| Octopussy | |
|---|---|
 British theatrical release poster by Dan Goozee andRenato Casaro | |
| Directed by | John Glen |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | James Bond byIan Fleming |
| Produced by | Albert R. Broccoli |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Alan Hume |
| Edited by | Peter Davies Henry Richardson |
| Music by | John Barry |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | MGM/UA Entertainment Co. (U.S.) United International Pictures (International) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 131 minutes |
| Countries | United Kingdom[1] United States[2] |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $27.5 million |
| Box office | $187.5 million |
Octopussy is a 1983spy film and the thirteenth in theJames Bond series produced byEon Productions. It is the sixth to starRoger Moore as theMI6 agentJames Bond and the second to be directed byJohn Glen. The screenplay was written byGeorge MacDonald Fraser,Richard Maibaum andMichael G. Wilson.
The film's title is taken from a short story inIan Fleming's 1966 short story collectionOctopussy and The Living Daylights. Although the events of the "Octopussy" short story form part of the title character's background, the film's plot is mostly original. It does, however, contain a scene adapted from the Fleming short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions ofOctopussy and The Living Daylights)
InOctopussy, Bond is assigned the task of hunting a megalomaniacal Soviet general (Steven Berkoff) who is stealing jewellery and art objects from the Kremlin art repository. This leads Bond to the exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), and his associate Octopussy (Maud Adams), and the discovery of a plot to force disarmament inWestern Europe with the use of anuclear weapon.
Octopussy was produced byAlbert R. Broccoli and executive produced byMichael G. Wilson; it was released four months before the non-Eon Bond filmNever Say Never Again. The film earned $187.5 million against its $27.5 million budget and received mixed reviews. Praise was directed towards the action sequences and locations, with the plot and humour being targeted for criticism; Adams's portrayal of the titular character also drew polarised responses.
Octopussy was followed byA View to a Kill in 1985.
After an encounter with knife-throwing twin assassins Mischka and Grishka inEast Berlin, mortally wounded British agent 009, dressed as a circus clown and carrying a fakeFabergé egg, crashes into the British ambassador's residence and dies.MI6 suspectsSoviet involvement and, after the real Fabergé egg is to be auctioned inLondon, sends James Bond to identify the seller.
At the auction, Bond switches the fake egg for the real one and engages in a bidding war with exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan, forcing Khan to pay £500,000 for the fake egg. Bond follows Khan to his palace inIndia. Bond defeats Khan in a game ofbackgammon using Khan's loaded dice. Bond and his MI6 contact, Vijay, escape Khan's bodyguard Gobinda in a taxi chase through a marketplace. Later, Khan's associate Magda seduces Bond. Bond allows Magda to steal the real Fabergé egg, which is fitted with Q's listening and tracking device. Gobinda knocks Bond unconscious and takes him to Khan's palace. After Bond escapes, he listens in on the bug and discovers that Khan works with Orlov, a corrupt Soviet general seeking to defy his superiors and expand Soviet domination to Western Europe. Orlov has been supplying Khan with priceless Soviet treasures stolen from the Kremlin, replacing them with fakes while Khan has been smuggling the real objects into the West using Octopussy's circus.
Bond infiltrates a floating palace inUdaipur and meets Octopussy, a businesswoman, smuggler and Khan's associate. She also leads the Octopus cult, which Magda is a member of. Octopussy has a personal connection with Bond: her father was the late Major Dexter-Smythe, who Bond arrested for treason. Octopussy thanks Bond for allowing the Major to commit suicide rather than face trial, and invites Bond to be her guest. Khan's assassins break into the palace to kill Bond, but Bond and Octopussy defeat them. Bond learns from Q that the assassins have killed Vijay.
Orlov is planning to meet Khan inKarl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany, where the circus is scheduled to perform, while back in Moscow,General Gogol begins to pursue Orlov when the fake jewels are discovered. Travelling toEast Germany, Bond infiltrates the circus and discovers that Orlov has replaced the jewels with a nuclear warhead, primed to explode during the circus performance at aUnited States Air Force base inWest Germany. The explosion would cause Europe to seek unilateraldisarmament in the belief that the bomb belonged to the US and was detonated at the airbase accidentally, which would leave the unprotected borders open to a Soviet invasion.
