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# Best Bond Villains

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xMC006Fc.m3u8" -->
## Video: Best Bond Villains

[Watch (HLS stream): Best Bond Villains](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xMC006Fc.m3u8) (7:38)

![Best Bond Villains](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/xMC006Fc/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2008-11-13. Take a nefarious trip with TIME's Richard Corliss and the many mortal enemies of James Bond_


---

Jul 27, 2023 1:03 PM UTC

---

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[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

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### 5 Reasons We Still Love James Bond

[Richard Corliss on the Best Holiday Movies and TV](/video/v7XJGFE7/)

### Richard Corliss on the Best Holiday Movies and TV

---


## Transcript

Welcome to the James Bond- O- Fun- 007- O- Rama. Today, we focused on the villains in James Bond films. Dr. No played by Joseph Wiseman in Dr. No.

>> Forgive my not shaking hands, it becomes a bit awkward with these a misfortune. You were admiring my aquarium.

>> All Bond's super villains are essentially the same. A man with a brilliant but diseased brain whose pleasure it is to kill James Bond after he swapped a [ unk ] with him. The first Bond movie villain was Dr. No, a scientist who had offered his services to the Americans and the Russians. Both sides declined, so like any smart entrepreneur, he went into private partnership with a gang called SPECTRE, Special Executive for Counter- intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, the four great cornerstone of power led by the four sickest men in the world.

>> What do we do with him?

>> Soften him up. I haven't finished with him yet.

>> James, we will miss the plane and we will--

>> Hello, Paul.

>> Every super villain in a Bond film, every brainiac maniac needs a thug, a henchman or a henchwoman to carry out their evil deeds. And who fight Bond to the death, usually theirs.

>> It should be routine from here on, you know.

>> The first famous one was Rosa Klebb played by Lotte Lenya in From Russia with Love.

>> Klebb.

>> The name Rosa Klebb is a Russian translation of the international labor slogan Bread and Roses and Rosa is a SMERSH agent, that is to say, part of the KGB thug squad who has gone over to SPECTRE and her big fight with bond, she has got a poison- tipped shoe. Kickboxing was never so lethal.

>> Oddjob played by Harold Sakata in Goldfinger.

>> Oddjob is what you might call executive assistant to Auric Goldfinger, his bodyguard, his chauffer, his golf caddie. He is impervious to pain. Hit him in the chest with a goldbrick, no response. He is mean on the attack too. A bowler hat with a razor in the rim moves toward you like a killer Frisbee.

>> This is the price of failure, Mr. Bond.

>> Ernst Stavro Blofeld played by Donald Pleasence in You Only Live Twice. Telly Savalas in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

>> If my demands are not met, I shall proceed with the systematic extinction of all species of cereals and livestock all over the world.

>> And by Charles Gray in Diamonds Are Forever.

>> I supposed you killed him.

>> Nothing so melodramatic.

>> I'm simply holding him in cold storage, so to speak.

>> Ian Flemming, the author of the James Bond novels conceived Blofeld as committedly in character, his features ever changing.

>> What do you intend to do with those diamonds?

>> The producers of the James Bond films like him enough to put him in seven different movies, though he plays prominent roles in only three.

>> If I would break the news to anyone, it's with you first, Mr. Bond, you know that.

>> Francisco Scaramanga played by Christopher Lee in The Man with the Golden Gun. Christopher Lee has been in movies for ages playing suave or surly villains. In the 50's, Frankenstein Monster and Dracula. He was also in the Star Wars and Lord of the Ring series. He is a superb villain as Scaramanga entertaining and entrapping bond in his secret island hideout. Jaws played by Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Love Me and Moonraker. This 7- foot- 2- inch hulk was a cemetery plot salesman before turning to acting indelibly as Jaws in two Bond films. In the first, he is a strong man for villain, Karl Stromberg who kills his villains by biting their jugulars with his steel teeth.

>> Are you ready?

>> Yes.- Maximillian Largo played by Klaus Maria Brandauer in Never Say Never Again.

>> Thank you gentlemen.

>> In this remake of Thunderball, Largo steals two nuclear warheads and holds them for ransom, but the big fun is watching one of the few Academy Award nominees ever to play a Bond villain.

>> Danger, danger, danger.

>> And Brandauer is may be the only one of these lofty international fruitcakes who entertains the idea that " yeah, maybe he is crazy ."

>> He's never gone this far before.

>> You're certifiable.- Max Zorin played by Christopher Walken in A View to a Kill. After David Bowie turned down the role saying he didn't want to spend five months watching his stunt double jump off cliffs, the part of Max Zorin went to Walken who always admits a kind of goofball self.

>> I take it you ride.

>> I'm happiest in the saddle.

>> A fellow sportsman.

>> Zorin is another international entrepreneur whose horses always win because he has implanted microchips in their heads.

>> There's one obstacle.

>> He forms a plan to destroy his only competition in Silicon Valley by triggering a massive earthquake in the San Andreas Fault. These Bond villains they are so naughty.

>> Wow. What a view to a kill.

>> You're late 007.

>> I had to stop in the bathroom. I need to save the world again. After you, 006.- Alec Trevelyan played by Sean Bean in GoldenEye.

>> James, for England.

>> For England, Alec.

>> Perhaps the worst kind of villain is a person you once knew as a friend. Trevelyan in an earlier life was 006, James' comrade and partner. Now, he's turned rogue by filtering the GoldenEye's satellites that can of course, destroy the world. Was he successful in this nefarious scheme? Well, if he had been the series would be called 006.

>> For England, James.

>> No, for me.

>> Mollaka played by Sebastien Foucan in Casino Royale. This is a new generation of Bond villain. A bomb maker who doesn't say much but gets to run quite smoothly using the Parkour techniques of jumping over railings, tap dancing on roofs and keeping a British agent where it will do him the most harm with the ladies. In A View to a Kill, Max Zorin says " Ha ha, you amused me Mr. Bond" and Bond says " It's not mutual ". But these and many other Bond villains have amused us. They radiate all the world decadence and give us old fashioned thrills. The actors playing Bond may change every few years, but villains are forever.

This is Richard Corliss for Time Magazine.

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