The most forgettable villains in James Bond mythology.
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"Sluggsy" Morant and Sol "Horror" Horowitz. Does anyone have any thoughts on these two Italian-American mobsters?
NOTE: This blog is in Brazilian Portuguese.
Comments
Sluggsy and Horror are actually pretty frightening characters. I'll admit they're not high up among Fleming's villainous creations, but they're not forgettable. For that I would name the Spang brothers from DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. Who are they again?
I agree, the Spangs are at the bottom of ,Fleming's villain list along with the various bad guys who're backing Scaramanga.
The woman in The Property of a Lady always escapes me.
Piotr Malinowski from 'The Property of a Lady' is probably the least well known Fleming Bond villain of them all. He's a mere cypher compared to the other Bond villains. I agree that the Spang Brothers are the least memorable villains from Fleming's Bond novels. Jack Spang only really appears twice, once near the beginning of the novel and then at the very end and Seraffimo Spang is only in the middle section before he's dispatched on the train.
She escaped Fleming as well, he got her name wrong in TMWTGG, so you're in good company.
Yes, I was thinking that. From Maria Freudenstein to Maria Freudenstadt. I think that makes it the only time Fleming references one of his short stories in one of his novels? I can't think of another instance of that happening.
Largo might be forgettable; if it weren't for the eye patch in the film, his character wouldn't be up to much.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yep, film-wise I think he's one of the least interesting, maybe Stromberg might be up there too? It's a bit rich when Largo starts criticising Vargas for not doing anything interesting 😁 I always tend to think the Thunderball film would be better if Fiona was the main villain.
And Fiona was having a lesbian affair with Domino, and then Bond intervenes, you mean? 😃But that would have been too close after Bond 'turned' Pussy Galore...
It's funny, I watched a first-series Man from UNCLE last night, a bit dreary but it may have inspired the Stromberg story as it's about ships that get hijacked in mysterious circumstances by a pirate ship roaming the high seas... it had a subtext about how ordinary folk shouldn't flee their responsibilities but as I opined in my Skyfall/Huckleberry Finn analogy, I struggle with this stuff when the surface narrative is nonsense, and this episode would have been outlandish even by latter day Avengers standards. Anyway, the lead guy played by Robert Kelp, who I feel was in something better later along the line, had the idealogical drive of Stromberg... Still a bit boring though.
Stromberg may have been poorly fleshed out because first drafts had him as Blofeld, where no backstory or colour is given; similar to the Nazis in the Indiana Jones films ('Nazis? I hate those guys!) It may even have been a 'death of Blofeld' story to shoot McClory's fox while he was planning to release Warhead. There is also of course very little engagement between Bond and Stromberg in the course of the film, or between Stromberg and anyone else. I suppose this is true of a lot of main villains, but normally the second-tier villains fill that need.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Yeah, he’s menacing enough when he’s onscreen, and yet Stromberg still isn’t very memorable. Bond and he barely chat, which as you say, is an issue: there’s nothing personal between them.
Blofeld is an interesting one as he has that problem of a lot of recurring villains, in that he’s a bit of a renta-baddie. Stromberg at least has an obsession and a goal: Blofeld doesn’t really, he just wants money or power, and it’s not
Very forgettable in the film, but a much stronger villain on the page, in some ways a dark mirror of Bond. Virile, predatory, worldly and ruthless. The film needed an Italian version of Connery for the role, not Adolfo Celi.
You could argue Blofeld needs his cat to make him interesting, the cat is not in the novels but then again the Blofeld in the three novels has more going for him, he undergoes an arc, in particular his physical changes between TB and OHMSS. It's credible he'd want immunity from prosecution after Thunderball, and to be called a count - it isn't in the films where Spectre is more an ongoing operation, being used in Dr No, FRWL
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Guess so, but there's also Lippe in the novel too, who is in that mode.
In the film, Largo is the older man, the guardian and Bond the young panther. In Never Say Never Again, it's Bond who is the older man and Largo the younger one, the dynamic has changed.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Certainly, but Lippe is taken "offstage" before Bond meets Largo, so the panther vs. panther dynamic can be continued without redundancy throughout the novel. In the film guardian-Largo is so stolid he never seems more than slightly annoyed at Bond taking away his woman, so the guardian vs. panther dynamic is muted. In Never Say Never Again Largo is the opposite of stolid--he's a livewire psychopath, which adds another dimension to his reactions to Bond and Domino.
Yeah I like that; Bond copping off with the villain's woman isn't all that rare in 007 movies, but in NSNA I feel like it was the first time that really got a proper reaction from the baddie and you can feel how angry he is- he's a bit scary with it. I think it works well.
TLD is one of my favourite Bond movies, but Koskov and Whitaker are pretty weak villains.
Yeah I love Joe Don Baker, but I feel like Whittaker could have had more punch if they'd got a bit of a film star in: he's effectively a cameo role really so I don't think it would have thrown the film off balance. For some reason I always imagine James Coburn, I think because he played a not-dissimilar baddie in Hudson Hawk of all things(!)- I can just picture that working better. Baker was great, but I think a bit of old-school Hollywood charisma would have lifted the part.