It seems like Sean Connery's Bond would like to forget about On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He acts like he never left the series, only taking a short "holiday," as one of his superiors calls it, to refresh himself before returning to duty. Even when he chases down Blofeld in the pre-credits sequence, presumably to revenge to death of his wife in the previous film, he does so with a wry humor, like a man smiling through a dull chore. Indeed, there isn't even a single mention of his personal tragedy (strangely enough, that would come later, with Roger Moore). In the world of Diamonds Are Forever, George Lazenby was an unpleasant diversion, and Diamonds puts the series back on the path to outlandish comedy and self-parody, something which began in earnest with Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, and would prepare us for the often unmitigated cheese of Moore. Through a fairly obscure plot involving diamond smuggling and extortion, Bond is cast into a series of strange locations, such as funeral parlors and moon landing simulations, and the incongruity of seeing his well-tailored dinner suit walking alongside the business casual clientele of Las Vegas is very kitsch indeed. Diamonds Are Forever is fun for exactly this reason, but I'm not sure the filmmakers, or the rapidly aging Connery, were in on the joke as much as they'd like to believe, hence the schizophrenic shifts in tone. Still, there's plenty of action spectacle to recommend in this one, especially the French Connection-lite car chase through the streets of Vegas, and Bond's fight with Peter Franks in an elevator, something which brings to mind the similarly enclosed brawl between Bond and Red Grant in From Russia With Love. But that's the problem with Diamonds; even at its best moments, it can only remind us of earlier, better films. Bond's transition, from Connery to Moore, begins here, and consequently this one suffers for it.
