Review of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) by Jake A — 08 Apr 2017

The tenth James Bond film, second of three directed by Lewis Gilbert (You Only Live Twice/Moonraker), and one of Roger Moore's best. It also features my personal favorite Bond girl of all time, Major Anya Amasova "Agent Triple X" (the incredibly beautiful Barbara Bach).

With both British and Soviet nuclear submarines mysteriously disappearing at sea, the two countries team up their best spies (Bond and Amasova) to investigate who is behind it. The trail takes them from Egypt to Sardinia, in search of billionaire shipping magnate Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) and his base of operations, the submersible city of Atlantis. By using his giant supertanker, the Liparus, Stromberg is able to swallow up the missing subs and hopes to use their nuclear missiles to destroy civilization and rule the world from his undersea kingdom. They also encounter one of the most loved villains in the 007 universe, the over 7 foot tall, seemingly indestructible mute assassin Jaws (Richard Kiel) who uses his razor sharpe steel teeth to kill his prey. This giant is very dim-witted, but extremely determined in killing 007 and Triple X, even though all his attempts are bungled failures. This film also introduces the famous amphibious Lotus Esprit, which ranks up there with the Aston Martin DB5 as the classic Bond cars of all time.

"The Spy Who Loved Me" is one of my favorite Bond films of them all, and no matter what you think of Carly Simon, it has one of the best 007 theme songs of all time "Nobody Does It Better".