Thunderball (1965)

The fourth of the James Bond films and one of the best! In this one, Bond (Sean Connery) heads to the Bahamas in search of two nuclear warheads stolen by SPECTRE. Once there, he has to contend with not one but two of SPECTRE's villains, Adolfo Celi and Luciana Paluzzi. Paluzzi is sensational here, an excellent performance and the best of all the Bond bad girls. It was also the first Bond film shot in 2.35 wide screen Panavision. About a quarter of the film takes place underwater and that underwater wizard Ricou Browning (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) directed the undersea sequences while Terence Young did the land sequences. Unfortunately, the underwater sequences lack the mystery and beauty of something like THE DEEP and the film's big action sequence, a lengthy underwater battle becomes tedious rather quickly. But other than that, the film is just about as perfect as any of the Bond films and features what may, arguably, the best of the John Barry scores for the Bond films. Tom Jones sings the punchy title song. With Claudine Auger, Rik Van Nutter, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Martine Beswick, Roland Culver and Desmond Llewelyn. Remade in 1983 and poorly as NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN.