STACK NZ Mar #71

DVD & BD FEATURE

visit stack.net.nz

Nefarious criminal organisation SPECTRE and its megalomaniac mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld have been periodically haunting James Bond and MI6 since 1963. Having recently resurfaced in the 24th Bond film, out on DVD this month, what better time to take a look back at 007’s previous encounters.

SPECTRE – Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion – made its first appearance in Ian Fleming’s 1959 novel Thunderball . The author, who had worked in the Naval Intelligence Division during World War II, invented SPECTRE after genuinely believing that the Cold War would be over by the time Thunderball hit cinemas in 1962, immediately dating the film. SPECTRE consists of an amalgamation of criminal organisations including the Soviet SMERSH, the Gestapo and the Mafia. Fleming based the name of Ernst Stavro Blofeld on a friend with whom he attended Eton.

First sighting of Ernst Stavro Blofeld

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) SPECTRE is first mentioned in Dr. No , as the employer of the title character, but we don’t actually see them in action until the second Bond movie, when 007 is duped into acquiring a Russian decoding device that they intend to sell back to the Soviets. SPECTRE’s chief planner and chess master Von Kronsteen does the dirty work, while boss Blofeld (Anthony Dawson) appears from the neck down, stroking a white cat.

THUNDERBALL (1965) In possession of a couple of nuclear weapons, SPECTRE demands £100 million in diamonds in exchange for not blowing up Miami. The enigmatic Blofeld is once again pulling the strings from the shadows, leaving things to SPECTRE’s second in command and head of extortion, Emilio Largo.

SPECTRE #2 Emilio Largo

DVD & BD

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967) At last Bond meets Blofeld, who’s been hijacking US and Soviet spacecraft in an attempt to trigger a not-so- Cold war between the superpowers. Ensconced in his volcano lair with his favourite cat, the scar-faced criminal mastermind negotiates with the Japanese and rewards failure by dunking a female agent in a pool of piranha. “Kill Bond. Now!”

Donald Pleasance as Blofeld

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) In his final confrontation with SPECTRE (until 2015), Bond goes undercover to investigate a diamond smuggling ring and discovers that Blofeld requires the gems to power a giant orbital laser, aimed at the world’s nuclear weapons and giving him the upper hand in the arms race.

ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (1969) From a lair in the Swiss Alps, Blofeld holds the world to ransom again. Threatening to wipe out agriculture with toxic bacteria deployed by brainwashed women, he demands

a pardon for his past crimes. A side scheme involves him being recognised as the true heir to the title ‘Comte Balthazar de Bleuchamp’.

Charles Gray as Blofeld

Telly Savalas as Blofeld

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981) A wheelchair-bound Blofeld finally meets his end in the opening sequence, when

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (1983) Blofeld gets some screen time in this

SPECTRE (2015) The title reveals who Bond is up against,

“unofficial” Bond film, which is an offstage remake of Thunderball.

but who’s in charge of SPECTRE these days? Is the sinister Franz Oberhauser

Bond hooks him with a helicopter skid and drops him into an industrial smokestack.

actually… Ernst Stavro Blofeld?

MARCH 2016

14

jbhifi.co.nz