'Octopussy' revisited

With 'Quantum of Solace' due to hit our screens soon, we take a daily look back at the 21 official Bond films. Day 13: ‘Octopussy’

Octopussy (1981, John Glen)

Villain: Kamal Khan
At stake: The opening bars of the atomic two-step…
Candy: Maud Adams as Octopussy
Gizmo: Titchy motorboat disguised as a crocodile
Theme song: ‘All Time High’ by Rita Coolidge
Quote: ‘Someone seems to have stuck a knife in my wallet.’

After the absurdity of ‘Moonraker’ and the lame duck that was ‘For Your Eyes Only’ it’s kitchen sink time for the unlucky thirteenth instalment of the increasingly derivative and rudderless Bond franchise.

The plot is the usual nuclear palaver but is merely an excuse to transport James to India so he can run through his repertoire of infantile curry gags and get entangled in the criminal arms of Maud Adams and her cadre of female thugs who all belong to a cult that worships, of all things, the octopus.

It soon coalesces into a curious but disagreeably convoluted muddle of stolen warheads, fake Faberge eggs and Steven Berkoff channelling Blakey from ‘On the Buses’ into the role of a deranged Russian general who’s hell bent on blowing up most of Western Europe.

John Glen reminds us of his excellent credentials as both an editor and director of second-unit photography by orchestrating some slam-bang action sequences that are spliced tighter than gnat’s chuff, but he seems as unsure as ever when as regards piecing them into a coherent whole. The result is a bizzaro Bond that flits more jarringly than ever from peerless action and the kind of end-of-the-pier humour and busy innuendo that the previous film had largely dispensed with. It’s hard, for instance, to imagine the producers convincing Sean Connery to dress up in a clown costume or don a gorilla suit…

A special mention has to go to the speculative inclusion of a role for Indian tennis star Vijay Armitraj as Bond’s local contact. He acquits himself reasonably well and it comes as some surprise that the subsequent highlights of his screen career were limited to a walk-on part in ‘Star Trek IV’ and a short, late Nineties stint in dictionary corner on Channel Four’s teatime workhorse ‘Countdown’.

James Bond will return in… ‘A View To A Kill’

Read our original review of 'Octopussy'

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