A Quick Look: YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967 - color)

   Coming in the wake of the massively successful THUNDERBALL, the lackluster spoof CASINO ROYALE, and the better-than-you'd-think OPERATION KID BROTHER, right at the very height of the spy craze, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was a pull-out-all-the-stops, give-the-audience-everything-it-wants-and-more grand scale adventure. An adventure Connery decided would also be his last as the world's most popular spy (such was his desire at the time, anyway). YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE follows Bond as he goes up against SPECTRE's scheme to trigger atomic war by stealing American and Russian space rockets from orbit and concealing them in their secret headquarters housed inside a Japanese volcano! Behind the whole plot is SPECTRE no.1 Ernst Stavro Blofeld, memorably brought to life by Donald Pleasance. The image of Pleasance, clad in his grey uniform, bald head, and ragged scar across his eye, became one of the most iconic of screen villainy. It was this enemy that Mike Meyers famously parodied as Dr. Evil some 30 years later. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE contains some of the biggest action the series ever produced, not the least of which includes a commando raid against SPECTRE's most impressive secret lair. "Sean Connery IS James Bond!" the ads read in response to the same year's spy spoof. Nancy Sinatra provides the title tune, which, while sweet, seems a bit lounge for the series after the surging hits of the previous films (it foreshadowed perfectly the breathy ballads that defined the Moore era, however). Though the script isn't the strongest of the series, this one, like THUNDERBALL, makes up for it by being an out-and-out experience. Plus, this one has Ed Bishop and Shane Rimmer in the same shot, so it's automatically the coolest Bond film of all.