Review of Diamonds Are Forever

I remember seeing this film years and years ago and always had in my mind the image of a body disappearing into bubbling mud ( gold mashed potato ). This film on first viewing appearts bizarre and weird but actually grows on you after several viewings. It has many weird facets - not least the background music you hear playing on the very first shots of the Willard Whyte Towers ( I wonder what the building really was - presumably some office block in Las Vegas ), weird also the two homosexual killers who are in fact very frightening in their modus operandi, thank God they got their just desserts on the boat at the end - I was waiting for that one. And there's old "No-neck" Charles Gray with his superb upper class english accent (like me !) who plays a weird villain, not credible all the time but nevertheless amusing. And there's those two weird Girls Thumber and Bambi who prance around like monkeys at WW's summer house ! And there's Willard Whyte himself, God, what a strange accent he has, sound's like a 1970's cowboy. It seems incredible he has been locked up for five years in a flat and never managed to escape. When I compare this film to the rubbish they put into Goldeneye and The world in not enough, I actually found it better than I thought on first viewing. Also the plot is a bit complicated and rather disarms on first viewing. But having watched the film four times, I now find the action sequences very good, especially the shoot out on the oil-rig at the end. Bond's female companion JSJ is absolutely gorgeous and seems to have aged well like good wine ( on the dvd there is an interview with her today ). So all in all I think the film will age well and gain value in time to come whereas when it came out, it was probably considered rather Obsure. True, Connery's performance itself is less good than in previous Bonds, but the rest makes up for this. Note also the superb theme song by Shirley Bassey and the graphically beautiful opening credits which are amongst the best of all the Bond Films.............