I love all the James Bond movies. Even the bad ones (of which there have been a few) contain enough enjoyable parts to bring me pleasure. That’s a philosophy I struggle to maintain in certain cases. Unquestionably the worst of Sean Connery’s six (official) turns in the role, the 1971 Diamonds Are Forever is also a franchise low-point in general, with fewer of those bright spots to keep me engaged.
Looking at the series as a whole, Diamonds Are Forever is perhaps most notable as a trivia footnote, marking Sean Connery as both the first and third actor to play James Bond in the 007 movie franchise made by EON Productions. At least, more accurately, he’s the first and so far only actor to play the character in non-consecutive entries. When the star walked away and swore himself done with Bond after You Only Live Twice, Australian model George Lazenby was quickly hired to replace him for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, released just two years later. Unfortunately, Lazenby’s involvement didn’t pan out for more than the one film, and the actor favored to take over next, Roger Moore, was tied up with other commitments on television. In desperation, studio United Artists convinced Connery to return for one more round, presumably by throwing huge piles of cash at him. Although he agreed, Connery clearly had little interest or investment in the job anymore, and coasted through the entire affair with only minimal effort exerted.
| Title: | Diamonds are Forever |
| Year of Release: | 1971 |
| Director: | Guy Hamilton |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
The movie has more wrong with it than that, unfortunately. Taking the title from Ian Fleming’s fourth 007 novel, Diamonds Are Forever is only loosely adapted from the book. That in itself isn’t so much a problem, as Diamonds Are Forever was also one of Fleming’s worst novels, but for different reasons. More to the point, the film is pretty dumb and lazy, with much less action than the last few installments.
Early in the picture, Bond questions his British Secret Service superior, M (Bernard Lee), why the elite Double-0 branch would be needed for a “relatively simple smuggling matter.” If anything, that feels like a direct criticism of the Fleming book, which never sufficiently addressed that issue. Here, M brushes off the question and chastises Bond to get on with the assignment anyway. Then the film throws in a whole new plotline about a far-fetched SPECTRE world-domination scheme that isn’t in the book at all as justification for it.
The early Bond movies (arguably all the way up until the Daniel Craig era) had very little sense of story continuity from one entry to the next. Viewers could jump into the series at any point and not feel they were missing anything. Diamonds Are Forever makes a half-hearted, if confusing, effort to pick up from the prior two movies by having Bond hunt down and kill his nemesis, SPECTRE mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld. One could interpret this as taking revenge for Blofeld murdering Bond’s new bride in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but the rest of the film otherwise makes no reference to anything in that one, and Bond never seems terribly broken up about his wife’s death. (He sure moves on to a new lover quickly enough!) Rather, I see it as more of a direct continuation from You Only Live Twice, with Bond determined to finish the job he left uncompleted there.
Either way, the new actor playing Blofeld (Charles Gray) is the third to play the role in as many movies, and looks nothing like the previous two. He hasn’t shaved his head and has no scar on his face. Being generous, that could be explained away by some plot-points involving plastic surgery, but the fact that Gray had just recently appeared playing one of Bond’s allies in You Only Live Twice makes the casting especially frustrating.
In this outing, 007 is tasked to investigate a crime ring that’s been smuggling diamonds from mines in Africa into the United States. (Again, how is any of this the jurisdiction of the British Secret Service?) To do this, Bond goes undercover as a smuggler, and travels briefly to Holland and then to Las Vegas, Nevada. The trail leads him to a Howard Hughes-style reclusive business tycoon named Willard Whyte, who’s kept off-camera for most of the movie until a very unsurprising plot twist revelation after about 75 minutes have passed.
To be honest, most of the movie’s plotting is dull and the action tepid. Bond’s fight against a henchman in a tight elevator is fairly tense, but very derivative of the brawl with Red Grant in From Russia with Love. A car chase on the Las Vegas Strip is staged in a particularly silly 1970s fashion, in which all traffic magically disappears and inexplicable ramps appear in the city streets so our hero can jump his car over them or balance on two wheels for no logical reason.
On the other hand, highlights of the film include a memorable tussle with a pair of acrobatic henchwomen called Bambi and Thumper (Lola Larson and Trina Parks), as well as the climactic helicopter raid on an oil rig. The latter, which ties up the SPECTRE plot created for the movie, is actually a big improvement over the ending of the book, in which Bond had an old-fashioned cowboy showdown against a loony millionaire with a Wild West fetish. That entire storyline was wisely excised from the adaptation.
After Bambi and Thumper, other primary Bond Girls include the buxom and hilariously-named Plenty O’Toole (Lana Wood), who’s given almost no screen time, and clever smuggler Tiffany Case (Jill St. John), whose moral affiliations flip-flop on a dime and who becomes Bond’s main love interest. St. John looks great in the many bikinis and skimpy outfits she’s made to wear (sometimes a few different ones per scene), but Bond’s and the movie’s treatment of the character is very indicative of the strong sexism ingrained into the franchise during this era.
