Some thought it would never happens. Others talked of mirages. But no, a mere seven years after I first mentioned a countdown of James Bond Henchmen "soon to be written", it actually exists. I'd like to thank Calvin Dyson and Being James Bond's channels for inspiring me to dust off what I'd started and actually finish it. (I have around 200 unfinished projects in a folder delayed by parenthood, and, to be more accurate, magpieitis!)
So yes, James Bond. There's a new film coming out, allegedly soon, and it's the 25th in the series. No better a time than glance back over 59 years (I should have delayed it another year and assumed the same would happen to No Time To Die, really) of James Bond. Having asked ourselves once what the great Bond themes were, now we can ask: who were our greatest Bond villain's henchmen. For as the series proves, behind every bad man lies an often much more effective bad guy. Or gal.
What actually qualifies as a henchman varies between sources, and I soon found myself with a list of over 100 characters, some with one line. Some with none. Many of them forgettable. So, to save people going "Where's my favourite 1 line only guy?" I've cut the list down to a neat 60, after the anniversary this isn't. Those axed were merely the extra roles that didn't, in my view, aide the story that much.
This also means we lose the best villain in From Russia With Love. Fare ye well, Bespectacled Spy!
So starting with the lowest and moving on, it's time for:
#60 Rosie Carver (Live and Let Die)
All the bits where she can’t win a fight with a
pillowcase or her own shadow could be forgiven if we accept that, as a double
agent, it’s entirely a bluff. We can accept that having Bond in an inter-racial
relationship was fair for its day (and indeed, caused a massive stooshie in the
Bible belt), even if the fact he literally sleeps with her to lure her into a
false sense of security is... rather dodgy. However, the role itself is weak
throughout, and despite it’s (let’s be charitable in assumption) noble intentions on paper, the
character, as a whole, is rightfully used as a stick to beat the film with.
She’s weak, she has sex, she dies – written as coarsely as that, it’s not a
very good part at all, is it?
#59 Mr Kil (Die Another Day)
Dreadful henchman for Gustav Graves who is bumped off
in a mediocre fight. The series was tired at this point.
#58 General Medrano (Quantum of Solace)
This is where I admit to the Daniel Craig fans that, as someone brought up on the Roger Moore school of James Bond, I'm not overly keen on his era. Sorry. Even with that said, Medrano is a fairly weak character.
Based on real life Latin American dictators, but in the Bond canon, he's a lesser version of Largo. And Largo was bloody awful too. He exists in the non-plot that is Quantum of Solace, and is bumped off as he existed – in a rushed scene cut. He is dodgy to women and that proves his undoing but then later films point out this weak character was a pawn in Blofeld’s games, which diluted a weak character even further.
#57 The Venice Coffin Assassin (Moonraker)
On a Venice canal chase, he’s the man who pops out of
a coffin to throw a knife at Bond, miss, and then Bond kills him with his own
knife. It’s very very funny, but he is clearly one of the least competent
assassins Bond meets on his adventures.
I’ve never been able to get into the character of
Nick Nack, who seems underutilised and wasted in The Man With the Golden Gun,
and worse than that, played effectively in most scenes for laughs at poor Herve
Villechaize. The concept of a henchman whose best interests lie in the main
villain actually dying is intriguing, but they drop the ball entirely by having
Nick Nack attack Bond after the fact. Were all of his interests really tied up
in that one island? You can’t blame James Bond for weak stock investment, Mr
Nack. He’s not a threat to Bond and is never treated as one.
#55 Morzeny (From Russia with Love)
Despite killing off Kronsteen, does remarkably little
before being blown up in a memorable speedboat chase. Which is a shame as I love
the idea of Spectre’s own evil island where they train their operatives also
having its own warped version of Q.