Bond drives Orlov's car along the railway tracks and boards the circus train. Orlov gives chase, but is killed byborder guards when he tries to catch the train as it crosses the border. Bond kills Mischka and Grischka to avenge the murder of 009, and after falling from the train, hitch-hikes a lift from a passing motorist to reach the airbase, eventually stealing a car from a nearby town to complete his journey. Bond penetrates the base and disguises himself as a clown to evade the West German police. He convinces Octopussy that Khan has betrayed her, and realizing that she has been tricked, she assists Bond in deactivating the warhead.
With the plan stopped, Khan has returned to his palace and prepares to flee. Bond and Octopussy also return separately to India. Bond arrives at Khan's palace just as Octopussy and her troops launch an assault on the grounds.
Octopussy attempts to kill Khan, but is captured by Gobinda. While Octopussy's team overpowers Khan's guards, Khan and Gobinda abandon the palace, taking Octopussy as a hostage. As they attempt to escape in their plane, Bond clings to the fuselage and disables an engine and theelevator panel. Struggling with Bond, Gobinda falls to his death, and Bond and Octopussy jump off the plane onto a nearby cliff seconds before the plane crashes, killing Khan. While the Minister of Defence and Gogol discuss the return of the stolen jewels to the Kremlin, Bond recuperates with Octopussy aboard her private galley in India.
Other actors in smaller roles include Andy Bradford as MI6 agent 009,Dermot Crowley as Lieutenant Kamp, Orlov's nuclear weapons expert; formerPan's People dancerCherry Gillespie as Midge, an Octopussy subordinate; Peter Porteous as Lenkin, the Kremlin art expert;Eva Rueber-Staier as Rublevitch, Gogol's secretary;Jeremy Bulloch as Smithers, Q's assistant;Richard LeParmentier as General Peterson's aide; andGabor Vernon as Borchoi.Ingrid Pitt has an uncredited voice cameo as Octopussy's galley mistress.
Despite financial problems atUnited Artists after the release ofMichael Cimino'sHeaven's Gate, the studio greenlit another James Bond film to be produced and released in 1983. In May 1981, one month after the announcement, UA was purchased and merged intoMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer.[5]Michael G. Wilson,Richard Maibaum, andGeorge MacDonald Fraser were hired to write a film based on short stories from Ian Fleming's posthumous collectionOctopussy and The Living Daylights.[6] Fraser later said his work on an unfilmed script of the novelTai Pan led to his hiring.[7]
Little of the plot of the short story "Octopussy" is used, however, with its events simply related by Bond as the family backstory for one of the main characters. The scene atSotheby's is, though, adapted from the short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions of the collection), while Kamal Khan's reaction following the backgammon game is taken from Fleming's novelMoonraker.[8] After initially intending the film to be set inJapan, Fraser choseIndia as the setting because of his extensive research on the country for his novelFlashman.[6]
Fraser was hired to work on an early draft of the script and he proposed that the story be set inIndia, as the series had not yet visited said country.[9] The first draft was delivered shortly after the release ofFor Your Eyes Only,[8] whose writersMichael G. Wilson andRichard Maibaum went on to rework the script. They discarded his idea for the opening sequence, featuring a motorbike chase set at theIsle of Man TT, but still retained moments that producerAlbert R. Broccoli had first criticized, where Bond dressed as a gorilla and later, a clown.[9] The film was rewritten to focus on jewellery smuggling after a scandal in theSoviet Union involving General SecretaryLeonid Brezhnev's son-in-law in which theMoscow State Circus was being used to smuggle jewellery.[5]
FollowingFor Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore had expressed a desire to retire from the role of James Bond. His original contract had been for three films (Live and Let Die in 1973,The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974 andThe Spy Who Loved Me in 1977) which was fulfilled. Moore's following two films (Moonraker in 1979 andFor Your Eyes Only in 1981) were negotiated on a film-by-film basis. Given his reluctance to return forOctopussy, the producers engaged in a semi-public quest for the next Bond, withTimothy Dalton andLewis Collins[5] being suggested as a replacement and screen tests carried out withMichael Billington,Oliver Tobias, and American actorJames Brolin.[6] However, when rival Bond productionNever Say Never Again was announced with former BondSean Connery playing Bond, the producers persuaded Moore to continue in the role as it was thought the established actor would fare better against Connery.[10] It has been reported that Brolin had actually been hired and was on the point of moving to London to begin work onOctopussy, while Broccoli refused to dispute Tobias's public statements that he was about to be cast as Bond.[11][6]
