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Connery vs Shaw: The Fight That Put the Other Bond Fights to Shame

posted 2 years ago by roger1 (4026)
22 replies | jump to latest

aka ecarle.

SPOILERS:

The fight between James Bond(Sean Connery) and Robert Shaw(Red Grant) in the enclosed pace of a sleeping car on the Orient Express late in From Russia With Love set the pace for all Bond fights to follow it, and rather put all of them to shame(at least until Daniel Craig came along.)

Here is why:

The fight was long preceded by the sadistic Grant holding Bond at gunpoint and telling him things -- about sex tape blackmail and about how he was going to kill Connery slowly -- that only enraged Bond to WANT that fight. You could say that Grant was another "talking villain" who took too long to explain everything without simply shooting Bond but -- Grant wanted to toy with his victim for awhile and was actually willing to consider a "bribe of gold coins" even if he intended to kill Bond anyway.

But when he opened the briefcase and the smoke exploded, and the fight began, this was it: as savage, brutal and to-the-death as the movies had given us to that point in history. The year before, Frank Sinatra had a pretty good karate-fest with Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate, but THIS one -- unlike THAT one -- was to the death, only one man leaves the ring.

We'd seen Shaw earlier in the movie, shirtless and taking a fist to his iron belly with ease(albeit from a middle aged Russian lady) but the tale was told: Shaw was muscular and big enough to maybe take Connery, bust him up pretty bad.

The photography(in blue light once the lights are shot out) was great, the editing was great, the sound was great, the whole thing was fast-paced and brutal and -- this is important -- the James Bond movie was now throrougly established as "adult entertainment' in the realm of mano-y-mano fights to the death.

Things slowly changed.

One film later -- in Goldfinger -- Bond had to fight the bull-like karate master Oddjob, and it wasn't an even match. Oddjob kept tossing Bond away and had that killer steel hat to throw at him. Bond had to OUTSMART his fight opponent.

One film later -- in Thunderball -- the movie OPENS with a fight scene of "to the death" savagery, ala From Russia With Love, but its almost a throwaway. There isn't as great a fight in the rest of the movie.

One film later -- in You Only Live Twice -- Bond has an early fight with a sumo wrestler(played by Dwayne Johnson's grandfather, Peter Mavia) that is as one-sided as the fight with Oddjob and ends with the sumo wrestler unconcsious, not dead. (Oddjob had died.)

One film later -- in On Her Majesty's Secret Service -- "New Guy" George Lazenby has various fast-cut , really loud fights with a variety of opponents(some with people of color) that generally aren't to the death or all that savage.

One film later -- in Diamonds Are Forever -- Sean Connery is back and an early fight to the death in an elevator(and outside) between Connery and blond guy in a suit is...pretty good, almost a throwback to Connery/Shaw except this guy barely knows Bond, they have no personal feelings against each other -- its just a fight. To the death...a rather silly death at that.

One film later -- in Live and Let Die -- Roger Moore arrives, and the fights start to get a lot sillier. One villain blows up like a balloon. A fight on a train with a hook-handed baddie becomes -- two films later -- a fight on a train with "Jaws" the giant -- and BOTH train fights are rather silly and pallid retreads of the savage Connery-Shaw affair.

It seems that the need for a big savage stunt fight like Connery-Shaw faded as the Bond series went on. Moore got too old to have them and Dalton seemed too above-it-all to want them. Pierce Brosnan just didn't have the build for them.

Daniel Craig's coming to the role meant for a few savage fights in "Casino Royale" and a nostalgic train fight (with Big Dave Bautista) in Spectre that ended with the Big Guy still alive.

And so...accept no substitutes. You have to go all the way back to late Hays Code 1963 to get the BEST of the Bond fight scenes. The most serious. The most intense. The most to the death.

James Bond vs. Red Grant.

[–] DoctorThirteen (15227) 2 years ago

That fight and the whole lead-up to it is my favourite scene of any James Bond film and is my favourite screen fight ever. Fantastic.

[–] rcrxjlb (130) 2 years ago

Daniel Craig fighting on top of a moving train in Skyfall was a better scene...

[–] R_Kane (15828) a year ago

Please stop smoking crack.

[–] millsey72 (10914) 3 months ago

The fight on top of the train was better in Octopussy because Bond took on 2 guys

[–] [deleted] 5 months ago

I see what you're saying.

[–] stevewyzard (1733) 5 months ago

100% correct - it really is the best.

[–] mariomonsieur (313) 3 months ago

Bond bringing a knife to a choke wire fight

[–] DoctorThirteen (15227) 3 months ago

Good job he did.

[–] roger1 (4026) 3 months ago

Bond bringing a knife to a choke wire fight

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Ha. Indeed..

I'm reminded that while the men are trying to kill each other with their bare hands for most of the fight, it does narrow down to lethal weapons.

[–] Ripkens25 (2066) 3 months ago

It's a great fight scene for it's day.
I would add that a few of the Daniel Craig fights were every bit as epic, and with that "to the death" urgency.

For example, the stairwell fight in CR. it has that awkward (doesn't look polished and choreographed) flailing around realness as they grappled and lunged at each other, while tripping down the stairs. And Bond had to disarm the machete with the clever use of his jacket. As the fight spills to the floor, Bond gets the guy in a choke hold and....in a kill or be killed situation, chokes him out with his bare hands. The stakes were high, the fight looked realistic. And to show just how cool and collected Bond is.....immediately after a fight to the death, he heads to his room, slugs down a double scotch, puts on a new shirt and heads back to the poker game.

The other epic Craig fight that comes to mind (as others have mentioned) is the one on the train in SPECTRE. Everything about how that fight begins and unfolds is brilliant. The casual dinner (calm before the unexpected storm). The environment (the lighting and ambiance of a candle-lit dinner car). And then....the STORM, in the form of a hulking Dave Bautista closing in on Bond (we see him in a reflection) like a lion springing on his prey.

Initially, via skill and adrenaline, Bond gives as good as he gets. But (huge points for realism here), he gets gassed quickly and begins to flail desperately, trying and using anything he can get his hands on to gain and advantage. If not for a little luck and some smart last-minute thinking, this man would have killed Bond. A truly epic, nailbiter....in which Bond was losing badly, but won.

And then there's the fight in the apartment room in Quantum of Solace. A great, hand to hand fight between two men of equal skill. Then Bond gets the upper hand, stabs the guy with his own knife out on the balcony...and then gets him into a hold and just calmly waits while the assassin bleeds out. Brilliant.

The FRWL fight will always be great to me, mostly for nostalgic reasons, and because the movie as a whole was so great. But Daniel Craig has had some great ones of his own!

[–] roger1 (4026) 3 months ago

The FRWL fight will always be great to me, mostly for nostalgic reasons, and because the movie as a whole was so great. But Daniel Craig has had some great ones of his own!

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I agree with all of that, and I think this reveals some "elephants in the room" in regard to the actors who PLAYED Bond.

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It was said of Sean Connery that if he had not landed the Bond role, "he would have become a star some other way." He was already making his name in movies like 'Darby OGill and the Little People"(Disney!) and clearly had that "special charimsa" that gets certain unknown actors hired over "the others." I've read that Robert Redford had it with casting agents, and so did Bruce Willis when he got Moonlighting over 100s of applicants.

And key to Connery were a number of things(including that Scottish voice) but mainly: he was a BIG, strapping man with a certain "animal magnetism" to his face and his features. A cruelty in his expressions implied that had only SLIGHTLY been controlled by societal work as "one of the good guys."

So when CONNERY got into that fight with Shaw -- and Shaw looked damn tough too- it was muscular, raw and animalistic.

George Lazenby had the size, and was given some quick violent fights but -- no Connery.

Which brings us to Roger Moore. I know he was the favorite of the 70's generation, and he certainly was handsome, but his fights on the train in Live and Let Die(with the hook-handed man) and The Spy Who Loved Me(with the silly "Jaws" based on a true classic movie) were both on trains and both weak fascimiles of Connery verus Shaw(Jaws clearly survived to a sequel and I think the hook-handed guy didn't conclusively die.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (4026) 3 months ago

I think we can leap on past the similarly "pretty" Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan(who was also a man of slight build, unlike Connery) to indeed reach the very muscular, tough, borderline ugly Daniel Craig and the VERY realistic to-the-death fights you have noted above. I agree entirely and I rather feel like we had to cross the decades from Connery(whose "final" Bond films were spaced from 1967 to 1971 to 1983!) to Daniel Craig to reach both a muscular actor(who was described as "a cross between Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson") AND a realistic series of high-stakes fights, to bring back that "From Russia With Love" savagery in the fights. (The Craig films -- Casino Royale in particular, rather de-glamourized the whole Bond idea and turned him into much more of a gutter-level streetfighter(because, in these realistic films, he HAD to be.)

Irony though: the train fight against Bautista in Spectre is as exciting and action packed as the one in From Russia With Love UNTIL it rather concludes like the ones against the hook man and Jaws: with the villain surviving, the danger dissolved.

[–] Ripkens25 (2066) 3 months ago

Great points.
Connery definitely had an "it factor"....and a screen presence that was off the charts. And it got bigger the older he got. I think filmmakers realized Connery's appeal onscreen got a second act when everyone got a look at him in The Hunt for Red October. And so his career took on a second act....as a very believable, middle aged action star (similar...but to a lesser extent to what Liam Neeson has been doing).

[–] AnthonySocksss (1480) 3 months ago

His career comeback already started when he won the academy award for The Untouchables.

[–] Melton (5497) 3 months ago

Ah - early Daniel Craig - before he couldn’t be arsed to do fights anymore, became a producer, and gradually phased out the awesome fight scenes (as well as nerfing James Bond into a cucky loser who dies needlessly)

[–] AnthonySocksss (1480) 3 months ago

It’s a great fight because Connery uses his brains as much as brawn to win.

He susses out Red Grant’s greed for gold and tricks him into opening the teargas canisters. Then uses the knife in the briefcase to finish the job. Q and his own quick-thinking saved him.

