THE BOOK: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Author: Ian Fleming
Year published: 1960
Format: This is a series of short stories, three of which (according to the James Bond wiki) were adapted from outlines of episodes Fleming had written in anticipation of a TV show that never happened. "The Hildebrand Rarity" was written for Playboy and "Quantum of Solace" for Cosmopolitan, according to the wiki.
Personal note: I got a cheap ($3-4) reading copy from Thrift Books. It was obviously stored someplace damp at some point, and is very old (it is, in fact, a copy of the book to the left).
The reason I mention it is because this book smells so bad it gives me a headache if I read it for more than 10 minutes or so. And I have to wash my hands after. It literally stinks! In all my decades of reading books, that's a first.
"FROM A VIEW TO A KILL"
THE PLOT
James Bond is between assignments in Paris when he is called in to investigate the nearby murder and robbery of a military dispatch rider carrying top-secret documents. The rider was making a regularly scheduled morning motorcycle run between Versailles (where Allied headquarters was) and Saint-Germain (where British HQ was).
THE COMMENTARY
The story begins with the description of a British military dispatch rider on a motorcycle on a rural road between Versailles and St. Germain in France. But he is not British, he is (as we learn later) a Soviet spy — and when he catches up with an actual British dispatch rider, the Soviet murders the Brit.
This is very well done. This is the sort of thing Fleming excels at.
When Bond is introduced, he's at a Paris café having an adolescent daydream — like in Goldfinger and some other books — about a chance encounter with some hot chick that will lead to sex. I'm always glad when these scenes are interrupted (usually by the sort of girl that Bond is daydreaming about) before Bond starts fantasizing about the old in-and-out. That's a different kind of book.
True to form, Bond's daydream is interrupted by a girl who looks remarkably like his daydream. She is named Mary Ann Russell, and she has been sent by Station F to find Bond, to dragoon him into service on the dispatch-rider murder. They banter as they return to Station F, and plan a date.
Unfortunately, after this encounter, at least half of Bond's major motivation for the rest of the book is to spend as much time as possible with Mary Ann. (When Bond says or thinks "Mary Ann," I kept thinking of Gilligan's Mary Ann Summers, and had to shake the image out of my head.) I'd be appalled at this shallow behavior — A British soldier is dead! Spies are afoot! Focus, Bond! — except it happens so often in Fleming stories that I now take it in stride.
Bond meets with British Col. Schreiber, the head of security for Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces Europe for NATO. Bond doesn't like him.
I like Bond's discussions with other law-enforcement or governmental types. They give me insight into Fleming's idea of good men (manly combat vets), not-so-good men (not-so-manly bureaucrats), and boring men (colonial governors and secretaries). This gives me further insight into the character of Fleming's idealized self, James Bond.
Col. Schreiber is vaguely in Bond's line of work. Nevertheless, he is the opposite of Bond. He's incurious, is clearly attached to a family, inhabits a colorless office (a single white rose is the only floral touch), has a "smooth forehead" (indicating a lack of anxiety) and has "the air of a bank manager." Disdain is mutual, and the next day Schreiber throws Bond out of his guest room, ever so politely, when "the manners of both men were running out."
Bond investigates a former gypsy camp Schreiber told him about. According to M, Bond is capable of seeing the "invisible" — what's so commonplace as to be ignored in a crime scene. (Like gypsies, presumably.) Bond proves M right by finding evidence of a motorcycle being dragged between the trees and the evidence covered up. He returns at night in camouflage, and witnesses a man emerge from a hidden Soviet bunker.
Henry Chancellor's James Bond: The Man and His World (2005) says the idea for the bunker came from Fleming's brother Peter, who dug tunnel networks in England in World War II in anticipation of a Nazi invasion.
I understand the inspiration, but the execution raises my eyebrows. Englishmen under orders from the English military building bunkers in England under English supervision is one thing. But how did the Soviets manage to get enough men, resources and materiel into France at the height of the Cold War, just a few miles from Versailles, to build an underground bunker large enough to house three men, without anyone noticing? Keep in mind this thing had mobile camouflage good enough to fool Bond; an elevator; an electric periscope; an electric, telescoping radio antenna; and enough room, food and water to house three men for extended periods. It almost necessarily has some sort of septic tank or connection to a sewage line (or picture what the surrounding area would look/smell like, with three men using it for a latrine). I literally can't imagine how this could have been done.
