Check out this entertaining video tribute, which includes current comments from a bevy of former Bond Girls including:
Luciana Paluzzi as Fione Volpe a female executioner who becomes Bond’s chief nemesis while he is on assignment in the Bahamas in Thunderball. Per Louis Paul, my co-writer of Film Fatales, “The combination of her gutsy performance and attitude made viewers remember her performance far better than screen ingenue [and Lead Bond Girl] Claudine Auger, who seems to have been cast for appearance rather than talent.”
Trina Parks the first African-American actress to be featured in a James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. To this day, the scene where Parks as the athletic five foot eight and a half-inch, bikini-clad bodyguard Thumper, who gives 007 a thrashing, is one of the most exciting fight sequences the series has to offer.
Lana Wood as the aptly named Plenty O’Toole (“Named after your father, I presume,” cracked James Bond.) Only on screen for a few scenes, the delightful Wood was able to over shadow the shrill Jill St. John who viewers were stuck with for the entire movie.
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Of all the female Bond villains, Luciana Paluzzi will always rank at the top in my estimation. She was cool, sexy and smart as Fiona. Always thought she was a good actress who should have enjoyed a bigger film career in Hollywood.
As for the Oscar tribute to Bond this year, it was a total letdown. Understand that Connery is pissed at the Broccoli family but a bunch of film clips doesn’t cut it. Thank God for Shirley Bassey who wasn’t afraid to belt the Goldfinger theme to the rafters. That was the high moment of the show IMO.
I so agree about Luciana. She is my fave Bond Girl from the 1960s and one of the best villianesses from the entire series. Perfect here but she has been not as good in other movies. Ever see her in Return to Peyton Place? She, Carol Lynley and Tuesday Weld seem to be in a contest to see who can give the worst performance.
YEs, Oscar tribute clip to Bond adequate. Shirley Bassey amazing!
I am completely smitten with Return To Peyton Place and cannot explain it. I know it’s a bad movie but when you have Carol Lynley, Lucianna Paluzzi and the unstoppable Tuesday Weld, how can you resist it? To top that trio off, you have hard as nails Mary Astor who steals every scene she is in without even trying. They just don’t serve buffets like that anymore. Have to add the first Peyton Place was an impressive example of Hollywood melodrama with solid performances across the board IMO.
Yes, I agree Return to Peyton Place is one of those bad movies you love, but for me it is because how awful all three actresses are and yes how brilliant Mary Astor is as the mother-in-law from hell. And for the record I think the young actors Brett Halsey and especially Gunnar Hellstrom are equally as bad.
Is that the Gunnar Hellstrom who directed THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL, with the great female cast of Susan Strasberg, Colin Wlilcox, Tisha Sterling, and T.C. Jones? That film is coming to DVD on April 2nd, which will be its world premiere on home video.
Yes the one and the same. Tisha Sterling didn’t think much of him.