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Diamonds are Forever Trailer

Brief Synopsis:

Resolved to avenge Tracy's murder, Bond tracks Blofeld to Egypt and watches him die in a mud pool. Back in London, M assigns 007 to infiltrate a smuggling ring and find out who is stock piling stolen diamonds. Impersonating a gang member named Franks, Bond contacts another, Tiffany Case, and travels to Las Vegas with a hoard of gems hidden in Franks' coffin. The diamonds are acquired by a hi-tech empire belonging to a reclusive tycoon. But lurking in the background, back from the dead, is Bond's most bitter foe, Blofeld.

Release Date:

• December 17, 1971

Plot:

• The extortion of nations for nuclear supremacy, using the incentive of a high-powered diamond-encrusted laser satellite

Box Office Results:

• $116.0 million

Running Time:

• 2 hours, 1 minute

Gadgets:

• Voice Algorithm Recorder
• Grappling Hook Gun
• Fake fingerprints
• Slot-machine RPM controller
  

Director:

• Guy Hamilton

Screenplay:

• Richard Maibaum
• Tom Manckiewicz

Starring:

• Sean Connery as James Bond

Villain:

• Charles Gray as Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Henchmen:

• Bruce Glover as Mr. Wint
• Putter Smith as Mr. Kidd
• Leonard Barr as Shady Tree
• Bruce Cabot as Bert Saxby
• Lola Larson as Bambi
• Trina Parks as Thumper
• Joseph Furst as Professor Dr. Metz

Supporting Cast:

• Jimmy Dean as Willard Whyte
• Norman Burton as Felix Leiter
• Laurence Naismith as Sir Donald Munger
• Bernard Lee as M
• Desmond Llewelyn as Q
• Lois Maxwell asMoneypenny

Bond Girls:

• Jill St. John as Tiffany Case
• Lana Wood as Plenty O' Toole

Filming Locations:

• Japan; Cairo, Egypt; South America; South Africa; Dover, UK; Amsterdam, Holland; Los Angeles, USA; Nevada, USA; Las Vegas, USA; Baja, California; USA.

Best Quote:

• Plenty: "Hi, I'm Plenty."

Bond: "But, of course you are."
Plenty: "Plenty O' Toole."

Bond: "Named after your father, perhaps."

Best Mistake: (According to mi6.co.uk)

• One of the moon buggy's wheels falls off mid chase
• bonds mustang enters on the right hand wheels, and comes out on its left

Distinguishing Feature: (According to mi6.co.uk)

• Connery's return. Tempted back into the Bond role for a then record sum of $1.25 million plus a percentage of the profits. He donated the entire sum to his Scottish International Educational Trust

Vital Statistics: (According to mi6.co.uk)

• Conquests: 1
  
• Martinis: 0
  
• Kills: 7
  
• "Bond, James Bond": 1

Trivia:

• When "M" and Bond are briefed by Munger, he offers the men a glass of Sherry. "M" defers, mentioning doctor's orders, which Bond attributes to his liver. In real life Bernard Lee ("M") wasn't allowed to drink due to his health. He died of stomach cancer in 1981.

• The last official Bond movie to star Sean Connery

Detailed Synopsis:

As Diamonds Are Forever opens, we find Bond traveling the world in search of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, an evil mastermind hell-bent on world domination. In his search for Blofeld, Bond travels to restaurant in Japan, a casino in Egypt, and a beach in Maui. When he finally locates Blofeld at a secret research facility, he finds Blofeld involved in some kind of appearance altering research where the subject is submersed in a kind of green mud. After dispatching his guards, Bond drowns Blofeld in the green mud.

The search for Blofeld

After the title scene, Bond andM are briefed by Sir Donald Munger of the Treasury.M asks Bond to investigate a smuggling operation originating in a South African diamond mine. MI6 fears that someone is stockpiling the smuggled diamonds in an attempt to control the world diamond market. MI6 has been focusing their efforts on a professional diamond smuggler named Peter Franks who works out of Amsterdam. They instruct Bond to go to Amsterdam and investigate the role that Franks plays in the diamond smuggling pipeline. MI6 detains Franks at a Dutch port, and Bond assumes Frank’s identity. When he arrives in Amsterdam, Bond goes to visit one of Franks’ contacts, Tiffany Case. Tiffany is suspicious of Bond’s identity, but he fools her with, among other tricks, some fake fingerprints courtesy of Q. Back at his hotel, Bond phones Q and learns that Franks has escaped custody. He hurries back to Tiffany’s flat and kills Franks before he has time to meet with Tiffany. Bond cleverly switches his wallet with Franks’, and so Tiffany thinks that Franks (Bond) killed Bond (Franks).

Fake fingerprints

Bond vs. Franks

We find out that the diamonds are being smuggled out of the mines by workers who place the diamonds in their mouths. The miners visit a dentist, and the dentist extracts the diamonds. The dentist then takes the collected diamonds to a rendezvous point in the desert where he passes the diamonds on to the next link in the pipeline. As the dentist arrives at the rendezvous point, two men, Mr. Wint and and Mr. Kidd are waiting for him. They take the diamonds and kill him by dropping a scorpion down his shirt. The dentist’s contact eventually arrives and Wint and Kidd kill him by bombing his helicopter. Wint and Kidd take the diamonds to Ms. Whistler, a South African teacher who is the next link in the pipeline. Ms. Whistler travels to Amsterdam, but soon after her arrival, Wint and Kidd drown her in a canal. By the time she was drowned, Whistler had already passed the diamonds off to the next link, Tiffany Case.

The scorpion and the dentist

Tiffany and Bond (impersonating Franks) smuggle the diamonds to America inside Franks’ body. As Bond and Tiffany board the plane, we see Wint and Kidd aboard. Once the plane lands, Felix Leiter, an old CIA friend of Bond, arranges for the diamonds to pass through customs. Three men from the Slumber Inc. funeral service arrive and take the the casket to their crematorium in Las Vegas. Once there, the casket is cremated, and the diamonds are extracted. Bond places the diamonds in the designated pick-up location, only to find Wint and Kidd waiting for him. They knock Bond out, place him in a casket, and begin to cremate him. Bond is saved by Shady Tree, a comedian at a local casino who is also the next link in the pipeline. Shady realizes that Bond has switched the real diamonds with fakes and demands to know where the real diamonds are located. Bond heads to the his hotel.



Later that evening, Bond heads over to The Whyte House, a local casino, to watch Shady’s comedy show that night. The Whyte House owned by Willard Whyte, a reclusive millionaire who made his fortune in research, explosives, aviation, and real estate. Whyte lives in the penthouse, and hasn’t been seen in public in months. After the show, Bond goes down to the dressing room to talk with Shady, but finds him murdered. Bond returns to the casino and visits the craps table where he meets Plenty O’Toole, a casino leech looking to seduce the high-rollers. Bond and Plenty go back up into Bond’s room, but find Tiffany and her men waiting for them. The men throw Plenty out the window and into the pool.


Tiffany suggests that she and Bond take the diamonds and escape to Hong Kong. Bond agrees and tells Tiffany to go to the circus where he’s arranged for her to get the diamonds. Tiffany is directed to visit the water balloon game, where she wins a stuffed bear that contains the diamonds. When Tiffany returns home, she finds Bond sitting by the pool and her friend drowned in the pool. Bond explains to Tiffany that she was the intended target of the murder and that each link in the diamond pipeline has been killed. Bond reveals his true identity and asks Tiffany where the diamonds are. She directs bond to a locker at the airport, but Bond arrives just as the diamonds are being picked up. Bond sneaks aboard the truck carrying the diamonds. He arrives at a research lab, pokes around, and then steals a moon buggy to escape back to the entrance of the lab where Tiffany is waiting for him.

Bond steals the Moon Buggy

Car chase through Las Vegas

After a lengthy car chase with the police, Bond and Tiffany return to their room at The Whyte House. Bond rides up to the penthouse on top of an elevator. As Bond is snooping around the penthouse, he’s greeted by two Blofelds. Bond is shocked to find out that the Blofeld he killed at the beginning was another man, made to look like Blofeld through the process involving the green mud. Blofeld tells Bond that has developed a device that allows him to impersonate the voice of someone else and that he has been impersonating Whyte since Whyte went into seclusion. Whyte is Blofeld’s captive. Blofeld traps bond in an elevator and uses gas to knock him unconscious. Wint and Kidd collect bond and take him out into the desert, where he awakens to find himself inside a newly buried irrigation pipe. Bond shorts out the automatic welder inside the pipe, and when the technicians arrive, he is able to escape.



Bond meets back up with Felix and Q, who replicates the same technology that allowed Blofeld to impersonate voices. Bond, using the voice of Bert Saxby, the casino manager, calls Blofeld and tells him that Bond is backed by the CIA and that they need to move Whyte to another location. Blofeld tells Bond (impersonating Saxby) the location of Whyte (Whyte's own spring home) and tells Bond to kill Whyte. Bond arrives at Whyte's home to find that he is being guarded by two women, Bambi and Thumper. Bond subdues the women by dunking them in the pool and they tell him where Whyte is being held. Once Bond explains everything to Whyte, he agrees to help.

The voice algorythm recorder

Bond meets Bambi and Thumper

Whyte figures out that Blofeld, by impersonating him, was able to launch a satellite that he has complete control over. The satellite contains a laser which, when refracted through all of the diamonds, is able to destroy targets on the earth. Blofeld tests his weapon by blowing up American and Chinese missiles and a Russian submarine.

With the help of Whyte, Bond finds out that Blofeld is on an oil drilling platform off the coast of Baja California. Bond parachutes onto the rig and is captured by Blofeld. Bond finds Tiffany aboard, apparently cooperating with Blofeld. However, Tiffany actually steals the satellite guidance tape from Blofeld and gives it to Bond. While in the control room, Bond switches the tape with a fake. As bond is being taken below deck, he uses a weather balloon to signal Felix and his agents, who show up with helicopters and attack the rig. Bond escapes, uses a crane to capture Blofeld in his submersible, and dives off the rig just as it explodes, taking Blofeld with it.

Bond signals Felix

Attack on the oil rig

The movie ends with Bond and Tiffany aboard a cruise ship. As they’re lounging, Wint and Kidd, disguised as room service attendants, plant a bomb in a dessert they’re delivering. Bond dispatches Wint and Kidd, discovers the bomb, saves the ship, and gets the girl.

Mr Wint and Mr Kidd - "Bombe Surprise"