Thunderball (1965)

Fiona: You look pale, Mr. Bond. I hope I didn't frighten you.
Bond: Well you see, I've always been a nervous passenger.
Fiona: Some men just don't like to be driven.
Bond: No, some men just don't like to be taken for a ride.

Night 4 of 25

Thunderball has a silly name. But, it is clearly the best of the first 4 Bonds. One of those rare franchises where each one actually builds up. -It also has a jetpack. Hard to beat a jetpack.

OK so what I didn't know about Thunderball is that about 25 to 35% of the movie takes place underwater.  Scuba gear and fins. The more I thought about this the more I came up with how hard the shoot must have been. -especially for Connery.

1. He has so many underwater shots! Days and days of shoots in the ocean, shoots in the pool, and virtually every take then requires either a re-up of oxygen, or instructions.
2. Then they bring in the underwater melee at the finish. -more people doing more underwater on cue.
3. I assume you have to pay everyone more for acting in alternative environments
4. The weather seems like a huge factor in determining the outcomes. It's not like you can drag big lights out into the reef to ensure constant usable light? -oh wait maybe you can.  But, if you do the costs spirals up.
5. The cameras that shoot underwater were probably temperamental and expensive.

So my big question for Thunderball was why.

Why even bother to have an aqua spy adventure when there are so many unexplored (see the next 21 films) ideas on land, or at least above the water?  I would try hard not to do this. Here are some reasons I came up with for why they chose this difficult concept.

1. Connery said "yes", but only if it was all located in the Bahamas
2. This is made in 1963-4 so this would have been right when scuba diving became cheap enough and vacations to tropical locations became attainable for Americans, perhaps there was an idea to have Bond ride that affordable aspiration.
3. Maybe the producers selected that they just wanted to be in the Bahamas.
4. They were going to include sharks. (that's it.)
5. Someone bet a creator that they couldn't

Secondarily, This is the first Bond that really could have captured the terror of a post Cuban Missile Crisis world. And here we have an example of a non-state actor (SPECTRE) stealing nukes and planning to extort everyone with threat in example after example of escalation dominance. I can only think that this plot was concocted as kind of shadowy doomsday scenario. It would be one thing for the USA to lose control of its stockpiles to a 3rd party, but an entirely different one for it's ally Great Britain to let nukes escape.

 On a scale of Chubby Checker to Fats Domino, I give Thunderball 3.5 out of 5 stars.