Sybil Danning was announced inPrevue magazine in 1982 as being Octopussy, but was never actually cast, later explaining that Albert R. Broccoli felt "her personality was too strong".[12]Faye Dunaway was deemed too expensive.Barbara Carrera said she turned down the role in order to appear asFatima Blush in the competing Bond filmNever Say Never Again.Octopussy casting directorJane Jenkins revealed that the Bond producers told her that they wanted aSouth Asian actress to play Octopussy, so she considered the only two Indians in predominantly white Hollywood,Persis Khambatta andSusie Coelho. Afterward, she auditioned white actresses, likeBarbara Parkins andKathleen Turner,[5] who she felt could pass for Indian. Finally, Broccoli announced to her that Octopussy would be portrayed by Swedish-born Maud Adams, who had been a Bond girl inThe Man with the Golden Gun (1974), and had been recently used by Eon to screen test the potential Bonds. To acknowledge the nationality, Adams had her hair darkened, and a few lines were added about how she was raised by an Indian family. A different plotline, with Adams's British father exposed as a traitor, was used instead.[13] The role of Magda went to another Swedish actress,Kristina Wayborn, who gained the attention of producers with her portrayal ofGreta Garbo in the TV miniseriesThe Silent Lovers.[10]Pam Grier turned down an offer to play a Bond girl in the film.[14]
Octopussy is also the first film to feature Robert Brown as M, following the death ofBernard Lee in 1981. Brown was recommended by Moore, who had known him since both worked in the seriesIvanhoe.[15] Brown had previously played Admiral Hargreaves inThe Spy Who Loved Me, six years earlier.[16]
The first actor to be cast in the film wasVijay Amritraj, a popular Indian professional tennis player whom Broccoli met while watchingThe Championships in Wimbledon. His character of Bond's ally in India was also named Vijay and used a tennis racket as a weapon. For the villains, Broccoli brought in his friendLouis Jourdan as Kamal Khan, while his daughter Barbara suggestedSteven Berkoff for Orlov after having seen him perform his own play,Greek, in Los Angeles.[10]
The filming ofOctopussy began inWest Berlin on 10 August 1982 with the scene in which Bond arrives atCheckpoint Charlie.[17] Other locations from the city includedSpandau Prison, theBrandenburg Gate, andPotsdamer Platz.[6] Principal photography was done by Arthur Wooster and his second unit, who later filmed the knife-throwing scenes.[18] Filming in India began on 12 September 1982 inUdaipur,Rajasthan.[6] TheMonsoon Palace served as the exterior of Kamal Khan's palace, while scenes set at Octopussy's palace were filmed at theLake Palace andJag Mandir, and Bond's hotel was theShiv Niwas Palace.[10] In EnglandRAF Northolt,RAF Upper Heyford andRAF Oakley were the main locations.[19] TheKarl-Marx-Stadt railways scenes were shot at theNene Valley Railway inPeterborough, while studio work was performed atPinewood Studios and the007 Stage.[20] Parts of the film were also shot inHurricane Mesa,Hurricane-LaVerkin Bridge, andNew Harmony inUtah.[21] Most of the crew, as well as Roger Moore, had diet problems while shooting in India.[3]
The pre-title sequence has a scene where Bond flies a nimblehomebuiltBede BD-5J aircraft through an open hangar.[18] Hollywood stunt pilot and aerial co-ordinator J. W. "Corkey" Fornof, who piloted the aircraft at more than 150 miles per hour (240 km/h), has said, "Today, few directors would consider such a stunt. They'd just whip it up in a computer lab."[22] Having collapsible wings, the plane was shown hidden in a horse trailer; however, a dummy was used for this shot.[23] Filming inside the hangar was achieved by attaching the aircraft to an oldJaguar car with a steel pole, driving with the roof removed.[18] The second unit were able to add enough obstacles including people and objects inside the hangar to hide the car and the pole and make it look as though Moore was flying inside the base. For the explosion after the mini jet escapes, however, a miniature of the hangar was constructed and filmed up close. The exploding pieces of the hangar were in reality only four inches (10 cm) long.[10]
