Octopussy

Octopussy
Octopussy film poster
James Bond	Roger Moore
Also starring	Maud Adams Louis Jourdan Steven Berkoff Kristina Wayborn Kabir Bedi
Directed by	John Glen
Produced by	Albert R. Broccoli
Novel/Story by	Ian Fleming (stories)
Screenplay	George MacDonald Fraser Michael G. Wilson Richard Maibaum
Cinematography by	Alan Hume
Music by	John Barry
Main theme	All Time High
Composer	John Barry Tim Rice
Performer	Rita Coolidge
Distributed by	MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
Released	June 6, 1983 (UK) June 10, 1983 (USA)
Running time	125 min.
Budget	$35,000,000
Worldwide gross	$187,500,000
Admissions (world)	59.5 million
Preceded by	For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Followed by	A View to a Kill (1985)
IMDb profile

Octopussy, released in 1983, is the 13th film in the James Bond series, and the sixth to star Roger Moore as MI6 super agent James Bond. The film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's 1966 short story "Octopussy". However, the film's story is original and the short story is narrated as a flashback by the main Bond girl Octopussy. In the film, Bond is assigned the task of following a general stealing jewels and relics from the Russian government. This leads him to a wealthy Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, and his associate, Octopussy. Following captivity and attempts on his life, Bond uncovers a plot to force disarmament in Europe with the use of a nuclear weapon.

Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, Octopussy was released in the same year as the non-EON James Bond film Never Say Never Again. Written by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum, and Michael G. Wilson, the film was directed by John Glen.

Plot

The pre-title sequence involves Bond's mission to destroy technology which has fallen into the hands of an unnamed Latin American country,^[1] and features him flying a homebuilt microjet aircraft.

When a fatally wounded British agent 009 stumbles into the British Embassy in East Berlin with a fake Fabergé egg, MI6 immediately suspect Soviet involvement. Fortunately, the real egg turns up at an auction in London. Bond is sent to find out who the seller is and subsequently why 009 was murdered. Bond switches the real egg with a fake one at the auction. When an exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, pays a high price to buy the egg, Bond follows him to his palace in India to find out why.

A renegade Soviet, General Orlov, supplies Khan with priceless Soviet treasures, and replaces them in state depositories with replicas. Khan is in turn smuggling them into the west with help from the mysterious Octopussy, a fabulously wealthy woman who lives in a floating palace in India, surrounded by women who are members of her "Octopus" cult.

Kamal Khan

Bond defeats Khan in a fixed game of backgammon and assisted by his ally Vijay, foils Khan's bodyguard Gobinda's attempts to kill them. But one of Khan's associates, Magda, seduces Bond and steals the Faberge egg. Bond is immediately captured by Gobinda and locked in Khan's palace, but using a pen containing aqua regia^[2], he cuts a window's iron bars and escapes. His Seiko watch, fitted with a beacon, traces the Fabergé egg. He thus sees Orlov arriving and hears through a microphone in the egg that Orlov is planning to meet Khan at Karl-Marx-Stadt in East Germany, where Octopussy's circus is scheduled to perform. When the egg is smashed by Orlov, Khan notices the microphone and orders Gobinda to "get Bond". Disguised as a corpse, Bond manages to escape from the palace. Pursued by Khan, Gobinda, several wild animals and other hunters on elephant back, he finally meets tourists passing by and is assured of safety.

Bond infiltrates Octopussy's island by piloting in a one-man sub resembling a crocodile, and confronts her, only to find out that she feels indebted to him for letting her father, a British Major, commit suicide rather than face the shame of a court martial when Bond was sent after him for smuggling and murder some years before. Khan now plans to replace a jewellery canister being smuggled through Octopussy's circus with a nuclear bomb. The warhead is primed to explode during a circus show at a US Air Force base in West Germany.

Bond and Octopussy (character)

In East Germany Bond tries to stop the train with the bomb on board from leaving the Soviet base. He confronts Orlov, who escapes after revealing that the nuclear attack would be interpreted as an accident, and Europe would insist on nuclear disarmament rendering itself defenceless against an attack from Soviet forces. Bond then follows the train by car, which he even manages to drive on the rails. Also following the train is General Gogol who has found out about Orlov's plan. When Orlov realizes that Bond is aboard, he runs after the train too, past the GDR border guards who shoot him dead. Bond is soon attacked by Gobinda and forced to get off. He pursues the train on foot and by taking an Alfa-Romeo. Khan and Gobinda know about the bomb and leave, passing Bond by the road on their way out, but Khan thinks they will get rid of Bond too. Bond is chased by the police for stealing the car but finally makes his way into the circus disguised as a clown. He is captured trying to explain to the security that there is a bomb on the base, but Octopussy shoots open the canister containing the bomb. The guards let Bond go and he manages to defuse the bomb just in time.