Fleming says the Soviets used gypsies as cover. Oh, well, then. That explains everything.
But here's another angle: If the Soviets are capable of this, why are they bothering with the hijack of dispatch riders? They could be building underground hideouts all over Europe, engaging in all kinds of mischief — assassinations, terrorist bombings, you name it. These guys going to this amount of trouble just to steal documents is sort of like the Silver Age comic book supervillain who builds an army of robots, airplanes and submarines to rob a bank.
Well, we must accept what we must accept. After all, hidden underground lairs are par for the course in James Bond books.
And here's another thing we must accept: Instead of just reporting the bunker and having the British Army (or French Army) take care of it, Bond decides to pretend to be a British dispatch rider on the same run as the dead man. He hopes to lure the killer back out for a repeat of the crime, which he does. (It's hard to swallow that the killer would repeat the crime so soon, while the first was still under investigation. But OK.) Bond kills the killer (in another thrilling motorcycle scene), and returns to the bunker disguised as his victim. But he forgets to put on snow shoes — the Soviets use show shoes so as to leave no footprints, a nice Fleming touch — and the Soviets open fire. Bond fires back, as do the British soldiers he has brought with him. Bond is about to get shot when his wannabe killer is shot instead — by Mary Ann, who tagged along against orders, to protect Bond.
The scene is rather staged to allow for Mary Ann's last-minute heroics, and I had already guessed she'd show up. But I appreciate it anyway. It's a satisfying, if expected, finale.
But also it verifies that Mary Ann is really into Bond, and not just accepting his advances because he's a superior officer who can affect her career. They didn't worry about that sort of thing in the '50s, when bosses chasing their secretaries around their desks was a standing joke. But I'm a reader in the 21st century, and power imbalances are obvious to me. If I get a whiff of a girl being coerced into sex by the hero, it can ruin the story for me.
SUMMARY
This is a lesser work, with few surprises and a lot of implausibilities. So I'm not surprised that it's never been adapted. But it's a pleasant way to spend an hour or so, if you like Bond and don't expect fireworks.
STRAY BULLETS
- Following Fleming's usual naming convention, the British Secret Service bureau in France is Station F.
- The title comes from a traditional hunting song, "D'ye Ken John Peel?", but it's never spoken in the story.
- The original title was "The Rough and the Smooth," which sounds like a shaving commercial.
- World War II connection: While the Soviets are Bond's bête noire, Fleming never misses a chance to reference World War II — especially in this book, especially Nazis. (In Goldfinger, he drags in the Nazis, the North Koreans and the Imperial Japanese, as well as the Russians!) The Soviets are behind this story's scheme as usual, but given the setting, WWII is virtually the context.
- Before the fall of the Soviet Union, I was taught in school and in journalism to always say "Soviets" (which was inclusive of the Baltics, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the 'stans, Armenia, Azerbaijan and other non-Russian peoples in the USSR, like the Chechens) and not "Russians," which only referred to people from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, what is today the Russian Federation. Perversely, Fleming insisted on saying "Russians" throughout his books, which were written during the lifetime of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922-1991). Conveniently, now that the USSR is no more, the Soviets are Russians again. So I guess Fleming, who was in his teens before the Soviet Union came to be, just waited out this "Soviet" fad.
- Both Bond and Mary Ann are bored with Paris. I don't recall Fleming ever saying anything complimentary about the French. Which is very English.
- Fleming repeatedly refers to the Allied HQ in Versailles as Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces Europe, but uses the acronym SHAPE (cf. SHAFE). That's because the name of the organization was actually Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Maybe Fleming was using an older name from his own wartime service, while still getting the acronym right?
- In Fleming books, maps are always by Michelin or Esso, and carry-alls by Pan Am. Let's call it "The Lost World," shall we?
- This story was originally planned to be the origin of Hugo Drax (Moonraker) as the third episode of the dropped Bond TV show. It would be set in World War II and flesh out Drax's anecdote in Moonraker of being dressed in a British Army uniform (he was a spy/assassin) in France, when he is knocked out in a German bombing raid and wakes up in an American aid station. (Yes, that's four nationalities in one sentence!)
