Top 10 James Bond Villains!

Bad has never been so good...

Bond season is upon us! With the newly released 'Skyfall' (which shall be reviewed shortly) James Bond has been put back on the map, certainly with me at any rate. Since viewing the film I have gone back and started the series from the beginning, and as such have decided to open the series of posts relating to Bond by counting down the top 10 Villains throughout the series 50 year run. The rule is that they must be the principal antagonists, they cannot be henchmen as a result this list will obviously exclude common favourites such as Oddjob and Jaws.

As an interesting side note, it was suggested to me that I compile a similar list relating to the bond Women, I chose not to for the simple reason is that I can't really stand any of them, for the vast majority of them their primary purpose seems to have innuendo ridden names and provide Bond with his 'reward' upon the missions conclusion. Obviously this not apply to every 'Bond girl' but there aren't enough exceptions to warrant earning their own list.

Without further ado let's start the list with number 10.

           10) Dr Julius No (Joseph Wiseman)

             

              Film: Dr No       

The titular Dr No will be forever remembered as the first Bond Villain, he set in motion a number of common characteristics that would remain a vital element of the Bond films forever more. Equipped with a pair of metallic hands which while granting him almost superhuman strength also severely limited his dexterity began the trend of having a villain which suffered from some form of bizarre physical deformity which sets them apart from 'normal' human beings. Joseph Wiseman manages to imbue the character with an arrogant sense of superiority and malice which would also become a Bond villain staple. Succinctly put in order to determine why Bond Villains are the way they are: calm, calculated and sadistically ruthless yet needlessly elaborate in their machinations for Bond's death you need look no further than Dr Julius No (I mean the tarantula, while successful in its attempts to create a tense and nerve racking scene, were almost certainly guaranteed to fail.) The only thing that doesn't put him further up this list is that his overall scheme, when compared to the later villains seems downright tame. I mean there isn't even any mention of a ransom or the idea of world domination. In fact the most significant contribution to the series, aside from the aforementioned villainous characteristics is to introduce the main antagonists of the Connery era films S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

         9) Mr Big/Dr Kananga (Yaphet Kotto)  

           

           Film: Live and Let Die      

'Live and Let Die' was a slightly unusual Bond film in so much that not only was it Roger Moore's first and as a result people had to get over the departure of Sean Connery, who even today is often considered the best Bond. But furthermore the entire roster of villains in this film are black, which has resulted in some viewers claiming that it is racist. Despite this minor controversy 'Live and Let Die' has managed to create one of the best villains in the series, even though he has the most ridiculous death out of them all, I mean being turned into a giant exploding blimp is just laughable. Up until that point however, Dr Kananga was one of my favourite villains, for three simple reasons 1) His plot revolving around the distribution of drugs seems much more believable than anything S.P.E.C.T.R.E had to offer, drugs are a very real problem in today's society, 2) The fact that Yaphet Kotto was able to convincingly play two people. Throughout the narrative we are let to believe that Mr Big, a crime lord encountered by Bond is simply an associate of Kananga's, he grows the drugs, Big distributes them, pretty simple. It was only about halfway through the film, and during a particularly tense interrogation that he pulls off his facial prosthetics and reveals that Kananga and Big are one and the same. In my opinion it was the biggest reveal since we saw what Blofeld look like...well the first one anyway. He was both sinister yet charismatic, chilling yet deadly Yaphet Kotto successfully managed to create an antagonist who almost managed to outshine the hero.

Sorry about this video, it wasn't the one I wanted but it really is the only one I could find. I hope to replace with a scene which better demonstrates the qualities I mentioned in my entry, this merely highlights his ridiculous death scene...still funny.

         8) Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe)     

           Film: Goldfinger    

There is not a single list that I have seen cataloguing the quality of Bond villains that does not include Auric Goldfinger. He is one of the most popular antagonists of the entire series, and quite rightly so. Though he falls into the category of being one of those villains who without his henchman would not really be difficult to overcome. Rather large around the middle and getting on in years he relies on the virtually indestructible Oddjob to handle the physical aspects of his plot. But it is his mind that make him one of the greats. His plot is rather interesting, he doesn't seek to destroy the world, or even rule it. He simply loves gold, as he says: He welcomes any enterprise that will increase his stock, his aim to detonate a nuclear bomb inside Fort Knox, thus irradiating America's gold supply and ergo increasing the value of his own. It is simple yet remarkably elegant and that is why it will always be remembered. Gert Frobe did a fantastic job in portraying Goldfiner, well the physical side anyway, like most early villains he was dubbed in the final film. But the subtle nuances and the deranged, yet oh so slightly bored look in his eyes which serves to convey his arrogance, he just doesn't have the time for anyone, deeming them irrelevant, are among Frobe's finest achievements in this film. Perhaps most importantly he will always be remembered for the infamous scene in which he has 007 strapped to a table and fires a slow moving laser up the centre of of legs in an attempt to bisect him. Excessive yes, but brilliant to watch and culminates in what I believe is the best example of Bond-villain banter:

007: Do you expect me to talk?

