Every Bond Girl Ranked - Worst To Best

Never mind Willard Whyte, Tiffany Case’s metamorphosis of character plays out quicker than Walter White’s. Case transforms from a street-smart, headstrong master of disguise and smuggler-extraordinaire into a bumbling fool who falls off of oil rigs while trying to hold and fire a machine gun, all over the course of an hour or so.

In keeping with Diamonds Are Forever’s complete mismatch of tone, Tiffany Case’s rapid devolution in IQ does its best to destroy the notion of the Bond Girl as a strong and capable ally that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service excellently established one film earlier.

So named for the place of her birth (as Bond notes, it’s fortunate she wasn’t born in Van Cleef & Arpels), Case is initially presented as a wise-cracking, wig-changing veteran of the smuggling game, tough as an alleycat. In her last scene, she unhelpfully squeals “EEEEE!” and gapes at the sight of Bond being strangled by Mr Kidd. That’s a real line of dialogue from the film. “EEEEE!”

She also features in one of the most bewildering scenes in all of Bond: when a child accuses her of being involved in a fixed carnival attraction in Las Vegas, Case brushes him off with “blow up your pants!” Blow up his… pants? Is that an insult? How does one go about doing that?

Best moment: Case walks right into Bond’s ploy after his kill of Peter Franks, whilst confirming that the world’s most famous secret agent is a trifle more famous than secret: “you don’t kill James Bond and wait around for the cops to arrive!”

Worst moment: In a misguided attempt to assist Bond by switching Blofeld’s launch-code cassettes, Case unwittingly foils Bond’s original plan, who loudly derides her as a “stupid twit”. The film certainly doesn’t make any strident leaps forward in the representation of women.