THE MOVIE: A VIEW TO A KILL
Year: 1985
Director: John Glen
Writers: Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson
Starring: Roger Moore (James Bond), Christopher Walken (Max Zorin), Tanya Roberts (Stacey Sutton), Grace Jones (May Day), Patrick Macnee (Tibbett), Patrick Bauchau (Scarpine), David Yip (Chuck Lee), Fiona Fullerton (Pola Ivanova), Manning Redwood (Bob Conley), Alison Doody (Jenny Flex), Willoughby Gray (Dr. Carl Mortner), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Robert Brown (M), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Walter Gotell (General Gogol), Geoffrey Keen (Ministry of Defence), Jean Rougerie (Aubergine), Daniel Benzali (Howe)
Notable songs: The theme song, "A View to a Kill," was written by John Barry and Duran Duran, and performed by the band. It became the only Bond theme song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song.
THE PLOT
The recovery of a microchip off the body of a fellow agent leads James Bond to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley.
THE COMMENTARY
The story opens someplace very cold with military people speaking Russian and looking for something. Bond (in a white snowsuit) is also there, and also looking for something. He finds it on a dead body: It's a microchip.
The movie doesn't give us the details, but the Internet does: This takes place in Siberia, and the dead man is British Secret Service agent 003.
The Soviets discover Bond and try to kill him with armed men in a helicopter, on a snowmobile and on skies. The Soviets all went to the Star Wars Stormtrooper Marksman Academy, but it's still a pretty cool chase, no pun necessary. Bond proves himself a better skier than the Soviets (many of whom presumably grew up on skis), steals the snowmobile (temporarily) and takes the chopper out with a flare. (Why doesn't he have a gun?)
During the chase Bond ends up on one ski for a while, and later uses a blade from the blown-up snowmobile to snowboard. Briefly he rides the "snowboard" from snow, across water, and back to snow, justifying the needle drop of a Beach Boys song ("California Girls").
Bond finally escapes in a ship disguised as an iceberg. (At first I thought it was a submarine, as it had a hatch on the top. Maybe it was and they just didn't have the budget to submerge it.) The interior is basically a pilot station and a mosh bit.
The pilot is, of course, a pretty girl — this is a Bond film — named Kimberley Jones, played by Mary Stavin. I don't know if that name has been used in a book I haven't yet read, or that character has appeared in a movie I haven't yet seen (I still have six Fleming books to go.) But after this pre-credits sequence, she is never seen in the movie again.
One other thing about Kimberley: Aside from the fact that the twentysomething joins 58-year-old Roger Moore in the mosh pit for vodka, caviar and sex for (we're told) five days, the most remarkable thing is how much she looks like Farrah Fawcett-Majors. That's Stavin at right.
Bond meets with the new M, played by Robert Brown, and the old Minister of Defence, played by Geoffrey Keen. The Minister, who began his sequence in the Bond films being a foil for Bond, displays occasional snarkiness here, but mostly plays it straight. I guess it's harder to play the fool when Bernard Lee isn't there to maintain order as the adult in the room.
The issue is microchips, specifically those manufactured by French/American industrialist Max Zorin, which can withstand an Electromagnetic Pulse. Bond explains an EMP to M and the Minister, which is shocking, in that the guys in charge of the UK's defense department and intelligence apparatus don't know want an EMP is in 1985. You know, and I know, that the purpose of the scene is to explain an EMP to the audience, but the way it plays out makes M and the Defence Minister look like idiots.
Zorin also breeds horses, and despite coming from inferior breedlines, they always win. Joined by Moneypenny, the three men retire to Ascot Racecourse in Berkshire to watch one of Zorin's horses race (it wins). In the course of the scene, we meet trainer Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) and see Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) and his bodyguard and presumed lover May Day (Grace Jones).
- Macnee is significant because he played John Steed in The Avengers throughout its run. He slips into the humor/danger of a Bond movie with ease. One wonders why he was never in one before. And, since he's 63 in this movie, I didn't expect him to survive to the end. (He didn't.) But Tibbet's banter with Bond is fun.
- Walken is significant because he's one of the most eccentric actors in America, and was born to be a Bond villain. He carries it off with the exact aplomb you'd imagine — strange mannerisms, laughter at inappropriate times, weird pauses in speech, innocuous conversation that somehow feels dangerous. He also has startling blond-white hair, thanks to hair dye. My wife thinks he makes the movie.
