You Only Live Twice (film)

In the film, Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet manned spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit. With each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War, Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island in order to find the perpetrators and comes face to face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld who was previously a partially unseen character. SPECTRE is both working on behalf of and extorting the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be Red China, in order to provoke war between the superpowers.

It was announced during the Japanese location filming that Sean Connery would retire from the role of Bond; but Connery returned, after a hiatus, in Diamonds Are Forever and the non-EON Bond film Never Say Never Again. You Only Live Twice is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979's Moonraker, both starring Roger Moore. These three Bond films are notable for being epic in scale.

The first Bond film to be released in the northern hemisphere summertime, the film was a great success, with positive reviews and over $111M in worldwide box office, and has been parodied most prominently by the Austin Powers series and its scar-faced, Nehru suit-wearing Dr. Evil.

Production

Open-Top]] On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the intended next film, but the producers decided to adapt You Only Live Twice instead because OHMSS would require searching for high and snowy locations.

Gilbert, producers Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, production designer Ken Adam and director of photography Freddie Young then went to Japan, spending three weeks searching for locations. SPECTRE’s shore fortress headquarters was changed to an extinct volcano after the team learned that the Japanese do not build castles by the sea. The group was due to return to the UK on a BOAC Boeing 707 flight (BOAC Flight 911) on 5 March 1966, but cancelled after being told they had a chance to watch a ninja demonstration.

Kingsley Amis said that he had been asked to provide a screenplay for a Bond film by the producers but it was rejected in December 1965. Originally the producers had Harold Jack Bloom come to Japan with the producers to write a screenplay that was ultimately rejected, but since several of his ideas were used in the final script, Bloom was given the credit of "Additional Story Material". Roald Dahl, close friend of Ian Fleming, was chosen to write the adaptation despite having no prior experience writing a screenplay except for the uncompleted The Bells Of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling.

Unlike most James Bond films featuring various locales around the world, almost the entire film is set in one country and several minutes are given over to an elaborate Japanese wedding. This is in keeping with Fleming's original novel, which also devoted a number of pages to the discussion of Japanese culture.

Casting

Jan Werich was originally cast by producer Harry Saltzman to play Blofeld. Upon his arrival at the Pinewood set, both producer Albert R. Broccoli and director Lewis Gilbert felt that he was a poor choice, resembling a "poor, benevolent Santa Claus". Nonetheless, in an attempt to make the casting work, Gilbert continued filming. After several days, both Gilbert and Broccoli determined that Werich was not menacing enough, and recast Blofeld with Donald Pleasence in the role. Pleasence's ideas for Blofeld's appearance included a hump, a limp, a beard, and a lame hand, before he settled on the scar. He found it uncomfortable, though, because of the glue that attached it to his eye. Strangely, for the German version Dor was dubbed by somebody else.

Gilbert had chosen Tetsurō Tamba after working with him in The 7th Dawn. A number of actual martial arts experts were hired as the ninjas, with Masaaki Hatsumi serving as the technical advisor on ninjutsu. The two Japanese female parts proved difficult to cast, due to most of the actresses tested having limited English. Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama were eventually chosen and started taking English classes in the UK. Hama, initially cast in the role of Tanaka's assistant, had difficulty with the language, so the producers switched her role with Wakabayashi, who had been cast as Kissy, a part with significantly less dialogue. Wakabayashi only requested that her character name, "Suki", be changed to "Aki". The film was shot primarily in Japan. Himeji Castle in Hyōgo was depicted as Tanaka's ninja training camp. His private transportation hub was filmed at the Tokyo Metro's Nakano-shimbashi Station. As of 2011, many of the fixtures in the station are unchanged from the time of filming. The Hotel New Otani, Tokyo served as the outside for Osato Chemicals and the hotel's gardens were used for scenes of the ninja training. Bōnotsu in Kagoshima served as the fishing village, the Kobe harbour was used for the dock fight and Mount Shinmoe-dake in Kyūshū was used for the exteriors of SPECTRE's headquarters. Large crowds were present in Japan to see the shooting. A Japanese fan began following Sean Connery with a camera, and the police were called several times to prevent invasions during shooting.

