5. Octopussy: Vijay Gets The Death He Deserves...I Suppose
I love Octopussy- it was the first Bond movie I ever watched, and as far as lazy Sunday afternoon entertainment goes, it's unbeatable. In real terms, though, the film is a mess. Another Bond movie constructed entirely from embarrassing tonal shifts, it begins as a le Carre aping Cold War thriller...before mutating into a sub-'Most Dangerous Game' rip-off set in an India that looks fifty years out of date...before reverting back to the Cold War thriller...only this time, with Bond dressed as a clown. As with all the campier Bond films, it's not the relentless barrage of sub-Naked Gun sight gags, or the barely literate double entendres, that spoil the movie. It's the token attempt to add a bit of gravitas. In this instance, it comes with the death of Bond's friend Vijay. Vijay, so named because he was played by former tennis pro Vijay Amritraj (these are the sort of creative minds we're dealing with here) has followed Bond about for most of the movie, adding nothing more than the occasional tennis reference ("I play a bit myself" he says, manfully resisting the urge to wink at camera) and an admiring chuckle for the geriatric spy's smutty jokes. In one scene he also wears a double breasted navy blue blazer so hideous it briefly diverts attention from whatever Roger had unearthed from the back of 'Safari Suit Enthusiast'. He's the sort of character who could comfortably disappear for the whole length of a movie without anyone missing him. You might ask 'what happened to Vijay' as you leave the cinema, but nobody would care enough to answer. And yet, somebody in the production team did care, very much, about the fate of this tuft of a character. Like Corinne before him, he gets one of the best death scenes in the series. While 007 infiltrates Octopussy's island (for island read whatever your filthy mind dredges up), Vijay and the redoubtable Q take turns keeping a lookout for him. If things had been different and Q didn't suffer from persistent bladder trouble, then Bond might have been back to constructing gadgets out of bits of stationery. As it is in the film, a swarm of filthy mercenaries appear out of nowhere and hold Vijay down to receive a buzz-saw in the chest. I half-suspect it's for real, because the look of terror in his eyes is the only piece of acting he competently manages (he's still alive though- he's in one of the Star Trek films, probably as Captain Vijay). In a classic bit of editing, as the blade comes down we cut to a flock of birds alighting from a tree- it's the moment we think we've seen in dozens of films, but really only happens in this one. And then Bond arrives, discovers his corpse, and offers the touching line "No more problems". It would've been an emotional moment, if they hadn't tried to wring it out of a character who was probably written into the first draft as a joke, and only left in because there was no Tippex to hand. It's quickly forgotten as Bond jets off to West Germany to try and defuse a bomb. While dressed as a clown. And nobody came out of the cinema thinking 'it's a shame Vijay won't be in the next one'.