Diamonds Are Forever (film)

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Diamonds Are Forever
Diamonds Are Forever film poster
James Bond	Sean Connery
Also starring	Charles Gray Jill St. John Bruce Glover Putter Smith Bernard Lee Lois Maxwell
Directed by	Guy Hamilton
Produced by	Harry Saltzman Albert R. Broccoli
Novel/Story by	Ian Fleming
Screenplay	Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz
Cinematography by	{{{cinematography}}}
Music by	John Barry
Main theme
Composer	John Barry Don Black
Performer	Shirley Bassey
Distributed by	United Artists (1971-1981) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1982-present)
Released	December 17, 1971 (USA) December 30, 1971 (UK)
Running time	115 min.
Budget	$7,200,000
Worldwide gross	$116,000,000
Admissions (world)	70.3 million
Preceded by	On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Followed by	Live and Let Die
IMDb profile

Diamonds Are Forever is the seventh film in the EON Productions James Bond series. It was the sixth and final film in the series to star Sean Connery as British Secret Service Agent, Commander James Bond. Connery would later portray Bond again in the unofficial Bond film Never Say Never Again in 1983 and lend his voice for Bond in the 2005 video game adaptation of From Russia with Love.

Loosely based on the Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli and released in 1971. It was the second of four films to be directed by Guy Hamilton.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Cast & characters 3 Crew 4 Vehicles & gadgets 5 Production 5.1 Origins 5.2 Film locations 5.3 Shooting locations 6 Soundtrack 6.1 Track listing 6.2 Casting 7 Bloopers 7.1 Downtown Driving 8 Deleted scenes and alternate endings 9 Trivia 10 External links

[edit] Plot summary

The movie begins with Bond's worldwide pursuit of the head of SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (supposedly in revenge for the murder of his wife, Tracy Bond, at the end of the previous adventure, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, though this is never mentioned). Cornering Blofeld in an underground lab where the villain is in the process of creating duplicates of himself (via a form of plastic surgery), Bond throws Blofeld into a vat of superheated mud. "Welcome to Hell, Blofeld," he quips.

Meanwhile, huge quantities of South African diamonds are being stolen but have not been sold on the market. Suspecting that the stones are being stockpiled to inflate prices, the Government orders Bond to assume the identity of a professional diamond smuggler called Peter Franks to infiltrate the smuggling operation and find out who the stockpilers are.

Bond then meets a smuggler called Tiffany Case at her Amsterdam apartment. Unsure if Bond is the real Peter Franks, she secretly checks Bond's fingerprints, which, unknown to Tiffany, has a film of plastic grooves showing Peter's prints.

Bond then returns to his hotel, and calls Q to thank him for the false fingerprint. Q then informs Bond that the real Peter Franks has escaped from them, and is heading for Tiffany's apartment. Bond, knowing he can't let Tiffany meet the real Peter Franks, heads for her apartment, where he finds Peter. Bond and Peter then enter the apartment's lift (elevator), and Bond's cover is blown when he is about to attack Peter. Bond finally kills Peter by knocking him off the balcony with a fire extinguisher. Bond then changes his wallet with Peter's, and Tiffany finds them. She thinks Bond has just killed James Bond. "Is that who it was?" Bond says, feigning surprise. The two then talk about business with the diamond smuggling.

Tiffany discovers Bond's identity after an unsuccessful smuggling job in Las Vegas. Bond uncovers a plot by Blofeld (who didn't die in the lab; Bond had killed another duplicate instead) to create a laser satellite capable of destroying any target on Earth, using the stolen diamonds. Using the resources and industrial properties of a recluse Nevada multimillionaire Willard Whyte (played by Jimmy Dean), Blofeld uses this weapon to selectively destroy nuclear installations in America, Russia, and China, setting up an international auction, with nuclear supremacy going to the highest bidder.

The film features a very unusual couple of henchmen: Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. There is a strong suggestion that they are involved in a homosexual relationship (they are seen holding hands; in one scene, Mr. Wint is spraying himself with perfume; in another scene, Wint and Kidd see Tiffany Case, and Kidd says to Wint, "Ms. Case sure is attractive..." Then, noticing Wint's jealous glare, Kidd quickly adds, "...for a woman!"). Throughout the film, they use several interesting method of assassination; a scorpion is employed to kill a South African dentist, they tie the feet of Plenty O'Toole to a metal plate and drown her in a swimming pool, and attempt to incinerate James Bond alive in a crematorium furnace.