Back in India, Khan is preparing to leave his palace. But Octopussy, Magda and their cult members arrive, followed by Q and Bond in a hot air balloon. They overpower the guards, although Gobinda captures Octopussy. Gobinda and Octopussy arrive to a dirt road to ride to an airplane by horseback. Octopussy tries to get away, but Gobinda grabs her and slaps her, knocking her unconscious. He puts the unconscious Octopussy in the plane. Bond reaches the plane by riding a horse, battles Gobinda and throws him out. Bond and Octopussy manage to jump onto a cliff as the plane crashes, killing Khan.

Cast

• Roger Moore as James Bond: A British agent, who replaces 009 on a mission which takes him to India.
• Maud Adams as Octopussy: A jewel smuggler and wealthy businesswoman.
• Louis Jourdan as Kamal Khan: An exiled Afghan prince with a penchant for food, liquor, jewels, and atomic weaponry.
• Steven Berkoff as General Orlov: A Soviet General who works with Khan to bomb a US Air Base.
• Robert Brown as M: The strict head of the British Secret service who sends Bond on his mission.
• Kristina Wayborn as Magda: Octopussy's and Khan's trusted subordinate.
• Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
• Michaela Clavell as Penelope Smallbone: Moneypenny's assistant.
• Desmond Llewelyn as Q: MI6's Gadget designer who gives Bond various devices that help along his mission. He also goes to India with Bond.
• Kabir Bedi as Gobinda: Khan's strong and loyal bodyguard.
• Vijay Amritraj as Vijay: Bond's ally in India.
• David Meyer & Anthony Meyer as Mischka & Grischka: Khan's henchmen, skilled in knife throwing at Octopussy's circus.
• Geoffrey Keen as Fredrick Gray: Britain's Minister of Defence
• Walter Gotell as General Gogol: KGB leader, working to stop Orlov.
• Douglas Wilmer as Jim Fanning: Mi6's operative, having knowledge about artefacts including the Faberge egg.

Production

The title 'Octopussy' comes from the collection of short stories Octopussy and The Living Daylights, however it hardly uses any of the plot of the short story 'Octopussy'. Although the scene at Sotheby's is drawn from the Ian Fleming short story "The Property Of A Lady", little of the actual plot remains with the short story "Octopussy" used merely as the family back story for one of the main villains. Due to a a non-EON Bond film, Never Say Never Again being released in 1983, Octopussy saw Roger Moore returning for the role, though he showed interest in departing from James Bond after For Your Eyes Only.^[3]

Casting

James Brolin's screentest as James Bond with Vijay Amritraj, who plays Vijay.

Following For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore had expressed a desire to stop playing James Bond. His contract had been for five films, with an option for another. Given his reluctance to return, the producers engaged in a semi-public quest for the next Bond, with names including Timothy Dalton and James Brolin being suggested.^[3] However, when the rival Never Say Never Again was announced the producers re-contracted Moore in the belief that an established actor in the role would fare better against Sean Connery.^[3] Brolin's three screentests were publicly released for the first time as a special feature named James Brolin: The Man Who Would Be Bond in the Octopussy Ultimate Edition DVD.^[3] The producers were initially reluctant to feature Maud Adams again because her previous character was killed in The Man with the Golden Gun. Sybil Danning was announced in Prevue magazine as being Octopussy in 1982, but was not cast. It is also the first movie to have Robert Brown as Bond's boss M, which was due to the death of Bernard Lee in 1981. Desmond Llewelyn would get a larger role as Q in this film. One of Bond's allies was played by Vijay Amritraj, who was a professional tennis player. His character not only shares the same first name, but is also a tennis pro at Kamal Kahn's club ("Well, my backhand's improved.") and uses a tennis racket as a weapon during the car chase.

