The Spy Who Loved Me

James Bond fanatics tend to treat Roger Moore like the other Darren on Bewitched, but Sean Connery never made a better 007 movie than this tip-top 1977 adventure--the escapist vehicle that daddies ducked into after dropping off the tots at Star Wars. The jaw-dropping opening ski-attack stunt sets the template the later films would follow, as Bond teams with vengeful KGB stunner Barbara Bach to take down a ruthless magnate (Curt Jurgens) with a stockpile of nukes. After two movies, Moore had settled into his own suave, mildly amused take on the role, and director Lewis Gilbert polished the surrounding assembly line to a gleam: Bach is a knockout, Ken Adam’s production design is pure Jules Verne plutocrat porn and in Richard Kiel's hulking steel-snappered Jaws the series gets one of its most enduring villains. And Carly Simon's theme song still stirs impure thoughts in any former '70s adolescent. Nobody does it better, indeed. The movie closes The Belcourt's two-month run of the best of 007--talk about a high-yield Bond.
Sat., Aug. 30, noon; Sun., Aug. 31, noon; Mon., Sept. 1, 7 p.m., 2008