A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Sound of 007” (2022).
“The Sound of 007”, available on Amazon Prime Video, is a documentary exploring the musical history of Bond, James Bond. It has some glorious nuggets and (even to this Bond officianado) had a few snippets of information I hadn’t heard before. But, sadly, it was directed in a rather disjointed way and missed out some key historical musical cues.
Bob the Movie Man Rating(s):
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, John Barry, Hans Zimmer, David Arnold, Thomas Newman, Barbara Broccoli, Michael Caine, Billie Eilish, and many more…
Directed by: Mat Whitecross.
Twitter Handles: #TheSoundOf007.
“The Sound of 007” Review:
Positives:
- There are all of the famous ‘incident’ stories included in here: the origin of The James Bond Theme (from a random Monty Norman musical number); Tom Jones almost passing out from the final note of “Thunderball”; Shirley Bassey ripping off her bra to get to the “Goldfinger” notes; Louis Armstrong recording “We Have All The Time In The World” as the last thing before he died; David Arnold’s (brilliant) teasing out of the Bond theme during “Casino Royale”….
- …But there are also a host of nuggets in here that will delight Bond fans. The fact that Michael Caine was the first ever person in the world to hear the theme to “Goldfinger” (and why he was grumpy about it!); Billie Eilish noodling on “No Time To Die“; “You Only Live Twice” being edited together from dozens of dodgy takes by a freaked out Nancy Sinatra; and Cary Joji Fukunaga mentioning about needing an “elegy” as the music for Bond’s final climb and Hans Zimmer saying “you mean like this” and playing the basis of “The Climb”!
- Some of the vintage performances are superb, including TV performances by Louis Armstrong and Shirley Bassey. And behind the scenes footage of the recording of the “Another Way to Die” song and the “No Time to Die” soundtrack are interesting.
Negatives
- As a documentary, it’s frustratingly haphazard about how it puts its subject matter together. It jumps around all over the place in a random way with topics that don’t seem to naturally flow together. The obvious thing to do would have been to take a more sequential approach, working through the movies in sequence. And I think that would have worked better, ending with the new footage from “No Time to Die” to add interest to the end.
- Bizarrely it omits some composers and their music completely, and also omits some historical musical highspots. For example:
- It completely ignores the glory that is John Barry’s instrumental theme to “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” – a standout theme from the series.
- Eric Serra’s music to “Goldeneye” is omitted (albeit the low-water mark for me in terms of soundtracks)
- Michael Kamen’s music to “Licence to Kill” is ignored.
- Bill Conti’s music to “For Your Eyes Only” is also missing. I would have thought that the bizarre atonal music that precedes the ski chase scene was worthy of comment.
Summary Thoughts on “The Sound of 007”:
As a Bond fan, and in particular as a fan of Bond music, I loved this one. The content is very enjoyable indeed. But as a definitive documentary on the music of Bond it is a missed opportunity.
Trailer for “The Sound of 007”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcs5icPCTnI .
