FRWL is always going to be my favorite of the franchise. You get the classic travelogue feel, it doesn't depend on gadgets or world-ending schemes for its plot. It's just a good, well-plotted spy thriller.
IIRC, You Only Live Twice.
And once you get past the first four films, with the exception of OHMSS, they start playing fast and loose with the novels (which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just that if you pick up a copy of Moonraker and expect it to involve laser battles in space between the U.S. Marines and a bunch of Drax Industries henchmen, you're going to be sorely disappointed.)
My personal favorite Bond movie is The Living Daylights, but from an objective critical standpoint, I think From Russia with Love remains the best film of the franchise. The atmosphere and style are downright Hitchcockian at times, and few higher cinematic compliments can be paid than that. The casting is also impeccable, with Lenya and Shaw both putting in unforgettable villainous turns.
I get a kick out of the novelization of the film version of Moonraker being based on a feature film based on the novel.
TLD is a damn good movie and is among my top Bond pictures. Agreed on all points on Russia. EON and Terence Young did an impeccable job on putting the film together in such short time. I gotta also give editor Peter R. Hunt credit for creating the first-ever pre-credit Bond sequence when they moved that sequence of Grant hunting the Bond double from way later in the picture. Hunt did his share of saving the picture during post production based on the making-of documentary.
I feel dizzy.
It's got a terrific tiny little adaptation of the source short story, too.
With a very cursory recollection, I can't beat that one.
There are scenes of menace and peril in the Bond films that are legit scary. Bond being strapped to the runaway table in Thunderball. The centrifuge in Moonraker. Corrine being chased by the dogs.
"Well, him and the rest of Britain's MI5 and MI6...oh, and Germany's BND...and France's SDECE...um...and Israel's Mossad, oh... and Switzerland's Intelligence and Security Service...and, ah, dammit...the Kentucky State Police too?"
Just like the rest of us.
Dr Gua-No
It's a wonder Moneypenny never ribbed him for his clear-as-day psychological insecurities.
Chippendale's in reverse. Who knows the secrets of the human loins?
Or Cuisinarted BOURNE-style 38-cuts-a-second imitations like QUANTUM OF SKIPIT.
''I'm right here, Ernst. I see YOU brought YOUR weapon. Nice taser you've got there.''
Shaw was my first Alternate Oscars Best Supporting win for a Bond film. Someday I'd pay to see Clive Owen take on Daniel Craig in a fight like RUSSIA's, provided Owen would get to win.
Guilty pleasures both. I adore them. Moore/Jaws, perfect times.FRWL is a fantastic film, but it definitely feels more old school than any other Bond, a throwback to the 50s, even down to the title song. It's a great film but you do have to wonder, if every Bond film had had that vibe whether the franchise would have taken off as much.
For a more book accurate film version of Moonraker of course one should watch Die Another Day
I couldn't rank them all, partially because Robert Goulet has the second-best film villain's death scene of all time in THE SMELL OF FEAR.
Did Joel Silver produce LICENCE for America? If so, I sense an amped-up pattern here.
