The old adage is that you can’t make a good film out of a bad script. Well, 1967’s “You Only Live Twice,” is one of the only films ever made to disprove that theory. Kind of. By his own admission, author Roald Dahl’s script is a regurgitation of the basic framework of the first Bond screenplay, “Dr No” with the toppling of American spacecraft being replaced with a spaceship eating another spaceship in an effort to kick start WWIII – and written in mind with set parameters by the producers at EoN production – more beautiful girls, a blonde henchman, and that it be bigger and zanier than the previous four Bond films combined.
The success of “You Only Live Twice” rests almost solely on its filmmaking. The sets by Ken Adam, the direction by Lewis Gilbert, and the stylish and epic scope of the cinematography by “Lawrence of Arabia” cameraman Freddie Young drag this film out of the mire of thin characters, a nonsensical plot, and a lack of originality. Connery can’t help but look bored and disinterested in some scenes, but if you take his 5th Bond appearance out of the context of the making of the film he had a miserable experience shooting the film in Japan, being bombarded by the press and robbed of his privacy, then his performance isn’t that big of a step down from “Thunderball.” It’s serviceable throughout, rather than firing on all cylinders.
Granted, the script doesn’t give Connery much to chew on from a character perspective, with James Bond just walking from set piece to set piece for most of the film’s runtime, but it’s still good to see Connery in the role and the general aura he gives on screen. There are still shades of the magic of his previous four performances, particularly in the sequences with Fiona Volpe clone Helga Brandt (he apparently helped inexperienced actress Karin Dor with her acting during the shoot) and during the volcano lair finale, where Bond comes face to face with Blofeld for the first time.
Donald Pleasance’s performance as Blofeld is another key ingredient that holds this film above water. His portrayal is sinister and creepy, his voice and look deservedly iconic, and I love the kitschy nature of the trappings of his Spectre organization, such as drowning insolent workers in piranha-filled garden pools. As much as I love Tiger Tanaka, played by Japanese actor Tetsuro Tamba, this film’s main Bond ally does feel like a Japanese version of Kerim Bey from “From Russia With Love.” He lacks his own unique flavor, and the main Bond girl (what’s her name again?) leaves such little impression I sometimes forget she’s even in it.
Secondary Bond girl, Aki, played by Mie Hama, has a much better screen presence and is far more charismatic, so it’s a shame she is assassinated halfway through the film via dangling poison drip, even though her demise is an admittedly well-photographed and executed sequence. The action is dialed up to eleven and the film has the best-executed setpieces in the series to date; Connery’s fight with the Rock’s grandfather at Osato Chemicals is fantastic, as is the volcano lair sequence at the end. It is utterly stupendous in scale, in a way that has been rarely matched in cinema, let alone the rest of the James Bond series. The choreography and camera work needed to pull off such a spectacle (this sequence pioneered cutting-edge trampoline and stunts for the time) continues to be a masterclass to this day.
It’s a shame that the film grinds to a halt for a sequence that is ironically one of the only sections directly adapted from the source novel — Bond hanging out with Tanaka in a rural Japanese village and getting married to Kissy Suzuki (ah yes, that’s her name!). It’s a drawn-out and turgid sequence, which, to be fair, is accompanied by some amazing John Barry background music. In fact, his score here is one of the best he contributed to the series, lush and exotic with biting action cues.
Although the film manages to reach iconic and memorable heights, particularly in the final showdown in Blofeld’s volcano lair, this is still the first film in the series where you feel that certain elements are being handled less delicately behind the scenes and that the producers are paying less attention to Fleming’s source material and more about what the public expected from a Bond film in a more formulaic manner: action! Girls! Gadgets! In fact, Roald Dahl was mandated to feature three Bond girls in the script whether he liked it or not.
Events don’t unfold as naturally as they do in the previous four Bond adventures, and the overall plot Bond has to wade through is noticeably thinner than other entries. The plot runs out of steam really by the time we get to Bond’s wedding. These problems could be a result of the parameters put on Roald Dahl during the screenplay process, regular series writer Richard Maibaum being unavailable, or the scale of the series becoming too ungainly to control.
Whatever the case, things were certainly brought back down to earth for the next installment of the franchise, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969). Despite the script problems, “You Only Live Twice” delivers a lavish and extravagant entry in the Bond series, though it comes at the expense of a blockbuster formula that is starting to show its wear.
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