Over the holidays, I watched Spike TV's telecast of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and was astonished at the huge section of the film which transpired in Las Vegas. It had been a long time since I had seen the movie, and I had not remembered how obsessive was the movie's depiction of kitsch Americana - decor, Southwestern slang, American corporatespeak, the general rip-off tackiness of this Great Land of ours. Much of this seems to have been original with the film - descriptions, characters, etc in the Ian Fleming novel were significantly different.

The huge majority of the Bond films showcase "exotic" locales - Asia, the Caribbean, Turkey, Old Europe, etc. Even the scenes in the U.S. (the Kentucky stud farm and the Fontainbleu Hotel in GOLDFINGER, for example) are exoticized through Ken Adam's modernist set design. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER seems singular in this regard. Do you folks think the movie is pandering to American audiences, parodying American gaucherie for an international audience, or both?

I'd love to hear your responses on this.

It's interesting that you're bringing this up when the Howard Hughes biopic THE AVIATOR is in the news. I should point out that DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER's movie plotline draws heavily on the revival of interest that year (1972) in Howard Hughes and his self-imposed seclusion in Las Vegas. That year Clifford Irving was about to publish an autobiography of Hughes that he'd supposedly co-authored with Hughes. Hughes apparently called the press himself (the first time he'd been heard from in many many years) to denounce the book as a fraud and insist that he'd never worked with Irving and never had any contact with him. Irving had apparently banked on Hughes' reclusiveness keeping him quiet and out of the public eye and ear. But he'd gambled wrong. It was a big, big story and it brought Hughes back into the spotlight and it played a large part in DIAMONDS' plotline about Willard Whyte, the film's Hughes surrogate, being held captive in Vegas by Blofeld.

Now, I'm not sure whether the film was already in production when Irving's Hughes hoax was revealed or not. It seems likely that it was. I don't have the timeline available, although now I'm intrigued enough to want to explore it. It does seem an awfully lucky coincidence for the film. If I had to guess, I'd say that the film was influenced by the headlines, but I don't know what the timeline was.

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go a little far afield on this topic. (I can't help it; you asked and it's gotta come pouring out.) There were some conspiracy documents circulating at the time that came under the name, "Gemstone File," that put forth the notion that Aristotle Onassis had Hughes held captive ("in seclusion") while he took over Hughes' empire. I have a book called "Inside the Gemstone File," that has a whole chapter, "James Bond & the Gemstone File," about the Bond books' and movies' connections to various conspiracy theories. The authors suggest that Blofeld was based on Onassis. There's a whole section on DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER that asserts that:
"The amazing story of Onassis, Hughes, Las Vegas, Area 51, and the oil industry (controlled, to some extent, by Onassis while he was alive) is told to incredible detail in the 1972 movie...
"In the filmed story of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, the plot remarkably parallels The Gemstone File years before the Skeleton Key to the Gemstone File was ever circulated. The plot begins in the diamond fields of South Africa, as in Fleming's original book, but soon diverges from the book to bring in elements of The Gemstone File and the Mafia/Las Vegas/Area 51 entanglement."

The authors go on to provide a little plot synopsis of the movie which includes this line:
"After witnessing the faking of the Apollo Moon missions, Bond steals the lunar rover and escapes into the desert. Does DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER mirror the truth about NASA being part of a secret conspiracy? In the movie, the space facility and the Mafia are working together."

The authors also ask, "Was Ian Fleming killed because he knew too much about such things as the Kennedy assassination, The Philadelphia Experiment and the genesis of UFO technology?"

And that's just the tip of the conspiracy iceberg in this book.

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know, Kevin, but it just may answer your initial question about the filmmakers' intent. :ph43r:

"Do you folks think the movie is pandering to American audiences, parodying American gaucherie for an international audience, or both?"

All of the above.

DIAMONDS and the two following films place dark marks on James Bond franchise. I think what happened was there there were to many decsion makers and not enough decisions. Brocolli and Saltzman were not getting along, UA was desperate for Connery, John Gavin was hired and then fired. And Faye Dunaway wanted to be Tiffany Case. But surely the Faye Dunaway of BONNIE AND CLYDE and CHINATOWN would think more of herself than Jill St. John in the closing reels. And she must have as she ended up not being in the movie. And the scripts may have some great one liners but they are nothing more than set peices strung together. Its really no wonder that Connery left. Actually this was problem even with YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE but at least it moves like a musical and uses its flaws to its advantage.

