Review of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) by Stephen L — 31 May 2009

Roger Moore has always maintained that The Spy Who Loved Me is the best of his James Bond movies. The original novel by Ian Fleming was an odd-one-out in the book series, describing as it did how an off-duty James Bond saved a female hotelier from a couple of nasty hoodlums.

However, in this movie adaptation the novel has been completely jettisoned and replaced with a story about James Bond thwarting a megalomaniac from achieving world domination. James Bond (Roger Moore) is partnered with Russian agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) to solve the mysterious disappearance of two nuclear submarines, one British the other Russian.

They follow the clues to the underwater lair of Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens), an elegant and educated psychopath with a plan to destroy the world in a nuclear holocaust and retreat to his undersea empire.

To add to their complications, Anya Amasova learns that her recently killed boyfriend was eliminated by James Bond during an assignment. The pre-credit sequence is among the better pre-credit sequences in the series, involving an extraordinary ski stunt which many consider to be the most breathtaking stunt ever devised for a James Bond movie.

Roger Moore is good as James Bond, Barbara Bach stunningly attractive as his partner and Curd Jürgens provides a suitably over-confident villain. The location work in various locations, most notably Egypt, is nicely photographed.

Marvin Hamlisch provides the music, marking a change from the usual composer John Barry and Marvin Hamlisch's score is decent enough though it does have a dated '70s quality to it when listened to nowadays.

The plot is totally implausible and self-parodic, but director Lewis Gilbert cleverly plays it with tongue-in-cheek so that the absurdness of the on-screen events becomes curiously endearing. The Spy Who Loved Me is silly, entertaining and extravagantly spectacular.