walter gotell

XXX Intro

I like the way Agent XXX/Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) was introduced in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Instead of showing the agent on a mission, in the thick of it, they use the bait-and-switch strategy to make the audience think that the USSR’s “best agent,” according to General Gogol (Walter Gotell), is not much different from James Bond: a man on a mission, bedding a beauty and ready to answer their country’s call.

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Keeping the British end up, sir…

This all=time one-liner at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) gets me every time. As Bond (Roger Moore) and Triple X (Barbara Bach) are caught in the act in an escape pod, a stunned General Gogol (Triple X’s boss), M (Bond’s boss) and Sir Frederick Gray (Bond’s boss’s boss) can’t believe their eyes.

The exchange is legendary: “Bond!” “Tri-PULL X!” “Bond! What do you think you’re doing?” make the men sound more like disappointed parental figures rather than government intelligence. A speechless Q can only watch in awe, almost jaw-dropped.

And then 007 quickly quips a legendary James Bond line of lore. It ends with a celebratory-sounding chorus line version of the movie’s theme, declaring “nobody does it better” in a hilarious double entendre. HA! So awesome!

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - Keeping the British end up, sir...