Today would have marked Ian Fleming's one hundredth birthday. Am I going to celebrate that with a clip from a Bond picture? Um...duh!
I've actually been meaning to post this ever since seeing Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, but really, I shouldn't single that particular film out. All action movies these days are inexplicably reliant on CGI. Even when, as with Crystal Skull or the most recent Die Hard epic, the credits list scores of stunt performers, the scenes using them have been so digitally enhanced as to negate the very danger that makes their work so impressive. When anything is possible, nothing can really astonish.
This is the teaser from Roger Moore's best Bond picture, The Spy Who Loved Me. Sure, the rear projection in the closeups of Moore is embarrassingly bad, but everything else is the real deal. Not only does the lack of CGI enhance the sense of danger in the scene, the lack of distracting bells and whistles makes it much easier to follow. This sequence is a model of how to stage and film action, and a great mini-movie in itself.
