Ranked: Every James Bond Title Sequence

Ah, the Bond title sequence. It is as iconic as Bond himself, or at least has been since the playbook was completed with Thunderball: Beautiful female silhouettes undulating about with weapons pointed at them or in their hands against surreal backdrops. Good ones can set the film up. Bad ones pull the audience down.

I’m looking at three factors. First, the song, and I’m giving more points to the music than to any other factor. A good song can do wonders. Unfortunately, Bond has surprisingly few of those. Bond was a rat pack guy. Remember Connery’s Bond mentioning how terrible The Beatles are? No doubt they thought rock-n-roll was a phase and that joke wouldn’t date the movie at all. They had a good grasp on the music while they were thinking Las Vegas, but once they left that, they’ve rarely been comfortable. I can’t help but think age was a factor. It’s the number of “adult contemporary” songs we get, which is a place Bond should never approach. When they try to be more “with it,” it gets worse, going with the worst excesses of techno, autotunning, and indie hipster rock. Still, sometimes they did it right and a few times it was fantastic. I’d just expected more winners from 26 films. (For comparison, I’ve ranked just the songs separately here.)

Then there is the visuals. A majority of the title sequences were created by Maurice Binder, and those made after his death have followed his style. Binder saw himself as an artist, and he was. Billy Wilder declared that his titles were better than the films. Binder was going for a theme, one of beauty and danger, but more, of perfection. This brought him to the female form, which he managed to display with a great deal more nudity than you’d expect in PG-rated films. He was famous for being able to talk girls who assumed they’d be in bodysuits into performing naked. The most well known story of his Bond work was when producer Cubby Broccoli found Binder on his knees rubbing a naked dancer between her legs. Broccoli was taken aback, but the business-like Binder explained that her pubic hair was showing up in the silhouettes and he was applying Vaseline to keep it flat. The dancer had said that he should do it instead of herself so that it would be right and she didn’t want to shave.

Binder’s work was original. He made mini-movies. He cannot be blamed if the music he was given was not always fitting. His Bond flaw was repetition. His first titles were so original, but once he got it right, he stuck with the formula, over and over again.

Finally, I’m looking at how well the title sequence fits with the movie. Does it carry through a theme? Does it build to the proper level of excitement, or does it drag the audience down or indicate an entirely different type of movie?

A few notes on my general reviewing of these, and most anything else, so you can see where I am coming from—a few things on my good and bad lists. I dislike clip shows of any form. They show both a lack of artistry and originality. And if the clips are for what we are about to see, it is horrible. By the way, originally is good. Dull colors and a limited pallet are normally bad. Sensuality is good. And finally, musically, for the most part I dislike country, disco, techno, synthpop, adult contemporary, cheesy hip indie, most power ballads, Muzak, and Laurence Welk. Unfortunately, only one of those is not pertinent.

So, to begin at the worst:

THE BAD

 

#27 Never Say Never Again

Song: (Lani Hall) Horrible TV ‘80s pop. If anything condemned this film, it was the music, which was bad throughout, but the theme was a special level of bad.

Visuals: This non-Eon, Non-Binder opening is a mess. It’s an action scene, which isn’t theoretically a problem after it gets past the long TV swamp sweep, but since the action doesn’t start till past halfway, and it feels like he’s just out for a jog at the beginning, it’s not much of an action scene. The editing is weak, and the music is at an entirely different pace.

Fit the Film: Well, the combat with an aging Connery indicates what is to come, in both a good and bad way. but the whole thing is painful to listen to.

 

 

#26 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Song: It’s as if they forgot to write a theme and just laid some random background music over the titles. This is background music for a scene in the film, not an opening. It’s pretty good background music, and does work behind action and fast cars during the film, but as a theme it is a huge nothing. Empty air.

Visuals: Cheap clip show. We do not need a “Last time, on James Bond…” It is hard to imagine how they could have chosen worse. Art was tossed out to be replaced by a desperate plea to believe this was still Bond.

Fit the Film: The idea was to show how this film would continue on the Bond brand, even with a new Bond, but it shows the opposite. It would help if the film itself didn’t muck up continuity. Then maybe this force fed continuity would work better. Instead, the clips simply show what this film isn’t. That’s always a bad idea.

