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Bond Girls Are Forever
Through vintage film clips of past Bond movie epics, and with the participation of several former "Bond Girls" as interviewees (among them Dr. No's Ursula Andress and Diamonds Are Forever's Jill St. John), the documentary traces the evolution of the typical James Bond heroine from decorative damsel in distress to gutsy (but still decorative) participant in the action.
Release : | 2002 |
Rating : | 6.5 |
Studio : | Planet Grande Pictures, |
Crew : | Director, |
Cast : | Maryam d'Abo Ursula Andress Halle Berry Honor Blackman Luciana Paluzzi |
Genre : | Documentary |
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Reviews
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
Memorable, crazy movie
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Originally created for TV's American Movie Classics to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the first James Bond film, "Bond Girls Are Forever" (2002) collected film footage and new interviews with the leading ladies of those first twenty or so Bond films. The short documentary was slightly revamped in 2006 to include information about the film "Casino Royale". The documentary was co-created and is narrated by Maryam D'Abo, who played one of the more helpless and overall useless Bond girls in 1987's "The Living Daylights" opposite Timothy Dalton. She tracks down most of her Bond movie sorority sisters (a comparison made in the film) to discuss the significance in their lives and careers of having appeared in the series. There's certain repetitiveness to her discoveries, however for hardcore Bond fans the opportunity to see these women again is both exhilarating and disappointing, given the overarching mystique and fantasy elements of their presence in their respective films. The feminist criticism of the series and the empowerment of female characters within the past several entries is discussed, however the absence of Grace Jones, Roger Moore's adversary in "A View to a Kill", was felt by this viewer (as well as the other Moore era actresses Carole Bouquet, Barbara Bach, and Tanya Roberts). Though "Bond Girls are Forever" is a far more interesting entry into the Bond legacy than many other shows made about the phenomena there's a shallowness about it that's equivalent to many of the characters several of the women interviewed portrayed.
Intrigued by her own experience playing a Bond girl alongside Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights, Maryam d'Abo looks at the Bond girls from the original appearance of Ursula Andress through to one of the most recent entries (*raise eyebrow*) in the form of Halle Berry. I saw this piece of fluff as it was rolled out again with the release of 2006's Casino Royale but actually found it quite enjoyable for what it was.The film doesn't get every Bond girl of course but it gets a good selection of them involved and mostly draws some nice conversations out of them. d'Abo meets her interviewees in mostly relaxed situations and it seemed to work pretty well as she gets more than just obvious interviews and it is more like a load of chats. It is nice to hear personal recollections from some of the Bond girls even if none of them really provide any strong or memorable anecdotes or insights; however where they are just reminiscing they are all pretty cool. Some of them try to inject some social significance into the role and they fall flat. Yes, the nature of the Bond girl has changed with society but beyond this there isn't anything beyond very simplistic attempts at commentary.The natural contributions do tend to make it worth a look though with only Halle Berry meeting d'Abo like it was just yet another interview in a long day of interviews to promote her film. D'Abo is a reasonably good host in how she draws out the chat but not in her delivering narration, where she is a bit stiff and dull. Overall though it is an entertaining enough piece of fluff that benefits from a good collection of quite natural and chatty contributions. Nothing that interesting though but good enough for the short running time.
With a title like this one, you'd expect the usual, fluffy, ET-type of superficial clip flick. To my surprise, however, this retrospective/interview documentary, hosted (quite well) by former Bond girl Maryam D'Abo, turns out to be highly watchable, and not just for all the requisite clips of attractive women in bikinis. D'Abo, who co-wrote the script as well as hosted the interviews, does an excellent job of 'bonding' (ouch!) with her fellow eye-candy compatriots, and it really is fun (and interesting) to see the evolution of the role over time.Since the film was made some 40 years after Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore rolled in the hay with Sean Connery, and that image is firmly fixed in our cultural consciousness, it is somewhat disconcerting to see her now, white-haired and pushing 80 (but still regal). On the other hand, most of the more recent vintage actresses seem to have aged surprisingly well, and (at least to my mind) come across even sexier today than they did in their films. This is not the least because they are allowed to speak their minds without a script. Surprise, surprise, instead of just being decorative, many of them come across as being thoughtful, gracious and eloquent.The interviews with D'Abo were filmed casually, usually in public settings such as restaurants, bars or parks, but with extremely high production values. And since the film was made with the support of the franchise owners, there are more than enough clips from the original films to satisfy even hard core fans.While this was shot in 2002, AMC is running it in rotation now with the Bond films themselves, so I'd suggest that you set your Tivo to record it for you so that you can watch it at your leisure.
So I'm watching the 007 marathon on American Movie Classics, and along comes this show called "Bond Girls Are Forever". You can imagine my surprise when these women, who played characters with names like "Pussy Galore", "Dr. Good Head", and "Octopussy" started talking about themselves as if they were paragons of the women's lib movement! Each in turns claims that she was the first to portray a "strong female character" in a Bond film. Then the next claims she was the first, then the next one was the first, etc. Somewhat comical, just for the way they contradict each other.Then, even more unbelievably, Judi Dench (M in the Brosnan era movies) shows up. I don't thing there's a Bond fan on the face of the planet who would ever think of her androgynous, politically correct, repellent and repulsive hag character as a "Bond Girl", yet here she is. She's glad that "those days are over", referring to the days when Bond girls existed. Not especially appropriate for a show called "Bond Girls", but again, there it is.Someone comments that perhaps they should be called "Bond Women", as "girl" is degrading. At least one of the actresses has the good grace to laugh at this notion. Overall, this is a show about beautiful women, made by people who apparently think that beauty has no value, with only advancement of the cause of feminism being regarded as a worthy accomplishment. The sort of humorless, clueless imbeciles who, thankfully, weren't around to ruin the first 30 years of Bond films.