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Octopussy

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For other uses, see Octopussy (disambiguation).

Template:Infobox Film Bond Octopussy is the thirteenth James Bond film made by EON Productions. It is the sixth to star Roger Moore as the British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond. Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, it was released in 1983, the same year as the release of the unofficial James Bond film Never Say Never Again.

The film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story "Octopussy," which was published in the March and April editions of Playboy in 1966 containing an original plot instead of using the plot from the short story.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler The pre-title sequence is unrelated to the rest of the film, involving Bond's mission to destroy technology which has fallen into the hands of an unnamed Latin American country (but obviously Cuba, and Castro [1]), and features him flying a homebuilt microjet (Bede BD-5) aircraft.

When a fatally wounded British agent stumbles into the British Embassy in East Berlin with a fake Fabergé egg (the Coronation egg), MI6 immediately suspect Soviet involvement (the real valuable egg has turned up at auction in London). James Bond is sent to find out who the seller is and subsequently why 009 was murdered because of the fake egg. When an exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, clearly has to buy the egg at any price during the auction, Bond follows him back to his palace in India to find out why.

Kamal Khan is working for renegade Soviet General Orlov, who is supplying Khan with real priceless Soviet treasures, replacing them in state depositories with replicas. Kamal 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, each recognized by a tattooed blue-ringed octopus on their bottom. Octopussy is more than a smuggler, however, and has many legitimate businesses, including shipping, hotels, carnivals and circuses - the latter being used as an ideal front for smuggling jewellery. As a result, many of her female companions and guards are highly trained gymnasts.

Bond at Kamal's palace named the Monsoon Palace in India sees Orlov arrive and hears that they plan to meet at Karl-Marx-Stadt in East Germany, where Octopussy's circus is going to perform, before it heads on a train to the West. Here Orlov smashes the real Fabergé egg, saying that the "fake" has caused enough trouble already. Bond manages to escape from the palace pursued by Kamal on top of elephants, and is saved by some passing American tourists.

Bond infiltrates Octopussy's palace 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. With Octopussy now an ally to Bond, Kamal Khan manages to separate the pair long enough to pursue his real plan - to replace the jewellery canister being smuggled by Octopussy's circus with a nuclear bomb. The warhead is primed to go off during a performance at a US Air Force base in West Germany. As the explosion will look like an accident, Europe would insist on nuclear disarmament and thus leave western Europe defenceless against an attack from Orlov's Soviet forces.

In East Germany Bond tries to stop the train with the bomb on board from leaving the Soviet base. He confronts Orlov, who escapes. 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 and also tries to stop the train. When Orlov realizes that Bond is aboard he is after the train too, past the DDR border guards who shoot him. General Gogol arrives just as he is shot.

Aboard the train, Bond is pursued by Kamal. Bond is forced off, and pursues it on foot and by taking a car. Kamal and his henchman, Gobinda, know about the bomb and leave, on their way out passing Bond on the road, but Kamal thinks they will be 'rid of Bond too'. Bond has trouble getting into the American military base, and gets into the circus disguised as a clown. The American guards let him go after he is identified by Octopussy, and he manages to defuse the bomb just in time.

Back in India, Kamal is preparing to leave his palace. However, Octopussy and her cult members arrive, along with Q and Bond in a hot air balloon with a huge Union Jack displayed on it. They overpower the guards, although Kamal escapes on a light plane with Octopussy. Bond hangs onto the plane, and battles it out with Gobinda outside the plane, before Bond and Octopussy manage to escape and the plane crashes into the side of a mountain. Template:Spoiler-end

Cast & characters

Crew

Soundtrack

Original Octopussy soundtrack cover
Main article: James Bond music

The score was composed by veteran John Barry, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The opening theme, "All Time High" was sung by Rita Coolidge and is one of only three Bond themes with lyrics that do not reference the film's title (the other two are the On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme "We Have All the Time in the World" and the Casino Royale theme "You Know My Name"). Additionally, it is the third theme not to be named the same as the film; the second was "Nobody Does It Better" from The Spy Who Loved Me.

