Salute (sort of) to YOLT’s “Crater Guy”

James Bond movies aren’t known for their working-class characters. But if you look closely, they are present. Take, for example, “Crater Guy” from You Only Live Twice.

“Crater Guy” (we’re never actually told his name) is the fellow who opens and closes SPECTRE’s entrance to its secret Japan headquarters built inside a supposedly extinct volcano. He activates a switch so a camouflaged door (designed to look like a lake in the volcano) so SPECTRE helicopters can come and go and, of course, so SPECTRE’s “interceptor” rocket can snare U.S. and Soviet spacecraft. Also, he must utter the critical words, “Openin’ crater…closin’ crater.”

We’re never given any backstory to “Crater Guy.” But we imagine he’s a working stiff, just trying to feed his family. Our guess is the SPECTRE crater job was probably the best-paying job he ever had. Maybe he even got the job by answering a want ad a SPECTRE front took out.

“Crater Guy,” perhaps, even had his own ambitions. One day, he might have worked his way up to mastermind. Unfortunately, it all ended rather suddenly — and badly — as shown at the 7:18 mark of this video: