Silver Bears (1978)

In this mildly amusing banking thriller adapted from a novel by Paul Erdman, Michael Caine stars as a monetary wizard who creates a Swiss bank to finance a silver mine in Iran. But all is not as it seems and he ends up having to out-scam the crooks who are attempting to scam him. 

It’s flawed but entertaining. On the down side, a couple of the characters are misjudged and could have been cut completely – for example, Jay Leno is awkward and almost entirely pointless as Albert Fiore. It’s also a little slow to get going, and for a so-called comedy it could have been a lot funnier. 

On the plus side, Cybill Shepherd is excellent as the kooky wife of an accountant. The film improves from the moment she steps into it. And Charles “Blofeld” Gray is easy to like as a millionaire precious-metals dealer. Louis Jourdan and Joss Ackland are also fairly strong. The Swiss locations look good, and there’s a nice soundtrack by Claude Bolling.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Sean Connery’s sixth and final James Bond film (not including 1983’s unofficial Never Say Never Again) is one of the weirdest in the series. The tone is completely different – an uneasy blend of comedy and drama that often falls flat.

On the plus side, Charles Gray is excellent as the icy, ruthless Blofeld. And there’s a dramatic Las Vegas car chase that features the classic “car on its side down an alleyway” sequence. I liked the plot element about a cassette of marching tunes that needs to be switched with a lookalike cassette containing the control codes for a satellite threatening to obliterate cities from space.

On the downside, the daft henchmen Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are neither funny nor sinister and their scenes invariably jar with the rest of the film. And Jill St. John isn’t especially appealing as Tiffany Case.

The second half is stronger (from about the time Bond steals a moon buggy), but it’s unusually low on thrills. Even Bond almost being cremated alive doesn’t quite work because of the way the scene is edited.

I expect I will be singing the Shirley Bassey theme tune to myself for at least a week.