Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Rent Diamonds Are Forever Online - Blu-ray & DVD Rental

Goldfinger (1964) Dry as ice, dripping with deadpan witticisms, only Sean Connery's Bond would dare to disparage the Beatles, that other 1964 phenomenon. No one but Connery can believably seduce women so effortlessly, kill with almost as much ease, and then pull another bottle of Dom Perignon 53 out of the fridge. Goldfinger contains many of the most memorable scenes in the Bond series: gorgeous Shirley Eaton (as Jill Masterson) coated in gold paint by evil Auric Goldfinger and deposited in Bond's bed; silent Oddjob, flipping a razor-sharp bowler like a Frisbee to sever heads; our hero spread-eagled on a table while a laser beam moves threateningly toward his crotch. Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore is the prototype for the series' rash of man-hating supermodels. And Desmond Llewelyn reprises his role as Q, giving Bond what is still his most impressive car, a snazzy little number that fires off smoke screens, punctures the tyres of vehicles on the chase, and boasts a handy ejector seat. Goldfinger's two climaxes, inside Fort Knox and aboard a private plane, have to be seen to be believed.--Raphael Shargel, Amazon.com-- On the DVD: Featuring interviews with Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, the late Desmond Llewelyn and most of the surviving core cast and crew members, great on-set footage (Blackman and Connery look like they clearly had the hots for each other even when the camera weren't rolling) and a strong argument about how this firmed up the gadget-orientated, thrills-and-spills formula for the franchise, John Cork's "making of" featurette for this DVD is one of the most rewarding in this series. The two commentary tracks have moderately interesting observations by director Guy Hamilton, the cast and crew (many of their comments recycled from the documentary), and on both Bond superfan-and-author Lee Pfeiffer filling in blanks and explaining in exhaustive detail the history of the Aston Martin DB5 that first appeared in this film. Also included is an open-ended 1964 interview with Sean Connery, designed so that American radio disc jockeys could pretend they had an exclusive interview with the star, in which he extols the series' "sadism for the family" among other things. --Leslie Felperin

From Russia With Love (1963) Secret agent James Bond battles the all-enveloping tentacles of an international crime syndicate called SPECTRE. The organization's mad plan for world supremacy unfolds with the icy efficiency of a chessmaster's complex strategy, and if they succeed, the antagonism of the cold war will be pushed from deep-freeze to the supernova of atomic oblivion. But our man Bond dispatches sultry spies, madmen, and double agents with the same coolness he displays while downing martinis and making love to beautiful blondes. In this, the second of the series, Bond travels to Turkey to meet a mysterious Russian woman who claims to have fallen in love with his photograph. She offers him a secret translating device if he will join her, although he does not know that she has been put up to the task by Rosa Klebb, formerly of the KGB, who has gone to work for SPECTRE. It's Bond's assignment to get the girl and the machine back to England--and to do it, of course, in style.

You Only Live Twice (1967) James Bond heads East to save the world (and to learn how to serve saki properly) in this action-packed espionage adventure. When an American spacecraft disappears during a mission, it's widely believed to have been intercepted by the Soviet Union, and after a Russian space capsule similarly goes missing, most consider it to be an act of American retaliation. Soon the two nations are at the brink of war, but British intelligence discovers that some sort of UFO has crashed into the Sea of Japan. Agent 007, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent in to investigate. After staging his own death to avoid being followed, Bond, disguised as a Japanese civilian, teams up with agent Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba) and his beautiful associate Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi). With their help, Bond learns that both the American and Russian space missions were actually scuttled by supercriminal Ernst Blofeld (Donald Pleasance) in yet another bid by his evil empire SPECTRE to take over the world. As he battles the bad guys, Bond finds time to romance both Kissy Suziki (Mie Hama) and Helga Brandt (Karin Dor). You Only Live Twice was one of Sean Connery's last outings as James Bond. The next Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, would star George Lazenby as 007, and while Connery would return for Diamonds Are Forever, in 1973, Roger Moore took over the role. (Connery would play Bond one last time, in 1983's Never Say Never Again, which was produced outside the official series.) ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Live And Let Die (1973) Roger Moore makes his first appearance as Bond...James Bond in 1973's Live and Let Die. Bond is dispatched to the States to stem the activities of Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto), who plans to take over the Western Hemisphere by converting everyone into heroin addicts. The woman in the case is Solitaire (Jane Seymour in her movie debut), an enigmatic interpreter of tarot cards. The obligatory destructive-chase sequence occurs at the film's midpoint, with Bond being chased in a motorboat by Mr. Big's henchmen, slashing his way through the marshlands and smashing up a wedding party. Clifton James makes the first of several Bond appearances as redneck sheriff Pepper, while Geoffrey Holder is an enthusiastic secondary villain. The title song, written by Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney, provides the frosting on this 007 confection.~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) Roger Moore is the ever-debonair 007 in this ninth film in the James Bond series. The super agent is assigned the task of recovering a valuable piece of technical equipment capable of harnessing the sun's energy. Standing in his way are a number of arch-villains. James Bond returns in: "The Spy Who Loved Me."

Funeral In Berlin (1967) Following on from THE IPCRESS FILE, Michael Caine returns as bespectacled spy Harry Palmer in the second instalment in the Len Deighton series. A British spy is responsible for arranging the defection of a Russian officer in charge of Berlin war security. When his plan goes very wrong, he must rely on his own Cockney cunning to escape the morass of double-dealing, intrigue and beautiful, but deadly, women.

Thunderball (1965) James Bond's fourth adventure takes him to the Bahamas, where a NATO warplane with a nuclear payload has disappeared into the sea. Bond (Sean Connery) travels from a health spa (where he tangles with a mechanised masseuse run amuck) to the casinos of Nassau and soon picks up the trail of SPECTRE's number-two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), and his beautiful mistress, Domino (Claudine Auger), whom Bond soon seduces to his side. Equipped with more gadgets than ever, courtesy of the resourceful Q (Desmond Llewellyn), agent 007 escapes an ambush with a personal-size jet pack and takes to the water as he searches for an underwater plane, battles Largo's pet sharks, and finally leads the battle against Largo's scuba-equipped henchmen in a spectacular underwater climax. This thrilling Bond entry became Connery's most successful outing in the series and was remade in 1983 as Never Say Never Again, with Connery returning to the role after a 12-year hiatus. Tom Jones belts out the bold theme song to another classic Maurice Binder title sequence. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com--On the DVD: The absence of any new contribution from Sean Connery leaves a hole in the behind-the-scenes selection, but the "making of" documentary still has plenty to talk about, including why Bond wore a crash helmet for the jet-pack flight, and what was for the time the utterly unique situation of having to stage an underwater battle (one of the Bond series' enduring legacies is its pioneering stunt work). A supplemental documentary describes the "Thunderball Phenomenon" that swept the world on the release of what was the most successful Bond movie to date (back in those innocent days when blanket retail saturation of movie merchandise was still a novelty). Two audio commentaries flesh out even more of the background: the first is another edited selection of various interviews, the second has editor Peter Hunt in conversation with the host John Quark of the Ian Fleming Foundation, as well as more sundry interview snippets, notably from screenwriter John Hopkins. Any contribution from series composer John Barry is also sadly absent. --Mark Walker

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