James Bond 007 - Octopussy
James Bond 007 - Octopussy (Original title: Octopussy ) is a British action - thriller about the movie agent James Bond from 1983. It is the 13th film from Eon Productions Ltd. produced series and was directed by John Glen . The film opened in German cinemas on August 5, 1983.
action
foreplay
James Bond is said to have destroyed an aircraft on an air force base in Cuba that is currently hosting a horse show. First disguised as a tournament participant, then as a soldier's doppelganger, he installs a bomb in an open aircraft nose in an aircraft hangar. He is caught red-handed and the bomb defused. Bond is arrested and taken away from the base in an open truck. However, he manages to escape his guards when his colleague, who has followed in his SUV, distracts the soldiers.
Bond now gets on the trailer pulled by the SUV , which contains a tiny jet plane , and uncouples the SUV. He opens the trailer, rolls out in the plane and takes off. Suddenly he is pursued by a surface-to-air missile that cannot be shaken off. He flies through the aircraft hangar, whereupon an attempt is made to stop him by closing the gate. Bond's jet barely gets through, but the surface-to-air missile doesn't; it explodes in the hangar.
Main storyline
The film begins with a scene in East Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall , at the time of the arms race ( SS-20 stationing, NATO double decision ). Bond's colleague 009 tries to get across the sector border to West Berlin disguised as a clown , but is followed through the forest by the twins Mischka and Grischka, two knife throwing artists. The first knife throw misses him, but the second twin injures him badly. With the last of his strength, he drags himself to the British embassy, delivers a Fabergé egg to the ambassador and dies.
In London , the egg that has been identified as a fake causes confusion at MI6 . Together with an art expert, James Bond goes to Sotheby’s auction house to clarify the background. Here the original is to be auctioned, which Bond can swap for the forgery without being noticed. The highest bidder and thus the buyer of the forgery is the Afghan prince Kamal Khan, who lives in exile in India and is known for illegal art trafficking and receiving stolen goods. Bond believes he has a hot lead with Kamal and is commissioned to follow him to India.
In a game of chance in Udaipur , India , Bond confronts Kamal with the real egg, which Kamal has to believe is the fake, since he believes he has the original. Kamal loses the game of chance and puts a murder squad on Bond's neck, which Bond is able to shake off with the help of MI6 helpers in India. In the headquarters there, he equips himself and again looks for the vicinity of Kamal, who tries to get to the egg through his confidante Magda. After spending a night with Bond, Magda steals the egg and gives it to Kamal. Bond had previously deposited a transmitter in the egg with which he can locate its position and listen to the carrier.
Bond is captured and thus ends up , as intended, in Kamal's closely guarded monsoon palace , where Kamal apparently forges dark plans with a mysterious Octopussy. They try to find out more about his motives and to drug him, but Bond can use an acid to destroy the bars of his window and move freely around the palace. He witnessed a treaty that Kamal Khan entered into with the Soviet general Orlov. Orlov is a political hardliner who aims to win communism through a pre-emptive military strike in Europe. Both agree to meet in an as yet unknown action in Karl-Marx-Stadt in the GDR and mention Octopussy as a third ally. During this meeting, the real egg, which the criminals believe to be a fake, is destroyed along with the transmitter. Bond is able to escape from the palace and is pursued into the bush, where Kamal tries again with hunters and elephants as part of a tiger hunt, but he does not succeed.
Bond can track down Octopussy in her actual domicile. She lives on a river island, gathers a troop of bodyguards and playmates around her and turns out to be the daughter of the British ex-agent and smuggler Major Dexter Smythe, to whom Bond once granted the possibility of an honorable death, which Octopussy honors. Octopussy runs a traveling circus with Kamal Khan , which also goes on international tour. This time she is moving the Russian tsar's treasure , which Orlov had stolen from his home country and replaced with copies (including the Fabergé egg from the beginning). Octopussy is on Bond's side and even defends him from Kamal's access when he sends some killers, including the buzz saw man, to the island. Bond is apparently killed in a fight with a crocodile and can go into hiding.
Since Bond now knows where he will find Orlov and Kamal, he goes to Karl-Marx-Stadt, where the Octopussy circus is currently performing. While the circus people dismantle at the end of the guest performance and prepare a special train for the journey to the next stop - the US Air Force base in Feldstadt, West Germany - Bond becomes clear about Kamal and Orlov's actual plan: Orlov doesn't just want the Tsar's treasure move, but above all detonate an atomic bomb hidden in a cannon from Octopussy's circus in the US base. Since no conclusions can be drawn about the Soviet origin of the bomb, he hopes everything would look like an accident: an American bomb that unintentionally explodes on its base. As a result, under pressure from the West German peace movement, disarmament should proceed unilaterally on the part of the NATO countries. The Warsaw Pact states , above all the Soviet Union, would have a tactical advantage to conquer Europe by means of a conventional surprise attack favored by Orlov.