Another great Bond fight scene was in Never Say Never Again, where he is forced into an enclosed space to battle a gigantic bodybuilder in the gym. And finally defeats him with his urine lol

[–] Melton (5497) 3 months ago

Funny that Connery-Bond defeated an enemy with his urine when in Goldfinger he foils Goldfinger’s plans by turning Pussy Galore good with his semen.

Molesting her in that barn is the only heroic thing he does in that film 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–] mikethemartian (6983) 3 months ago

That fight scene is one of my earliest movie theater memories. It must have been from a re-release in the early 70s.

[–] roger1 (4026) 3 months ago

It’s a great fight because Connery uses his brains as much as brawn to win.

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That's right. Shaw gives him a lot of time to get ready -- the "talking villain thing" -- but it is logical this time, because Shaw states he is going to TAKE his time because he wants to subject Connery to a slow death. This gives Connery the time to think up his strategy -- the greed gold/coins thing and the triggering of the gas -- and the fight.

The knife in the briefcase had been established early on by Q -- of course -- and we knew it was there. (By the way, kids in the 60s could get Bond AND Man from UNCLE spy briefcases and I think they had ...fake rubber knives in them. Ah the violent childhoods of the Boomers.)

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He susses out Red Grant’s greed for gold and tricks him into opening the teargas canisters. Then uses the knife in the briefcase to finish the job. Q and his own quick-thinking saved him.

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Yes. That's why he is "James Bond, OO7." Not JUST a strong, trained-for-fighting warrior. He was intelligent enough to THINK (and talk) his way into saving his own life. And intelligent enough to catch Shaw ordering red wine with fish.

I suppose that Daniel Craig's fights(I am thinking of the ones in Casino Royale) WERE as savage as Connery-Shaw but were NOT quite so "built up for some cat and mouse intelligent planning" on Bond's part. They were just sudden, brutal to-the-death down and dirty affairs. it was the 21st Century after all. The Bourne Identity had paved the way for the fights.

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CONT

[–] roger1 (4026) 3 months ago

Another great Bond fight scene was in Never Say Never Again, where he is forced into an enclosed space to battle a gigantic bodybuilder in the gym. And finally defeats him with his urine lol

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It was great to see a "fairly old" Connery(wearing a toupee for the first time in years AND clean-shaven, ala Bond) go to work out at health club only to find his "fighting shape" challenged by a big brute. It was perhaps a more "fun" fight than the one against Shaw, but still exciting, and MORE exciting because Connery played it "old."

That urine thing. Bond threw what SEEMED to be acid in the bad guy's face -- we all THOUGHT it was acid, the way the guy screamed, but it turned out to be Bond's own urine sample. Yes a good joke..but it put the scene into comedy. Not quite as intense as the Shaw fight. Still, the villain didn't die from the urine, he died from falling backwards onto glass that cut into the vital organs of his back."

Never Say Never Again was a remake of Thunderball -- where Connery himself as Bond(1965) was sent to that gym but no fight ensued(he was rather tortured almost to death on an exercise machine by an unseen, uncaught assailant.) It was rather fitting to see Connery FINALLY get a fight scene in that gym 18 years later.

[–] RupertPupkin1 (31) 7 days ago

Connery vs Shaw is indeed the best fight in the series.

I believe another fight that deserves a mention though is Moore's Bond battling Chang in 'Moonraker' (a sadly underrated film). In my review of Moore's films, I wrote: Moore is given better props and more space to work with, so he doesn't have to win with a comic series of punches.

Not as 'silly' therefore as some of Moore's other fights in the series.

[–] roger1 (4026) 2 days ago

Connery vs Shaw is indeed the best fight in the series.

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I think film history has proven that -- and yet its way back in 1963 in only the second film of the series, made on a fairly low budget.

I think 21st century fights are so driven by complex and high speed marital arts moves that this early "two big guys enraged and to the death" just feels refreshingly old school today.

Also this: Red Grant(Shaw) is shown in the pre-credit scene "killing James Bond"(a victim in a Connery mask) and we not only spend the entire movie watching Grant pretty much follow and stalk Bond but their final "pre-fight dialogue" that builds and builds and builds as we see just how much the two men really HATE each other(Connery: "What asylum did they recruit you out of?" Shaw: Its up to me how quickly you die...come here and kiss my foot.) So when the fight FINALLY breaks out...we're ready for it.

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I believe another fight that deserves a mention though is Moore's Bond battling Chang in 'Moonraker' (a sadly underrated film). In my review of Moore's films, I wrote: Moore is given better props and more space to work with, so he doesn't have to win with a comic series of punches.

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I only vaguely remember that fight -- except I remember it WAS a good one, in an overall "silly' Bond film. (Moore pretty much got stuck with all of those -- Connery got one of those with Diamonds are Forever, but overcame the silliness with his macho air and historic return.)

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Not as 'silly' therefore as some of Moore's other fights in the series.

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Agreed. Moore versus the hook-handed guy on the train in Live and Let Die, and versus Jaws on a train in The Spy Who Loved Me, are pretty much the same fight. Silly.

And who can forget the two stunt guys "fighting" on the Golden Gate bridge in View to a Kill? Impressively death-defying, but they are more interested in staying atop the bridge than fighting.