Review of Thunderball (1965) by Filipeneto — 17 Feb 2018

Directed by Terence Young, produced by Kevin McClory, Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli and with a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, this is the fourth film in the franchise 007. In this film, the franchise reaches the maturity after the consecration with "Goldfinger". The participation of McClory seems strange but, in fact, it's the result of a legal conflict, prior to the production.

In this film, the British secret agent is admitted to a nursing home when he finds out, by sheer luck, a conspiracy to rob a French jet with two nuclear bombs. Not having been able to prevent it, Bond is sent to the Bahamas in order to contact the sister of the late pilot of the missing plane and obtain more information. It turns out that the girl is also the lover of Emilio Largo, the responsible for the disappearance. Bond escapes all assassination attempts and find the missing plane, as well as the enemy's plans and his connection to the terrorist organization SPECTRE, the same that Bond had already been fighting since the previous films.

In this film, Sean Connery got a perfect interpretation of his James Bond. Rude, a little hard with the opposite sex but always seductive, he marked for decades the idea of the public on how Bond should be. In addition to the idyllic scenery of the Caribbean, the film brings us some curious machines, continuing a tradition which was closely associated to the 007 imaginary. It is the case of the jet-bag used in the opening scenes, the armored-boat used by the villain in the final chase or the respiratory device used by Bond in some of the underwater scenes that made this movie famous. However, in my opinion, one of the reasons why this movie has reached excellence is the relevance of its central subject, a subject that, at that time, was very present in society: the danger of a nuclear attack. We must have in mind that the missile crisis in Cuba happened a few years before the film was released and the whole society, both in the US and in Europe, lived under the imminent danger of a missile war.

James Bond and the characters M, Q and Monneypenny were embodied by the same actors from the previous films. To these artists joined Claudine Auger (in the role of bond-turned, Domino), Luciana Paluzzi (in the role of assassin Fiona Volpe) and Adolfo Celi (in the role of villain, Largo).