding quality of the musical score on this picture, I think I can forgive it that. The opening sequence is, once again, and this seems to be a trend on the first three Brosnan movies, one of the better opening sequences in the series’ history. Opening with Judy Dench’s M doing a double act with her old TV series co-star Geoffrey Palmer (which is something the American audiences may not have appreciated at the time but was a big laugh for British fans) we have Bond in contact with them and Colin Salmon (in his first appearance in the series as Robinson) via headset and video link, as he causes some well timed mayhem and havoc at an arms bazar, getting in and out of trouble and averting nuclear chaos at the same time. Like the film before it, a real humdinger of a pre-credits piece which also, again like GoldenEye, has a very powerful score.

The film has a passable opening title sequence and then goes from action strength to strength as Bond finds himself up against Jonathan Pryce’s Elliot Carver character, encountering actress Teri Hatcher (who was popular for playing Lois Lane in the TV show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman at the time) and teaming up with famous martial arts star Michelle Yeoh for the rip roaring second half of the movie. It’s all very fast paced and has some especially well made action sequences, including a car park car chase (which was originally shot in Germany but didn’t work and so was then re-shot in Brent Cross Shopping Centre in London a while after) and a bicycle/helicopter chase where Brosnan and Yeoh are chained together (Yeoh was used to doing her own stunts and I’m guessing, like a lot of the Asian action stars used to not worrying about insurance in their own country,  she gets a bit frustrated by not being allowed to do absolutely everything herself when she has to shoot a Western financed movie). The film is certainly not as sedate as GoldenEye... but it does do its own thing and exists at a level which is not a hundred miles away from what Bond is about. It is quite stylish and if the dialogue sounds maybe just a little too polished in places, then I think I can cut it some slack as it’s an enjoyable old romp.

And then there’s the music.

I’d loved Serra’s score for GoldenEye (as you can read in my review here) and I was annoyed that the producers hadn’t recalled him for this one to keep some musical continuity in the Brosnan era. I kept that grudge up until the Tomorrow Never Dies soundtrack CD was released, slightly ahead of the movie, and heard what composer David Arnold had done with the thing. It’s phenomenal.

It sounds a cliché now, especially because this is what Arnold himself was saying about what he was trying to do with the score when interviewed about it later, but the music in this film really does straddle both the music of its time and the 1960s Bond. It’s definitely a loving tribute to the style of John Barry’s great scores with a heck of a lot of what I can only called ‘Arnoldisms’ thrown in to boot. Bits of it even sound a little old fashioned... and then he’ll hit you with a bit of techno and fuse it all brilliantly.

One of the best moments in the score comes from the very start of Brosnan’s first action moment, where he literally delivers a “punch line” and then starts shooting. We are treated to a little Barry motif comprising two fast sets of 5 notes totalling a quick 10 note melody which, over the years has come to be known as the “Bond Is Back” sub-theme and it’s strange how that small piece of music has become embedded in the public consciousness in this time... possibly not in America, I don’t know, but certainly in Britain and here’s why. Although the only time this particular piece of music (which could almost stake a claim to being “the third Bond theme”... following swiftly behind Monty Norman’s The James Bond Theme and John Barry’s other famous sub-theme, the 007 theme) appeared prior to this was at the start of the opening titles of the 1963 Bond film From Russia With Love, this particular opening 10 note melody was played on nearly every trailer for any Bond film on our ITV channel for at least 20 years I reckon... and usually with a voice over narration declaring that... “Bond Is Back”. The melody makes a few appearances in Tomorrow Never Dies and I’m really pleased that Arnold brought this musical time piece back for the movie. I wish he’d take the time to do the same for Barry’s 007 theme someday.

The song is also a bit of an interesting deal on this movie. There was a kind of song contest for it and Sheryl Crow won. The song is brilliant and works really well and could almost... almost... have been the perfect song for this movie. Unfortunately, there was an even better song written for it by the score’s composer David Arnold, and performed by K. D. Lang which, even though Crow’s song is devastatingly cool, blows the one used at the front of the movie out of the water. Which is unfortunate because, honestly, Crow's song is Bond gold too, but I can only assume the producers went with Crow because she was very much in the public eye at the time. The thing about the song Arnold wrote for Lang, however, is that when he was writing the score to the movie, he used the melody lines from that song and you can hear its powerful brass and rhythmic melody all the way through it. Maybe it’s because the song was just too darned good that the producers let him change the title of it to Surrender (although in the chorus Lang still belts out the words Tomorrow Never Dies) and record it and use it as an end title song on the film. It really works well here too, of course, since the orchestration and melody reiterates phrases from the score you’ve been listening too throughout the length of the movie, but it’s a shame we didn’t get it at the front, with oddly choreographed and stupendously naked silhouetted women dancing around to it, is all I can say.

One other little oddity about the film deserves a mention. I don’t know if many people remember this... but I do remember how things were with this film back when it was being made. The pressure was on for this movie to be a hit, naturally, with the studios. But, bizarrely, after a few worrying stories highlighted by the tabloids in this country, all of a sudden the average British person on the street was worried about the progress of the film. It was really strange. People who had nothing invested in this were getting worried about the director being able to handle a Bond film and, you know, etc. etc. This got so bad that EON even called a press conference a little way into the shooting of the picture and had Pierce Brosnan allay everybody’s fears and calm them all down... saying the shoot was going fine and there was absolutely nothing to worry about. It sounds crazy, I know, but I remember it and it didn’t feel like such a bizarre over-reaction at the time.