Bond tries to hide on the train and a fight ensues with one of the knife throwers twins, whom Bond kills. Then there is an exchange of fire with Orlov's men. He can escape the situation and get back on the train and hide, while Orlov dies in the hail of bullets from the GDR border troops at the inner-German border when he is confronted by General Gogol, who has since discovered the exchange of the Tsar's treasure. On the west side, however, Bond is discovered again and in a fight with Kamal's henchmen thrown off the train, whereupon he sets off on his own in the direction of Feldstadt, because the countdown of the time fuse in the bomb is already running. Now it is Bond who runs through the forest and is pursued by the knife thrower. He wants to avenge his brother, but Bond kills him. Despite a number of hurdles, Bond arrives at the performance in time and can defuse the bomb shortly before the countdown is over. Octopussy realizes that Bond is still alive - and that Kamal has betrayed her.
Kamal has since fled to India and is preparing to go into hiding. Bond arrives at the Monsoon Palace by means of a hot air balloon, where a fight ensues, in which Bond and the bodyguards from Octopussy fight against Kahn's men. However, Kahn abducts Octopussy and Bond pursues him to his private plane, a Beechcraft Model 18 , where Octopussy is held hostage. After a dogfight with the bodyguard Gobinda, Bond and Octopussy can jump off the landing plane before Kamal and his plane crash.
At the end of the film, General Gogol, a British minister, and M sit in M's office; Bond's absence from the meeting is attributed to injuries allegedly sustained during his mission; In truth, he is enjoying the time together with Octopussy on their ship in India.
production
prehistory
This was the first Bond film under the MGM banner , which merged with the original Bond production company United Artists in 1982 .
title
The film took over the title of the short story of the same name by Ian Fleming. Octopussy is also the nickname of the character portrayed by Maud Adams in the film.
script
The original script was written by producer Albert R. Broccoli, director John Glen and George MacDonald Fraser. However, this script was replaced by another that Richard Maibaum co-wrote with Michael G. Wilson. Fraser was named as one of the authors, however.
In terms of content, apart from the title, the film has little in common with the short story of the same name by Ian Fleming. Part of their plot is portrayed in the film in a conversation between Bond and Octopussy. Another literary source for the screenplay was the short story Globus - up for auction ( English original title: The Property of a Lady ). The scene in which a Fabergé egg is auctioned is taken from her.
occupation
After On A Fatal Mission , Roger Moore had repeatedly stated that he no longer wanted to play the role of James Bond. His original contract required him to appear in three films and was imbued with The Spy Who Loved Me . Later he only signed for the following film. Since Moore could not initially be convinced to work on Octopussy , the producers began looking for a new James Bond actor, with the names Timothy Dalton and James Brolin being discussed. Test recordings had even been made with Brolin.
However, it was important for the producers to be able to sign Moore again as James Bond, because in the upcoming "duel" with Sean Connerys Sag nie nie, they never wanted to do without his traction as a star. In the end, Moore was finally able to convince him to play the leading role in Octopussy . He received $ 4 million for this and a percentage of the gross profit.
For the role of Octopussy Faye Dunaway , Persis Khambatta or Sybil Danning were originally intended before they were awarded to Maud Adams. Maud Adams played after The Man with the Golden Gun in her second Bond film.
Robert Brown, who appeared as Admiral Hargeaves in The Spy Who Loved Me, first appeared here after Bernard Lee's death in the role of M. He was in front of the camera for the television series Ivanhoe with Roger Moore in the late 1950s .
Penelope Smallbone, Miss Moneypenny's assistant, is played by Michaela Clavell, daughter of the novelist James Clavell . One of Octopussy's dancers is Tracy Llewelyn, the daughter of Q actor Desmond Llewelyn.
Bond's Indian contact Vijay is portrayed by Vijay Amritraj , a very popular tennis professional at the time . As an allusion to this, he is handling a tennis racket in the taxi hunt scene. Since he was not a member of the actors' union, this wanted to prevent his use. They finally agreed by dividing the role between two characters. The newly created figure is the Sadruddin depicted by Albert Moses.
