3 Classic James Bond Films - Jan. 30-31, 2009 January 30, 2009

January 30 & 31
At the Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre
A Non-Profit Arts Center
54 Journal Square, Jersey City, NJ 07306
Tel. (201) 798-6055 Fax. (201) 798-4020 Web. www.loewsjersey.org

Three of Roger Moore's Best Films As James Bond

Friday, January 30 at 8PM:
The Man With The Golden Gun Starring Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Maud Adams, Herve Villechaize. Directed by Guy Hamilton. (1974, 123mins., UA. Rated PG.) - - - For more info, see Film Notes, below.

Saturday, January 31 at 3:30PM:
For Your Eyes Only Starring Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Julian Glover, Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson. Directed by John Glen. (1981, 127 mins., Color, UA. Rated PG.) - - - For more info, see Film Notes, below.

Saturday, January 31 at 7:30PM:
Octopussy Starring Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Kristina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Steven Berkoff. Directed by John Glen. (1983, 140mins., Color, MGM/UA. Rated PG.) - - - For more info, see Film Notes, below.

PLUS -- A BIG collection of Bond memorabilia will be on display in the Grand Lobby.

Admission for each screening is $6 for adults, $4 for seniors 65 & older, students with ID, and children 12 & younger.

The Loew's Is Easy To Get To: The Loew's Jersey Theatre, at 54 Journal Square, Jersey City, NJ, is directly across JFK Boulevard from the JSQ PATH Center with trains to and from Lower and Midtown Manhattan and Newark's Penn Station, is minutes from the NJ Turnpike & easily reached by car or mass transit from throughout the Metro Area.

Half-price off-street parking is available in Square Ramp Garage adjoining the Loew's. Patrons present a coupon to garage attendant when they leave. Coupon is available at our box office.

What's Special About Seeing A Movie At The Loew's? The Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre is one of America's grandest surviving Movie Palaces. We show movies the way they were meant to be seen: in a grandly ornate setting -- on our BIG 50 ft wide screen! The Loew's runs reel-to-reel, not platter, projection, which often allows us to screen an archival or studio vault print that is the best available copy of a movie title.

The Loew's Jersey is managed by Friends of the Loew's, Inc. as a non-profit, multi-discipline performing arts center.

For directions or more information: Call (201) 798-6055 or visit www.loewsjersey.org.

Classic Film Weekends are presented by Friends of the Loew's, Inc.

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Bond Film Notes
Few fictional characters have earned such a lasting role in popular culture as the super secret agent James Bond, who first appeared in the novels and short stories of Ian Fleming but took on a life of his own on screen when first played in 1962 by Sean Connery.
The recent hubbub over the "new" – and blond-haired – Bond is testament to the character's enduring appeal . But the first and most intense controversy over the Bond series came when Connery grew tired of the role and was replaced by Roger Moore, who had become famous as television's "The Saint". The super spy himself never faced a greater challenge than Moore did in taking over a character that was so closely associated with another actor.
Connery's die-hard fans continue to complain to this day that Moore wasn't as good. But the fact is that Moore made seven Bond films to Connery's six (not counting the "unofficial" Never Say Never Again). And Moore stayed in the role for 13 years to Connery's nine, all the while maintaining the franchise's popularity.
Indeed, a whole generation first encountered the Bond character on the big screen with Moore playing the part, and only came to know of Connery's version later, on TV. But Moore fans are often short-changed on the revival film circuit, since the Bond movies that are most typically shown are Connery's. So the Landmark Loew's Jersey has decided to give Roger Moore, his legion of fans and Bond fanatics in general, a rare treat: 3 of Moore's best Bond outings back on the big screen!
And what of that controversy? As one critic put it, the Bond you first met in the movies is the one you love best. Under both Connery and Moore, the series maintained certain hallmarks: exotic locales, action, master villains, gadgets, some wit, a music score that often made it to the pop-charts – and, of course, beautiful women. The difference between the two actors was mostly a matter of degree in how they balanced those elements.

