To Catch A Thunderball or: Fiona's Apple - Written By Zach Frances

Fiona Volpe: Do you like wild things, Mr. Bond, James Bond?

James Bond: Wild? You should be locked in a cage.

Fiona Volpe: This bed feels like a cage. All these bars. Do you think I'll be safe?

Sean Connery's fourth outing as James Bond is also one of his very best. It is called Thunderball, and there is a very surprising theme underlying the film: prisons and prisoners. It may be the most complex Bond movie ever made.

The first time Bond sees the word 'Thunderball' it is stamped on the cover of a top secret folder, its contents confined by both confidentiality and sealed by tape. He is told to examine the documents contained within the Thunderball folder after hearing that his government is being forced to pay a large ransom to protect its citizens from nuclear catastrophe. Therefore his Government has been turned into a prison of SPECTRE, its citizens turned prisoners. There is also the matter of the missing plane that had carried the atomic bombs, its missing. Where does Bond find it? Confined underwater in a shark cage.

"Vanity has its dangers."

Several characters perpetuate the theme of prisons and prisoners further, but none so much as femme fatale Fiona Volpe. She completely fascinates me. Possibly my favorite Bond girl of them all, Fiona Volpe was portrayed by Luciana Paluzzi in the film with deadly precision. She is an agent of SPECTRE and an absolute scene-stealer. There are many fascinating things about Fiona, but first off I would like to talk about her appearance. She is a very desirable woman, sometimes she is too beautiful for words, and evil is one of her most attractive qualities. This makes the viewer a prisoner of his own attraction to danger and evil, but that's far too simple a statement to make when dealing with a Bond film. Her villainy highlighted by her physical beauty reveals deadly desire's true colors: passionate and "wild". Bond's relationship with Domino, the true Bond girl of the film, is of the traditional variety, meaning hollow and acceptable. Bond and Fiona, on the other hand, pursue a short but passionate and revealing affair. This proposes the concept that being evil is more emotionally rewarding than being good. Or at least a more passionate alternative to it. Her appearance perpetuates this concept further, since she is a very beautiful woman, much more so than Domino, one can assume that evil is more beautiful than good. While Emilio Largo has Domino followed constantly so as there is nothing to damage her innocence, Fiona is independent as well as damaged, and about as far from innocent as you can get. Bond's desire leads him to Fiona, but its his mission that makes Domino the necessary companion. Then again it is Fiona's mission that leads her to Bond, but you must understand, her mission was her desire. When men think with their hearts, evil's sway is well in reach, but when they think of their duty, rewards for this obedience will come with practicality.

In fact one of the major gripes Bond had with Fiona was the fact that she wasn't affected emotionally by sleeping with him. Perhaps even the fact that Bond was seduced instead of the other way around. Both characters are prisoners of sex and duty. The only time the two of them actually participate in romantic affairs is when the mission calls for or allows it to take place. Fiona tells Bond that the bed they are making love in feels like a cage after Bond tells her she belongs in one. In this situation, the mission is the prison, and Fiona and Bond's allegiance to their organizations is something they both know will prevent them from ever seeking true comfort in the arms of another. Fiona and Bond mix sex with violence so much I'd be surprised if either one can tell the difference between the two. Maybe there's no difference at all.

Fiona expresses how wild she feels, while earlier Bond expressed to Largo how he is not a man of passion. This contrast should prove an important one while on the topic of sex in Thunderball. Before Bond has his affair with Fiona, we see him engage in intercourse with a physiotherapist and it is neither passionate nor involving, its borderline bribery and boredom. With Fiona, it was very different, and the difference was made abundantly clear by Bond's actions after Fiona turns on him. Laying with evil made Bond feel something we had never seen before Thunderball, it made him feel passion. The question of whether or not Bond knew Fiona's intentions the whole time is wholly insignificant here because that's not the way Sean Connery played that scene. Sean Connery played a hurt Bond, but only as hurt as James Bond can get. Its a performance of nuance and subtlety, even if he knew in his heart of hearts that Fiona was an agent of SPECTRE, he was enjoying her company rather than absorbing it. He allowed himself to be physically and emotionally probed rather than physically dominate her. And then he learns that wasn't even a possibility. Also, the fact that the ring she wears gave her away is telling of the marital allegiances SPECTRE agents hold. There is absolutely nothing that gives away Bond's affiliation with the British government, but perhaps that's because they don't brand their agents. Interesting that its a ring though, considering the marital implications derived from such an accessory.

Fiona's apple, her passion, gave way to her death.

The death of Fiona Volpe is my all-time favorite death in any Bond film. The set-up is deliriously exciting and the whole scene washes over you in masterstrokes of editing. Its also my favorite death in any Bond film because of the underlying ideas that accompany it. She dies performing a passionate activity, dancing. A gunman has Bond in the cross hairs, Fiona knows this and Bond knows this. The gunman fires, and Bond swings Fiona around in order for her to catch the bullet. The bullet enters her spine, presumably lodging itself in her heart. Bond covers the bullet's entry-point with his hand and briefly continues to dance. This is a perfect visual metaphor for passion in the modern industrial age. Man can have his passions just as man can play with fire. But when duty calls, it is man's responsibility to heed it. Man must cover up his passions in order to fulfill his obligations to society. Man does not necessarily need to be devoid of emotion, but he cannot be ruled by it. Fiona had to die in order for Bond's world to continue unaffected by her cold resolve. Much like how Fiona's loyalty had not been swayed by sleeping with Bond and sharing one of the most private things you can share with a person, Bond was wholly unscathed by watching her die. Sex and dying are two very personal things, and they are things Fiona, a self-described wild woman, shared with 007, a self-described man of little passion.

Allow me to praise Luciana Paluzzi for a moment because I thought she was just extraordinary. Her physical beauty alone communicated the passion, honor, and maleficence the dialog likes to take credit for. The dialog did not communicate those feelings, it inherited them. Paluzzi communicates feelings that are not in the script, and her character feels the most alive out of all of them. She really did steal the show here, and like Mercutio and Moritz before her, her character was the crux of the production, regardless of her lifeline. She personified beauty and evil, and how the two can't inhabit the same body without warring with each other or causing some sort of self-fulfilling doom. One of the better performances by an Actress in a Bond film. Whether you agree or disagree, you do remember Fiona Volpe. A superb villain, very underrated, but incredibly iconic.

If I could just touch upon the similarities with James Bond and Emilio Largo for just moment, and say that like most of his other villains, they share several likenesses. Only in Thunderball the similarites are more evident, seeing how Largo is SPECTRE's Number Two, and, arguably, Bond is the British Intelligence Agency's go-to man. Neither man seems to trust their women, and neither of them should. They share an affectation for duty and honor, and an unbreakable bond with the organizations that have fostered them. It might also be worth pointing out that Largo defeated Bond in combat, and Bond's life was saved by Domino, a woman Largo once trusted. I find it interesting that Largo physically defeated Bond, almost as if his allegiances to duty were of the passionate kind, whereas Bond seems to go through the motions in a textbook style more than define them heroically, altruistically, or passionately.

There is so much more I can talk about concerning Thunderball, but I feel that this article has gone on long enough. This is one of my favorite Bond films, and I think technically speaking, it may be the best of the Connery era. A lot of people seem to gloss over the characters in Thunderball and I enjoyed taking this time to single out a few interesting points about them. Like I said in my Dr. No article, a lot of people fail to consider Bond's underlying themes, but if you do the films become much more interesting. Thunderball is high up there on my list of favorites and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading!

-Zach Frances