There sure seems to be some anti-U.S. zest. The Apollo mission is reduced to a SPECTRE stunt and in GOLDEN GUN Sherrif Pepper is shopping for American cars in Thailand!!!! James Bond in the early 70s lacked focus. The real problem is that it feels like every idea was thrown against the wall to see what would stick. Put a little of this and a little of that. Actually that formula would still follow through out the 80s but with measured percision.

To answer your question, these movies were made to pander to everyone that they could. EVERYONE! Blacks, Asian, Rednecks, Families EVERYONE! By the way, these movies look like there pandering and goofing on the U.S. but also the Caribbinan, Asian, Homosexuals, and Italian (or Italian American anyway) cultures. No one is really spared. As such its so goofy that one can not be offend by it either.

Another problem with the Guy Hamilton films (DIAMONDS, LIVE, GOLDEN GUN) is that they have a rushed feel. I mean "Get It In The Can" type of rush, at least by Big Studio standards. There is NOTHING delicate in these movies, save for perhapes a few notes from John Barry. I think the idea was to rush this stuff out there, remind people that Bond was viable and than remake the franchise.* Nothing is thought out. Each film starts out like an absurd comic book with enough grit to give it credence. Only they unravel like a ball of yarn thats been dropped next to a frisky kitty. They end with loose ends. I mean why did the energy crisis (another anti U.S. slant) have to get in the way Bond vs. Scaramanga. It could have been a GREAT Cat & Mouse game had Hamilton put forth the same verve from THE DEVIL'S DECIPLE and FUNERAL IN BERLIN. I guess he wanted to finish up and start shooting SUPERMAN. He was eventually fired.

This is not to say completely dislike theses movies. These are exellent example at how a franchise must change to succede they show how asthetics changed through out populer cinema. These showcase the growing pains of cinema. I LOVE the ideas found in these movies and the slick images that complment them.



*The frachise was finally tailored for Roger Moore's advantage with THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

I'm not sure how much of the DIAMONDS screenplay was authored by Richard Maibaum and how much by Tom Mankiewicz, but both gentlemen are American so in discussions with the producers as to which direction to take Bond perhaps they mutually agreed on this. Mankiewicz was also in the vicinity of 30 at the time, and may have sought to introduce certain pop culture aspects into the storyline. As Brian pointed out the keen interest in Howard Hughes and Vegas at the time was likely a prime influence on the film's makers.

The next Bond outing, LIVE AND LET DIE - written by Mankiewicz - takes Bond to Louisianna and New York and was probably influenced by the success of films like THE FRENCH CONNECTION, SHAFT, and SUPERFLY.

How on Earth did the X FILES manage to avoid investigating a conspiracy that incorporates Onassis, Hughes, Vegas, the mafia, and Area 51?

Wow, I am gobsmacked by the intelligence, wit, and erudition of your replies! Thanks so very much.

Time to get the DVDs of DIAMONDS, LIVE AND LET DIE, and GOLDEN GUN and examine these films in greater detail. Your comments make me want to trace how these films display the series in crisis.

I have looked at ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE many many times and consider it an extraordinary glimpse of what the franchise might have become - the color design, cinematography, and editing are the most elegant of the series, I think, and the idea of hiring an unknown to imitate what a younger Cary Grant would have brought to the role was a great idea. The sheer ugliness of DIAMONDS's mise-en-scene (taking its cue, of course, from the transition from sixties modernism in fashion and interior design to the ghastliness of 70s burnt orange/avocado post-counterculture kitsch) and the episodic smirkiness of its narrative make a lot more sense to me after reading your contributions to the thread.

[QUOTE] How on Earth did the X FILES manage to avoid investigating a conspiracy that incorporates Onassis, Hughes, Vegas, the mafia, and Area 51? [QUOTE]

My daughter was a big fan of "The X-Files" and I kept pointing out to her that the large body of conspiracy literature that the show regularly plundered for material was SO much more entertaining and interesting (and funny--if you don't take it seriously) than the watered-down versions that wound up on the TV show. But she and her friends were less interested in political assassinations and reverse-engineered UFO technology than in the interplay between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. (They really liked those two.)