 

 

#25 Spectre

Song, “Writing’s On the Wall”: (Sam Smith) I hate this song so much. No one will remember it in a year. It’s slow and depressing, which is the opposite of “Yay action film!” An unpleasant falsetto (because nothing says Bond like falsetto) plunges into a slow, string-filled disaster. Is it sexy? No. Dangerous? No. Exciting or action-oriented? No. Moody, whiny, and barely moving? Yes. This song says: The next two hours will be not just slow, but depressing. Enjoy.

Visuals: Craig looking like a terminator, loss, doom, sensual women, all wrapped with octopi. It kept my attention except for the crappy clips from past films which really shouldn’t have been there. Subtract the Apollo Craig bits, and the clips, and we’ve got something as the tentacle stuff really works—creepy. But there’s no excuse for those clips.

Fit the Film: No. Some of the imagery works great, but this is a slow opening exposing how all is lost, and Spectre is a partial return to older Bond. Really needed something a bit more exciting. And really needed a different singer. It’s amusing that octo-Blofeld in the titles is way more frightening than his weak family version in the film. The fatal flaw is how it stops the film dead. Other title-sequences are bland or slow, but none stop the flow of the film so completely as this one.

 

 

#24 Quantum of Solace

Song, “Another Way to Die”: (Jack Black & Alicia Keyes) This song exists only to make “Die Another Day” sound less terrible. Black and Keyes’s voices tear at each other, making fingernails on a blackboard pleasant by comparison. They just yell at each other. Black was never going to fit but Keyes could have pulled off a Bond theme, but she doesn’t sing here; she yelps. The song is one half alternative and one have commercial rock, and all overproduced. It is unpleasant to listen to. The worst song in Bond history, which is saying something.

Visuals: A lot of walking, which gets dull, but the female form as desert works nicely. It’s a step in the right direction from Casino Royale, but like it, the same things are repeated far too often. By the time the dancing girls pop up, it is far too late. And there are many, many colors in the universe. Apparently filters in shades of brown were all that were handy.

Fit the Film: It fits only in the worst way. It is an indicator, a warning, of what is to come. Like the film, the song and film are badly edited. Both are jarring. And like the title’s imagery, the film gives us a lot of the same thing over and over with a dull color pallet.

 

 

#23 A View to a Kill

Song: (Duran Duran) Bad boppsy ‘80s pop, I suppose this explains why they’d stuck with terrible adult contemporary songs for so long. When they tried to “get with it” it got ugly. This is the worst excesses of cheese. Duran Duran has no connection with Bond. At least it has energy, but the energy of a twelve-year-old girl’s sleepover. I will grant that “a view to a kill” is not a phrase that slides nicely into a song lyric.

Visuals: So, Binder discovered black light. That’s not a good thing. Everything that once looked cool now looks silly. The phosphorescent ski polls and ribbons are just another lever of pain. This is the worst looking of Binder’s standard sequences. It is garish and at times simply unattractive. We are also introduced to (and happily never shown again), naked male silhouettes. There’s a reason why you use females besides them being more beautiful. In silhouette, a woman’s sex is not necessarily visible. Nipples poke a bit, but that can slide by the ratings board. But males have dangly bits that are quite obvious and not going to make it into a PG film, or even the later PG-13 ones. So, the men had to have their genitals removed. It’s Ken dolls on skis. No one wants Ken dolls on skis.

Fit the Film: In that the titles look and sound cheap and tacky and are based on similar things done far better in the past, yes, it fits the film perfectly.

 

 

#22 From Russia With Love:

Song: Elevator music. This is perfect for your grandmother’s (or more likely, great grandmother’s) weekly canasta party. It is likely to fade from your mind as soon as it is done playing, which puts it above others. At least they used the drab instrumental version instead of the sickening vocal one by Matt Monro that infects the picture later. Still, there’s some painful organ work on this one. I am grading it based on its theme, not on the James Bond theme that brackets it and makes it come off much better.

Visuals: The dancing girl is pleasant and she catches the eye, but it is more gimmick than art.

Fit the Film: Reasonably well. It informs us were going to the “mysterious orient” where secrets and sex abound. Bringing back the Bond theme toward the end negates a bit of the elevator tone.

 

 

#21 Octopussy

Song: (Rita Coolidge) “All Time High” Since adult contemporary ballads never fit Bond, and are rarely good, why did they keep using them? This song sucks the life out of the film, your speakers, and anything it is near. It will fit nicely as the second to the last dance song at your uncle’s third wedding reception or for a made-for-TV, ’80s, romantic dramady.

Visuals: The girls are attractive and move nicely. But unfortunately Binder discovered the laser, and takes great joy is projecting “007” all over the place. There’s also ice skating and trampolines.

Fit the Film: In no way. It’s slow and drab. Ice skating? Was that left over footage from For Your Eyes Only? I’m a bit lost on why they didn’t go with the obvious Indian motif. The film is mainly in India. It cries out for that.

 

 

#20 Moonraker

Song: (Shirley Bassey) Another adult contemporary, which in this case means Muzak. The wonderful Bassey can’t save it. Still, it would have been worse with anyone else singing it.

Visuals: OK, we’ve got trampolines again. Why do we have trampolines? This is perhaps the dullest use of the formula, and long shots of blowing hair do not help.

Fit the Film: Not sure there is anything in the sequence that connects to the film beyond cute girls and space. The tone is completely wrong.

 

 

THE NOT SO GOOD

 

#19 Casino Royale

Song, “You Know My Name”: (Chris Cornell) Please don’t make me listen to this thing again. It isn’t a song written by an artist, but one constructed by a machine. Insert generic ‘00s rock backing. It is overproduce to death. No one hums this song to themselves. That said, it again gets points for not be a soft ballad. It doesn’t drag down the movie, so, that’s something. Another singer may have been able to breath some life into it. Cornell badly dates the song and the film. 2006 isn’t all that long ago, but it sure sounds it.

Visuals: So, I think I now know the four suits on playing cards. Gone are the girls. In their place are a lot of card-oriented images, and Bond walking around shooting and punching people. There’s a lot of movement, but none of it is worth the effort to watch. In case you didn’t know that Casino Royale was a casino, the images will tell you, over and over and over again.

Fit the Film: Quite well. This is an announcement that things have changed. Bond is not going to be fun any more. This is serious business. All the sensuality is gone, replaced by violence, death, and emptiness. That’s the film, so yeah, they did well. Just not interesting titles to watch or hear.

 

 

#18 You Only Live Twice

Song: (Nancy Sinatra) What happened? After brass and sass overload of Goldfinger and Thunderball the Bondness is sapped away with this slow, soft song. It isn’t terrible, just middling and silly.

Visuals: The lava is a nice backdrop. The full body shots are few. Instead the camera focuses on the Japanese theme, and since the average Brit/American had no idea what Japan was, we get lots of shots of Asian eyes and women dressed about a century out of date. The imagery is almost as low energy as the song.

Fit the Film: Well, the film is racist and the sequence is uncomfortable, so it sort of fits. But it’s too gentle to do the job. The song says it’s “drizzling out today,” not “space ships are going to be eaten by a cat fetishist in a volcano.”

 

 

#17 Licence to Kill

Song: (Gladys Knight) It’s old school Bond, just less memorable. It starts out bold, and sounds like Bond, and for a moment it seems like this will be a great one. But then it fades, sounding less jazz house, and more glitz and strings. In this instance, less clarity would help. “I Got a licence to kill, And you know I’m going straight for your heart” is not a line I want to remember, but it is drilled in to me.

Visuals: Very much along the lines of past Bond openings—very traditional. The girls are twirling again. Why all the twirling?  It also takes photography as a motif. Again, why? Neither the film, nor the song, nor Bond in general are hung up on still photography. And nothing interesting is done with it.

Fit the Film: Nope. The song points to an older form of Bond film, not to the rape and revenge exploitation film that it fronts. I don’t know if I should add or subtract points for that.

 

 

#16 The World is Not Enough

Song: (Garbage) I’ve forgotten it by the end of the sequence. Which means it isn’t so bad as to mess up anything, but not good enough to actually acknowledge it as music. The fact that being a blank puts it above a third of the themes is damning for Bond themes in general.

Visuals: We leave the two more narrative predecessors for a sequence that is pretty much just girls dancing, covered in oil. We get a little free flowing oil and oil related objects as well, but they take up little time. I like glossy, oil covered nudes as much as the next man, but some variation would have been nice.

Fit the Film: The opening is a little sad. So is the film. So, that works. But the film also has a ton of action. This isn’t the opening of an action film. There’s far too much of a whine.

 

 

#15 No Time To Die

Song: (Billie Eilish) This one has grown on me, but my god people, cut it out. I know the Craig-era Bond films have been downers, but come on, these are still action pictures. This is yet another depressing song in a line of depressing songs and wow is it slow and bleak. It actually picks up some power (bleak power) at the 3-min mark, and that shows the problem with the song: it’s frustrating. It ends before it should. It starts with a power level of 1 and then builds to 5 at that 3-min mark, and it should then go on to maybe a 9, but it just pulls out instead. It works surprisingly well as background music during the film.

Visuals: It’s a nostalgia-fest. The references to past Bond films (and past Bond title sequences) come fast and furious, and not just for Craigs films, though they get the most. “Hey, remember GoldenEye? We do. How about Dr. No? OHMSS? Thunderball? It becomes a game of spot which film they are referencing now. Of course games aren’t bad, so it’s kinda fun.

Fit the Film: Yes. The film is deeply depressing, so that fits the song. And it is also one homage after another to past Bond films. A points the film is nearly a remake of OHMSS mated with Dr. No. I’m not sure it is a good thing that it fits, but it certainly does.

 

 

#14 The Living Daylights

Song: (A-ha) Following the Duran Duran money-maker, the producers wanted to go with another trendy pop band, so they called in A-ha, masters of one hit (not like Duran Duran will be remembered for more than one) Well, it is better than Duran Duran’s attempt. Faint praise indeed. It’s ‘80s europop, which is not a music genre in any way related to Bond. It is catchy.

Visuals: It’s girls, jumping about and firing guns. The number of silhouettes are down, giving us slightly better lit girls, and generally more clothed ones.

Fit the Film: Well enough. Europop may not fit Bond, but it doesn’t kill the action-movie mood as much as adult contemporary ballads. The music and visuals are fluffy fun, which is pretty much what the movie is. I give this one a bit of a break because of the film it is connected to. We’re in cotton candy land.

 

 

#13 The Man With the Golden Gun

Song: (Lulu) After the “new” of Live and Let Die, we go old school again. The Las Vegas vibe is updated a bit with some pointlessly grinding guitars. Lulu does her best Bassey imitation, and squeaks by. While the song is really, really Bond, the problem is that it isn’t very good.  It is obviously modeled after earlier songs and it can’t keep up. It’s pretty much “Thunderball” 2.0.

Visuals: The focus is on the golden gun and naked women laying about or dancing in a water motif. The girl in fireworks raises the excitement level, which helps, but also feels cheap and out of place. Why sparklers? There’s nothing new here.

Fit the Film: Well…yes. Even with the reused water motif—at least the film does take place partly on an island. The song does say Bond, even if it says old Bond. So many of the titles that I’ve rated worse have the problem of not fitting for Bond, particularly in the song choice. They just don’t belong. This one belongs. It fits beautifully. It’s just not very good.

 

 

#12 Die Another Day

Song: (Madonna) I looked it up in the Universal Dictionary of Songs and yes, this is technically a song. Autotuning replaces singing. Who thinks Bond and techno goes together? This is a poor dance song I probably wouldn’t object to (more than others) if I was at a rave, but would never listen to and would put real effort into turning off if I heard it anywhere else. On the positive side, it is not low-power and dull, which is the biggest sin for an action movie theme.

Visuals: Showing the torture in the credits was gutsy. As a one-off, fairly engaging. And the imagery—lava girls, flame, scorpions, etc.—is captivating. It was clever having the tortures Bond was going through represented by swaying women.

Fit the Film: Yes, for good and bad. The images gives you an idea of the feel of what is to come, and the autotuning lets you know some things will go too far.

Yeah, I know it is crazy that this one is so high, but I’m ranking titles, not just songs. Watch the titles while playing a different theme. (Hell, the Stones’ Paint it Black works pretty well. Pull it up in another window.) The visuals are powerful. The song really pulls it down. but for a change, the visuals have more to do with where this one is ranked than the song, which is down there near the very bottom.

 

 

#11 For Your Eyes Only

Song: (Sheena Easton) Middling adult contemporary pop, it is at least a step up from Moonraker. It still isn’t a song for an action film. It gets points for it being exclusively about a girl stripping.

Visuals: Points for doing something different in using Easton in the sequence, and equal points for not doing it again. Binder was taken by Easten’s appearance and wanted to highlight her. It gives the whole thing a music video feel, prior to the existence of MTV. The shift in the structure makes the older elements—the girls, the dancing, the guns, the twirling—feel new again.

Fit the Film: The moodiness under the love song is a surprisingly good fit with the movie. Not as good a fit as something with a bit of power, but it could be, and has been, worse. When I first saw this at the theater, back before I could check everything on the Internet and we’d go to movies without reading up on them first, I assumed that Easten would be the Bond girl in the film. It was jarring that she wasn’t.

 

 

THE GOOD

 

#10 Tomorrow Never Dies

Song: (Sheryle Crow) Surprisingly good, considering Crow is a singer songwriter, not a nightclub performer. But her song works, even if only in the films titles. It could use 50% less screeching. It needed a non-indie rock singer with more range. Speaking of which, over the final credits runs the rejected theme, K. D. Lang’s “Surrender.” It is a better song, but it harkens too far back; it would have been a great song for Connery.

Visuals: Nice. The old ways with a new feel. The go-go dancers work, as does the cyber overlay. It could have been more exciting. I love the diamond necklace that separates and orbits the girl’s head—this was done to reference a line from the film where communication satellites were compared to a diamond necklace around the Earth, but the line was cut.

Fit the Film: A little too slow and calm for this film. A movie about mass communication going wild needed to be a lot more wild. On the other hand, this film marks the beginning of the morose Bond, which would continue for seven films, so the morose undertones do predict what is to come.

 

 

#9 Thunderball

Song: (Tom Jones) It’s a really dumb take on the previous song, Goldfinger. They saw how well that worked, and tried to do something like it, and as is often the case, couldn’t. It’s a bit too fluffy between its deeply stupid lyrics: “He strikes like thunderball” Really? And what kind of a strike is that? And yes, I know it is a military term for an atomic explosion. That doesn’t help. But it feels so very Bond and no one can fault Jones for giving it his all. The song is like the movie itself—dumb and showy without being exciting. I’d move it up a slot if it wasn’t so damn memorable. I really don’t want it to be.

Visuals: This is where it was all set. Goldfinger is the iconic Bond Film. This is the iconic Maurice Binder title sequence. Lots of silhouettes swimming about, some sexy girls and some with weapons. It isn’t the best, but it is the iconic one and it gets points for being first.

Fit With Film: Yeah. Swimming, shooting, sexy girls, brassy music. It fits.

 

 

#8 Skyfall

Song: (Adele) The best of the Craig era, where the competition has been light. It tends to be overrated because it so outshines the Bond songs around it, and because Adele is a significantly better singer than the franchise had drafted for many years. But the melody just isn’t that strong and the lyrics should not be examined. But ignoring its too-great praise, it is a good song. It sounds like Bond, connecting back to the Rat Pack era Connery Bond themes, but updated. Perhaps it is more melancholy than a theme for an action film should be, but then it’s a melancholy movie.

Visuals: It’s one long CGI tracking shot that cries out video game. We journey along through death, decay and darkness. Sometimes along that journey we get some deeply cool imagery. And sometimes we get overlong shots of Daniel Craig’s eye.

Fit the Film: Melancholy opening to go with a melancholy movie with a touch of a nod to the past. The visuals drive home the theme of the film, and even takes us to Bond’s house, though we don’t know that yet. Still, this is an action film and these titles don’t say “exciting action.” They say, “Give up and just kill yourself now.”

 

 

#7 Casino Royal (1967)

Song: (Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass) This is the heart of ‘60s cool. It’s jazz with trumpets and it says Bond. It’s also energetic. Yeah, it’s of a time, but so is Bond and I love it. It’s repeated during the end credits with lyrics sung for humor, which may or may not work for you, depending on your mood. Of note, the film also supplied “The Look of Love” which also is a winner, mainly due to Dusty Springfield’s “dirty sex now” vocals. Actually, the entire score is excellent. Something had to be.

Visuals: This is a non-Eon production, so things are a bit different. The playful animated letters are cute, as are the angelic figures playing the horn parts. Showing images of the main stars works well in a film where that’s pretty much all it has. Technically those are clips, but only technically and it never falls into the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service/Goldfinger/Spectre clip show folly.

Fit the Film: Yes, in the sense that it screams Bond and also the ’60s. The music is pretty much all the movie has, but that song is just so good much else is forgiven.

 

 

#6 Doctor No

Song, “James Bond Theme + a bit of calypso”: Fantastic. Gets right to the heart of Bond, and is ‘60s action cool. It’s fun to hear and it gets your blood pumping. This is the iconic theme for an iconic character and you can’t get it out of your head. It’s all good.

Visuals: Passable for the time. It’s fun and jaunty, but nothing like what was to come.

Fit the Film: It fits like a glove. It tells you exactly what to expect. The Bond theme raises you up and then the calypso and Three Blind Mice ending shifts you right into the film.