The heavily armed autogyro "Little Nellie" was included after Ken Adam heard a radio interview with its inventor, RAF Wing Commander Ken Wallis. Wallis piloted his invention, which was equipped with various mock-up armaments by John Stears' special effects team, during production. "Nellie's" battle with helicopters proved to be difficult to film. The scenes were initially shot in Miyazaki, first with takes of the gyrocopter, with more than 85 take-offs, 5 hours of flight and Wallis nearly crashing onto the camera several times. A scene filming the helicopters from above created a major downdraft and cameraman John Jordan's foot was severed by the craft's rotor. Filming was interrupted. The concluding shots involved explosions, which the Japanese government did not allow in a national park. So, the crew moved to Torremolinos, Spain, which was found to resemble the Japanese landscape. Other locations outside Japan included the ship HMS Tenby in Gibraltar for the sea burial, Hong Kong for the scene where Bond fakes his death, and Norway for the Soviet radar station. The theme song, "You Only Live Twice", was composed by Barry and lyricist Leslie Bricusse and sung by Nancy Sinatra. Sinatra was reported to be very nervous while recording — first she wanted to leave the studio; then she claimed to sometimes "sound like Minnie Mouse". Barry declared that the final song uses 25 different takes. In the 1990s, an alternative example of a possible theme song (also called "You Only Live Twice" and sung by Lorraine Chandler) was discovered in the vaults of RCA Records. Probably intended as a demo for consideration by the film's producers, it became a very popular track with followers of the Northern soul scene (Chandler was well known for her high-quality soul output on RCA) and can be found on several RCA soul compilations.

Release and reception

Critical response today is mostly positive, with Rotten Tomatoes giving a 70% "fresh" rating. But most reviews pointed out various flaws in the film. James Berardinelli said that the first half was good, but "during the second half, as the plot escalates beyond the bounds of preposterousness, that the film starts to fragment", criticising "too extravagant rockets which swallow up spacecraft" and Blofeld's appearance. Roger Ebert criticised the focus on gadgets, declaring that the James Bond formula "fails to work its magic". John Brosnan in his book James Bond in the Cinema compared the film to an episode of Thunderbirds with a reliance on gadgetry but admitted it had pace and spectacle. Christopher Null considered the film one of James Bond's most memorable adventures, but the plot "protracting and quite confusing". Ali Barclay of BBC Films panned Dahl's script displaying "a whole new world of villainy and technology." Leo Goldsmith lauded the volcano base as "the most impressive of Ken Adam's sets for the franchise." Danny Peary wrote that You Only Live Twice "should have been about twenty minutes shorter” and described it as “not a bad Bond film, but it doesn’t compare to its predecessors – the formula had become a little stale.”

IGN ranked You Only Live Twice as the fourth best Bond movie, and Entertainment Weekly as the second best, considering that it "pushes the series to the outer edge of coolness". But Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the fifth worst, criticizing the plot, action scenes and little screentime for Blofeld. Literary critic Paul Simpson called the film one of the most colourful of the series and credited the prefecture of Kagoshima for adding "a good flavour" of Japanese influence on the film. However he panned the depiction of Blofeld as a "let-down", "small, bald and a whooping scar." Simon Winder said that the film is "perfect" for parodies of the series.

Broadcast television versions

Years later, on ABC's Bond Picture Show, the opening song by Nancy Sinatra was sped up. Meanwhile, new opening credit graphic titles were created in the Lydian font (the original theatrical prints from 1967 featured them in the Flare Gothic font). The arrangement of the credits however, remained the same (Maurice Binder's original opening background designs were unaltered).

References

External links

Category:1967 films Category:Aviation films Category:British films Category:Cold War spy films Category:English-language films Category:Films directed by Lewis Gilbert Category:Films set in Hong Kong Category:Films set in Japan Category:Films shot in England Category:Films shot in Japan Category:Films shot in the Bahamas Category:Films shot in Virginia Category:Foreign films shot in Japan Category:James Bond films Category:Pinewood films Category:Ninja films Category:Screenplays by Roald Dahl Category:Sequel films