Much later in the film, Bond steals Orlov'sMercedes-Benz at a depot defended by antagonist soldiers; as he tries to escape, he drives over barrier spikes shredding the tyres and then manoeuvres the car's bare wheels onto the rails to pursue Octopussy's circus train. During filming, the car had intact tyres in one scene so as to avoid any mishap.[23]
Stunt coordinatorMartin Grace suffered an injury while shooting the scene where Bond climbs down the train to catch Octopussy's attention.[24] During the second day of filming, Grace – who was Roger Moore's stunt double for the scene – carried on doing the scene longer than he should have, due to a miscommunication with the second unit director, and the train entered a section of the track which the team had not properly surveyed. Shortly afterwards, a concrete pole fractured Grace's left leg. The cyclist seen passing in the middle of a sword fight during thebaby taxi chase sequence was in fact a bystander who passed through the shot, oblivious to the filming; his intrusion was captured by two cameras and left in the final film.[10] Cameraman Alan Hume's last scene was that of Octopussy's followers rowing. That day, little time was left and it was decided to film the sunset at the eleventh hour.[25]
TheFabergé egg in the film is based on a real one, made in 1897 and which is called theImperial Coronation egg. The egg in the film is listed in the auction catalogue as being "The Property of a Lady", which is the name of one of Ian Fleming's short stories released in more recent editions of the collectionOctopussy and The Living Daylights.
In a bit ofdiegesis that "breaks thefourth wall", Vijay signals his affiliation to MI6 by playing the "James Bond Theme" on arecorder while Bond is disembarking from a boat in the harbour near the City Palace.[26] Like his fictional counterpart, the real Vijay had a distinct fear of snakes and found it difficult to hold the basket during filming.[10]
After being absent inFor Your Eyes Only due to tax problems,John Barry returned to do his ninth Bond score.[27] Barry made frequent references to the "James Bond Theme" to reinforceOctopussy as the official Bond film, given that the motif could not be featured inNever Say Never Again, and opted to include only subtle references to themusic of India, avoiding instruments such as the sitar for feeling that authentic music "didn't work dramatically". He also wrote opening theme "All Time High" with lyricistTim Rice. "All Time High", sung byRita Coolidge, is one of sevenmusical themes in the James Bond series whose song titles do not refer to the film's title. "All Time High" spent four weeks at number one on the United States'Adult Contemporary singles chart and reached number 36 on theBillboard Hot 100.[26]
The soundtrack album was released in 1985 byA&M Records; the compact disc version of this release was recalled due to a colour printing error which omitted the credits from the album cover, making it a rare collector's item. In 1997, the soundtrack was re-issued byRykodisc, with the original soundtrack music and some film dialogue, on anEnhanced CD version. The 2003 release, byEMI, restored the original soundtrack music without dialogue.[28]
Octopussy was the first Bond film released byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which had absorbedUnited Artists, the previous distributor of Eon Bond films.Octopussy premiered at theOdeon Leicester Square on 6 June 1983, withthe Prince andPrincess of Wales in attendance.[29] The film earned slightly less thanFor Your Eyes Only, but still grossed $187.5 million, with $67.8 million in the United States and Canada.[30] In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £8.3 million ($14.9 million).[31][32] Other large international grosses include $15.7 million in Germany, $15.1 million in Japan and $9.1 million in France.[32] The film also performed better thanNever Say Never Again, the non-Eon Bond remake ofThunderball which was released a few months later and grossed $55 million in the United States and Canada.[33] At the11th Saturn Awards, Maud Adams was nominated forBest Supporting Actress.[34] The film won the Golden Reel Award forBest Sound Editing.[35] In Germany, it won theGolden Screen Award for selling over 3 million tickets.[36]
Gary Arnold ofThe Washington Post feltOctopussy was "one of the snazziest, wittiest productions" of the film series, in which he praised John Glen's direction, Louis Jourdan's performance, and the screenplay.[37] Writing forThe New York Times,Vincent Canby praised the film, but noted how "much of the story is incomprehensible".[38]Gene Siskel, reviewing forThe Chicago Tribune, awarded the film three stars out of four, stating it is "surprisingly entertaining—surprising because in his previous five Bond appearances Roger Moore has always come off as a smug stiff. InOctopussy Moore relaxes a bit and, just as important, his role is subordinated to the film's many and extremely exciting action scenes.Octopussy has the most sustained excitement in a Bond film sinceYou Only Live Twice." However, he felt that the character Octopussy was detrimental to the film and the action "blunts a script that is weak on characterization and long on male chauvinism".[39]