- Jones is also perfectly cast, as her female-denying bodybuilder form and strabismus combine to make her pretty convincing as a terrifying opponent.
Bond and Tibbett go to a horse auction at Zorin's enormous estate in Chantilly near Paris. This scene is notable for the duo discovering shenanigans performed on the horse by a Dr. Mortner. The root word for his name is "mors," and all good comic book fans know that any name or word which includes the Latin word for death means evil (Mordru, Mordo, Mordred, etc.) He also wears a monocle, so you know he's evil, and probably Prussian. Turns out all this is true, as we are later told that he experimented with steroids on pregnant prisoners in Nazi concentration camps in an attempt to improve intelligence in the fetuses. It worked, but the downside is that the children were psychopaths. All of them died except one: Max Zorin, a proud psychopathic genius who has a father/son relationship with Mortner.
At Chantilly we meet Ginny Flex, a pun on genuflects, who is another Zorin killer. We also meet Stacy Sutton, whose connection to the whole affair is unclear, although Bond sees Zorin pay her $5 million. She doesn't have a punny name like May Day and Ginny Flex, so that's a good sign.
Sutton is played by Tanya Roberts, about whom I have never known anything, except that she looked great in the Sheena, Queen of the Jungle ads for the movie in 1984 I never saw. Little did I know that the likely reason she disappeared after Sheena and View is that she can't act.
Bond and Tibbetts discover why Zorin's horses always win: He surgically implants a microchip/injection assembly into the horse, which can inject fatigue-neutralizing steroids at the touch of a button at the top of Zorin's cane. Then he sells the horse's sire and dame for millions. This combines both Mortner's and Zorin's areas of expertise.
Like Drax and Goldfinger, Zorin can't resist the easy score while he's working on his Evil Scheme. He probably cheats at cards.
Zorin's scheme is to flood the San Andreas Fault and set off a huge bomb, resulting in a massive earthquake that will destroy the U.S. microchip industry (and, incidentally, kill millions). Then he'll corner the market.
But before that Zorin is visited by our old friend Gen. Gogol of the KGB, who wants Zorin to knock off his side hustles and get back to his espionage duties. Zorin quits the KGB. The most significant part of this scene is the cameo of young bodybuilder Dolph Lundgren as one of Gogol's guards. Lundgren was dating Grace Jones at the time, who got him the gig.
The KGB is now also working against Zorin, and frogman-suited Bond spies on two KGB spies who are spying on Zorin near the intake pipe for his flood-the-fault scheme. Zorin captures and kills one of the KGB spies, but the other escapes. She and Bond recognize each other, and escape together.
A modern viewer must remember that during "detente" days, it was not uncommon for Western and Soviet characters to work together for a gauzily defined "peace." That unspoken Hollywood decision didn't last past Boris Yeltsin, but it's now an interesting cultural artifact.
Bond and the KGB agent, Pola Ivanova (a pun on "pole a female Ivan," I guess), re-energize their friendship with a bout of hide-the-salami at a Japanese bath house. The scene offers little except Bond stealing the tape Ivanova made of Zorin explaining his scheme, which Bond would have gotten anyway if the KGB hadn't gotten in the way. I guess they just wanted to show some more skin. (Pola's, not Bond's, thank God.)
It all comes together in Zorin's mines, where Zorin guns down everybody, except those deep in the mine (Bond, Stacy, May Day), his major domo and Mortner. Bond and May Day, trapped in the flooding mine with the bomb countdown reaching the end, take the bomb out of the mine at the cost of May Day's life. Zorin & Co. escape in a dirigible, and capture Stacy for good measure.
Bond hangs on to a mooring line, and Zorin tries to scrape him off on the Golden Gate bridge. Bond entangles the line on the bridge, forcing Zorin to come out and fight with a fire axe (he loses). The dirigible blows up thanks to Mortner bungling some dynamite, and Bond and Stacy engage in the traditional end-credits sexy time.
SUMMARY
Live and Let Die, Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only were painful to watch, while this one was a pleasant surprise. My wife and I declared this the best Roger Moore Bond movie we've seen to date (we haven't watched Man with the Golden Gun, Spy Who Loved Me or Octopussy yet). Roger Moore was really too old for this (58), and despite plastic surgery or makeup tricks or wigs or whatever they used to make him look significantly younger, significantly younger was still too old. It was almost painful to watch twentysomething girls pretend to melt over him. But the chase scenes were markedly better than previous efforts, and the horses were there for girls like my wife and her sister and my sisters (who will watch anything with a horse in it). Plus: Patrick Macnee!
