Diamonds Are Forever

Diamonds Are Forever is a 1971 spy film, the seventh in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It is the sixth and final Eon film to star Sean Connery, who returned to the role as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond, having declined to reprise the role in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).
The film is based on Ian Fleming's 1956 novel of the same name and is the second of four James Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton. The story has Bond impersonating a diamond smuggler to infiltrate a smuggling ring and soon uncovering a plot by his old enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld to use the diamonds to build a space-based laser weapon. Bond has to battle his enemy for one last time to stop the smuggling and stall Blofeld's plan of destroying Washington, D.C., and extorting the world with nuclear supremacy.
After George Lazenby left the series, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli tested other actors, but studio United Artists wanted Connery back, paying a then-record $1.25 million salary for him to return. The producers were inspired by Goldfinger; as with that film, Guy Hamilton was hired to direct, and Shirley Bassey performed vocals on the title theme song. Locations included Las Vegas, California, and Amsterdam. Diamonds Are Forever was a commercial success and received positive reviews, though retrospective reviews were critical of its camp tone. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound.
==Plot==
James Bond – agent 007 – pursues Ernst Stavro Blofeld and eventually finds him at a facility where Blofeld look-alikes are being created through plastic surgery. Bond kills a test subject, and later the "real" Blofeld, by drowning him in a pool of superheated mud.
While assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd systematically kill several diamond smugglers, including Dr. Tynan and Mrs. Whistler, M suspects that South Africa diamonds are being stockpiled to depress prices by dumping, and assigns Bond to uncover the smuggling ring. Impersonating professional smuggler Peter Franks, Bond travels to Amsterdam to meet contact Tiffany Case. The real Franks shows up on the way, but Bond intercepts and kills him, then switches IDs to make it seem like Franks is Bond. Tiffany and Bond then go to Los Angeles, smuggling the diamonds inside Franks' corpse.
At the airport, Bond meets his CIA ally Felix Leiter who is disguised as a U.S. Customs Inspector, then travels to Las Vegas. At a funeral home operated by Morton Slumber, Franks' body is cremated and the diamonds are passed on to another smuggler, Shady Tree. After having the diamonds sent to an unknown individual, Slumber takes part in a double cross, and Bond is nearly killed by Wint and Kidd when they try to cremate him, but Tree stops the process when he discovers that the diamonds in Franks' body were phony, planted by Bond and the CIA. Bond tells Leiter to ship the real diamonds. Bond then goes to the Whyte House, a casino-hotel owned by the reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte, where Tree works as a stand-up comedian. Bond discovers there that Tree has been killed by Wint and Kidd, who did not know that the diamonds were fake.
At the craps table Bond meets the opportunistic Plenty O'Toole, and after gambling, brings her to his room. Slumber's henchmen ambush them, throwing O'Toole out the window and into the pool. Bond spends the rest of the night with Tiffany, instructing her to retrieve the diamonds at the Circus Circus casino. Tiffany reneges on her deal and flees, passing off the diamonds to the next smuggler. However, seeing that O'Toole was killed after being mistaken for her, Tiffany changes her mind. She drives Bond to the airport, where the diamonds are given to Whyte's casino manager, Bert Saxby, who is followed to a remote facility. Bond enters the apparent destination of the diamonds – a research laboratory owned by Whyte, where a satellite is being built by Professor Doctor Metz, a laser refraction specialist. When Bond is revealed as an imposter, he escapes by stealing a Moon buggy and reunites with Tiffany. That night, Bond and Tiffany lead the police on a high-speed chase in the downtown streets and escape safely.
Bond scales the walls to the Whyte House's top floor to confront Whyte. He is instead met by two identical Blofelds, who use an electronic simulator to sound like Whyte. Bond kills one of the Blofelds, which turns out to be a look-alike. He is then knocked out by gas, picked up by Wint and Kidd and taken out to Las Vegas Valley, where he is placed in a pipeline and left to die. Bond escapes, then calls Blofeld, using a similar electronic voice simulator to pose as Saxby. He locates Whyte's desert home, defeats bikini-clad bodyguards Bambi and Thumper and rescues Whyte, with Saxby being killed in the ensuing gunfight. In the meantime, Blofeld abducts Tiffany. With the help of Whyte, Bond raids the lab and uncovers Blofeld's plot to create a laser satellite using the diamonds, which by now has already been sent into orbit. With the satellite, Blofeld destroys nuclear weapons installations in China, the Soviet Union and the United States, then proposes an international auction for global nuclear supremacy.
Whyte identifies an oil platform off the coast of Baja California as Blofeld's base of operations. After Bond's attempt to change the cassette containing the satellite control codes fails due to a mistake by Tiffany, a helicopter attack on the oil rig is launched by Leiter and the CIA. Blofeld tries to escape in a midget submarine. Bond gains control of the submarine's launch crane and uses the sub as a wrecking ball, destroying both the satellite control and the base. Bond and Tiffany then head for Britain on an ocean liner, where Wint and Kidd pose as room-service stewards and attempt to kill them with a time bomb concealed in a lavish cake. When the killers are exposed, they attack. Bond engulfs Kidd in flames with brandy and tosses Wint overboard with the bomb, which explodes as Wint lands in the water. Bond and Tiffany ponder of how to get the diamonds back to Earth.
Category:James Bond
Category:1971 films
Category:Spy films
Category:English-language films
Category:Films shot in England
Category:Films shot in Los Angeles, California
Category:Films set in Las Vegas
Category:Films shot in Las Vegas
Category:Action
Category:James Bond films
Category:Films starring Sean Connery
Category:Rated PG
Category:Films on VHS
Category:Films on Laserdiscs