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General Info - For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Although Moonraker had been a financial powerhouse at the box office, it's extreme reliance on hardware was deemed to be a bad point. Bond, they argued, had to return to being a secret agent who controls his destiny. For Your Eyes Only, therefore, can be seen to be the antithesis of the 1979 film. John Glen, the new director and long established member of the Bond team, worked with Michael G. Wilson, a relative Bond newcomer and Albert R. Broccoli's stepson, and Broccoli himself, to put Bond's feet back on the ground. A new start for a new decade - and not a bad one either!

The Plot

After a British trawler, St. Georges, is sunk by a mine, there is an all-out contest between Britain and Russia to get to the wreck. Why? This boat was actually a spy ship equipped with ATAC, a device not dissimilar to an adding machine, which could transmit orders to Polaris-equipped British submarines. If it fell into the wrong hands, they could program these missiles on British cities. Because of the nature of this boat, the two countries initiate covert operations to get ATAC.

The British are assisted by the Havelocks, marine archaeologists working in the area, that is until they are shot down. This complicates Bond's retrieval task as he encounters their daughter Melina. They decide to work together and, using the family mini-sub, they get the ATAC from the wreck. Unfortunately they are captured by a local shipping magnate-cum-smuggler called Kristatos (he wants to sell the ATAC to the Russians). Bond meets one of the magnates' fierce rivals, Columbo, who uses his resources to help Bond get to Kristatos' Greek mountain hideout. In a hand-to-hand battle Bond gets the ATAC back from Kristatos, who is killed at the hands of Columbo. With General Gogol on the scene Bond decides it is better to destroy the device than let it go to the Russians.

Budget: c.$25m - Gross: $195.3m - Fastrac007 Rating: 79%