DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER —-Sean Connery’s 1971 bounce-back after four years off and a one-shot from George Lazenby was done on Sean’s terms: an astronomical $1,200,000 fee plus 12.5% of the gross, donated to set up the Scottish International Education Trust.  With that, at least something good came out of this lame exercise, my vote for 2nd worst in the series. Silliness abounds.  The plot has smuggled diamonds employed in lasers to knock out the major powers nuclear weapons and wake me up start a bidding war .  Boring choice of Las Vegas for a locale,  ditto the eye-candy but ear-hurtful Jill St. John murdering every word she speaks, and the TV-movie casting of Jimmy Dean and Lana Wood.

‘Plenty O’Toole’

Ineffectual villains: Blofeld, risen from the dead–again, this time a dull Charles Gray; two moronic gay killers, sleepily oozed by Bruce Glover and Putter Smith, with as much gravitas as a pair of ducks; two karate-girls, ‘Bambi & Thumper’, played with leaps and somersaults; assorted Vegas’y hoods.

Action scenes are not believable, 120 minutes crawl by. Connery seems tired and overweight. Even his toupee looks bored.

It drilled an Oscar nomination for Sound, made $116,000,000 around the Bond-hopeful globe: the #3 hit of the year.  Best item is the title tune, again sung by Shirley Bassey, who was told by composer John Barry to imagine she was singing about a penis.

With Bruce Cabot, Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, Marc Lawrence, Laurence Naismith.  Guy Hamilton directed.