A View To a Kill: 25th anniversary of the end of an era

This month is the silver anniversary of the release of A View To a Kill. It’s not a film that often enters the James Bond discussion of classic entries in the series. Truth be told (and in the interests of full disclosure), AVTAK didn’t get much love in a survey of HMSS editors some time back.

Still, it’s an anniversary worth noting if only because it the swan song of Roger Moore in the role of James Bond after seven films. One can certainly argue that Sir Roger was (and looked) too old but he does have a lot of fans who were willing to overlook that to see the actor one more time.

AVTAK also has elements of a classic 007 movie, though weird things happen at critical moments. One of the main examples: the pre-titles sequence starts out with second unit director/ski stunt arranger Willy Bogner and composer John Barry seemingly at the top of their games then a Beach Boys song pops up, completing changing the mood.

Producer Albert R. Broccoli went out and hired an Oscar winner (Christopher Walken) to be the villain, but he sometimes draws mixed reactions among fans. Broccoli also hired Patrick Macnee to be one of Bond’s (doomed) allies, letting the actor get into a 007 movies after three of his co-stars on The Avengers had participated. (Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg were hired at least in part because of the fame they got from the show; Joanna Lumley’s Bond time was prior to being Macnee’s co-star in The New Avengers.)

In any case, here’s the trailer:

And here are the main titles, which include a Duran Duran-performed song that apparently inspired designer Maurice Binder to come up with unusual makeup for his nude models: