The Spy Who Loved Me was a step up from 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun. The Man with the Golden Gun got very bad reviews. And even though I don’t think it actually would’ve happened, had the James Bond series on the verge of going under. The Spy Who Loved Me turned all of that around. It was a rousing success at the box office and with critics. The theme song, which was performed by Carly Simon, was nominated for an academy award, but ended up losing to “You Light Up My Life”.
This film doesn’t have any overbearing themes like Live and Let Die had with the blacksploitation bit and The Man with the Golden Gun had with the kung-fu genre thing. But it does, of course, have an obligatory 70s chase scene. Which just so happens to be one of the most popular Bond scenes in the history of the earlier films. So, that’s a plus.
I guess, if there is any sort of theme, it would be the Cold War going on with the Soviet Union, like many other movies and TV shows had during those years. In fact, the film had to be rewritten from its original draft in order to be shown IN the Soviet Union, because it was considered “anti-Soviet”. So, they changed the characters to be more cooperative and friendly in order to show the movie overseas. Which, honestly, I don’t have a problem with. Because when you see the movie, it really makes a lot of sense to me that countries should be able to put their differences aside when a global super terrorist is threatening the world with total destruction.
The Spy Who Loved Me had pretty good practical effects, for 1977. The transforming car, otherwise known as “Wet Nellie”, that turned into a submarine, wasn’t just one car. Because they used practical effects back in those days, they had to use seven different cars for the shots, all at different stages of the transformation. Practical effects were so much more complicated back then. Now we have CGI and AI and all sorts of things. It’s hard to believe that so long ago, you couldn’t even turn a car into a submarine without using seven different cars…
So, yeah. Go and see The Spy Who Loved Me. It’s the rebirth of the Roger Moore era of Bond films. And Roger Moore has said himself that it’s his favorite of all of the films that he has made. And if you can’t trust a secret agent, who can you trust? And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…
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