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L.A. wrote: Tue Aug 25, 2020 3:31 pm Sean Connery at 90: 10 essential films

The Man Who Would Be King and Marnie are my two favorite Connery films - Robin and Marian and if it counts Time Bandits would be close behind. Connery actually gave a very warm Q&A for The Man Who Would Be King ten years ago (the week after it happened, they streamed the whole thing), and he even introduced Saeed Jaffrey as a surprise. (Jaffrey would pass away five years later.) To date, it may be Connery's last public engagement, though he has popped up again in public. A huge tennis fan, he was at the U.S. Open a few years ago, and while virtually no one can avoid showing their age at 90, he seems to be doing very well despite the need for a cane. Ford and Spielberg apparently pleaded with him to do the last Indiana Jones film, and even though he's made it clear that The Last Crusade was immense fun, he really had no interest in making any more films and just wanted to enjoy his retirement. There was a wild story here in NYC that a little more than ten years ago he rented a penthouse apartment and just hung out there for days, blasting old jazz records at top volume. Eventually the police had to investigate due to noise complaints, and they were greeted by a robed Connery and plumes of fine cigar smoke. No idea how much truth there is to it, but if I was 80 years old with no more ambitions in life, that's pretty much what I'd do.

The Man Who Would Be King may be his best perf, and it’s a great film, but my answer will always be Thunderball. Not only is it the most overlooked Bond movie, but the film that perfectly and eclectically demonstrates all of Bond’s staples, from the outrageously silly to the situationally absurd luck to the more serious angle of true grit.

I recall Sam Mendes saying that there was the idea early in production of Skyfall to cast Connery in the role that wound up being played by Albert Finney. I've always thought that it would have been an effective piece of casting, signifying that the Bond character isn't literally the same person in Skyfall as in Dr No but there being continuity in the Connery/Finney character having a mentor role to Craig. I think Mendes said it wasn't pursued because he thought it would distract the audience, but I doubt Connery would have done it even if asked. Though he did do Sir Billi that year...

Calvin wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 9:00 pmThough he did do Sir Billi that year...

Hah, had no idea he did another film! Then again, he did (to my surprise) agree to voice Bond in that video game from 2005, and I wonder if he made an exception along the same lines - that is, you just have to go in and record your lines, which is a lot easier and far less complicated than acting for a production or even a camera.

I believe he did the Sir Bili stuff to help out Scottish productions or something like that.

Holy hell, the Sir Billi looks like it was animated back when Connery was starring in the Avengers-- do they not get any recent movies or TV in Scotland to inform them how far behind the curve they were on this one?

I'm pretty sure this was super low budget by Brazilian knock-offs of Disney levels.

Not sure if it wound up doing more damage than good - reportedly, it was universally reviled by the British press (it doesn't seem to have gotten much if any coverage outside of the UK). I'm not sure how animated films are typically budgeted beyond the astronomical budgets given to Pixar films, but this one was £15 million over several years of work.

I've seen Eric Roberts talking cat movies with better graphics, so let's hope most of that number was inflated and used as money laundering

I can attest that Sir Billi is really bad, but often unintentionally hilarious. It's also tonally all over the shop - particularly some unnecessary references to a damaged spinal column, not to mention the xenophobia and homophobia thrown in for good measure. I think the Scotsman summed it up with the line ' Bad in ways heretofore unimaginable'.

I've never forgotten how Connery's official biographer very publicly quit the project about 10+ years back and said he was a man
who wasn't worth writing about, which seemed to allude to the longstanding spousal abuse rumors that have dogged him for many years.

I do love his work with Sidney Lumet, though. The Hill and The Offence are tremendous works that benefit immensely from his
wonderful performance. The vulnerability and anger he shows in equal measure during the latter is so disquieting and hard to watch, but it's
a masterwork. He deserved the acclaim he generated for The Untouchables, as well, and I've always overlooked the ridiculousness
of an Irish-American beat cop who speaks with his Scottish brogue.

beamish14 wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:00 amI've always overlooked the ridiculousness of an Irish-American beat cop who speaks with his Scottish brogue.

I believe this is true of every Connery role. I haven't seen either in a very long time, but if memory serves, he has his usual Scottish brogue playing a Spaniard (or at least someone who lived as a Spaniard) in the Highlander films and a Russian in The Hunt for Red October.

He's lousy in that respect, but in the end, if I enjoy his performances, it's because he's so naturally charismatic, and he's still amazingly perfect in the old Bond films even if they do feel like relics.

There's a common defense of Connery's Hunt for Red October accent as a simple way of setting his character apart from the other Soviets, Ramius being the Lithuanian captain of a predominantly Russian crew. (The book makes a lot more of this, but IIRC the film still identifies him as Lithuanian.) Of course that's a post hoc justification since Connery would've used his Scottish brogue no matter what, but I think it serves that purpose better than if he'd attempted to put on a Lithuanian accent that 99.99999999% of the film's viewers wouldn't even be able to identify as such.

At least in Highlander his character was living in Scotland. For me the elephant in the room was Bond; but apparently Bond isn't English. Rumor is Ian Fleming liked Connery so much in the role that, in the novel You Only Live Twice, he established him as the son of a Scottish father and Swiss mother.

Maybe people will let Daniel Craig off the hook for being blonde.

I liked Finding Forrester a lot. It's very much Oscar bait, but has enough of a different mood (particularly with it's use of jazz in the soundtrack, specifically the late 60's-early 70's Miles) that I didn't feel it was dumbed down in an emotional sense. It wasn't his last movie but it's a far better farewell to the cinema than his actual last movie.

I’m surprised my favorite Connery hasn’t been mentioned yet; The Molly Maguires.

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:35 pm...it's a far better farewell to the cinema than his actual last movie.

I can't say I'm a fan of either, but I remember watching Connery on television promoting The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and someone asked him about big franchises and the merchandising that came with them, specifically whether Connery saw that happening with his movie and how that would impact him. His immediate response (and bear in mind, this was around opening weekend):

Spoiler

"Well, my character dies in the movie."

You could hear the crew laughing off-camera, but in retrospect, it was a real "I don't give a fuck about this movie, I'm done" moment.

Later on I heard the story that he turned down Lord of the Rings and The Matrix because he didn't understand them, and when they blew up really big, he decided to throw the dice and accept whatever came next that he didn't "understand." That turned out to be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and allegedly its failure helped convince him that it was time to find something else to do.

Who would he have been in the Matrix, Morpheus?

Yes I think or maybe the Oracle.

Wikipedia claims it was the Architect in the sequels, citing the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen DVD. But that doesn't quite fit the timeline described above since LOEG came out only a couple of months after Reloaded.

The Connery film I always enjoy returning to is Zardoz, just for the batshit insanity of it. I'm wondering how much he understood that if he couldn't puzzle out Lord of the Rings. As for his other films, I remember it being a very "holy shit" moment for the audience when I saw Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and he made the cameo at the end. I'd already had it spoiled, as I recall.

And now so have I.

If it's any consolation, we won't spoil the lesser surprise in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

hearthesilence wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 11:50 pmThat turned out to be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and allegedly its failure helped convince him that it was time to find something else to do.

Gene Hackman bowed out at very nearly the same time. I remember him on Larry King promoting a novel he'd just written and announcing his retirement in a rather low-key manner. I remember reading some years later that Tony Scott was trying to cast him in something. All due respect to Connery but that was more of a blow to movies, it wasn't much more than a decade before he won an Oscar for Unforgiven and was doing some of his best work afterwards. Going past some of his more celebrated roles here, but he's brilliant in Crimson Tide, a role that doesn't exactly drip off the page with a lesser actor in that part.