Lois Maxwell Movies
Her real name just wouldn't do for a marquee in the Bible Belt, so Canadian-born actress Lois Hooker became Lois Maxwell when she arrived in Hollywood. Maxwell appeared in one British picture and a handful of American programmers before she sought out better opportunities in the Italian film industry. She returned to Britain as a second lead and character actress in 1956. In 1970, Maxwell co-starred in the Canadian TV series Adventures in Rainbow County. Lois Maxwell is best remembered for her appearances as the coolly efficient, subtly predatory Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films produced between 1962 and 1985 -- at least until she was unceremoniously dumped in favor of a younger actress for the two Timothy DaltonBond epics of the late 1980s. Maxwell died at age 80 in September 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
An ordinary man remakes himself into a warrior after the death of his family in this thriller. Jack Elgin (Jeremy Irons) is a magazine editor living in London with his wife and three children. Elgin joins his spouse and his children as they set off for a trip to India, and when the plane lands due to mechanical failures, the flight is hijacked by terrorists from the "August 15th Movement," who insist on 50 million dollars in ransom from the United States government. The U.S. administration delivers on the request, but as the terrorists begin to evacuate hostages from the plane, circumstances go awry and Elgin's wife and child die in the subsequent fire. The hijackers are soon arrested but released from custody, and when Elgin protests this turn of events to a representative of the U.S. State Department (Jason Priestley), he is told there's little than can be done -- unless he's willing to take the law into his own hands. With the help of his friend Kate (Charlotte Rampling), who is well-schooled in the finer points of international intelligence, Elgin becomes a one-man anti-terrorist squadron, tracking down extremist factions and turning their own weapons against them. Elgin's work is so impressive it attracts the attention of Jules Bernard (Forest Whitaker), an FBI agent who has his own agenda regarding shutting down terrorists. The Fourth Angel was co-produced by American independent studio Artisan Entertainment, but its U.S. theatrical release was canceled in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jeremy Irons, Forest Whitaker, (more)
- 1989
The sole reason for watching the made-for-TV Lady in a Corner is star Loretta Young, looking as youthful and stunning as ever in the role of a powerful magazine publisher. The plot introduces a British "sleaze lord" based on you-know-who, who inaugurates a hostile takeover of Young's publishing empire. Lindsay Frost, one of Young's most trusted editors, is actually an "inside man" for the British mogul and is undermining Ms. Young at every opportunity. Despite the entreaties of marriage from faithful chief editor Brian Keith, Young digs in her designer heels and fights off the takeover. Lady in a Corner is nothing to write home about, but as the last TV appearance to date of Loretta Young it's worth an hour or so of your time. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Lindsay Frost, (more)
- 1988
Three women gather in a self-help group to discuss their relationships and problems in this distaff drama. Martha (Jennifer Dale) tells of the breakup of her marriage. Ruth (Andrea Martin) discusses her painful emotional struggle in dealing with her mother's death. Edie (Lois Maxwell) tells the others how she met the man she has been married to for 40 years. Margaret Langrick portrays Edie in her younger days and co-stars with Kate Trotter and Chuck Shamata in this gang-directed feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jennifer Dale, Andrea Martin, (more)
- 1988
A middle-aged woman decides to change her lifestyle and spend it helping African relief efforts. Now she has to tell her friends and families about her decision. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi
- 1987
- R
In this supernatural thriller, a television director's boring life is spiced up by his girl friend who reveals that she is involved with the black arts and then teaches him the art of astral-projection. He becomes adept at freeing his soul from his body and really enjoys the experience until he discovers that his body takes off and begins killing people whenever he's not in it. The story is also titled Blue Man. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Winston Rekert, Karen Black, (more)
Secret Agent 007 must stop a megalomaniacal technology mogul from destroying Silicon Valley in this fourteenth episode of the long-running James Bond series. Computer baron Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) is planning to trigger a major California earthquake in order to wipe out his competitors. Bond is dispatched to stop him in Europe, where he is partnered with Sir Godfrey Tibbet (Patrick MacNee). Sent in to slow down Bond and Company is Max Zorin's sadistic and murderous sidekick May Day (Grace Jones), the first of two Bond girls in the film (the other being Tanya Roberts). The expected high-wire confrontations ensue, including a parachute jump off the Eiffel Tower, a drive through the streets of Paris with a car cut in half, and a life-or-death struggle with a blimp on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. This production is most notable for the fact that it marked the final appearance of Roger Moore as the dashing Bond. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, (more)