Also problematic are the evil assassins Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint (Putter Smith and Bruce Glover). While not explicitly identified as gay in the movie, the characters are strongly implied as such with unsubtle wink-wink hints and played as comic relief, including a degrading gag in their final appearance. That said, for as uncomfortably homophobic as these scenes may play now, I will give the movie credit for significantly toning down that aspect of the story in comparison to the original Fleming novel, which was much more direct and hateful in its bigotry.
For his part, Sean Connery is on autopilot through most of the film. His performance isn’t necessarily bad (he was too talented for that), but he definitely didn’t care about any of this nonsense and just showed up for the payday. If still sufficiently handsome and virile, Connery had also started to look noticeably older, even than his last appearance as the character (admittedly, an ironic complaint considering the career renaissance the actor would have in the 1980s and ’90s after he embraced his age and stopped wearing a toupee).
Diamonds Are Forever may be one of my least favorite Bond films, but even so, I don’t hate it. I’ll still happily revisit it from time to time.
Despite this being his second exit from the series, Connery himself wasn’t quite done with James Bond after all. More than a decade later, a legal loophole would allow for the creation of Never Say Never Again, a competing James Bond film outside the official EON franchise. Once again, the actor would be lured back into playing Agent 007, to even more mixed results.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Diamonds Are Forever debuts on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray as the final title in the Sean Connery 6-Film Collection from MGM, available in either an expensive Limited Edition SteelBook box set or a basic keepcase. Both sets include the movies only on 4K physical disc or Digital Copy codes (which currently redeem with older video masters). No standard Blu-ray discs are provided.
In comparison to the Blu-ray release from 2012, which was overly brightened and often looked washed-out, the new 4K remaster has a better and more natural contrast balance. For that improvement alone, this is probably the best home video edition of the film to date.
Generally speaking, the 2.35:1 image is pretty sharp and detailed, aside from opticals and other process shots (of which the movie has many, unfortunately). However, the photography looks a little drab, and grain can be quite noisy. The scenes shot day-for-night are also extremely unconvincing. Colors are mostly adequate, if unexceptional, though the neon lights of the Las Vegas strip stand out. Yet even there, the disc has little sense of HDR.
I defaulted to listening to the movie’s original monaural soundtrack in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 format. I still feel unsure if I made the right decision in that. Even compared to the first five movies in this set, the mono track for Diamonds sounds quite thin and weak, at least in the first half of the movie. Maybe I’d just gotten used to it, or maybe it was my imagination, but the second half of the movie seemed to sound a little better to me. Regardless, bass and dynamic range are extremely mild.
I sampled some of the Dolby Atmos remix afterward. The theme song and John Barry musical score sound much richer and broader in multi-channel, and action scenes such as the helicopter attack climax make fun use of directional effects all around the room. Gunshots and explosions also have more bass thump, which makes me suspect the sound effects may have been replaced. In any case, I can understand an argument for preferring the Atmos here. On the other hand, dialogue sounds bloated and hollow, and the track suffers the same degree of filtering and high-end roll-off as the Atmos options on the other movies in this set.
Bonus features are once again recycled from prior DVD and Blu-ray home video editions. Among them are an audio commentary, several featurettes and interviews, some deleted scenes and alternate camera angles, a vintage teaser trailer that gives away the entire opening scene of the movie, four TV spots, and three radio ads.
Related
- Diamonds Are Forever
- Other James Bond Movies
- Other James Bond Books
- James Bond Parody
Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
The Video File Blog 
You’re surprised about silly car chases in a movie made in the 70’s? Imagine my surprise when I re-watched The Parallax View last year and totally forgot that it included just such a thing.
I have not yet watched this UHD. We watched YOLT and then spun up the OHMSS BD. Man that is an awesome Bond film, and the BD looked quite good to my eyes.
We will watch this one, but I’m not in a hurry, for all the reasons you mentioned. Connery was also just too damn old at this point and it’s a travesty that it made more money than its predecessor.
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OK we watched this over the weekend. I have seen this once before, maybe twice, and it’s been years if not decades. I was surprised that Connery did some of his own stunts – in fact I was really impressed by the scene where he rides up on the 3-wheeler, jumps off while it’s still moving, then jumps into the car and speeds away.This movie was way better than I remember. But Connery is too old. I don’t know what it was with the producers, since they did the same thing with Moore.
In any case, the UHD looks great, especially the nighttime scenes on the strip.
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Moore was actually three years older than Connery!
Moore, born 1927.
Connery, born 1930.
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