#54 Hai Fat (The Man With The Golden Gun)
He does see through Bond’s disguise as Scaramanga and
what does he do? Does he shoot the world’s most infamous secret agent? No. He
puts him in a dojo with lots of karate learning novices and gives him the
easiest of escapes. No wonder Scaramanga soon disposes of him and takes control
of his own company. Fat’s demise, as he berates Christopher Lee all the while
Scaramanga assembles the golden gun, is one of the highlights of the story, but
the character itself is a one note Asian baddy. Which adds another problematic
layer to a film which is struggling already with that sort of baggage.
#53 Whisper (Live and Let Die)
He probably survives Live and Let Die because Bond
even takes pity in him not being very competent. It’s a shame a film which has
some strong villains lets the side down so badly with Rosie Carver and this
bumbling fool. It also makes Kananga look foolish – he clearly surrounds himself
with capable people, so why is Whisper here? Did he make a promise to Whisper’s
dying mum that he’d always look after her boy?
#52 Dr Mortner (A View to a Kill)
Over the top Nazi scientist villain who has actual
sticks of dynamite which he blows himself up with. The apparent mastermind
behind Zorin’s entire scheme, but on the evidence here, he’d long since gone
doolally.
#51 Jenny Flex and Pan Ho (A View to a Kill)
Two characters who are in surprisingly far more of A View to a Kill than I remembered, and whose deaths in the end are responsible for May Day’s Damascus conversion. They distract Patrick Macnee shortly before he meets his death by May Day, they threaten General Gogol with guns, and the duo help burn down San Francisco City Hall. Then shortly after being sent into the mines to track down Bond, Zorin betrays them by blowing the mines up with them in it, drowning both Flex and Pan Ho. On seeing their dead bodies, May Day goes nuts, with hints of a very close relationship between the three. How odd that A View to a Hill did well here yet struggled with its main villains!
#50 Mr Bullion (The World Is Not Enough)
Valentin’s turncoat played by Goldie. He’s in it for
the heel turn and to get shot. There are worse roles.
#49 Cab Driver (Live and Let Die)
At first you could think this fast-talking cabby
works for Leiter, as he has men following the men who follow Mr Big. When his
jovial self reappears in Louisiana, this ambiguity is rather lost! He also gets
to utter the least tasteful line in the film: “Man, for that, I’d take you to a
Ku Klux Klan cookout!”
#48 Miranda Frost (Die Another Day)
A turncoat MI6 agent, three films after we last saw
one of those! The twist is that the potential Bond girl is a villain, a film
after we did that far better. We are told that Frost is a world class fencer,
yet in the only time we are shown her skills and not just told about them, she
is easily killed by a fencing rookie. What a waste of Rosamund Pike!
#47 Mr Osato (You Only Live Twice)
On paper, one of the main villains of You Only Live
Twice. In practice, he does very little but stand around in the background of
scenes, until Blofeld shoots him.
#46 Zao (Die Another Day)
One of the better things in the abysmal Die Another
Day, and yet unsurprisingly Zao is underused. And at one point gets a diamond
scarred face and becomes the chief architect of the godawful genetics subplot.
Basically, even the good things in Die Another Day are intrinsically linked to
absolute horror.
#45 Sister Rose (Dr No)
Between her “dear people” welcoming to Crab Key, and
hoping she got everyone's clothes sizes correct as she “only had a few hours
notice of guests”, Sister Rose is delightful, even as she drugs Bond and Honey
Ryder. Does she survive the explosion at the end of the movie? We’ll never
know.
#44 Truman-Lodge (Licence to Kill)
He might be nervous and get on your nerves, but if
you were the money man for Sanchez, wouldn’t you be on the verge of a constant
mental breakdown? We’ve seen how that guy treats his loved ones, let alone
enemies. Truman Lodge winds up dead too. Sometimes paranoia and fear are the
correct responses to have!
#43 Ed Kilifer (Licence to Kill)
He is in Licence to Kill briefly. However as the turncoat
who double crosses his friend, he is a complete git. He betrayed Felix
Leiter to the drug mob, and yet, for some reason, hasn’t gone to dodge faster
than a speeding Bond can reach him. As a corrupt cop, it’s hard to feel much
sympathy for Kilifer as Bond disposes of him via hungry sharks. As the man hangs over the shark enclosure, and asks
Bond for help, there is a great moment of symbolism as Bond throws the suitcase of money which the mob
gave Kilfer. His thirty pieces of silver are the thing which knock him
off balance and sends him into the sharks. “What a waste,” says Sharkey, raising
a look of confusion from Bond before the man adds: “Of money!”
#42 Adam (Live and Let Die)
Somewhat lost in the chaos of the multiple bad guys
in Live and Let Die, and one of the more obvious ones to step directly out of a
blaxploitation film. In fact, his death is so muddled I missed it for years.
However, the fact that Bond gets away because Baron Samedi’s undefeatable henchmen
walk into the Deep South and come across a racist sheriff who stops them, not
because they are known villains, but because of the colour of their skin… I can
never decide if that’s the film being tone deaf, or making a subtle point about
the real enemies of society, that we’re watching this fantastical voodoo laced
Bond plot, and then an actual real life racist waltzes in and emasculates one
of the villains main guys because he can. But then voodoo priests are child's play next to the supervillain that is casual racism…
#41 Professor Dent (Dr No)
Anthony Dawson was the first man to play Blofeld on screen, though we never saw his face. Here he plays the treacherous Dent as a man both way his over his head in a criminal organisation, and who would do anything to survive. He betrays his friend Strangways not because he is evil, but because he is too weak to stand up to the main villains. The type of character you get the impression Fleming really hated, and Bond does seem to relish his “that’s a Smith and Wesson, and you’ve had your six” before casually executing the marine biologist. Dawson gives a rather Quisling like undertone to his academic, and is memorable beyond his few scenes.
Unfortunately, he’s also, if you think about, a bloody awful henchman. He gives himself away to Bond with his first line about knowing Strangways had a new secretary who had only just arrived on the island, a comment Bond himself later admitted he found suspicious. The rock samples he got from Crab Key were blatantly radioactive, which in the immortal words of Felix Leiter, made him either “a bad professor or a poor liar”. When he is rumbled, he uses Quarrel (friend of Bond) to travel to Crab Key to meet the big boss, and somehow hides a tarantula (which he assumes is deadly) on the boat ride home, and assumes Quarrel wont tell anyone where Professor Dent just travelled. He’s not a very smart henchman. Which is a shame as he has such a wonderful lived in face.
Oh, and Bond shoots him in the
back to make sure he’s dead. Which is cold.
#40 Hans (You Only Live Twice)
Blond silent assassin type in You Only Live Twice.
Blofeld really wanted another Red Grant, didn’t he? Hans feeds the piranhas,
before feeding them literally by losing a fight to the death with Bond, after
Blofeld did a runner. What is it about Ernest Stavro Blofeld and crap job
security?
#39 Gabor (The World Is Not Enough)
Not an entirely memorable henchman, but continual
existence at Sophie Marceau’s side as Elektra’s bodyguard gives him some
presence in the film. Indeed, he flips from the good side to the bad like a man
who doesn’t realise people thought that was a twist. Alas, he dies off screen.
#38 Hector Gonzalez (For Your Eyes Only)
Sets the plot of For Your Eyes Only in motion by murdering
Melina’s parents, and then has one of the best death scenes in the series. We
see him by his pool, we get a Point of View shot of Melina by the bushes, and
then as he dives into the swimming pool, a crossbow shot hits him in the chest
mid jump and he drops dead into the pool. It’s a brilliant moment and one of
the best uses of show don’t tell in the entire series. We don’t need to be told
Melina Havelock is an expert shot, we just saw it in real time. Die Another Day
could have learned some lessons from this underrated Moore flick.
#37 Helga Brandt (You Only Live Twice)
Blofeld feeds her to piranhas for failing him. As
cool as having your office surrounded by piranhas assumedly is, one wonders why
Blofeld expects any job loyalty at all in his line of work when he is so
trigger happy with murdering his own closest advisors. He does it in
Thunderball too – if they’re close enough to know the passcodes to the secret
lair, give them a bit more trust, old chap. Either that, or he’s prone to
trusting the entirely wrong people, and then, if so, how the hell did he rise
to be the world’s greatest crime boss? As for Brandt, look, we all know Fiona
Volpe, and she ain’t no Fiona Volpe.
#36 Apostis (For Your Eyes Only)
One of those underused characters from For Your Eyes
Only, who at least gets to involve himself in a tense moment on the mountain
side. Despite being silent of the background of many scenes, his final moments,
trying to cut the safety line as Bond hangs onto the cliffside, give him a memorably
villainous exit.
#35 The Photographer (Dr No)
Spotted at the airport taking photos of Bond, and
then at the nightclub Leiter frequents. When captured, Bond disables her
camera, and she responds by stabbing Quarrel in the face! And despite this,
she’s allowed to go scot free!
#34 Erich Kriegler
An Olympic champion, KGB man and second in command to
Julian Glover in For Your Eyes Only, the film shows us that Kriegler is an
expert marksman early on. Show, don’t tell, who knew it would be effective when
the man goes after Bond later on. He is also yet another villain in FYEO who
falls to his death. The perils of mountain lairs!
The knife wielding circus twins provide the eerie
opening to Octopussy and one of the better fights on a train in the Bond series.
I'm going to say that a lot about train fights in Bond...
#32 Henry Gupta (Tomorrow Never Dies)
On paper, Henry Gupta should be so much better. An
internationally renowned arms dealer and eco-terrorist, with a penchant for
murdering people by magic tricks? That sounds AMAZING. Yet, the former doesn’t
translate much after the pre-credits, and the latter was entirely exorcised
from the film. Played by the late great Ricky Jay, he makes the most of
severely limited screen time – but he could have been so much better.
#31 Scarpine (A View to a Kill)
A henchman with a scar! Despite being played by
Patrick Bachau, he is slightly forgettable, existing to bump off extras. He
also tries to bump off Bond by just drowning him. Which nearly works. He also
distrusts bonkers Dr Mortner, and as Mortner’s idiocy winds up killing
Scarpine, he probably had a point.
#30 Angelo Palazzi (Thunderball)
He spends two years becoming the mole in the
Thunderball mission, and then tries to hold up SPECTRE for more money on the
day? I hope he had his will in order.
And speaking of Thunderball..
#29 Count Lippe (Thunderball)
And speaking of Thunderball..
#28 Vargas (Thunderball)
Vargas does not eat, does not drink, does not play,
does not make love. What does Vargas do? Alas, not much, in a waste of Philip
Locke. Apart from that sly look at the above line, and causing Paula to kill
herself, he is best known for getting the point…
Thunderball would be much better if it had more of
Vargas. He simmers brilliantly behind dark sunglasses, able to convey a full
character without even a change of expression. Locke is easily one of the best guest
actors in Thunderball, and he is woefully underused. He does make up for it with
his famous exit: “I think he got the point”, but still...
The 20s appears to be the land of henchmen who should have been far better characters than we got.
At the time, he sounded like he was going to be
awesome. He stamps around, he’s a bit like Necros or Red Grant, he answers to
“STAMPER!” We were young and easily impressed. And apparently, he killed people
by stamping on them, which sounded gruesome. Only they edited that out of the
finished film! In it, he just sort of stands out, kills a few folk, then dies.
A Tomorrow Never Dies character not given enough time to flesh themselves out?
I am stunned.