Producer Michael G. Wilson can be seen in two cameos . Once he can be seen as a passenger on the Indian holiday boat, another time as a Russian general in the Soviet security conference.
Title design
For the eleventh time, Maurice Binder was responsible for designing the film titles. He used a method that was new for 1983 by projecting images onto female bodies with lasers .
Filming
The shooting took place from August 10, 1982 to January 25, 1983.
For the first four days of filming, Berlin served as the backdrop, where, among other things, the film was shot at Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall . The Alfa Romeo chase originated on the AVUS .
On August 16, the film crew moved into their quarters at Pinewood Studios , from where scenes in Great Britain were to be recorded. These included u. a. Exterior shots on the Nene Valley Railway , where the scenes were filmed at Wansford station that take place in the film in Karl-Marx-Stadt.
Octopussy's circus was set up on the RAF Upper Heyford . The same area was then prepared in such a way that it could be used to record the scenes played at the USAF base in Feldstadt, where Bond defused the warhead. The scenes for the opening sequence of the film, in which Bond escapes from a South American military base in the Acrostar mini-jet ( BD-5J ) , were filmed at another air force base, RAF Northolt . This scene was originally intended to be implemented in the film Moonraker .
On September 12, 1982, filming was relocated to Udaipur, India, to record the numerous scenes set in India. The Taj Lake Palace Hotel was used as the location for the scenes that take place on Octopussy's Island.
The film team then moved back to Pinewood Studios, where the courtyard of Kamal Khan's palace was recreated on the 007 stage . In England the film was shot until Christmas Eve 1982, after a break again from January 3, 1983. The shooting of the first film team finally ended on January 21, 1983.
Filming and action locations
The film was shot in the following countries:
-
Great Britain
- Pinewood Studios , London
- Wansford Station,
- Ferry Meadows Station
- Private Nene Railway, Peterborough
- RAF base , Upper Heyford
- Sotheby’s , New Bond Street , London
-
United States
- Moab (aerial photography), Utah
- Hurricane Mesa (aerial photography), Utah
-
Germany
- Kurfürstendamm , Berlin
- Checkpoint Charlie , Berlin
- AVUS , Berlin
- Braunfels market square
-
India
- Taj Mahal
- Shiv Niwas Palace luxury hotel, Udaipur
- Udaipur
- Jangmandir Island in Lake Pichhola
Gadgets
Bond is already equipped with a Seiko G757 watch, which can later locate the hidden transmitter in the Fabergé egg.
In India, Q equips Bond with the following equipment:
- a fountain pen that contains a listening device and acid instead of ink. With the acid, Bond later frees himself from his room in Kamal's palace, and he uses the bugging device to tap Kamal's conversation with General Orlov.
- a Seiko TV-Watch DXA001 / 002, which Bond already inspected at Q and wears when Kamal's palace is robbed at the end of the film. It was introduced in 1982 and, unlike the model shown in the film, needed a receiver the size of a walkman .
Film music
John Barry composed the score again after not being involved in the previous Bond film. He also composed the title song All Time High , interpreted by Rita Coolidge , to which Tim Rice contributed the lyrics. Allegedly, the producers made it a requirement that the title of the song should not be Octopussy . Barry initially wanted Elaine Paige to be the interpreter, with whom he had already worked frequently. Shirley Bassey was later considered before Rita Coolidge was selected.
The Octopussy soundtrack was the first to be released on CD and LP in 1983 by A&M Records . It reached number 137 in the US album charts .
In 1997 RykoDisc released a new CD version (data CD with audio track). It contained trailers, English dialogues (audio only) from the film between the pieces of music and a foldable booklet with a poster. After the 40th James Bond anniversary, a new, revised version was released by Capitol Records in 2003. The dialogues and trailers were removed, the foldable booklet with cover adaptation was left. It is one of the three James Bond soundtrack CDs from Capitol, which are modified versions of RykoDisc.