Variety felt the film's strong points were "the spectacular aerial stuntwork marking both the pre-credits teaser and extremely dangerous-looking climax. The rest of the action scenes are well-executed but suffer from a sense of deja vu, as in a speeding train that recalls Sean Connery's derring-do inThe Great Train Robbery".[40]Kevin Thomas of theLos Angeles Times felt the film proved "to be business as usual, no better or worse than most of its predecessors. After all this time, it's amazing that the same old formula still plays: the gadgetry, gorgeous girls, travelogue locales and the shameless double-entendres—in this instance, octo-entendres."[41]Richard Corliss ofTime magazine negatively reviewed Moore's performance, writing he has "degenerated [Bond] into a male model, and something of a genial anachronism."[42]Derek Malcolm ofThe Guardian wrote the film "doesn't treat itself seriously for a moment ...Bond has now become almost totally absurdist, a parody of a parody. The film effectively disarms criticism, except that one might wish for the public to flock to something other than the technically ambitious."[43]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 41% based on 49 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite a couple of electrifying action sequences,Octopussy is a formulaic,anachronistic Bond outing."[44]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 63 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[45]
James Berardinelli said that the movie was long and confusing, and strongly criticisedSteven Berkoff's performance, describing it as "offensively bad" and the worst performance of any Bond villain.[46] A particular point of contention are comedic scenes where Bond is dressed in a clown costume, a gorilla outfit and doing aTarzan yell during a jungle chase.[47] As a result, it frequently ranks low in rankings of James Bond films, such as the ones byEntertainment Weekly,[48]MSN,[49] andIGN.[50] C. J. Henderson reviewedOctopussy inThe Space Gamer magazine, writing "there isn't a moment in the movie when we worry for the slightest instant that anything could happen to suave ol' James. Predictably, it doesn't. To kill Bond would be to lose the most bankable genre character ever brought to the movies."[51]
By contrast, the elegance of the film locations in India, and the stunts on the aircraft and train were appreciated.[52]GQ writer David Williams saidOctopussy was "one of the best 'Bad Films' of the franchise", praising the entertaining characters but finding the silliness and Moore's advanced age problematic.[53]Danny Peary wrote thatOctopussy "has slow spots, little humour, and villains who aren't nearly of the calibre ofDr. No,Goldfinger, orBlofeld. Also, the filmmakers make the mistake of demeaning Bond by having him swing through the trees and emitting a Tarzan cry and having him hide in a gorilla suit and later disguise himself as a clown (who all the kids at the circus laugh at). It's as if they're trying to remind us that everything is tongue-in-cheek, but that makes little sense, for the film is much more serious than typical Bond outings – in fact, it recalls the tone ofFrom Russia with Love."[54]
In 2006,Fandango ranked the character Octopussy as one of the top-10Bond girls, and described her as "a powerful, impressive woman".[55]Entertainment Weekly, however, ranked her as the 10th-worst Bond girl in one list in 2006[56] but as the best "babe" of the Roger MooreJames Bond films in another list in 2008.[57] A poll by Bond fans in 2008 elected Octopussy as the tenth-worst Bond Girl.[58]Yahoo! Movies included the character in a 2012 list of the best Bond girl names, commenting: "This Bond girl moniker was so good, they named the film after her!"[59]
Octopussy premiered inNorth America onThe ABC Sunday Night Movie on February 2, 1986. It placed third in its time period with aNielsen Media Research household rating of 17.4, a 29% audience share, and approximately 25 million viewers. The movie started 18 minutes late due to an overrun earlier in the day ofWide World of Sports,[60] which may have negatively impacted its performance slightly (a key action sequence near the end of the film[61] did not air until after 11:30pm in theEastern Time Zone).
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