Filming

The filming of Octopussy began on August 10, 1982 with the scene in which Bond arrives at Checkpoint Charlie.^[4] Most of the film was shot in Udaipur, India and the Monsoon Palace was shot extensively in the film. In England the RAF Northolt, RAF Upper Heyford and RAF Oakley were the main locations. The Karl-Marx-Stadt railways scenes were shot at the Nene Valley Railway, near Peterborough, while studio work was performed at the Pinewood Studios and 007 Stage.^[3]

Q's hot air balloon as seen reaching the Monsoon Palace

Hollywood stunt pilot and aerial coordinator J.W. "Corkey" Fornof, who piloted a 12 foot Acrostar Jet through an open hangar at more than 150 miles per hour, has said, "Today, few directors would consider such a stunt. They'd just whip it up in a computer lab."^[5] Having collapsible wings, the plane was shown hidden in a horse trailer; however, a dummy was used for this shot.^[6] Filming inside the hangar was achieved by attaching the aircraft to an old Jaguar car by a steel pole with the roof torn off and driving along. 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 closely. The exploding pieces of the hangar were in reality only four inches in length.^[3] A Mercedes Benz saloon car was stolen by Bond and used to chase the train — having had his tires shot out, Bond drove on the rails and entered the train. During filming, the car had intact tires in one scene so as to avoid any mishap.^[6]

The 12-foot jet

Stunt co-ordinator Martin Grace suffered a serious injury while shooting the train scene. 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 that the team had not properly surveyed. Shortly afterwards, a concrete pole fractured Grace's left leg.^[3] This affected morale in the camp for some time.

The bicyclist seen passing in the middle of a swordfight during the tuk tuk 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 as an unscheduled stunt. ^[3]

The Fabergé egg in the film is real, it was stolen in 1897 and is called the Coronation Egg, although the egg in the film is called Property of a Lady", which is the name of one of Ian Fleming's shortstories released in more recent editions of the collection Octopussy and the Living Daylights.

In a bit of diegesis that "breaks the fourth wall", Vijay (disguised as a snake charmer) signals his affiliation to Bond and MI6 by playing the James Bond Theme on a recorder while Bond is disembarking from a boat in the harbor near the Taj Mahal. In reality Vijay had a distinct fear of snakes and found difficulty holding the basket during filming.^[3]

The scene where Khan tries to cheat at backgammon is adapted from the Bond novel Moonraker, where Hugo Drax cheats at contract bridge. A line where Khan tells Bond to spend his money quickly is also a direct quote from this novel (However, Drax address Bond as "Commander Bond" and Khan calls him "Mr. Bond").

At the end of the film, the credits announce the next Bond film title as From a View to a Kill, but this was later shortened to A View to a Kill shortly before filming began. Octopussy is also the last Bond film to date to announce the title of the next film in the end credits.

Soundtrack

Main article: Octopussy (soundtrack)

The score was composed by John Barry, with the lyrics by Tim Rice.^[7] The opening theme, "All Time High" is sung by Rita Coolidge. It shows Coolidge in soft focus in an Indian palace and is one of four musical themes in the James Bond series that do not refer to the film's title, the other three being Dr. No, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and the song "You Know My Name" from Casino Royale (2006). "All Time High" failed both critically and commercially.^[8]

The original long playing record, released in 1985 by A&M Records, was recalled because of a printing error, and became a rarity. In 1997, the soundtrack was released by Rykodisc,^[9] with the original soundtrack music and some film dialogue, on an Enhanced CD version. The 2003 release, by EMI, restored the original soundtrack music sans dialogue.

Release and reception

Bond disguised as a clown, a scene that was received harshly by most critics.

Octopussy's premiere took place at the Odeon Leicester Square on 6 June 1983 in the company of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. Within five months of its premiere, it was released in 16 countries worldwide.^[10] The film earned more than For Your Eyes Only, grossing a total of $183,700,000, with $25.5 million in the United States alone. It also performed better than Never Say Never Again.

The film, however, did not fare as well with reviewers, many of whom criticized Bond's clown costume,^[11] his gorilla outfit, and Tarzan yell. In addition, although the nuclear-bomb plot was more plausible and realistic than the genocidal scenarios of previous Moore efforts like The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, many thought it confusing. By contrast, Louis Jordan's "suave" performance,^[12] the elegance of the film locations in India, and the stunts on aircraft and the train were appreciated.^[13][14] Jeffrey Westhoff at Rotten Tomatoes praised Roger Moore as being "sterling".^[15]

Octopussy was nominated for an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films award with Maud Adams nominated for the Saturn Award in the Best Fantasy Supporting Actress category. The film won the Golden Screen Award in Germany and also the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing.^[16]

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Octopussy

Official Sites

• Ultimate Edition James Bond Site
• MGM's official Octopussy site

Review Sites

• Octopussy (1983) at the Internet Movie Database
• Octopussy at Rotten Tomatoes

Fan and Other Sites

• Mi6's Octopussy Page

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