- Original edition (1983/2003)
- All Time High sung by Rita Coolidge
- Bond look alike
- 009 Gets The Knife and Gorbinda Attacks
- That's My Little Octopussy
- Arrival At The Island Of Octopussy
- Bond At The Monsoon Palace
- Bond meets Octopussy
- Yo Yo Fight and Death Of Vijay
- The Chase Bomb Them
- The Palace Fight
- All Time High sung by Rita Coolidge
- RykoDisc version (1997)
- All Time High sung by Rita Coolidge
- Bond look alike
- Miss Penelope (dialogue from the film)
- 009 Gets The Knife and Gorbinda Attacks
- That's My Little Octopussy
- Arrival At The Island Of Octopussy
- Introducing Mr Bond (dialogue from the movie)
- Bond At The Monsoon Palace
- Bond meets Octopussy
- Poison Pen (dialogue from the film)
- Yo Yo Fight and Death Of Vijay
- The Chase Bomb Them
- The Palace Fight
- All Time High sung by Rita Coolidge
synchronization
The synchronization was carried out by Cine Adaption GmbH in Munich. The dialogue book was written by John Pauls-Harding and the dialogue was directed by Michael Brennicke.
| role | actor | German voice actors |
|---|---|---|
| James Bond | Roger Moore | Niels Clausnitzer |
| Octopussy | Maud Adams | Viktoria Brams |
| Kamal | Louis Jourdan | Erik Schumann |
| Magda | Kristina Wayborn | Dagmar Heller |
| Gobinda | Kabir Bedi | Willi Roebke |
| Orlov | Steven Berkoff | Horst Sachtleben |
| Q | Desmond Llewelyn | Manfred Schmidt |
| M. | Robert Brown | Wolf Ackva |
| Moneypenny | Lois Maxwell | Helga Trümper |
| Gogol | Walter Gotell | Herbert Weicker |
| Vijay | Vijay Amritraj | Sigmar Solbach |
| Sadruddin | Albert Moses | Michael Brennicke |
| Sir Frederick Gray | Geoffrey Keen | Paul Bürks |
| Secretary General | Paul Hardwick | Norbert Gastell |
premiere
The film premiered on June 6, 1983 at the Odeon Leicester Square, London, in the presence of Prince Charles and Princess Diana .
In the United States, Octopussy opened in theaters on June 10, 1983 and in the Federal Republic of Germany on August 5, 1983.
Aftermath
Financial success
Octopussy came into being at a production cost of around US $ 27.5 million and grossed around US $ 187.5 million worldwide. It was the second most financially successful film launched in 1983, never surpassing Sag , which grossed around $ 160 million worldwide.
The magazine Stern states that the worldwide gross profit is an inflation-adjusted US $ 426 million, which is the fourth worst result of a Bond film as of 2011. The number of visitors in Germany is given as 4.3 million.
Contemporary criticism
Critics at the time the film was released were cautiously positive.
Vincent Canby called the plot of the film "incomprehensible" in the New York Times , but praised the direction, production design and action scenes. He concluded that the 13th James Bond film was "better than most."
Richard Corliss wrote in Time that Bond "still knows how to entertain."
The Variety felt in particular the "spectacular aerial stunts" of the film particularly successful.
Hans-Christoph Blumenberg criticized Octopussy at the time . He wrote: "Roger Moore's Bond, a limp bon vivant, is completely drowned in the constant fireworks of sensations."
Later evaluation
In retrospect, Octopussy is viewed as a below-average contribution to the James Bond series, which is also proven by the placements in numerous rankings in recent years.
Just a year after its release, Raymond Benson called Octopussy "a James Bond action comedy rather than a James Bond thriller" in his 1984 standard work The James Bond Bedside Companion . He summarized that the film was "entertaining and fun, but ultimately mediocre. "
In 1996, 13 years after its release, James Berardinelli named Octopussy one of the two "silliest" Bond films. The plot is “so cumbersome and intricate that it doesn't make much sense. [...] Ultimately, it's the extravagant stunts and car chases that save Octopussy from the garbage heap. "
In 2006, 23 years after the film was released, Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked the James Bond films, with Octopussy only coming in 19th out of 21 films. In the same year, the staff of the multimedia website IGN rated the Bond films and voted Octopussy 14th.
Between 2011 and 2012, visitors to the James Bond fan site MI6-HQ.com voted for the best Bond films, with Octopussy ranking 17th out of 22 films.
In 2012, the Bond films were also rated by readers of 007 magazine , with Octopussy taking 14th out of 24 places. In a list also published in 2012 by Rolling Stone , Octopussy ranks 16 out of 24 James Bond films. In the special issue 50 Years of James Bond published by Stern in 2012, the film was rated 2 out of 5 stars (“weak”).
radio play
The label Europa released the revised German soundtrack of the film as a radio play on music cassette. The narrator that does not exist in the film is spoken by Norbert Langer .
