You Only Live Twice (007)

Sean Connery IS James Bond.

The fifth film in the Bond series, ‘You Only Live Twice’ is unique for two reasons. Firstly, James Bond gets married and secondly we are introduced to Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the flesh, played menacingly by Donald Pleasance in a screenplay by Roald Dahl and directed by Lewis Gilbert.

The film is also memorable for its incredible £400,000 set of Blofeld's Volcano operational base, complete with the rocket laucher, helicopter landing pad, monorail and massive shutter. Q's invention ‘Little Nellie’ – a one man miniature helicopter – also makes a big impact.

An American space mission is interrupted when one of their capsules is literally swallowed up by what they suspect is a Russian spaceship. The Americans threaten to retaliate, but the British think otherwise. Everything depends on Bond as he goes undercover in Japan and discovers that Blofeld is the creator of these interceptor rockets.

Critic Reviews:

• " The gadgets are demure, house broken, the Japanese settings are restful, the plot, such as it is, is taken seriously. " – Wilfrid Sheed

• " Still plenty of fun to be had, so long as you ignore the … old fashioned aspects of the film, and have a sense of humour about it. " – David Hogan

• " This is one of the best of the Sean Connery Bond films. " – Andrew Collins