10 Times James Bond Films Were Better Than The Books

2. The Main Villains In Diamonds Are Forever

The Donald Pleasance version of Blofeld is iconic. Telly Savalas’ incarnation is one you either love or you hate in comparison. However, it’s safe to say that Charles Grey’s version isn’t that well revered by Bond fans. He is very much the campy one, a caricature of the supervillain trope that he was once the poster-boy of, and manages to kill off all of the menace, that the Blofeld character had in one short moment by dressing up in drag to kidnap Bond’s girl of the week, Tiffany Case.

And yet, he is still a lot better than the main antagonists of the book Diamonds Are Forever.

In the place of the larger-than-life head of SPECTRE, we have the Spangled Mob and their leaders, Jack and Serraffimo Spang. Basically, two run-of-the-mill gangsters who run a diamond smuggling operation, with the only defining characteristic of either of them being that Serraffimo owns a ghost town named Spectreville (catchy…) complete with locomotive train. They are easily outshone by the main henchmen of Wint and Kidd, something that also happened to Blofeld in the film.

Notably though, the villains do suit the tone of the tale they are in; Blofeld is the campy cog in the romp that is the film, and the Spangs are as dull as the book.