I Spy: Thunderball
Bond hunts for two stolen nuclear warheads and comes face to face with SPECTRE’s Agent 2, Emilio Largo . By this point in the Bond series the freshness had started to dissipate but there is still much to enjoy here.
As was becoming the norm with the series, the ability to deliver your lines was a secondary requirement to appearance when casting villains and Bond girls. Both Claudine Auger as the beautiful Domino and Adolfo Celi as Emilio Largo were dubbed but Auger does what the producers wanted, namely show of her figure in a series of skimpy swimsuits, and Celi’s Largo would provide the basis for Robert Wagner’s Number 2 in the Austin Powers films.
By comparison with previous films in the series, Thunderball is a little light on action, but John Barry’s excellent score keeps the suspense mounting as it blends itself into almost every scene. And once the action does kick off we are treated to a superb undersea free-for-all, with the goodies and baddies conveniently wearing colour coded wetsuits to allow us to keep track (villains, sticking with tradition, in black and the good guys wearing orange but with white oxygen tanks). In fact it’s the undersea photography that’s the most striking part of Thunderball, giving the film more of an exotic feel than even Ms Auger could provide.