The original 1983 release by A&M Records was recalled due to a printing error, and became hard to find. The soundtrack was later released in 1997 by Rykodisc with the original soundtrack and dialogue from the film (additional tracks #3, #7, and #10 seen below) on an Enhanced CD version. The 2003 release by EMI restored the original soundtrack, without dialogue. The original music video released for "All Time High" features Rita Coolidge, shot in very soft focus in what appears to be an Indian palace, but rather than one of the locations from the film, it is in fact the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England.

Track listing

  1. "All Time High" - Rita Coolidge
  2. "Bond Look Alike"
  3. "Miss Penelope" — dialogue
  4. "009 Gets the Knife and Gobinda Attacks"
  5. "That's My Little Octopussy"
  6. "Arrival at the Island of Octopussy"
  7. "Introducing Mr Bond" — dialogue
  8. "Bond at the Monsoon Palace"
  9. "Bond Meets Octopussy"
  10. "Poison Pen" — dialogue
  11. "Yo Yo Fight and Death of Vijay"
  12. "The Chase Bomb Theme"[2]
  13. "The Palace Fight"
  14. "All Time High" - Rita Coolidge

Vehicles & gadgets

Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles and List of James Bond gadgets
  • Acrostar Jet — Used in the opening sequence of the film. The wings of this plane fold up vertically while not in use. During this mission, Bond hid the plane in a horse trailer. Due to a small gas tank, Bond was forced to land at a gas station to refill.
  • Alfa-Romeo GTV6 — Stolen from a German woman using a telephone booth, allowing Bond to make it to the Octopussy's circus in time to warn the NATO General present there of the Soviet plot. Then the hottest 'cheap' sports car in Europe, and the most popular Alfa Romeo sports coupe ever made.
  • Alligator Boat — Bond sneaks onto Octopussy's island by driving a disguised boat that looks like an alligator.
  • Pen — Given to Bond by Q-Branch, this pen contains acid that can burn through any metal. It also contains a homing device.
  • Watch — Another gift from Q-Branch, this watch branded by Seiko comes with a beacon that leads Bond to a Fabergé egg. The model used in the movie is the Seiko G757-5020 (often mistaken for the G757-5000, which had a rubber strap instead of the metal one clearly seen in the movie).
  • Mercedes Benz 240D saloon car: Normally mistaken for a 250 or 230.6, this car was stolen by Bond and used to chase the train — having had his tyres shot out, Bond is able to ride the rails. The Mercedes crashes into another oncoming train and lands in a river. Earlier in the film, M gives Bond a lift in a similar Mercedes.
  • After the loss of his Mercedes, Orlov chases Bond in a GAZ M24 Volga.
  • Listening device in the Fabrege egg, before they discover it is false, Bond listens in to learn part of the plot.

Locations

Film locations

The film also takes place in an unnamed Latin American country.