Also memorable are the female guards placed by Blofeld over Willard Whyte, named Bambi and Thumper, two martial art pros.

[edit] Cast & characters

• James Bond — Sean Connery
• M — Bernard Lee
• Miss Moneypenny — Lois Maxwell
• Q — Desmond Llewelyn
• Felix Leiter — Norman Burton
• Ernst Stavro Blofeld — Charles Gray
• Tiffany Case — Jill St. John
• Willard Whyte — Jimmy Dean
• Mr. Wint — Bruce Glover
• Mr. Kidd — Putter Smith
• Plenty O'Toole— Lana Wood
• Bert Saxby — Bruce Cabot
• Sir Donald Munger — Laurence Naismith

[edit] Crew

• Directed by: Guy Hamilton
• Written by: Ian Fleming
• Screenplay by: Richard Maibaum, Tom Mankiewicz
• Produced by: Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman
• Composed by: John Barry
• Cinematography by: Ted Moore
• Production design by: Ken Adam
• Set decoration by: Peter Lamont

[edit] Vehicles & gadgets

Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles and List of James Bond gadgets

• Pocket snap trap — A small gadget hidden in a pocket to give a person performing an unwanted search on the wielder a painful surprise that would provide a critical distraction for the wielder to exploit for an attack.
• 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 — Tiffany Case picks up Bond after eluding some henchmen.
• Moon buggy — Used by Bond to escape from the laboratory.
• ATC — Honda US90, first three-wheeled ATV, released in 1970, used to chase Bond and then used by Bond to escape the W Tectronics desert complex.
• Fake Fingerprint — Bond uses a fake fingerprint that clings to his thumb to trick Tiffany Case into believing he is Peter Franks.
• Slot Machine Ring — Q created a ring that when used ensures a jackpot at the slot machines every time.
• Rappelling Cummerbund — When Bond rides on top of the elevator to the suite of Willard Whyte he uses for the last leg of this trip the rappelling cord built into his cummerbund. (A similar gadget is the belt used in GoldenEye.) Bond uses a special gun to fire the pitons needed to rappel, and later demonstrates that this can also be a deadly weapon.

The filmmakers had an arrangement with Ford to use their vehicles in much of the film. Besides Tiffany's 1971 Mustang, Blofeld's chief scientist drives a Ford Econoline van, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd drive a Thunderbird, and during the moon buggy chase, the security guards are driving Ford Custom 500s. Among the non-Ford vehicles that appears in the scenes shot in America is Blofeld's Mercedes limousine, along with a Plymouth Fury III (used by CIA agents where 007 is sitting in a parked Galaxie 500 sedan). Bond uses a stolen Triumph Stag to travel to Amsterdam via the cross-Channel hovercraft.

[edit] Production

[edit] Origins

• Albert R. Broccoli claimed to have literally dreamed up the plot for this film. A close friend of Howard Hughes, Broccoli dreamed that Hughes had been replaced by an imposter.
• According to the 'making of' documentary on the DVD the series producers originally intended Diamonds Are Forever as an extensive reboot of the Bond franchise to appeal to an American audience.
• The expletives "God damn" and "bitch" are heard in dialogue, marking the first use of adult language in a Bond film (previous films never used words stronger than "damn" or "hell"). The film still retained its PG rating in the USA, though.

[edit] Film locations

• Japan and Cairo - feature in pre-credits sequence
• London, United Kingdom
• South Africa - Bond is not shown there, but part of the story involving Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd takes place there.
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Los Angeles, California, United States
• Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
• Baja California, Mexico

[edit] Shooting locations

• Pinewood Studios — London
• Universal City Studios — Los Angeles
• Germany
• Netherlands
• France
• Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
• Los Angeles, California, United States
• Palm Springs, California, United States - Bond, Thumper and Bambi scene.
• Oceanside, California, United States - Oil Rig Sequence
• Dover, Kent, England, United Kingdom
• Southampton, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom

• The exterior for the Whyte House Hotel is the Las Vegas Hilton (then called the International Hotel).
• The distinctive round house where Willard Whyte was being held prisoner and where Bond fought Bambi and Thumper, supposedly just outside Las Vegas, is actually located in Palm Springs, California.

