Thunderball was nearly the ultimate 007 film — and then wasn’t

The first ten years of James Bond films look understandably older than the action films of today, mostly due to advances in technology that ages some of the old model and photographic effects shots. They also seem slower given the changing pace of action films and they give away attitudes which were normal then but are considered problematic today.

I only mention those things because they are the common objections when I try to argue that the early James Bond films are still my favourites.

As the exciting adventure stories I grew up with, the James Bond films are still a premier source of excitement for me, and the first ten years of James Bond films are still the greatest source of excitement within that series.

How do I deal with the criticisms?

I choose to enjoy what I enjoy about them—the stories, the characters, the set pieces, the art design, and the music—and acknowledge their faults. No film is absolutely flawless, not even Citizen Kane (1941), and having an adult conversation about a film’s flaws is all part of film appreciation.

I choose to enjoy what I enjoy about them and have an adult conversation about those things considered problematic today.

Anyway, let’s get to the subject of this: Thunderball (1965). I was asked in a group if this was the best of the James Bond films. Not that my opinion matters, but let’s look at it:

As the first properly widescreen 007 film, adapting one of the best stories from the books, and riding on a creative and budgetary high after the huge creative and commercial success of the first three James Bond films, Thunderball certainly should have been the ultimate 007 film.

It has has a classic plot that’s as good as any James Bond plot ever was.

It has villians who are as good as any James Bond villians ever were.

It has glamour that’s as good as any in any James Bond film.

It has locations that are as good as any James Bond locations.

It’s like they took everything that people loved about the first three James Bond films, set out to do those things at their best, and reach for a more bigger, glossier, more epic James Bond film at the same time.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the creative talents who made James Bond films look, sound, and feel like James Bond films—people like Peter Hunt, Ken Adam, and John Barry—were at their height of their powers.

Let’s not forget Sean Connery, who was at peak assuredness in the role.

It had everything going for it to be the ultimate James Bond film and yet, somehow, it just fell short of what it could have been. Gah!

Why?

It’s mainly just this: that the film suffers a little sag and bloat just at the points that a James Bond film needs to be tight.

I hear you ask, “Is that it?”

That’s the main thing, and it’s not even that big a problem, but it’s just enough to rob the film of being the ultimate that it could have been. It’s just enough of a compromise to its potential perfection.

The ultimate James Bond film needs to be as tight as Goldfinger (1964). Thunderball seems wanting for just one more energetic round of editing to tighten the pace and polish the edges which are left rough.

One gets the impression that the film didn’t so much get finished as the energy to finish it and really polish it just ran out.

As a studious James Bond, film music, and John Barry fan, there’s one more thing that, for me, compromises the film in its reach to be the ultimate, and that’s that the score as John Barry designed it got compromised.

First, the score’s thematic unity got compromised by ditching Mister Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as the film’s song and identity theme, when it was already irrevocably baked into most of the score.

Second, the music in a number of sequences, and most notably the final battle, is hacked up. Whenever an almost perfectly conceived score gets hacked up, the strive for perfection is compromised.

Most of the film’s audience wouldn’t have noticed or cared about the music observations, to be fair, but for the film’s sake, I think it would have been better if they had stuck with Mister Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Thunderball is a great song and I love that the two themes makes listening to the Thunderball score on disc richer. Mister Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was the better song though, and if they’d stuck with it as the film’s identity theme, the score could have had the same thematic unity as Goldfinger. That thematic unity worked a treat in Goldfinger, and it would have worked a treat in Thunderball too. It would have served that tightness that I would have loved to have seen in the film.

The problem is not that there are two major new themes in the score. Great scores often have multiple themes and are often better and richer when they do, but in those cases, multiple themes are designed in. That’s not what happened with Thunderball. One half of the film is scored as if Mister Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the film’s identity theme—the theme the audience is supposed to know and recognise—and the other half as if it’s Thunderball.

Recognition of the film’s identity theme in the score is a factor in how the best James Bond scores work, and, for much of the film, here was this identity theme that nobody knew or recognised. The result was not so much dual identity as lost or confused identity.

That’s the danger of messing around with the score at the eleventh hour.

Like I said though, most of the audience wouldn’t have noticed or cared. It takes a film score nerd like me to know or care.

As it is, Thunderball is tantalisingly near to being the ultimate 007 film, but with just enough sags and flaws that it failed to top what I still consider to be the three best James Bond films: From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).

Thunderball is still, certainly, one of my favourite 007 films. I love it. It’s still one of the five best in my book, and it’s still the best idea for the ultimate 007 film. As a fan of it, it’s a constant source of frustration for me that with everything in its favour, it just fell short of claiming that prestigious pole position title of ultimate.

I still feel like no single film has been complete enough to claim the title of the ultimate James Bond film: the one that has it all; the obvious one to play to show what people what the fuss was all about.

Thunderball was so nearly it and could have been.

What’s your take on it?

Addendum:

My friend Neil Bulk reminded me that Peter Hunt had a tighter edit of Thunderball, but was asked to elongate the underwater sequences to make more use of the expensively acquired footage. My other friend Mark Ashby reminded me that this is why John Barry’s score is hacked to bits back in the final act. I should have said both things here.

That edit, with the final battle scoring intact and uncompromised, may be the ultimate 007 film I was hoping Thunderball could be, and we’ve never seen it. I wonder if that edit still exists.