TV Cream

Films: O is for...

Octopussy

Roger Moore had dragged the Bond franchise well into `pleasingly silly’ by this time which is good in a sense but on a rather more sour note was also probably to blame for the lunge into `darker’ territory and the shift in quality took place under Sylvester McCoy, sorry, Timothy Dalton later on. Daft as a brush this may all be but there’s no denying that it’s well made nonsense at least and features a plethora of good stuff, from Louis Jourdan as one of the baddies (oh yes, there’s more than one here!) and Bonkers Steven Berkoff as the other. In the background there’s even General Gogol – always a favourite of ours – and Bruce Boa as the suitably sappy American General at the end. Faberge eggs, auction rooms, casinos, athletic popsies in red skin-tight outfits, menacing clowns, comedy Soviets that all look like Spitting Image puppet Russians, it’s all here. Not the best but it’s a long, long way off being the worst.

10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Paul Bovey

    December 5, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    Watched by Homer Simpson at least twice.

  2. George White

    January 4, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    Also featuring one of the Silver Shamrock Skeleton Masks from Halloween 3 worn by a circus stilt-walker…

  3. THX 1139

    November 28, 2017 at 1:36 pm

    But what is an Octopussy? I know it’s a punchline from an old punning joke, but what has it to do with the story? How did they settle on it as the title? There’s a reference in the movie, but it has nothing to do with the rest of the plot. The theme tune doesn’t even go “Oooooctoooopusssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

    And now nobody calls cats pussies anymore anyway, for obvious reasons.

    • Richard16378

      November 28, 2017 at 1:50 pm

      It was the lead female’s nickname for her tattoo IIRC.

      • THX 1139

        November 28, 2017 at 3:02 pm

        Yeah, I know, but it’s nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Wouldn’t a title like Five Minutes to Nuclear Armageddon be more appropriate? OK, not very elegant, but it might as well have been called Shark Infested Custard.

        • Richard16378

          November 28, 2017 at 6:48 pm

          At the time they seemed to be trying to use all the existing 007 story titles, & were running short of suitable ones.

          • THX 1139

            November 28, 2017 at 8:05 pm

            So they turned to Giles Brandreth?

  4. Glenn A

    December 11, 2017 at 10:42 pm

    Watched it again and it’s completely bonkers, Bond as a clown, dressed in a gorilla suit and impersonating Tarzan, but it’s a very amusing way to pass two hours. However, Stephen Berkoff, who was developing a name for playing sinister characters, is on top form as the insane General Orlov, Gobindah continues the trend for mute, psychopathic henchmen, and Maud Adams is one of the more interesting Bond girls, a smuggler and circus owner with a private army of females. I wouldn’t say Octopussy was the best Bond and purists hated it, but as a Carry On 007 it seems to work.

  5. George White

    December 12, 2017 at 10:01 am

    Gobinda is also a waste of a role for Bollywood star-turned-Euro-telly heartthrob Kabir Bedi, star of huge-in-everywhere-in-Europe-but-UK-and-ireland ITC-RAI Italian Malayan pirate nonsense Sandokan, a series which despite fondly remembered in Europe and constantly revived, at one point in cartoon animal form by BRB on Channel 4 as a successor to Willy Fog and Dogtanian, in its 70s telly form, only made it in some regions, i.e. Westward, becoming in the UK, more obscure than Ski-Boy.
    It’s like a Two Ronnies serial. Even featuring variety show vets the Hassani Troupe.
    Paul Hardwick – who plays Brezhnev also played the role in ITV docudramas Invasion! and is played by fellow telly Soviet Paul “Maureen Lipman’s ex-pat husband in Smiley’s People” Herzberg, a vet of the Professionals.
    The German village set was recycled from the Hallmark Anthony Hopkins Hunchback of Notredame and its CBS stablemate, the Douglas Camfield Ivanhoe, with Julian Glover reprising his role as Richard Couer De Lion from Doctor Who and the Crusade.

  6. Glenn Aylett

    April 27, 2019 at 3:03 pm

    The descent into comedy had to stop as the Bond purists and film critics were getting annoyed with an ageing Roger Moore being Bond for laughs, even if the box office was still excellent. A View To A Kill, Roger’s last outing, was darker with a villain who was clearly a psychopath, and the two Dalton outings turned Bond into a much darker figure. Indeed A Licence To Kill is as far removed from Octopussy as Doctor No was, but sadly the franchise was declining by 1989 and was put on ice for six years.

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To Top