![]() ![]() Listen for yourself:įrom there it is a very typical Roger Moore Bond film. No, it is not a better song than Shirley Bassey’s title track for Goldfinger, or Paul McCartney and Wings’ Live and Let Die and it does not hold a candle to the greatness of Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does it Better” from The Spy Who Loved Me, but it is a very good song in its own right and should always be in the discussion of the best Bond songs. The only one to peak at number one on both the US and UK Billboard charts. In fact Billboard-wise, Duran Duran’s A View to a Kill is the most successful Bond song of all time. This is a great, catchy song that does not sound like regular 80’s cheese as one might expect. What really stands out for this sequence is the title song by Duran Duran. Next up, the opening titles with a once again solid job on the visuals by Maurice Binder who designed all of the 007 title sequences until this point other than From Russia with Love and Goldfinger. ![]() I find nothing wrong with this action scene. It involved Bond in a ski fight into a snowboarding sequence with “California Girls” playing over parts of it to lighten the mood. The pre-opening credits sequence is a glorious one. In my opinion it holds up very well and is arguably Roger Moore’s best 007 adventure other than The Spy Who Loved Me. So far I realize I have defended A View to a Kill as a milestone in Bond cinema history, but what about the actual movie itself. So yes both James Bond and Miss Moneypenny look a little too old for most conventional viewers but I think it is a nice farewell that these two actors leave together the franchise characters they helped to either create or reinvent for a whole generation of moviegoers. If you ask me she is the real Bond girl, only Judi Dench comes in second as an actress with seven appearances in the Bond series. Bond for the first fourteen Bond films, that’s everything from Dr. No, but she played M’s personal secretary who was always flirting with Mr. Roger might have been in seven Bond films, but Lois Maxwell not only originated the role back in 1962’s Dr. Not only is it Moore’s swan song as James Bond, but it is the final appearance of Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny. There are more reason’s A View to a Kill is more notable than its reputation. But for the next twenty-one years throughout Dalton and Brosnan’s reign as the world’s most famous superspy they were working from truly original scripts and did not have any relation to an Ian Fleming work other than the characters name. This would change in 2006 once Barbara Broccoli’s Eon Productions finally won the rights to make Casino Royale into a motion picture. Not only was it his last outing as James Bond, it was also the last 007 film to come from an original story by Ian Fleming. It was Roger Moore’s farewell to a character he played for seven films in twelve years. To me A View to a Kill represents a moment in the 007 filmography that marks a distinct end to a beautiful golden era in more ways than one. In this ongoing series of “Pan and Slam Essentials” I will be highlighting films that I love which I either find very underrated or for whatever reason I absolutely love yet the rest of the world seems to dislike. One of the James Bond films that has a particularly toxic reputation is 1985’s A View to a Kill. ![]()
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