Thunderball was the fourth James Bond film, coming out on the heels of
Goldfinger and riding the wave of popularity caused by that smash hit. The
criminal organization Spectre is back with an ambitious scheme which calls for
an impostor named Angelo to take the place of NATO air force pilot Major Derval.
When the impostor is ready after an intense two year program which includes
plastic surgery, the real Derval is killed and the impostor takes command of a
Vulcan Vindicator bomber, which is armed with two nuclear bombs. Once in the air,
Angelo kills his crewmates with a lethal gas and deliberately crash lands the
bomber in the waters around the Bahamas. When the plane sinks, a scuba team
under the command of Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) retrieves the bombs. Now in
possession of two nukes, Spectre uses them to blackmail the British government
into paying a hefty ransom, or else a major city in either the United Kingdom
or the United States will be nuked.
With just days before England is due to pay the ransom, Bond pursues a lead in a
beautiful young woman named Domino (Claudine Auger), who resides in the Bahamas
and is the sister of Major Derval. When Bond was staying at a health spa after
his last assignment, he came across the real Derval, who was already dead before
the Vulcan even went up in the skies. M (Bernard Lee) agrees that this is a lead
worth following, and orders Bond to go the Bahamas. Meeting up with Domino
during a dive in the ocean, Bond discovers that she’s the kept woman of Largo,
who, on the surface, appears to be a millionaire sportsman with a snazzy yacht
named the Disco Volante--yet Largo actually turns out to be the number two man
in the Spectre organization. But as Bond tries to get close to Domino, and
hopefully Largo, several assassins are already trying to get close to him.
Taking place in and around the beautiful island of Nassau, Thunderball is a
vastly entertaining film that has a few missteps. One of these missteps is Largo
himself, who is not very memorable, or threatening, as a Bond villain. Yet, to
be fair, the powerhouse performances of Gert Frobe as Goldfinger and Harold
Sakata as Oddjob in the previous Bond film were a really tough act to follow.
Still, while Largo spends most of his screen time barking orders at his teams of
divers, the real menace to Bond comes from Fiona Volpe (the superb Luciana Paluzzi), a
bloodthirsty blonde assassin who likes to drive really, really fast.
Another problem with the film is that while the underwater photography looks
great, it does get monotonous at times, especially in the final climatic battle
between Navy divers and Largo’s boys. This whole section tends to drag on a
little too long (also watch for a goof here. When Largo pulls off Bond’s scuba
mask, Bond grabs another--a black mask--from a dead Spectre diver. But in the
scene immediately after this, Bond’s wearing a bright blue mask). But
Thunderball has plenty going for it. The Aston Martin makes a return visit early
in the film, the fight scenes are fun to watch, and Claudine Auger makes for one
of the most fetching Bond girls since Ursula Andress (it probably helps that,
thanks to the tropical locale, Auger spends the better part of her screen time
in scant outfits). Thunderball proves that the sharks are no longer the great
predators of the sea once James Bond enters the waters.
--SF
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