Awards
Saturn Award 1984
- Nomination in the category Best Fantasy Film
- Nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Maud Adams
Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award 1984
- Nomination in the category Best Sound Editing - Foreign Feature - Sound Effects
Golden canvas 1984
- 3 million moviegoers in 18 months
publication
The film was released in 1984 as a rental version and as a cassette from Warner Bros. in Germany. Warner held this right until the late 1990s, when it was given to 20th Century Fox Entertainment. The first DVD version was released as part of the Special Edition in 2000. The Blu-ray version followed in 2012 for the 50th anniversary of the series.
The film ran for the first time on German free TV on April 19, 1992 on ARD.
Web links
- James Bond 007 - Octopussy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- James Bond 007 - Octopussy at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- James Bond 007 - Octopussy at Metacritic (English)
- James Bond 007 - Octopussy in the online movie database
- James Bond 007 - Octopussy in the German dubbing file
- Background information about the problems with preproduction etc. filming
- Cast in image details (English)
- Detailed information on all gadgets used (English)
- MGM's official Octopussy website
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for James Bond 007 - Octopussy . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2005 (PDF; test number: 53 949 V / DVD).
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Production Notes. On: mi6-hq.com (English). Retrieved April 29, 2013.
- ↑ a b (2000). Inside Octopussy [DVD]. MGM Home Entertainment Inc .. October 26, 2015.
- ^ Roger Moore: My Word is My Bond . HarperCollins, 2009, chap. 12 .
- ↑ James Bond: 50 Years of Main Title Design . On: artofthetitle.com (English). Retrieved January 6, 2013.
- ^ A b Box office / business for James Bond 007 - Octopussy. On: imdb.com (English). Retrieved April 29, 2013.
- ↑ Steve Rubin, Siegfried Tesche: The background story to 25 years of Bond. Kino Verlag, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-89324-026-8 , pp. 181-185.
- ^ Siegfried Tescher: The great James Bond atlas. Wissen Media Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-577-07305-9 , pp. 60/61
- ↑ Seiko G757 5020 Sports 100 . In: jamesbondlifestyle.com , accessed February 27, 2014.
- ↑ Frank Günthör: Article on the SEIKO TV-Watch. In: taschenfernseher.de , accessed on February 27, 2014.
- ^ Picture in taschenfernseher.de , accessed on February 27, 2014.
- ↑ 'Skyfall' Soundtrack: Highest-Charting Bond Album in 27 Years . In: billboard.com , accessed March 22, 2013. (English)
- ↑ German synchronous files
- ↑ Release dates. On: imdb.com (English). Retrieved April 29, 2013.
- ↑ WorldwideBoxoffice. On: worldwideboxoffice.com (English). Retrieved May 1, 2013.
- ↑ Box office results worldwide In: Stern-Edition 2/2012 , pp. 72–73.
- ↑ Vincent Canby: JAMES BOND MEETS 'OCTOPUSSY'. In: The New York Times. June 10, 1983, accessed October 27, 2015 .
- ^ Richard Corliss: Cinema: The Bond Wagon Crawls Along. In: Times . June 27, 1983. Retrieved October 27, 2015 .
- ↑ Review: 'Octopussy'. In: Variety . December 31, 1982, accessed October 27, 2015 .
- ^ Hans-Christoph Blumenberg : In the cinema. In: The time . August 12, 1983. Retrieved April 29, 2013 .
- ^ Raymond Benson: The James Bond Bedside Companion. Kindle Edition. Crossroad Press, 2012
- ↑ James Berardinelli: Octopussy. A Film Review by James Berardinelli. In: reelviews.net. 1996, accessed May 1, 2013 .
- ↑ Countdown: Ranking the Bond Films on ew.com (English), accessed on December 26, 2012.
- ↑ James Bond's Top 20 - Ranking 007's films from worst to best. On: ign.com (English). Retrieved January 6, 2013.
- ↑ Best Bond Film Results. from: mi6-hq.com , accessed December 26, 2012.
- ↑ 007 MAGAZINE readers vote On Her Majesty's Secret Service as greatest ever Bond film! at: 007magazine.co.uk , accessed December 26, 2012.
- ↑ James Bond's Best and Worst: Peter Travers Ranks All 24 Movies at rollingstone.com (English), accessed December 22, 2012.
- ↑ A direct hit and a blowout: all Bond missions in maneuver criticism In: Stern-Edition 2/2012 50 years of James Bond , pp. 64–71.
- ↑ Octopussy. James Bond radio plays. In: jamesbondfilme.de. Retrieved August 24, 2019 .
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ YEAR 1980 - 2000. Retrieved February 18, 2018 .