And then, of course, there was the always mesmerizing Christopher Walken. He was extraordinarily young here, but he was still riveting. I kept expecting him to do the "Gold Watch" speech from Pulp Fiction any second.
STRAY BULLETS
- Part of the title to "From a View to a Kill" was lifted for the movie, but none of the story was used in this or any other film.
- Snowboarding: Bond movies have never met a trend they didn't want to jump on.
- Girl who looks like Farrah Fawcett-Majors: Another trend the filmmakers adopted.
- Q's little robot has a face and a personality, akin to Star Wars and Buck Rogers. What'd I say about trends?
- When Bond explains to Kimberley while he's undressing her that they've got "five days until we reach Alaska," I blurted, "you won't make it, old man."
- This is Lois Maxwell's last movie as Moneypenny. Like Roger Moore, she is 58.
- World War II connection: Dr. Mortner experimented on Nazi concentration camp prisoners, like Dr. Mengele.
- Both Zorin and Stacy use computers that are pretty advanced for 1985, but are howlingly primitive to a modern audience.
- A Surete officer who plays his role uncomfortably close to Inspector Clouseau is killed early in the movie. His name is Aubergine, which is a kind of eggplant. Good riddance.
- Bond uses sunglasses that can see through walls at Chantilly. I involuntarily blurted "X-Ray Specs" during the scene.
- There are numerous chase scenes throughout the movie, one involving steeplechase, which is a pretty weird way to kill someone. The chases in View to a Kill are often pretty good, but just serve to remind the modern viewer how absolutely breathtaking the ones in the Daniel Craig movies are.
- Zorin says 85% of the world's microchips are manufactured in Silicon Valley. Boy, how things have changed since 1985. Now he'd have to flood Taiwan.
- When overlooking Silicon Valley from the air, May Day says "What a view!" To which Max Zorin replies "... to a kill." There's the title drop we never got in the book.
- When I saw a sign for "San Andreas," I knew that was foreshadowing. But I'm no genius. Any time you see or hear the words "San Andreas" in a movie or TV show, there's going to be an earthquake. It's Chekov's Fault.
- Neither my wife nor I knew there was a San Andreas Lake. At the end of the movie, there wasn't one. Turns out it's a reservoir.
- View to a Kill couldn't resist using a dumb cop for comedy relief. Joe Flood's unnamed police captain isn't as dumb and broadly played as Sheriff J. W. Pepper, but it's close enough.
- Stacy accompanies Bond through all sorts of harrowing experiences — escaping a burning elevator, escaping a flood in a mine, hanging off the Golden Gate Bridge — while wearing high heels.
- Speaking of which, when Bond and Stacy put on worker overalls in the mine, Bond walks out first and says "It's a shame you couldn't find one that fits." Stacy walks out in a form-fitting outfit that displays Tanya Roberts' spectacular figure. It's a joke, obviously. But was the joke that she did find one that fit and Bond was being sarcastic, or was the joke that Tanya Roberts didn't find one that fit, but looked fantastic anyway?
- While on the dirigible, Tanya saves Bond more than once by attacking Zorin & Co. with her bare hands. Way to go, girl!
- Sadly, her agency doesn't extend to her dialogue, which for the last third of the movie is almost entirely composed of wailing "James" plaintively.
- My wife said, "What's with Germans and airships?" "Never got over the Hindenburg," I joked. Then the airship went down like the Hindenburg.
- Gen. Gogol gives Bond the Order of Lenin. In one of Fleming's stories the Soviets offer Bond a medal, but he turns it down.
Replies
Each short story individually? Okay, I'm up for that. Here's my usual "live as I read" reaction.
"The reason I mention it is because this book smells so bad it gives me a headache if I read it for more than 10 minutes or so."
Not exactly what one thinks of the term "old paper."
"And I have to wash my hands after. It literally stinks! In all my decades of reading books, that's a first."
I wish I could say that. Usually with me it's the smell of cigarette smoke.
Sometimes, when I'm in the mood for James Bond but don't want to read an entire novel, I'll break out one of the short story collections. I don't "track" these, but if I don't finish, I leave my bookmark in place and pick up from there next time.