The producers needn’t have worried. Even though it wasn’t quite what I wanted from the second Brosnan film, it certainly did the business and, I think, is a bit of a classic in its own right. It even, dare I say it, has one of the very best Desmond Llewellyn as Q briefing scenes in the history of the series. Possibly even the greatest of the lot, actually. Even though you can see Llewellyn is having to read half his lines off a note pad, the timing and laughs (and action) in the gadget briefing scene seriously rivals Goldfinger and maybe even surpasses it.

As I said above, if you love the Bond films and you really like a lot of, maybe too much, action in your movies... Tomorrow Never Dies is still a spectacular and witty movie which you’ll probably enjoy immensely. But the best, and possibly the last, great Bond film, was just around the corner...

EON James Bond Movie Reviews on NUTS4R2

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice  

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

Live And Let Die

The Man With The Golden Gun  

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View To A Kill 

The LIving Daylights 

Licence To Kill  

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World Is Not Enough  

Die Another Day 

Casino Royale

Quantum Of Solace

Skyfall
S.P.E.C.T.R.E

Octopussy

Pussy And Vijay

Octopussy
1983 UK/USA
Directed by John Glen
EON Blu Ray Region A/B/C

I don’t even know how to start on this one... so I guess I’ll just start off with a reminder that 1983 was the time we had two James Bond movies at the cinema in the same year. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself here.

Okay, so I was 15 and, four days before Octopussy came out in the UK, my country saw the release of what was probably the most anticipated movie sequel since the days of the cliff hangers. Star Wars Episode 6: Return Of The Jedi is the film that was on everybody’s minds at this point and so, maybe this contributed to my general disappointment with that year’s Bond movie at the time... but I can hardly use the same excuse when, on subsequent viewings, my verdict of the movie really hasn’t changed all that much.

And it’s not like there wasn’t enough hype and publicity surrounding the film either. I even remember working my way through my Shredded Wheat so I could finish the box off and move onto the next one and get another in their series of Octopussy stickers. Oh yes, I remember them well... those stickers. James Bond dressed as a clown... was this meant to be a joke? James Bond’s head peeking out of a one man submarine disguised to look like a crocodile. Well that looks silly. And, yes, it’s in the movie too... and what do you know? It is silly. Granted, Sean Connery swum into a shot disguised as a duck once in Goldfinger, but that was a quick, cheap gimmick... a fake crocodile with a grown man inside it is... well it’s campy and rubbish and that’s just exactly what Octopussy was/is. Campy rubbish of the worst kind... because it’s campy inappropriate rubbish.

I remember coming out the cinema with my mum and she’d quite liked it and I was thinking that maybe something was wrong with me. That wasn’t a Bond movie we just watched, it was a travesty. When the rival Bond production came out at the end of the year, the Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again starring Sean Connery as Bond, well it was obvious that the Connery flick had much more edge and ‘entertainment weight’ to it than the EON produced flick. I was sick to death of Moore in the role and completely fed up with the direction that the films were heading in... so as a consequence, I never even bothered to go to the cinema to see A View To A Kill when it finally came out. No more Moore for me, I’d decided... purely on the lousiness of this film.

Again, I’ve nothing against director John Glen. He got the best he could out of an aging Bond and the raw materials he had to work with... it just all falls rather flat for me. I remember at the time thinking that Octopussy was the worst James Bond movie to ever be released into cinemas and it wasn’t until decades later when two equally bad Bond films hit our screens, Die Another Day and Quantum Of Solace, that I was able to make good on my new comparison/insult of... “all in all I’d rather be watching Octopussy”. Even the much lamentable License To Kill has more edge to it than Octopussy.

So, what is there of note in this movie? Well, it sees Maude Adams returning to the franchise in the title role after playing Scaramanga’s girlfriend in The Man With The Golden Gun. It also had a joyful but possibly somewhat embarrassing performance by professional tennis player Vijay Amitraj playing... well he’s playing himself, using professional tennis playing as his cover for being in the secret service. Which is all well and good and certainly is no different from, say, Peter Falk playing himself who was also actually an angel who returned to Earth from heaven and became an actor called Peter Falk in Wim Wenders’ Wings Of Desire and Faraway, So Close! However, the fact that the Vijay character in this film is bloodlessly killed with a highly impractical ‘spinning buzzsaw yo-yo’ but, in fact, didn’t get killed in real life, was a source of profound puzzlement to me at the time. Nowadays I can just shake it off as needless twaddle in a film which is just too awful to worry or care about... but at the time I found that concept kinda mind bending.

So what else? Well the recurring character of General Gogol has a much more active role in this movie... as does Desmond Llewellyn’s Q, who takes more of an integral part in Bond’s on screen shenanigans here than he does in most of the films. And we also have respected actor Steven Berkoff playing a thuggish Russian military villain, hamming it up good and proper and once again proving that, for a serious thespian, he’ll do anything for money (hopefully, he does this in the same spirit that John Cassavetes used to... use the process of acting in bobbins to fund his own artistic projects).

None of these things really make the movie worth actually watching, however.

The one redeeming element, I think, that Octopussy does have going for it is, despite an absolutely awful “all time low” of a title song, is John Barry’s amazing score. How he could get inspired enough by this movie to turn in what is almost an old school young-Barry Bond score is beyond me but this one certainly goes in the right direction and, as a stand alone listen away from the context of the movie, it’s really not a bad score. Such a shame it’s just attached to such a yawn fest of a movie. This is one of the worst three films in Bond history, as far as I’m concerned. Even Skyfall was better than Octopussy. 

And that’s about all I’ve got to say about this one. Not James Bond’s finest hour, I have to say.

EON James Bond Movie Reviews on NUTS4R2

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice  

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

Live And Let Die

The Man With The Golden Gun  

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View To A Kill 

The LIving Daylights 

Licence To Kill  

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World Is Not Enough  

Die Another Day 

Casino Royale

Quantum Of Solace

Skyfall
S.P.E.C.T.R.E