[edit] Soundtrack

Diamonds Are Forever
Soundtrack by John Barry
Released	1971
Recorded	October 1971
Label	EMI
Producer(s)	Frank Collura (Reissue)
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link
John Barry chronology
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)	Diamonds Are Forever (1971)	Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
James Bond soundtrack chronology
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)	Diamonds Are Forever (1971)	Live and Let Die (1973)
Alternate cover
[[Image:|Re-release cover|200px]]
Re-release cover

Main article: James Bond music

"Diamonds Are Forever", the title song, was the second James Bond theme to be performed by Shirley Bassey, after "Goldfinger" in 1964. Producer Harry Saltzman hated the song and it only made the film due to co-producer Cubby Broccoli. One of Saltzman's major objections was to the innuendo in the song, in an interview for the television programme James Bond's Greatest Hits he revealed that he told Bassey to imagine she was singing about a penis. Bassey would later return for a third performance for 1979's "Moonraker."

The original soundtrack was once again composed by John Barry. This was his sixth time composing for a James Bond film. The song has subsequently been sampled by rapper Kanye West in the track Diamonds from Sierra Leone. It was also used by hip-hop group Dead Prez on the song "Psychology" from Let's Get Free.

[edit] Track listing

1. Diamonds Are Forever (Main Title) - Shirley Bassey
2. Bond Meets Bambi And Thumper
3. Moon Buggy Ride
4. Circus, Circus
5. Death At The Whyte House
6. Diamonds Are Forever (Source Instrumental)
7. Diamonds Are Forever (Bond And Tiffany)
8. Bond Smells A Rat
9. Tiffany Case
10. 007 And Counting
11. Q's Trick
12. To Hell With Blofeld
13. Gunbarrel and Manhunt
14. Mr.Wint and Mr.Kidd/Bond To Holland
15. Peter Franks
16. Airport Source/On The Road
17. Slumber, Inc.
18. The Whyte House
19. Plenty, Then Tiffany
20. Following The Diamonds
21. Additional and Alternate Cues

[edit] Casting

• John Gavin, an American actor who had played Sam Loomis in Psycho for Alfred Hitchcock amongst many other credits, was originally cast as Bond. However, United Artists' chief David Picker was unhappy with this decision and made it clear that Sean Connery should be enticed back to the role and that money was, essentially, no object. When approached about resuming the role of Bond Sean Connery demanded the fee of £1.2 million (then $2 million, and over $20m inflation adjusted for 2005) and that UA agree to back two films of his choice. Both demands were met and Connery used part of the fee to establish, in collaboration with the Scots racing driver Jackie Stewart, a charity to help deprived children in Edinburgh. Gavin's contract was quietly bought out by UA. The first film made under Connery's deal was The Offence directed by his friend Sidney Lumet. The second was to be an adaptation of Macbeth by William Shakespeare using only Scottish actors and in which Connery himself would play the title role. This project was abandoned due to the Roman Polański film version that was also in production at the same time. Sean Connery never played Macbeth on film, although his son Jason Connery later did.
• The woman in the bikini named "Marie", who in the beginning of the film is "convinced" by Bond to give up the location of Blofeld, was Denise Perrier, Miss World 1953.

[edit] Bloopers

• During the chase through the desert, in which Bond is driving a lunar rover, the last car drives off a dune, crashing and flipping over. After the crash, a fifth wheel rolls into the shot - given the shape and style of the wheel, it is most likely from the lunar rover. In the scenes that follow, it appears that the lunar rover still has all four wheels.
  • Most likely, a wheel broke off the lunar rover from the impact of driving off the dune, but the accident happened off frame. For the sake of maintaining the momentum of the chase, the filmmakers most likely decided to leave it, since it does not have a negative effect on the continuity of the chase.
• Willard Whyte incorrectly states that the first laser was projected through a diamond. In reality, a ruby was used.
• At the end of the car chase in downtown Las Vegas, Bond's Mustang ducks down an alley to escape the pursuing sheriff. Bond half drives onto a ramp to raise the car on the two passenger side wheels to clear the narrow walkway between two buildings. When the car is shown exiting the alley, it is on the two driver's side wheels. As explained on the documentary "Inside Diamonds Are Forever" on the film's DVD this was because the two sequences were shot separately and the original stunt team was unavailable. The only replacement team who could do the shot could only make it on the other wheels. A closeup shot of the car interior in the alley is included that tilts from one side to the other, in an attempt to imply the car had switched wheels, although the alley is shown as too narrow for this.