Goldfinger: (Laughs) No Mr Bond I expect you to die!

          7) Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray)

             Film: You Only Live Twice, On her Majesties Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever

Blofeld is arguably the most major villains of the series and certainly in Connery's films he is the main antagonist. But position 6 was a toss up between Blofeld and 'Thunderball's' villain Emilio Largo, while I think Largo was a better antagonist in his film than Pleasance, Savalas and Gray were in theirs but I chose Blofeld because he has had more of an impact on the series as a whole, he was the real mastermind behind the events of 'Dr No', 'From Russia with Love' and 'Thunderbal'l and in On Her Majesties Secret Service, in which he was played by Kojak actor Telly Savalas he even killed James Bond's wife, on their wedding day which left a lasting impression on 007, continuing even as he was played by the other actors, with Roger Moore visiting her grave. I always thought that the interesting thing about Blofeld was that his character was almost ruined by having to reveal his face. Prior to 'You Only Live Twice' Blofeld was shown only as a pair of hands stroking his signature white cat and wearing a signet ring adorned with the S.P.E.C.T.R.E logo, this was almost more sinister for me as, like many others, I have a slight fear of the unknown. As such, this faceless villain whom we knew nothing about was far more scary than any of the actors whose faces we have come to associate with Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Similarly the fact that he was played by different actors in each film where we saw his face, while in keeping with the novel's idea that Blofeld was in a sense, a chameleon who was able to alter his appearance as required (through surgery, prosthesis and disguise rather than shapeshifting), it does make it hard for us to like him because as soon as we begin to, he changes; and each incarnation bears little to no resemblance to the previous portrayal, whereas Donald Pleasance was creepy and subtle, Telly Savalas was brash and thuggish and the less said about Charles Gray the better. While he was unknown he was dangerous, mysterious and enigmatic but after they inevitably showed his face it just lost something important. This is why the clip below is not taken from the listed films and is in fact taken from my favourite Blofeld scene, before we knew who he was.

6) Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce)      

  Film: Tomorrow Never Dies

Not many people like this villain. I suppose I can see why, Jonathan Pryce is hammy, melodramatic and the character isn't really all that threatening when compared with his fellow villains. But I like him because of his status a media mogul akin to News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch, and as a University Graduate in the subject of Journalism I can kind of appreciate the power that such a position holds and just plain love him the way I loved my subject, so this one is more personal. I love the power that the Media can have, as is evidenced in Carver's introductory scene where he simultaneously manages to blackmail the American President using footage of him involved in sordid activities and frame the Chinese for the murder of British naval soldiers in order to start World War Three simply so that he can have broadcasting rights. It is a much more realistic form of world domination than holding the world to ransom under threat of nuclear strike. In today's world information is the true weapon and those who own our news outlets are the true holders of power and their web of influence is vast and impressive which is shown in the scene below, a resourceful journalist can find information anywhere provided they look hard enough and someone with a contact web as wide as Carver's is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with. Furthermore, this character represents the corruption that is rife in our media which was brought to light in the recent Leveson Inquiries and as such is a sort of parody, even if it was not quite so noticeable at the time of the film's release. As I said, it was not Jonathan Pryce's performance that made this character the villain he was, his dialogue was hammy and the performance matches it on every level. But in terms of power arguably Carver is the most powerful enemy Bond has faced...and he also has a magnificent death scene.

