James Bond #14 - A View To A Kill / 1985
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This series has been put out in honor of my favorite action hero - James Bond, Secret Agent 007.
A View to a Kill (1985) is the fourteenth spy film of the James Bond series, and the seventh and last to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted from Ian Fleming's short story "From a View to a Kill", the film is the fourth Bond film after The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker and Octopussy to have an entirely original screenplay. In A View to a Kill, Bond is pitted against Max Zorin, who plans to destroy California's Silicon Valley.
The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who also wrote the screenplay with Richard Maibaum. It was the third James Bond film to be directed by John Glen, and the last to feature Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny.
Despite being a commercial success, with the Duran Duran theme song "A View to a Kill" performing well in the charts and earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song, the film received a mixed reception by critics and was disliked by Roger Moore. Christopher Walken, however, was praised for portraying a "classic Bond villain".
PLOT
James Bond is sent to Siberia to locate the body of 003 and recover a microchip that 003 had previously retrieved from the Soviet Union. He succeeds, but is ambushed and flees in a submarine disguised as an iceberg. Q analyses the microchip, establishing it to be a copy of one designed to withstand an electromagnetic pulse and made by government contractor Zorin Industries.
Bond visits Ascot Racecourse to observe the company's owner, Max Zorin. Zorin's horse wins a race but proves hard to control. Sir Godfrey Tibbett, a horse trainer and MI6 agent, believes Zorin's horse was drugged although tests proved negative. Through Tibbett, Bond meets French private detective Achille Aubergine who informs Bond that Zorin is holding a horse sale later in the month. During their dinner at the Eiffel Tower, Aubergine is assassinated by Zorin's bodyguard May Day, who jumps off of the tower with a parachute. Bond chases, but fails to apprehend her.
Bond and Tibbett travel to Chantilly, France to stay at Zorin's estate for the horse sale. Bond is puzzled by a woman who rebuffs him and finds out that Zorin has paid her a very large sum of money. At night, Bond and Tibbett break into Zorin's laboratory learning that he is implanting adrenaline-releasing devices in his horses. Zorin identifies Bond as an agent, has May Day assassinate Tibbett and then attempts to have Bond killed too.
General Gogol of the KGB confronts Zorin for killing Bond without permission revealing that Zorin was initially trained and financed by the KGB, but has now gone rogue. Zorin leaves him and unveils to a group of investors his plan to destroy Silicon Valley which will give him – and his potential investors – a monopoly over microchip manufacture.
Bond goes to San Francisco where he learns from CIA agent Chuck Lee that Zorin could be the product of medical experimentation with steroids performed by a Nazi scientist, now Zorin's henchman Dr. Carl Mortner, who took refuge in the Soviet Union after World War II. He then investigates a nearby oil rig owned by Zorin and while there finds KGB agent Pola Ivanova recording conversations and her partner placing explosives on the rig. Ivanova's partner is caught and killed, but Ivanova and Bond escape. During an evening together Ivanova takes the recording but later finds out that Bond had switched tapes leaving her with a recording of traditional Japanese music. Bond tracks down the woman Zorin attempted to pay off, State Geologist Stacey Sutton, and posing as a journalist he establishes that Zorin is trying to buy her family oil business, then later rescues her from Zorin henchmen during an intimidation attempt on her.
The two travel to San Francisco City Hall to check Zorin's plans, however Zorin is alerted to their presence and arrives only to kill the Chief Geologist with Bond's gun, then set fire to the building in order to both frame Bond for the murder and kill him at the same time. Bond and Sutton escape from the fire, but when the police try to arrest Bond, they escape in a fire engine.
Bond and Sutton infiltrate Zorin's mine, discovering his plot to detonate explosives beneath the lakes along the Hayward Fault and the San Andreas Fault, which will cause them to flood. A larger bomb is also on site in the mine to destroy a "geological lock" that prevents the two faults from moving at the same time. Zorin and his security chief Scarpine flood the mines and murder the mine workers.
Sutton escapes while Bond fights May Day; when she realises Zorin abandoned her, she helps Bond remove the larger bomb, putting the device onto a handcar and pushing it out of the mine. May Day stays on the car to hold the faulty brake lever, sacrificing herself as the bomb explodes.
Zorin, who had escaped in his airship with Scarpine and Mortner, abducts Sutton. Bond grabs hold of the mooring rope as the airship ascends. Zorin tries to kill Bond by flying him into the Transamerica Pyramid, then the Golden Gate Bridge, but Bond manages to moor the airship to the bridge framework. Stacey attacks Zorin and in the fracas, Mortner and Scarpine are temporarily knocked out. Stacey flees and joins Bond, but Zorin attacks them with an axe. The ensuing fight culminates with Bond sending Zorin falling to his death. Finally, Mortner attacks Bond using dynamite, but Bond cuts the airship free. In the resulting confusion, Mortner drops the dynamite in the cabin, blowing up the airship and killing himself and Scarpine.
In the aftermath, Q sends out a remote sensing robot to track down Bond – who has been missing since the airship exploded – and finds him with Sutton in her shower. Bond sees the device and throws a towel over the mounted camera, much to Q's exasperation.
CAST
Roger Moore as James Bond, MI6 agent 007.
Christopher Walken as Max Zorin: Main antagonist. A psychopathic microchip industrialist planning to destroy the Silicon Valley in an earthquake and gain a monopoly in the market.
Tanya Roberts as Stacey Sutton: The granddaughter of an oil tycoon whose company is taken over by Zorin.
Grace Jones as May Day: Zorin's lover and chief henchwoman. She also possesses superhuman strength.
Patrick Macnee as Sir Godfrey Tibbett: Bond's ally who helps him enter Zorin's villa and stable.
Patrick Bauchau as Scarpine: Zorin's loyal associate.
David Yip as Chuck Lee, a CIA agent who assists Bond and Sutton.
Willoughby Gray as Dr. Carl Mortner: A former Nazi scientist who designs Zorin's microchips for carrying narcotic drugs (in the German release version, he is a Polish communist).
Fiona Fullerton as Pola Ivanova; a KGB agent sent by Gogol to spy on Zorin.
Manning Redwood as Bob Conley: Max Zorin's chief mining engineer who handles Zorin's oil interests on the East Coast of the United States.
Alison Doody as Jenny Flex: One of May Day's assistants who is often seen with Pan Ho.
Robert Brown as M: The head of MI6.
Desmond Llewelyn as Q: An MI6 officer in charge of the research and development branch. He supplies 007 with his equipment for his mission.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
Geoffrey Keen as Fredrick Gray: The British Minister of Defence.
Walter Gotell as General Gogol: The head of the KGB.
Papillon Soo Soo as Pan Ho: One of May Day's assistants.
Daniel Benzali as W. G. Howe: A city official working at San Francisco City Hall.
Dolph Lundgren in an early, minor role as Venz, one of General Gogol's KGB Henchmen.
Maud Adams is said to be visible as an extra in one of the Fisherman's Wharf scenes. In the DVD documentary Inside A View to a Kill, Adams explains that she was visiting her friend Moore on location and ended up in the crowd, but admits she is unable to actually see herself in the film; in the same documentary, director John Glen confirms that Adams appears as an extra, but does not specify where she is visible. The appearance remained a mystery for years until she was identified as standing in the background during one of the Fisherman's Wharf scenes. As a result, Adams appears in three Bond films, previously in The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974 and in Octopussy in 1983.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Rlr yriry unatre