Shooting locations

Trivia and commentary

  • The film it self doesn't include the plot from "The Property Of A Lady", however the only element they use from the short story is the "egg bidding" part.
  • Timothy Dalton was also asked to star in this film, however he turned it down not liking the direction of where the film was going.
  • The title of the film comes from a short story in which Bond is assigned by the British Secret Service to apprehend an octopus-loving British officer who is implicated in a murder relating to an illegally obtained cache of Nazi gold. Bond gives the officer the option of committing suicide. The film makes direct reference to the events in the story by revealing that Octopussy's father was the villain of the short story: Major Dexter Smythe. The photograph of Smythe that Octopussy shows Bond is actually a picture of the film's director, John Glen
  • The Fabergé egg that is stolen was made in 1897 and is called the Coronation Egg, although its name is not mentioned in the film. The egg contains a model of the Russian Imperial state coach.
  • 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.
  • This is the second Bond movie to feature Maud Adams. The producers were initially reluctant to feature her again because her previous character was killed in The Man with the Golden Gun. She holds the record for being the oldest (leading) Bond girl, at 37. Sybil Danning was announced in Prevue Magazine as being Octopussy in 1982, but was not cast, possibly because of fan reactions to her career as a soft-porn movie star.
James Brolin's screentest as James Bond 007
  • Roger Moore's Bond contract, after For Your Eyes Only, only allowed for future production of A View to a Kill and Moore had expressed some desire to retire from the role. The producers had been engaged in a semi-public quest for the next Bond including Timothy Dalton and James Brolin. 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. 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.
  • Another first-time feature was that the character Q (Desmond Llewelyn) would take a more active role in a Bond movie; a role he reprised in Licence to Kill. Many fans wonder why Q would take part in any field action, because of his relatively advanced age as well as his role as an in-house technician and inventor; obviously, the character was given more screen time because fans liked him and wanted to see more of the character.
  • This is also the first movie to feature Robert Brown as M. It is unknown as to whether Brown is supposed to be playing the same character as Bernard Lee (Sir Miles Messervy) or a different one (possibly a promoted Admiral Hargreaves from The Spy Who Loved Me), as the films did not establish until GoldenEye that 'M' is a job title, something that Ian Fleming left ambiguous in the novels (However, Casino Royale (2006) establishes that M is at least the first letter or syllable of Judy Dench's character's name). Brown and Bernard Lee both appeared in the classic "The Third Man" as British military police.
  • The pre-title sequence was originally to take place in Moonraker (along with the concept of twin knife-throwing assassins) over the Angel Falls, but this was shelved after the river-bed dried up.
  • Vijay Amritraj was a professional tennis player in real life. The movie makes a joke of this by having Vijay fend off Kamal's henchmen with a tennis racquet, while the surrounding townspeople watch the conflict like a tennis match by repeatedly turning their heads left and right. At one point, Vijay's character tells 007 that as cover he has secured a job as a tennis pro at the villain, Kamal Khan's, club – learning nothing, but "My backhand's improved"!
  • Octopussy's palace is really the Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur. It is not a floating palace as stated above, but built on an island.
  • In a classic breaking of 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. Bond remarks to Vijay about the "charming tune", a combination self-reference and typical Bond pun.
  • Some mentions of the film's title censor it to Octo*****, because of the slang term for a vagina. Of course, the title, both of the Fleming novel and of the movie, is a double entendre.
  • A scene where Bond catches Khan cheating at backgammon is adapted from the Bond novel Moonraker, where Bond catches Hugo Drax cheating at contract bridge. A line where Khan tells Bond to spend his money quickly is a direct quote from this novel.
  • In general, critics and fans found the film to be a pedestrian offering at best (though it did quite well at the box office). Many ideas and themes from previous movies are recycled; two of the most recognizable are from Goldfinger, when the thuggish Gobinda crushes a pair of dice in his hand (similar to Odd Job's crushing of a golf ball), and another henchman who uses a sawblade as a lethal "yo-yo," a weapon somewhat similar to Odd Job's lethal hat. The action scenes often switch clumsily from tense chase scenes into farcical humor, as when Bond, being pursued through the jungle by Kamal and his team of hunters and bearers, swings through the trees on several well-placed vines while the Tarzan yodel plays behind him. Some of the lowbrow humor must be placed at the feet of the screenplay's co-author, George MacDonald Fraser, the author of the celebrated Flashman books. Though Fraser's novels generally do a fine job of balancing risque humor with tightly plotted action, Fraser's screenplay work often descends into bawdy, almost Three Stooges-like slapstick. The last two Moore-era films -- this one and Moore's last, A View to a Kill, were part of the reason why, when the next film, The Living Daylights, was written, the decision was made to have the films become more dark, morally ambiguous, and less gadget-driven.
  • 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 after, a concrete pole impacted Grace's left leg, causing multiple fractures and lacerations and landing him in hospital for six months. Had the train been travelling much faster, the impact would have ripped the leg off completely. He eventually recovered however, and filled in once again for Moore during the climax of A View to a Kill.

Comic book adaptation

A magazine format comic book adaptation of Octopussy was produced in 1983 by Marvel Comics. The adaptation was written by Steve Moore and illustrated by Paul Neary.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.ianfleming.org/mkkbb/guide/teasers/teaser-op.shtml
  2. ^ Later pressings of the soundtrack erroneously call it "The Chase Bond Theme".
Wikiquote has quotations related to Octopussy.


Octopussy is also the name of a non-alcoholic cocktail.

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