5) Alec Trevalyan (Sean Bean)          

            Film: Goldeneye

The best villains are often those who used to be friends, just take a look at Professor Xavier and Magneto! The same is true with James Bond and Alec Trevalyan, or as he was known until his defection: 006. The fact that they were once allies and even close friends makes the betrayal and ultimate defection of 006 even more dramatic. In addition this means that he has received exactly the same training as Bond himself resulting in the first even matched physical confrontation Bond has ever encountered from a main villain, until this point the final battle as always been a little bit silly, with Bond easily overpowering his hilariously outmatched adversary without any sort of effort whatsoever but this was the first film in which Bond himself was as bloody and beaten as his antagonist. It makes for a much more engaging film because in a sense it means that the villain is essentially Bond himself, or rather how Bond could have turned out, they are two sides of the same coin. This makes for a particularly amusing scene in which Trevalyan is able to disarm 007's carefully planted explosives because they both wear the same Q Branch issued wristwatches containing the detonator. In many ways he knows Bond's moves before he does, quicker even as he himself states that he was 'always better'. Most of 007's enemies have been intellectually brilliant if a tad unstable, but 006 sets himself apart because he was the first to show us just how dangerous MI6 training could be if given to the wrong person, a theme utilised again for latest villain Raoul Silva. But perhaps the most important thing about Alec Trevalyan which makes him worthy of an appearance on my top 10 list...he was played by Sean Bean, and anything played by Sean Bean is immediately imbued with the same sense of 'badassery' that the actor himself possesses.

          4) Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi)                                   

            Film: License to Kill

I imagine that there were a lot of other villains who could have achieved Sanchez's level of evil if only their respective films had been granted the same benefits his film, 'License to Kill' had. Being the first Bond film to receive a 15 certificate rating meant that they could get away with a lot more than they had been been up until that point, and as a result the reason why Franz Sanchez makes it so high up on my list is because of his actions, the most despicable involving a certain CIA agent by the name of Leiter, who after many years of being Bond's primary American ally and counterpart was unceremoniously deprived of his legs after being lowered into a shark tank while his new bride was raped and murdered. Leiter was later left to be found by Bond with a note tied round his neck with the chilling message 'he disagreed with something that ate him'. This was new territory for Bond, and was one of the many controversial elements surrounding that particular film. Even the casual mass murder committed by Max Zorin didn't compare to that. Despite the fact that I said it was these acts which had him placed so high on this list, it also prevented him from climbing any higher. Most Bond villains, despite their evil nature were at least likeable and charismatic. Sanchez was much more realistic and that made him just a tad too unnerving. Once again his plot had nothing to do with world domination, he was a drug dealer. In fact he may be the only villain who was hunted for Bond purely for revenge as opposed to being sent their to prevent world domination. Robert Davi made Sanchez charismatic but also vile meaning that perhaps for the first time most fans couldn't wait to see his inevitable demise, which when it does come around is presented in such a way that we feel the victory as much as Bond does, Leiter has appeared in enough films before 'License to Kill' that we have become to accept and enjoy his presence, to see bond enact such brutal vengeance is as satisfying for us as it is for him.

            3) Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee)                

              Film: The Man with the Golden Gun

Scaramanga deserves to be on this list simply because he is played by Christopher Lee, who is my absolute hero. But while Scaramanga is truly a brilliant antagonist the plot of his film 'The Man with the Golden Gun' just doesn't allow him to surge to the top of my list, he isn't really given an awful lot to do. However the scenes in which he does appear are far and away the best in the film. What is interesting about him is that he seems to be the first villain who is presented as being 'the dark side of Bond' he is as suave and sophisticated as he is and perhaps even more deadly and has the distinction of being the first Bond Villain to have a genuine girlfriend, even if she is terrified of him. Christopher Lee plays the character as he has played most of the characters in his forty plus year career, elegantly evil, demonstrated perfectly in a scene with Bond while sat ringside of a kickboxing match when he tells him of how, when working for a circus, he shot the trainer of an elephant he had befriended for animal cruelty and says calmly: “I always thought I liked animals, then I discovered that I liked killing people even more”. In addition managing to shoot someone so that they do not even fall or slump from their seat is quite a feat in marksmanship and is just one of many indications of just how lethal this man can really be. It is interesting to note that Scaramanga effectively begins the film as another villain's henchman, like Rosa Klebb in 'From Russia with Love' being second in command to the real villain Blofeld, Scaramanga is on the payroll of Hai Fat a businessman who seeks the film's object of interest, the Solex Agitator. But unlike Klebb, Scaramanga quickly tires of being mistreated and coldly kills his employer, taking his assets and the Agitator for himself. However, the thing that makes this film truly memorable is Scaramanga's funhouse; in order to keep him on form Scaramanga has an arrangement with his ludicrous henchman Nick Nack, he brings assassins to the island in attempt to kill him, but first he must lure them to the funhouse a series of elaborate traps and optical illusions designed to force Scaramanga to focus his senses to overcome his adversary while it causes them to become disorientated and paranoid. When Bond is lured inside it results in what can only be described as the most inventive final fight the series has ever seen.

