- “Shaken, not stirred.”
- “Hello, Moneypenny.”
- “Bond, James Bond.”
These are some of the classic lines you hear in nearly every James Bond film. Then there are lines that are unique to each film, and that stick with you after you’ve seen them. Lines like:
- “No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” - Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger
- “Good choice, she is very sexiful.” - Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice
- “Now put your clothes back on and I’ll buy you an ice cream” - James Bond in For Your Eyes Only
But what Bond movies excel at — besides action, intrigue, and sex — is pure, unadulterated cheese. These films have given us some of the cheesiest lines in the history of filmmaking, and the updated Daniel Craig movies are no exception. From Sean Connery on down, the actors in Bond films have had to deliver cringe-inducing dialog from time to time. We remember the worst after the jump.
Goldfinger
- Pussy: “My name is Pussy Galore”
- Bond: “I must be dreaming.”
Now, this isn’t exactly cheese per se, but it did establish the long-running gag of having women with names that drip with sexual innuendo. You could probably argue that Ursula Andress first established this in Dr. No as Honey Ryder, but there probably hasn’t been as blatant a name as Pussy Galore until Austin Powers met Alotta Fagina. Although Holly Goodhead from Moonraker might rate a close second, and you can’t forget Octopussy from… Octopussy. In the new Casino Royale they poke fun at this naming scheme when Daniel Craig’s Bond jokingly tells Vesper that her cover name is “Stephanie Broadchest.”
Diamonds Are Forever
- Blofeld: “The satellite is at present over… Kansas. Well, if we destroy Kansas the world may not hear about it for years. Perhaps New York, with all that smut and traffic… might give them a chance for a fresh start. Washington, DC. Perfect. Since we have not heard from them, they will hear from us.” - Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever
Admittedly, this is my favorite Bond film, and it pains me to include this line, but it just doesn’t work. Blofeld is a criminal mastermind, and preparing to obliterate a massive target with his diamond-powered superlaser, and this bit of cheese is the best thing they could come up with? Yes, he’s an evil arch-villain and all that jazz, but that doesn’t mean he’s coocoo for Cocoa Puffs. I wonder how people who lived in Kansas felt about this line. They probably either chuckled, or else swore off all Bond movies from that moment on. It’s just too goofy for a classic villain to be say before firing what amounts to a miniature Death Star. Even though the guy was bald and carried a white cat around, he was still a pretty creepy nemeis for Bond.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
- Bond: “This never happened to the other fellow.” - George Lazenby’s James Bond, directly to the camera
When Sean Connery finally retired from James Bond duty, producers tapped George Lazenby to fill his shoes. In the opening scene of the movie, Lazenby’s Bond rescues a girl from drowning, carries her to shore, and then is attacked by thugs. Although he eventually beats them, the girl zooms off in her car, leaving Bond with only her shoes in his hands. Then he delivers the above line to the camera. In today’s terms the producers would have been texting each other saying “LOLZ! Get it?! OMG WTF! LMFAO!” Seriously, did we really need this line? Maybe in a tongue-in-cheek commercial or something, but not in the first film introducing a new Bond. It makes it all a bit too meta and goofy.
The Spy Who Loved Me
- M: “Moneypenny, where’s 007?”
- Monneypenny: “He’s on a mission sir. In Austria.”
- M: “Well, tell him to pull out. Immediately.”
Of course, the scene then cuts to a scene of Bond in bed with a woman. Ah, the comic high-larity! Roger Moore’s James Bond films somehow gave themselves a license to cheese, with Moore himself often delivering some of the campiest lines. In this movie’s final scene, Bond and his female Russian superspy counterpart Triple X (nice name, eh?) are found in bed together by their respective bosses. When asked what he’s doing, Bond replied, “Keeping the British end up, sir.” It wouldn’t be his last trip into the cheese.
For Your Eyes Only
- The Prime Minister (on the phone): “Ah, Mr. Bond. I wanted to call you personally and to say how pleased we all are that your mission was a success. Thank you.”
