Original Publication – Newsweek, August 8, 1977
Secret Agent 007 is in bed somewhere in the Austrian Alps with a live female toy swathed in white mink when the taped message comes out of his wrist-watch — ordering him to headquarters. “But, James, I need you,” she coos. “So does England,” James Bond replies, whereupon he clamps on his skis and is almost instantly pursued by a pack of Russian spies, also on skis. To evade them he blithely jumps straight off the top of a mountain and, in what has to be one of the most spectacular special effects ever recorded on the screen, somersaults hundreds of feet through the air. At the last breathless moment his red and blue parachute billows open, its canopy a resplendent Union Jack.
After that opening sequence, much of the action in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the tenth James Bond screen epic and the third starring Roger Moore as Bond, is somewhat downhill. But the film, shot in seven countries, is so rich in fantasy, so filled with beautiful scenery, gorgeous women, preposterous villains and impossible situations that it’s easier to suspend disbelief entirely and escape inside the gadgetry and glamour. Finally, a $13 million movie that looks it and one that only asks the viewer to have fun watching.
New Civilization: By now Roger Moore looks as if he’s been James Bond forever, properly patrician and slightly wry. In “The Spy Who Loved Me,” he and Russia’s top agent, played by American actress Barbara Bach, cooperate to thwart evil international industrialist Curt Jurgens, whose supertanker swallows both American and Russian nuclear subs. Jurgens wants to destroy the world and build a new civilization on the floor of the sea.
There is so much underwater footage in movies this summer that scenes on dry land refresh.
Conveniently, the plot of this one reminds us not only of “Jaws” and “The Deep” but bits of “Star Wars” too. A space-age battle scene inside the supertanker is every bit the equal of the special effects of “Star Wars,” and any movie featuring a 7-foot 2-inch giant biting a shark to death reduces “Orca the Killer Whale” and its ilk to the minor leagues where they belong.
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