 

 

#5 Diamonds Are Forever

Song: (Shirley Bassey) At some point they had to think, “just have Shirley Bassey do all the songs.” It’s a good thought. Again, she hits it perfectly. This is a deeply Bondian song. Loud and brassy, it is about betrayal and disillusionment, as well as hand jobs, because it is important to caress, touch, stroke, and undress your diamond. Co-producer Harry Saltzman thought the song too obscene.

Visuals: Beautiful women, as often out of silhouette as in, diamonds, weapons, and a cat—a very dangerous cat. And this time a woman gets a gun.

Fit the Film: Really well. Between the song, the diamonds, the tone of betrayal, the cat, this is one of the best for setting up the film. It’s not the most artistic, but good for that purpose. The title sequence is better than the film.

 

 

#4 Goldfinger

Song: (Shirley Bassey) Wonderful. It screams out, dark, dangerous jazz club. It says sex and death and excitement and doom and explosions and cruelty and it is all good. No doubt the power comes from Bassey, who takes it to mythic levels. But even without her, it is a memorable tune. It is hummable. If I was basing it only on song, this one would be higher as I like it better than those in my 1-3 slots.

Visuals: The golden girls as background screen is smart, but the projected clips from the film suck. No one needs to see the movie they are about to see.

Fit the Film: The Song and gold girls are perfect. The clips pull it back a bit, but still, you just can’t beat that song.

 

 

#3 Live and Let Die

Song: (Paul McCartney and Wings) Excellent. One of the few post-Connery songs worth listening to on its own. The producers wanted someone else to sing, but McCartney said him or no song.

Visuals: I have a feeling I could write a book on the racial commentary of this sequence. The figures are mainly Black, and clearly nude in ways never before shown (I cannot think of another opening where an areola is visible). They are also in “tribal paint.” But these women are not victims. They are strong and interestingly serene. They are surrounded by death and mystic powers (skulls, flowing lights), but none of that will bother them.

Fit the Film: Very well. Lets us know we’re in for something sexy and dangerous with a touch of mysticism. And we’re getting something different. These titles said things have changed. With a new Bond we are in a new era where rock is not disparaged. Plus, the Bond world discovers that there are people who aren’t either White or mysterious Asians.

 

 

#2 The Spy Who Loved Me

Song, “Nobody Does it Better.”: (Carly Simon) The  first song titled other than the film. It is also the best in the long line of “adult contemporary” songs that were to follow.

Visuals: Excellent. A constant stream of images capture the eye. For the first time, Bond appears in the titles, and with him, the implication of romance. The girls are sexy (of course) with nudity hidden just enough to make the audience strain to see. And those girls are armed, appearing as dangerous as Bond himself. There’s also a lot of gymnastics, which is fun to watch if you like gymnastics, and the line of naked Russian soldiers is one of the best images in all the titles.

Fit the Film: Absolutely. Gets us ready for a sexy film with emotional and romantic conflict, and a reworking of the image of Russian women. Before The Spy Who Loved Me, the stereotype of a Russian woman included dumpy, broad shouldered, unpleasant, and overbearing. It was a running gag for standups that this film is credited with destroying. My one question is why did Binder think trampolines matched this film? He’s got a lot of bouncing going on, and while it looks good, it seems out of left field.

 

 

#1 Goldeneye

Song: (Tina Turner) This is a weird one. On its own, I never want to hear it. I’d never pull out the album and have a listen. But as a theme, in those amazing titles (perhaps the best sequence of any film ever made), it works so perfectly. The lyrics cover everything about Bond’s world while not making a coherent whole: Sexy, smoky, dangerous, and nonsensical. This is Bond the way Goldfinger was, except that’s a song I can enjoy listening to on its own. Only Bassey managed to slip in more emotion than Turner does here.

Visuals: Twenty years perfected. Always something to look at. Always something sensual. It’s all done beautifully. The girls are beautiful, and every one seems to have a reason for being there, even if that is highly unlikely. The girls dancing on gun barrels? I’m sure it must mean something with the stamping high heal and the girls using sledgehammers on Soviet statues right after it. Ah…meaning doesn’t matter, but the appearance of it does, and this appears to mean a lot.

Fit the Film: Perfect. Absolutely perfect. This is a mini-film in the best way. Abstract? Oh yes, but so good. An artistic rendering of the end of the Soviet Union to set us up for what is to come. It’s sexy, but with more weight. The sequence says the world has changed and anything can happen as the rules are gone.