- Parrot: “Thank you, thank you.”
- The Prime Minister: “Don’t thank me, Mr. Bond. Your courage and resourcefulness are a credit to the nation. Denis and I look forward to meeting you. Meanwhile, if there is anything I can do for you…
- Parrot: “Give us a kiss, give us a kiss.”
- The Prime Minster: “Well, really, Mr. Bond.”
Continuing yet another tradition in the Bond movies of having Bond getting back into bed with a woman he’s met over the course of the film, this movie was no different. Except it continued Moore’s habit of cheesy lines at the end of the films. Bond puts the phone down near a parrot when the Prime Minister calls to congratulate him, and ends up speaking to the parrot. Were they saying that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was as stupid as a post and couldn’t tell when she was a talking to a bird? Still, as cheesy as it is, it’s still not as bad as…
Moonraker
- Sir Frederick Gray, Minister of Defense: “My God, what’s Bond doing?”
- Q: “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.”
At the end of this movie, the Minister of Defense calls to congratulate Bond on another job well done, and they dial him up on a space-age video phone to the space shuttle that Bond and Dr. Goodhead are in. Of course, they’re wrapped up in silver sheets and having some zero-gravity intercourse, which Bond must feel the urge to do every time he’s saved the world. In Q’s defense he’s looking at a graphical represenation of Bond’s flight, which still doesn’t forgive this ultra-cheesy line.
A View To A Kill
May Day: “Wow! What a view!”
Max Zorin: “To a kill!”
Easily my least favorite James Bond film, and it also has another pet peeve of mine in it: characters say the name of the movie script. Grace Jones’ May Day and Christopher Walken’s Max Zorin characters are hovering over Silicon Valley, about to see their plan work, and these are the two lines you get? Although you can’t really expect anything more out of this movie. Between Walken’s wild-haired Zorin, Grace Jones’ creepy May Day, and Roger Moore as James Bond in New York wearing a leather jacket to look “cool,” there wasn’t much to offer. Sadly, the Duran Duran title song was the best thing about this movie.
License to Kill
- Bond: “I guess it’s… a farewell to arms.”
Timothy Dalton’s Bond was a good deal darker and grittier than Roger Moore, and he played the role in a much more serious manner. In this movie, Bond hands in his resignation and goes rogue in order to take down the killers who brutally murdered the new wife of his close friend Felix Leiter. M immediately strips him of his Double 0 status and demands he hand in his firearm. This scene would have a lot more impact if Bond could have managed it without the quip at the end. In Dalton’s previous outing as Bond, The Living Daylights, he refers to a female sniper, “Whoever she was, I must have scared the living daylights out of her.”
GoldenEye
Xenia Onatopp: “You don’t need the gun.”
James Bond: “Well, that depends on your definition of safe sex.”
Besides giving us a brand new Bond who represented a complete return to the joking days of Roger Moore with Pierce Brosnan, this movie also gave us another Bond girl with a sexual name, Xenia Onatopp. It also gave us new cheesy lines, like the one above. James Bond making a safe sex joke about a gun is certainly something you’d never experience back in the Connery days. Somehow Brosnan was able to pull off his glib remarks better than Moore ever did. Moore always seemed like he was about to crack up, but Brosnan kept it under a cool exterior. Although he did provide us with the cheesiest line in the history of James Bond movies…
The World Is Not Enough
James Bond: “I was wrong about you.”
Christmas Jones: “Yeah, how so?”
James Bond: “I thought Christmas only comes once a year.”
People I know still groan and quote this line from the end of the film which finds Brosnan’s Bond and Denise Richards’ Dr. Christmas Jones in post-coital bliss. You had to know there was going to be some kind of a Christmas joke based on past Bond movies, but this one really was like a punch in the stomach. I remember thinking, “Oh he didn’t just say… he did. Holy crap, Pierce Brosnan, you’re dead to me.” I’ve probably mellowed out these past few years, but you just can’t buy Denise Richards as an extremly busty girl who dresses in short shorts and is trying to pass herself off as a nuclear physicist.
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