#26 Sandor (The Spy Who Loved Me)
Sandor shows up in The Spy Who Loved Me, acting like he’s the big deal while Jaws towers over him. He goes to Egypt to get the microfilm, and meets Bond, leading to the death of a woman. Violence against women triggers Roger Moore’s Bond’s berserk button, and the two have a violent fight on the Cairo rooftops. This ends with Sandor slipping off the edge, before Bond grabs the man by his tie. “Where’s Fekkesh?” demands Bond, and when Sandor tells him “pyramids”, Bond lets the man drop to his death. Sandor could have been a contender!
#25 Boris Grischenko (GoldenEye)
“He’s invincible!” Well, Alan Cumming with the
world’s worst Russian accent outside of Sir Sean says so. Boris is the
technician turncoat at the GoldenEye Severnoya base, allowing access for Xenia
to kill all his colleagues. Except his unrequited crush Natalya, who later
brings down all of his plots, his boss, and his life. I suppose the life lesson here is that next
time you plan to take over the world, do not stop to show off to the pretty
girl at the next desk first – it may backfire.
(Although I like how the film turns his nervous fidgeting
into a tense moment with the bomb pen.)
Also note that even in the 1990s, the Bond films were warning us to be wary of crazy haired guys called Boris...
#24 Naomi (The Spy Who Loved Me)
A helicopter piloting villainess who seems to treat
the whole “murder Bond” thing as such a parlour game, it’s almost a bit of
spoil sport play when Bond blows her up instead. Apparently there is a long
debate about wherever Bond actually deliberately has Fiona Volpe killed in
Thunderball (yes, he does) but there is no get out clause here. Former Hammer
Horror star Caroline Munro plays the memorable pilot.
#23 Dario (Licence to Kill)
Owns one of the grimmest exists of any henchmen,
chopped up to death in a big cocaine grinder. Timothy Dalton’s Bond genuinely
looks a bit panicked holding on for grim life to avoid the same fate. Dario as
a repeat murderer, abuser and implied rapist ("we gave her a good honeymoon," is how he sums up Della's murder), is also one of the grimmer Bond
henchmen. Because Tee Hee and Jaws exist solely in our fandom. They’re safely
fantasy. Dario’s exist all over the world, and many of them get away with it.
#22 Three Blind Mice (Dr No)
Characters which seemed iconic back in my childhood,
but who, apart from killing off Strangways and his secretary, do very little in
the actual plot of Dr No. They do get their blistering Bond quip though,
crashing off a cliff in a hearse while he notes “I think they were on their way
to a funeral!” I do like how that remark, to a construction worker, gets a
disapproving look from the extra! I also
like how, before they kill Strangways, they accept a tip off him! They also
break basic henchman form by trying to kill Bond by… taking a pot shot at him
outside his hotel!
#21 Mr Hinx (Spectre)
An actual good thing in Spectre!
Batista is the best thing in Spectre in every scene
he is in. All three of them Watch him as he casually walks into the Spectre
meeting, kills a guy and takes his place. You want to know more about him. He
even has one of the better train battles, and is nicely reflected in reverse by
the mirror as he charges in on Bond. Why does the Bond series have so many
fight scenes on a train? Probably because every time they have one, I note it
as an effective scene! There's more to come too! Clearly I mark for a good Bond fight on a moving train.
It's a shame they killed him off as Batista showing up again going jazz hands and yelling "Surprise!" would be Bond film ratings. I know, I've seen it already...
#20 Chang (Moonraker)
He might be a bit run of the mil henchman, and his
death scene provides all the best of the Moore era (a realistic fight scene)
with the worst (a comedy death scene!). Nevertheless, he finds out Corinne
Dufour has been helping Bond, and is responsible for her hideous death scene at
the hands of Drax’s starving dobermen. Also, his attempted murder of Bond via
centrifuge chamber is fairly effective in its straightforward approach, and
only one of Q’s high-tech gizmos (a metal tipped dart unleashed by wrist
reflex) saves Bonds life. I do like Drax’s order to him to “make sure some harm
comes to Mr Bond”. So, run of the mill and easily disposed in the end, but more
competent than memory recalls. The ninja costume though? What was he thinking?
I’m not sure why he dresses up as a samurai to fight Bond, though.
#19 Anthony Zerbe (Licence to Kill)
I have to give Anthony Zerbe credit. He really is
very good at playing creepy bastards, and Milton Krest is certainly one of
them. He also gets one of the nastier demises in the entire series. He gets his
head exploded by a decompression chamber! It’s so icky that it gets cut from
many tv broadcasts of the film. And if it happened to nearly anyone else, it
would be quite a shocking and sad fate. So it’s a hell of a credit to Anthony
Zerbe that his villain is so horrible and nasty, that even such a horrible and
nasty demise can’t get you to feel sympathy for them! Zerbe gives added layers
to the former heavy turned alcoholic middleman, and his brutal realism set up
nicely as the patsy in Act One of Bond’s revenge on Franz Sanchez.
#18 Fiona Volpe (Thunderball)
She says Bond doesn’t care about women, he only uses
them to exert control and influence, and after his actions throughout
Thunderball, can anyone argue with her? Of course, as she is a villain, she is
swiftly bumped off after saying this. (Also she blatantly uses Derval in the
same way.)
She kills people with rocket launchers, she denounces
Bond for his sexism. You can see why she stands out in a mediocre film.
#17 The Driver (You Only Live Twice)
There’s a mantra in pro-wrestling which is summarised as “maximise your minutes”. Namely, it doesn’t matter how much screen time you have, it’s what you do with it that counts. Bond screenwriters love this maxim, including blink and you miss them memorable henchmen throughout the series, from Naomi to Dr Kaufman. This unnamed driver, however, might be the best henchman in You Only Live Twice. One of Mr Osato’s chauffeurs, he drives an assassin to an intended hit on Bond, only for Bond to kill the assassin and do the old switcheroo. This way, he gains access to Osato’s office. The driver twigs that Bond is an imposter, however and investigates, leading to an elongated and memorable screen fight, which ends with Bond victorious by KO. The films stunt fight co-ordinator, Peter Maivia, played the driver, and choreographed the scene himself.
Maivia was an acclaimed pro-wrestler of the 1960s and 1970s,
who is better known today as the patriarch of the Maivia clan and grandfather
of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. As someone used to the art of making a fight look
credible, it’s no surprise that his brawl with James Bond looks a step above
other fights. Indeed, Bonds fights with other wrestlers – Harold Sakata and
Dave Batista for example – always add an extra frisson to proceedings. As most
of Peter Maivia’s filmed career is now lost (he died in 1982), You Only Live
Twice also serves as an Easter egg for wrestling fans to see The Rock’s
grandfather on the screen in his prime.
#16 Fekkesh and Kalba (The Spy Who Loved Me)
Let's hear it for some fun side characters!
Fekkesh and Max Kalba are small but vital cogs in the plot wheels of The Spy Who Loved Me. Between them, they last about five minutes. Both are played by dependable character actors, Fekkesh by Nadim Sawalha and Kalba by the patron saint of the arts, Vernon Dobtcheff. Both gain access to the microfilm plans of Stromberg’s submarine tracking device. Both are given the fatal bite by Jaws as they stand in the way of Stromberg, so perhaps henchmen is the wrong definition. Yet, they are antagonists to Bond, and memorable ones.
And without them, there is no plot. The PA at the start of the film (who gets fed to the pet shark) made the microfilm copy and gave it to Aziz Fekkesh, a sort of underworld middleman in Egypt. Bond was on his trail, but he had given the microfilm to club owner Max Kalba (a former associate of Stromberg's) and gone to the Pyramids of Giza to try and sell the information to the KGB. There he stumbles across Jaws, and in a remarkably effective piece of horror direction for the Bond series, tries to run for his life among the shadows and light show of the pyramids, only for the boogeyman (as played by Richard Kiel) to get him.
