For Your Eyes Only at 40: The Roger Moore Era Of A Grounded Bond Film

(Disclaimer: This feature article contains spoilers)

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this weekend, For Your Eyes Only was best described as a grounded Bond film after the franchise’s outlandish attempt at incorporating a sci-fi genre in Moonraker two years prior. That otherwise preposterous but fun 1979 film was, of course, made US box-office history as the highest-grossing Bond film at the time.

For Your Eyes Only also saw Roger Moore reprising his iconic role of 007 for the fifth time. And although he’s already looking a bit too old in this film, his signature dry wit and tongue-in-cheek charm is still on point. We even get to see Moore’s version of James Bond in a more serious mode, even though it was not fully embraced. Here, Bond shows more compassion towards the grieving Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet, looking beautiful but shame about her wooden acting) instead of treating her strictly as a sex object.

For those who have forgotten, Bouquet plays the vengeful daughter, whose marine archaeologist-father (Jack Hedley’s Sir Timothy Havelock) and mother (Toby Robins’ Iona Havelock) are both murdered by a Cuban hitman Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha). She later joins forces with Bond, who assisted her in finding out the person responsible for the death of her parents while on the mission to recover a missing device known as the ATAC (Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator).

For Your Eyes Only is equally notable for introducing the gritty side of Bond at one point, where he ends up kicking the assassin’s car (Michael Gothard’s Locque) off the edge of the cliff. It was a precursor of a cold-blooded Bond, who did not hesitate to kill even an unarmed man just to finish him off once and for all. You could say if it wasn’t for that crucial scene, we wouldn’t be getting a gritty Bond shown in the subsequent Timothy Dalton era in The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989). And not to mention Daniel Craig seen in Casino Royale in 2006.

As the first Bond film of the 1980s, For Your Eyes Only entered the then-new decade by eschewing over-the-top gadgets and even the obligatory megalomaniac trying to take over the world. Unless of course, if you count Bond’s Lotus Turbo Esprit capable of self-destructing itself. Upon revisiting the scene where one of the thugs trying to break the window and causing the car to explode, it somehow felt unintentionally laughable.

As for the villain, what we have here is more of a scheming and manipulative businessman (Julian Glover’s Aris Kristatos), which should have been a refreshing change of pace from the usual Bond antagonist type. But his role is somewhat forgettable and interestingly enough, Aris’ henchmen — Michael Gothard’s Locque and John Wyman’s Eric Kriegler — fare better by comparison.

The rest of the supporting characters are a mixed bag, with Topol surprisingly stole most of the show as Milos Columbo, who helps Bond in his mission. But the introduction of an unnecessary side character played by Lynn-Holly Johnson as the horny ice-skating protege, Bibi is downright annoying.

For Your Eyes Only marked the first time that veteran editor and second-unit director John Glen, who already had experience working behind-the-scenes in three prior Bond films including 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979’s Moonraker took over the franchise as a director. While he proved himself to be an ace in staging action sequences (the earlier car chase involving a yellow Citroën 2CV and the ski chase both come to mind), the film is tonally erratic.

As much as he tries to make a grounded Bond film, certain awkwardly misplaced moments could have trimmed off altogether. This is particularly evident during the otherwise sombre opening scene, where we first saw Bond visiting his late wife’s Tracy’s grave (previously played by Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service before her character was shot to death by Blofeld and Irma Bunt).

Then, it suddenly shifted into a radically different pace when a maniacal bald man in the wheelchair attempts to assassinate Bond by having him trapped in a remote-controlled helicopter. It was undeniably a silly moment right to the point where Bond later managed to outwit the bald man and struck back by dropping him down a chimney.

The bald man was meant to be Bond’s arch-enemy, Blofeld but the film couldn’t use the name due to the copyright issue at the time. This also explained why we didn’t get to see the character’s actual look (John Hollis was hired for his physical appearance while Robert Rietty dubbed the voice). Apparently, screenwriter Kevin McClory owned the legal rights to Blofeld and even SPECTRE until he passed away in 2006. In 2013, Eon Productions — the company behind the Bond franchise — finally settled the legal issues and both Blofeld and SPECTRE were subsequently re-introduced in 2015’s Spectre. Christoph Waltz was enlisted to play the villain, even though he didn’t sport Blofeld’s signature bald look.

Back to For Your Eyes Only, the film was initially meant to introduce a new actor to play the role of 007. Several names such as Lambert Wilson, David Warbeck and even Timothy Dalton were either mentioned or considered to take over the iconic role. Of course, it didn’t happen as Roger Moore eventually continued to hold on to the role and even returned for two more Bond films in Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985) before his license to kill finally revoked.

Released during the same month with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman II, For Your Eyes Only may have failed to open on the top spot but it managed to earn over US$195 million worldwide against a US$28 million budget.