          2) Max Zorin (Christopher Walken)             

            Film: A View to a Kill

Many argue that 'A View to a Kill' is one of the worst Bond films, Roger Moore was, at this point, far too old to play the role of 007 and looked ridiculous when paired with the youthful Tanya Roberts. But of the many problems this film has Christopher Walken's decidedly unhinged portrayal of psychotic businessman Max Zorin was not one of them! A genetic experiment gone wrong Zorin is both brilliant yet intensely homicidal and if you have seen 80% of films featuring Walken you will know this this is exactly what he specialises in. Unlike most villains, who while being undoubtedly psychotic rarely get blood on their own hands but tend to find inventive ways of avoiding it, from henchmen to traps, Zorin loves to kill people and does so frequently shown perfectly in a scene towards the film's climax in which he not only guns down most of his henchmen in cold blood, but does so while laughing hysterically. It was a kind of evil which had not yet been seen, it wasn't brilliant it was just monstrous. It was the sadistic glee that Zorin took from killing that set him apart from previous villains and made him so memorable which I suppose is a good thing considering the low quality of his henchmen, yes I know May Day was physically capable but she was just so annoying that I try to forget her and focus on Zorin. In some respects he reminds me a little bit of Heath Ledger's Joker, he desired nothing more than continue with his crimes and killing regardless of any cost to himself. During their final confrontation on the Golden Gate Bridge after viciously attacking Bond with an axe and faced with the prospect of falling to his doom he simply cackles manically before slipping from the bridge and into the depths below. The unhinged quality that Walken gave in his performance will forever put him a notch above most villains who, in hindsight, were really all talk. Zorin was a psychotic monster who just loved to kill and that makes him one of the most dangerous foes Bond has encountered yet. Finally he delivered one of the best lines of dialogue in any film I have seen, and they are words I have tried to live by:

“Intuitive improvisation, is the key to genius”

           1) Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem)                  

             Film: Skyfall

Raoul Silva is the latest addition to fifty years worth of Bond Villains, what distinguishes him from he fellow evil doers is that he is a cyber terrorist, all of his plans are carried out using high powered computers, this type of villain has been seen before in the form of Boris Grishenko in 'Goldeneye' but has now been upgraded to primary antagonist and in doing so has shown audiences that Bond has been brought into the present, there are no more megalomaniacs stroking cats and plotting world domination, there are just technological geniuses who are able to access whatever information they want and use it to do what no other Bond villain has ever done, bring both MI6 and its icy leader to their knees. Javier Bardem did wonderful things with Silva, after seeing the film I realised that there was not one element of his performance that I expected, after seeing the released image of him dressed as a police man I couldn't help but liken him to Red Grant in 'From Russia With Love': Tall, blonde and physically intimidating. However not only do you never see Silva engage in a physical fight, he was incredibly camp and was quite possibly the only bi-sexual character in Bond's history. I say possibly because it was never actually confirmed, while he did appear to have a particular interest in Bond, I was given the impression that he merely did it to make him uncomfortable, intimately caressing him all the while asking him to try and remember how his training could help him, it seemed a little too sadistic to be genuine. Furthermore the camp affectations Bardem gave his character reminded me slightly, like Zorin before him, of the eccentricities of Heath Ledger's Joker . He was just excitable, enjoying his work and simply having a good time causing so much chaos. He is the only Bond Villain to have actually given me chills as he walks around Bond's Scottish estate calmly throwing incendiary grenades through the windows. Or when he holds the gun to M's head in the film's dramatic conclusion. In fact one could make many comparisons between Silva and the Joker, his plan may seems overly elaborate, years in the making, only for him to walk into a courtroom and open fire much like the clown prince of crime going to all that effort, just to cause a little anarchy. But upon a second viewing I kind of got the impression he was doing it just because he thought it would be fun. He was a positive departure from the Quantum organisation that has been the main focus of Daniel Craig's Bond film, and I hope for more like him in the future.

And there we have it, I know it took a while. But I've had extra hours at work and University assignments to hand it so it has put me a little behind, I hope you enjoyed this and stay tuned for part 2 of my own personal Bond Season.