The Man With The Golden Gun -- Roger Moore's second turn as James Bond takes the secret agent to Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, and then the South China Sea in search of a solar energy weapon. His arch-nemesis for this outing is Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee – who is the nephew of Bond creator Ian Fleming), whose funhouse-like lair is ensconced on a well-fortified island. Scaramanga is not a psychotic maniac like many Bond villains. Rather, he's a steely assassin who sees himself as a businessman, and Lee makes him seem intelligent and genuinely menacing; the scene where he meets James Bond and tells the story of how he became an assassin is darkly witty and unsettling all at once thanks to his subtly intense performance. Scaramanga's aide-de-camp is Nick Nack, played by the diminutive Fantasy Island co-star Herve Villechaize. Moore continued to put his stamp on the Bond character by introducing more overt humor. And the film includes an unmistakable set-piece of mid-'70s movies: a Kung Fu face-off. But "classic" elements established in the Connery era are still plentiful: terrific action sequences, spectacular sets and a great score. And of course, there are the obligatory Bond girls: the bikini-clad Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) whose clumsy efforts to help Bond are almost as destructive as the elusive solar weapon, and Scaramanga's mistress Andrea Anders (Maud Adams, who would be back to co-star with Moore in Octopussy). The screenplay was adapted by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz from Ian Fleming's last James Bond novel, which was published posthumously in "rough draft" form.

For Your Eyes Only -- In this twelfth installment in the series (and fifth with Roger Moore in the title role) James Bond is on the trail of the Atomic Targeting Attack Communicator, used to control Britain's submarine-based nuclear missiles. The top secret device had been lost in a shipwreck off the Greek Islands. With the Cold War still very much on at the time, Soviet agents and smugglers in their employ are equally anxious to find the lost device. Bond finds himself in alliance with Melina Havelock, (played by Carole Bouquet), a young woman whose motivation isn't patriotism or self gain, but rather to avenge the murder of her parents at the hands of a Soviet agent. The film was something of a deliberate change in direction from its more recent predecessors in the Bond series, most notably 1979's “Moonraker“, which, though a commercial success, had relied too heavily on gadgetry, gimmicks and humor in the opinion of some critics and fans. In response, the keepers of the James Bond franchise determined to revert to a form that was closer to that of the early Sean Connery films. With fewer technological gimmicks than most Bond movies, For Your Eyes Only provides solid adventure by emphasizing tension, plot and stunts. It has a more believable plot than usual, and the villains seem more human, and a bit less of a caricature. The personal revenge motive of Havelock is also unusual in the Bond franchise. Roger Moore delivers one of his finest performances as the master spy, eschewing some – although not all – of the humor he often displayed in the role, portraying the Bond character as an edgy, tough gentleman spy. Bouquet delivers a tough, adult portrayal, a "Bond girl" who can actually act. This was the directorial debut of John Glen, who would helm the series through much of the 1980s. And of course the film boasted Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only", which followed in the footsteps of many Bond title songs by becoming a pop-hit.

Octopussy -- When another "double-0" agent is murdered after delivering a fake Faberge egg to the British embassy in East Berlin, Agent 007 is sent to investigate in this 13th installment of the James Bond series. When the real version of the Faberge piece is bought at a Sotheby auction by an exiled Afghan prince named Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan), Bond follows it and him to India, where the prince lives in a palace with the obligatory henchmen. Bond also meets the beautiful and enigmatic anti-heroine of the title: Octopussy (played by Maud Adams, in her second Bond appearance), a wealthy woman who lives with her own all-female cult "of the Octopus" and also owns a touring circus that travels to East Germany. Octopussy and Khan are linked in a smuggling operation that also involves a rogue Russian general (played with vein-popping intensity by Steven Berkoff) who is scheming to launch WWIII. As it happened, this was Moore's penultimate Bond appearance. In fact, he had been considering retiring from the role, but was persuaded to continue when another studio announced a rival Bond production starring the character's first screen incarnation, Sean Connery. This was also the second Bond film directed by John Glen, and perhaps prompted by the rivalry with the competing film, he continued his efforts to recreate the panache of the Connery films by emphasizing action and plot over the gimmicks and gadgets that seemed to dominate some other Moore outings. The film includes several especially thrilling action sequences, including spectacular aerial stunt work. And while all Bond films tend to be mini-travelogues, this one carries off the usual jet-setting with more finesse, in part because of its lush use of exotic Indian settings. And of course, this film has the most risqué of all Bond titles; it was taken from an Ian Fleming short story, which otherwise has little to do with the movie's plot.