Erich Kriegler is an Olympic class winter sports specialist who is mostly either incredibly grumpy with poor Bibi or leading Bond on a merry dance through, variously, ski jumping, bobsledding, skiing and anything else that’s to hand and on the snow.įittingly, given the several references to Tracy Di Vicenzo, Melina Havelock is one of the capable Bond girls that we’ve come to know and love. John Wyman plays yet another of our favourite recurring character-types – the Ayran superhuman who regularly nearly bests Bond. He kills here, he kills there, he runs down Countess Lisl with a team on dune buggies and he’s deservedly trapped in a car that falls off a cliff. Suavely evil, obviously.Įmile Locque, or the Dove, as played by Michael Gothard, is a vicious assassin who actually lives up to the adjective. Kristatos is another smuggler (who formerly worked with Columbo) seeking to expand his operations and change his fortunes by selling the missing missile defence system to the KGB. Julian Glover gets to play that other classic Bond-trope – the ally/enemy with a questionable past and, as it transpires, a questionable present. Milos Columbo is a former smuggler with a penchant for pistachios because if you don’t have a harmless quirk what are you even doing as a Bond character? This time around it’s Topol’s turn to provide weapons and weapon-wielders to our favourite British Agent abroad and help him find the best casino. Q gets a beefed up role to compensate and Moneypenny gets a makeup stand in her filing cabinet.Īs established and several occasions, if Bond’s abroad he needs a fixer.

There’s no M this time round – he’s mentioned but not seen – due to the death of Bernard Maxwell during production. For Your Eyes Only is however arguably the turning point for Moore, when he just about tips over into maybe, whisper it, too old to play James Bond. Roger Moore is five films deep now and can do this with his eyes shut, but still manages to inject his trademark charm and wit into the role, even when the story has a more serious bent. To spice things up there’s also a whole melange of winter sports hijinx. Quite simple really: there’s a missing missile command system and a young woman seeking to avenge the death of her parents.

So we have a Moore-era Bond that could just about have starred Connery in the ’60s, and it’s all the better for it.īuy the complete James Bond collection on Blu-ray here. After the sheer bonkers excess of Moonraker there really was only one thing for Bond to do – go back to Earth.

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