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

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.