[edit] Downtown Driving

Some of the worst continuity in the Bond series occurs during the night-time car chase scene in downtown Las Vegas. In this scene, the red Ford Mustang which Bond is driving travels east down Fremont Street, past the Golden Nugget (which is to Bond's right as Golden Nugget takes up the southwest corner of Fremont St. and Casino Center Blvd). He then turns north onto Casino Center, away from the Golden Nugget, and continues to go straight. However, the next shot of the Mustang (from inside a deli) shows Bond driving west on Fremont Street, passing the Golden Nugget on his left. This could only occur if Bond drove completely around the Fremont Hotel, and came back up Fremont Street from 3rd Street.

The third shot of the Mustang shows it driving north on Casino Center Blvd yet again, approach the Golden Nugget, and then turn west onto Fremont Street (towards the Plaza Hotel). In the fourth shot of the Mustang, Bond drives west down Fremont Street but passes through the Casino Center intersection, which could have only happened if he were traveling down Fremont the whole time, and not have made the turn from Casino Center onto Fremont.

Bond then passes several cars, makes a 270 degree turn, and heads north on 1st Street. Yet again, the shots don't match. His next move is turning west from Casino Center Blvd (not 1st Street) onto East Ogden Avenue (Fremont is on the left of the screen, and "RSESHOE" from Binion's Horseshoe can be seen on the right.) Seconds later, Bond turns into the parking lot of The Mint, plays "tag" with the police cars, and exits the lot going south onto 1st Street. Yet when the two police officers see Bond coming, they spot him approaching as he's driving south on Casino Center (past Hotel Fremont), not on 1st Street. Bond turns right, into an alley within the Four Queens complex, puts the car onto two wheels, and pops out onto 3rd street again, turning south. But the final shot shows Bond driving north on 1st Street, past the Pioneer Club, and turning west onto Fremont, towards the Plaza Hotel.

[edit] Deleted scenes and alternate endings

• Sammy Davis Jr.'s brief cameo appearance was cut from the theatrical release. It would later be restored on the DVD. A still photo of him can be seen in the program Bond reads when he notices Shady Tree has a stage show.

• Scenes also cut from the theatrical release include a wet, towel-clad Plenty O'Toole sneaking back into Bond's hotel room and searching through Tiffany Case's purse; Plenty breaking into Tiffany's house; Plenty with Bond at dinner; and Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd shooting Shady Tree in the casino scene in which Kidd opens his briefcase. The prop gun with the "Bang" flag can be seen in the book The Wonderful World of 007. After killing him they quip, "Two's company . . . " ". . . and Tree's a crowd."

• The climax of the film was changed several times during pre-production. Early drafts included a boat chase on Lake Mead that ended with Blofeld getting trapped above Hoover Dam. When the climax was relocated to an oil rig, the original ending had Bond pursue Blofeld who was trying to escape in his mini submarine. They both would have ended up fighting each other in a salt mine. Blofeld was to be crushed.

[edit] Trivia

• This was the second film in which a character played by Lana Wood was sent out of a window. In the film The Searchers, where Lana played the young version of her older sister Natalie Wood's character, she is sent out of a window to escape being killed by rampaging Indians. In this film, Lana's character, Plenty O'Toole, is thrown almost completely naked out of a window to what was supposed to be her death, but survived, albeit temporarily, by landing in the pool.
• In the Cartoon Network animated series Codename: Kids Next Door, the villains Mr. Fibb and Mr. Wink are spoofs of Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint.

[edit] External links

• Diamonds Are Forever (1971) at the Internet Movie Database
• MGM Official website

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