This (13th) time around, 007 (once again played by Roger Moore) receives the usual call to come and visit M when another agent drops off a fake Faberge jeweled egg at the British embassy in East Berlin and is later killed at a traveling circus. Suspicions mount when the assistant manager of the circus Kamal (Louis Jourdan), outbids Bond for the real Faberge piece at Sotheby's. Bond follows Kamal to India where the superspy thwarts many an ingenious attack and encounters the antiheroine of the title (Maud Adams), an international smuggler who runs the circus as a cover for her illegal operations. It does not take long to figure out that Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a decidedly rank Russian general is planning to raise enough money with the fake Faberges to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare. John Glen returns again to handle directing duties, the second of five Bond films he lensed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Maud Adams, (more)
Roger Moore is back as Secret Agent 007, this time on the trail of shipwreck that holds an Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) for all of the British Naval submarine fleet. Along the way he teams up with the beautiful Melina, played by Carole Bouquet, a maiden out for revenge against a Cuban hitman who killed her father, the head of a British effort to salvage the ATAC. Turns out the hitman was in league with Greek businessman Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover). who's working for the Soviets to attain the Communicator. Together with a drug smuggling rival of Kristatos (played by Topol), Bond and Melina race against time before the keys to all of Britain's missles get in the wrong hands. Richard Maibaum's screenplay has very little to do with the collection of short stories that made up Ian Fleming's For Your Eyes Only, save for the plotline involving Melina's seeking vengeance for the death of her father. The direction is by John Glen, who'd previously done second unit work on other Bond films and went on to direct four more films in the franchise. For Your Eyes Only eschews the gimmickry and campiness of earlier Roger Moore efforts by concentrating instead on intrigue, save for the campy opening that sees Bond dispatch the dastardly Blofeld in a broad comedic pre-credits scene. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, (more)
- 1980
Mr. Patman is well liked and has charm to spare. He works as an orderly in a mental hospital and does a good job except that he is beginning to believe that he is being shadowed by the irate husband of his landlady. When not bunking with her, Mr. Patman attempts to launch an affair with a co-worker until he mistakenly begins believing she has died in an auto accident. As the film progresses, it doesn't take long for the audience to realize that the normal-seeming Patman is just as ill as the patients he tends to and by the story's end is no longer to conceal it and must be admitted into the hospital himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Coburn, Kate Nelligan, (more)
- 1979
- PG
Adam (George Segal) is an English instructor at a U.S. college who hopes to win a professorship and tenure. Tricia (Glenda Jackson) is an English divorcee. They both wind up on a French ski slope at exactly the wrong time, and in the resulting collision, break one another's legs. While they are slinging ever-wittier insults at each other, they are also falling in love. They soon wed, with Tricia joining Adam back in the States. There, it becomes clear that Tricia was not cut out to be a dutiful, meek professor's wife. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Segal, Glenda Jackson, (more)
In this adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1955 novel, James Bond (Roger Moore) must thwart Sir Hugo Drax (Michel Lonsdale), who plans to wipe out all of humankind and replace it with a super race that he has cultivated in a massive space station. The film's Bond girl in the case is American secret agent Holly Goodhead, intelligently played by Lois Chiles. "Jaws," the steel-mouthed henchman played by Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), makes a return appearance in Moonraker, turning good guy (complete with a girlfriend of his own) in the process. Bernard Lee makes his last appearance as "M" in what was up til this point, the most costly of James Bond's 1970s escapades. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, (more)
- 1977
Veterans and war-sympathizers get angry when a Canadian professor begins speaking out with his pacifist ideals shortly after World War II. The tension rises as threats and violence soon erupt. ~ Rovi
Though not Ian Fleming's most famous James Bond novel, 1962's The Spy Who Loved Me was distinguished by the unique device of telling the story from the heroine's point of view; in fact, Bond doesn't make an appearance until the book is two-thirds over. This would hardly work in the film world's Bond franchise, so the original austere plotline of the novel was eschewed altogether in favor of a labyrinthine story involving outer-space extortion. The leading lady, a "hard-luck kid" in the original, is now sexy Russian secret agent Barbara Bach, who joins forces with Bond (Roger Moore, making his third appearance as 007) to foil yet another megalomaniac villain (Curt Jurgens), who plans to threaten New York City with nuclear weaponry. Beyond the eye-popping opening ski-jump sequence, the film's best scenes involve seven-foot-two Richard Kiel as steel-toothed henchman Jaws. Fifteen scriptwriters worked on The Spy Who Loved Me; only two were credited, including Bond-film veteran Richard Maibaum. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, (more)
The Man With the Golden Gun, Roger Moore's second outing as James Bond (Live and Let Die was the first), whisks our hero off to Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, and then the South China Sea in search of a solar energy weapon. His opponent is Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), who rules the roost on a well-fortified island. Scaramanga's aide-de-camp is Nick Nack, played by future Fantasy Island co-star Herve Villechaize. Britt Ekland plays the bikinied Mary Goodnight, whose clumsy efforts to help Bond thwart Scaramanga are almost as destructive as the elusive solar device. The Man With the Golden Gun was adapted by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz from Ian Fleming's last James Bond novel, which had to be published posthumously in "rough draft" form. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, (more)
Roger Moore makes his first appearance as "Bond...James Bond" in 1973's Live and Let Die. Bond is dispatched to the States to stem the activities of Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto), who plans to take over the Western Hemisphere by converting everyone into heroin addicts. The woman in the case is Solitaire (Jane Seymour in her movie debut), an enigmatic interpreter of tarot cards. The obligatory destructive-chase sequence occurs at the film's midpoint, with Bond being chased in a motorboat by Mr. Big's henchmen, slashing his way through the marshlands and smashing up a wedding party. Clifton James makes the first of several Bond appearances as redneck sheriff Pepper, while Geoffrey Holder is an enthusiastic secondary villain. The title song, written by Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney, provides the frosting on this 007 confection. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, (more)
This mystery, adapted from an Agatha Christie story, tells the tale of an ambitious British chauffeur who marries his American employer, one of the richest women in the US and persuades her to buy a palatial country estate. She literally loves it to death and that is where all the real trouble begins. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
After George Lazenby portrayed James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Sean Connery returned to the tux, gimmicks, and catchphrases of Secret Agent 007 in his penultimate Bond outing, Diamonds Are Forever. Fragments of Ian Fleming's original 1954 novel remain, including the characters of the alluring Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) and fey hitmen Wint (Bruce Glover) and Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith). The remainder of Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz's script diverges dramatically from the novel, involving Bond in a scheme by the insidious Ernst Blofeld (Charles Gray) to force the world powers to disarm so that he can take over the globe. Folksinger Jimmy Dean shows up briefly as a Howard Hughes-like reclusive billionaire, while Lana Wood (Natalie's sister) participates in one of the film's edgiest cliffhangers. Agreeing to make Diamonds Are Forever only because of the money offered him, Sean Connery parted company with the role for 12 years after this film; he returned to the role once more in 1983, for Irvin Kershner's Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Jill St. John, (more)
Based on Harold Robbins' bestseller, The Adventurers stars Yugoslav heartthrob Bekim Fehmiu as Porfirio Rubirosa clone Dax Xenos. Having suffered mightily as a child in a fictional South American country due to the political activities of his parents, Xenos grows up to become a sleazy, sexually manipulative playboy. He romances middle-aged widow Olivia de Havilland, then dumps her after he's run through her fortune. He then takes up with heiress Candice Bergen, who bears his child. When the kid is killed and Xenos turns his back on her, Bergen finds solace in lesbianism. All the while, Xenos is fomenting revolutions aimed at toppling the Trujillo-like despot (Alan Badel) responsible for the death of his father. The Adventurers received a lot of magazine coverage due to a poolside nude scene and the "guess who this is supposed to be?" nature of the cast of characters. But it failed to establish Bekim Fehmiu as an international star. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bekim Fehmiu, Charles Aznavour, (more)
- 1969
- PG
- Add On Her Majesty's Secret Service to Queue Add On Her Majesty's Secret Service to top of Queue
It wasn't as well received at the box office as the pictures that preceded it or followed it, but Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the finest of the James Bond movies. James Bond, portrayed here by George Lazenby (in his only performance in the role) has spent nearly two years trying to track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), the head of SPECTRE. He has been taken off the case by his chief (Bernard Lee), an action the pushes him to the point of considering resigning from Her Majesty's Secret Service, just as he opens a possible new avenue of attack on his quarry. Whilst in the field, Bond has chanced to cross paths with the Contessa Teresa Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), a beautiful but desperately unhappy woman, whom he rescues from one apparent suicide attempt and an embarrassing moment at a casino gaming table -- the Contessa, who prefers to be called Tracy ("Teresa was a saint"), is the daughter of Marc Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti), an industrial and construction magnate and also a crime boss, who is impressed with Bond personally as well as professionally, and would like to see him marry his daughter. Bond is, at first, unwilling to involve himself with a woman -- any woman -- on that level, but Draco's underworld contacts give Bond a vital clue to Blofeld's whereabouts that get him back on the case and hot on the man's trail. Journeying incognito to Blofeld's mountaintop retreat in the Swiss Alps, Bond finds the criminal mastermind posing as a would-be nobleman and also as a philanthropist, running a clinic devoted to the treatment and eradication of allergies. It's all a front for a surprisingly sinister (and scientifically valid) plot for international blackmail that would make any previous Bond villain quake in fear. And in the process of staying alive long enough to have a chance of stopping Blofeld, Bond discovers the Tracy is truly like no woman he's ever known before -- one special enough that he finds himself willing to give up his life as a free-living, free-loving bachelor. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, (more)
James Bond heads East to save the world (and to learn how to serve saki properly) in this action-packed espionage adventure. When an American spacecraft disappears during a mission, it's widely believed to have been intercepted by the Soviet Union, and after a Russian space capsule similarly goes missing, most consider it to be an act of American retaliation. Soon the two nations are at the brink of war, but British intelligence discovers that some sort of UFO has crashed into the Sea of Japan. Agent 007, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent in to investigate. After staging his own death to avoid being followed, Bond, disguised as a Japanese civilian, teams up with agent Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba) and his beautiful associate Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi). With their help, Bond learns that both the American and Russian space missions were actually scuttled by supercriminal Ernst Blofeld (Donald Pleasance) in yet another bid by his evil empire SPECTRE to take over the world. As he battles the bad guys, Bond finds time to romance both Kissy Suziki (Mie Hama) and Helga Brandt (Karin Dor). You Only Live Twice was one of Sean Connery's last outings as James Bond. The next Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, would star George Lazenby as 007, and while Connery would return for Diamonds Are Forever, in 1973, Roger Moore took over the role. (Connery would play Bond one last time, in 1983's Never Say Never Again, which was produced outside the official series.) ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, (more)
- 1967
Neil Connery stars in this forgettable spy actioner about a plastic surgeon who is blackmailed by the Allies. He is pressed into service to prevent a gang of international terrorists from taking over the world. Campy, plodding, and unintentionally funny in places, the feature remains a curiosity item only because of the novelty of Sean Connery's brother being the hero. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Neil Connery, Daniela Bianchi, (more)
Thunderball finds James Bond matching wits with the sinister espionage organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E, (which stands for Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). This time, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. hijacks a NATO nuclear bomber, hiding the bombs under the ocean depths and threatening to detonate the weapons unless a ransom of 100,000,000 pounds is paid. The mastermind behind this scheme is international business executive Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), who maintains a pool full of sharks for the purpose of eliminating enemies and those henchmen who fail to come up to standard. Dispatched to the Bahamas, lucky Mr. Bond enjoys the attentions of three nubile ladies: Largo's mistress Domino Derval (Claudine Auger), British spy Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick, previously seen as a gypsy girl in the 1962 Bond epic From Russia With Love) and enemy agent Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, (more)
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