"Perversely, Fleming insisted on saying "Russians" throughout his books"
That tracks with Cold War-era spy fiction. In "The Chimes of Big Ben" episode of The Prisoner, Number Six asks Nadia if she's Russian. She replies, "Lithuanian," and he concludes, "Russian." She responds, "We don't think so."
"I don't recall Fleming ever saying anything complimentary about the French. Which is very English."
Ha!
"This story was originally planned to be the origin of Hugo Drax (Moonraker) as the third episode of the dropped Bond TV show."
I didn't know that.
"THE MOVIE: A VIEW TO A KILL"
There is a point at which, after getting progressively worse, the Moore Bonds start to get better. this is one of the better ones.
"Briefly he rides the "snowboard" from snow, across water, and back to snow, justifying the needle drop of a Beach Boys song ("California Girls")."
I take it back. That was f*cking stupid.
"Sutton is played by Tanya Roberts, about whom I have never known anything"
She was a regular on That '70s Show.
"He probably cheats at cards."
Ha!
"Lundgren was dating Grace Jones at the time, who got him the gig."
Didn't know that (but then I wouldn't).
"Bond movies have never met a trend they didn't want to jump on."
Bond movies used to set trends.
Sorry I didn't have anything worthwhile to say about "From a View to a Kill"; I'm afraid that's going to be a trend for most of the short stories/Roger Moore movies. I see you've also posted "For Your Eyes Only." On my way there now...
She replies, "Lithuanian," and he concludes, "Russian." She responds, "We don't think so."
I know a guy from Lithuania, and he says much the same. The Russians forcibly included 14 countries into the USSR: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Not many wanted to be there, but all of them were forced to learn the Russian language and Russian version of history. Countries like Lithuania absolutely hated it and considered themselves occupied. They were forced to use Russian in school but used Lithuanian everywhere else.
I read this story in the same paperback (which is still with many paperbacks I kept) in the late ‘60s but don’t remember anything about the story.
Keep in mind this thing had mobile camouflage good enough to fool Bond; an elevator; an electric periscope; an electric, telescoping radio antenna; and enough room, food and water to house three men for extended periods. It almost necessarily has some sort of septic tank or connection to a sewage line (or picture what the surrounding area would look/smell like, with three men using it for a latrine). I literally can't imagine how this could have been done.
I was going to say that much larger underground bunkers with tunnels and hospital rooms were constructed by the Viet Cong back in the day. Then you mentioned all kinds of electronic things, and it sounds like a DC or Marvel villain. I’ve never heard what the VC did with their poop underground.
I recently read the first Reckless book, which has a former “tunnel rat” as a main bad guy*. He was erroneously shown as a man of regular height when tunnel rats were always smaller men. That’s because the average Vietnamese was smaller than the average American, and they built their tunnels/bunkers accordingly.
*I recently commented that adult veterans of either side don’t really make good heroes or villains in today’s stories because, ya know, we’re frigging old!
Perversely, Fleming insisted on saying "Russians" throughout his books, which were written during the lifetime of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922-1991).
I think this is also a relic of Fleming’s WWII experiences. I’m pretty sure everyone on the allied side used the inaccurate terms Russia and Russian and continued to do so into the 1960s.
This story was originally planned to be the origin of Hugo Drax (Moonraker) as the third episode of the dropped Bond TV show. It would be set in World War II and flesh out Drax's anecdote in Moonraker of being dressed in a British Army uniform (he was a spy/assassin)
In the book Moonraker, Drax and his men had been a kind of Nazi “special forces” called “werewolves.”
THE MOVIE: A VIEW TO A KILL
He also wears a monocle, so you know he's evil, and probably Prussian.
Back when I was using contact lenses instead of glasses at one point I was using a single lens. If you are lucky enough to have the ability to discard a blurred image from one eye in favor of a clear one from the other eye, you can see near and far this way. I assume the real people who used monocles did it for the same reason.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
"Sutton is played by Tanya Roberts, about whom I have never known anything"
She was a regular on That '70s Show.
She was also in one season of the original Charlie’s Angels, which probably is one of the reasons she was cast.
I assume the real people who used monocles did it for the same reason.
Makes sense. But in entertainment, it's shorthand for evil.