This leads both KGB agent Anya Amasova and Bond back to Cairo to find Max Kalba. Kalba relishes the bidding war he has created and strings it along for all its worth, before being advised there is a telephone call for him. Alas, poor Max, it was Jaws hiding in the phone booth in another memorable sequence.
A lot of Jaws’s mystique comes from these two scenes where he ghosts in and kills two men before vanishing without trace: the unstoppable and the unknowable. And it works all the more for actors of the quality of Sawalha and Dobtcheff are able to fill their characters with more depth than others can with hours of time. Indeed, they are given more material to work with than some main stars – look at the amount of plot described above for 5 minutes of film, its more than in the entire of The Man With the Golden Gun!
What particularly strikes me is the
two men's different reactions to the end. Fekkesh is evasive and secretive,
furtive looks, a man who knows danger well and was expecting it. Max Kalba,
(faux?) genial host on the make, doesn’t having a clue he’s in
any danger until he stumbles into Jaws. That sudden realisation, like a man who
just twigged he’s in a completely different genre from the one he was
expecting, is as much a moment of horror as the pyramids sequence. Some Bond
films fail because they can’t let their main villains speak for themselves. The
Spy Who Loved me lets bit part roles in the plot live in on the memory.
#15 Kronsteen (From Russia with Love)
“Who is Bond compared to Kronsteen?” Chess master
Kronsteen is a memorable addition to the Bond canon, with his being handed
notes by Spectre during chess tournaments, and rushing off to do nefarious
deeds for Blofeld, but not before quickly putting his opponent in checkmate. He
comes up with the plan to bump off Bond and, when it fails, he himself is
bumped off by Blofeld’s other henchmen with the poisoned shoes. A brilliant intelligence
and respected enough in SPECTRE to rise to Number 5 in the hierarchy, the
casual elimination of the man did not speak highly for Blofeld’s human
resources skills, nor for his employee pension pot. Also you may recall the
scene where one character bluffs his way out of a situation, only for them to
be the one killed and not the scapegoat, because the Bond films do it again and
again and again. Hell, Blofeld does it twice more in the movies. Who would
trust that guy? “It was obviously a trap. My reading of M is that he views a
trap as a challenge.” Kronsteen understood his enemies, and frankly, was wasted
as a lowly henchman in this film, because a mastermind spy chess master setting
the West and East against each other is worthy of being the main Bond villain.
#14 General Ouromouv (GoldenEye)
I might be in a majority of one here, but I always
find it a shame when Sean Bean is revealed as the mastermind in GoldenEye,
because I find the idea of General Ouromouv, the man so consumed with beating
James Bond he doesn’t even release he’s become the bad guy in his own country,
far more interesting as a main villain. It’s General Orlov as more realistic
character downfall, a man consumed by his own Shakespearean flaws, and if that
had been given more time to develop… The first half of GoldenEye, when he
seemingly kills Bonds friend, then murders an entire research base, are among
the most memorable of the Brosnan era. But as soon as Trevelyan shows back up,
Ouromouv is bumped off faster than you can say “you might want to rewind and
check that in slow motion”. Seriously, I missed that he was dead until I got
the Bond 25th anniversary book years later!
Despite this, Gottfried John played a very memorable film villain from my childhood here, and I was saddened to hear a few years ago of his death from cancer.
#13 Irma Bunt (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
She literally gets away with murder. She kills Mrs
Bond, and gets away with it. Admittedly, because the poor actress died of a
heart attack soon after filming. She runs the retreat Blofeld is hypnotising
young women at in the Alps, and Ilse Steppat’s ability to stomp on Bond’s fun
at every opportunity is a laugh. Then she sees through his false identity and
sends goons to kill him, only for Tracy Bond to rescue the secret agent. But
then, just as you might have forgotten her, she shows up at the end to gun down
Diana Rigg. She’s this high because, while overshadowed through most of the
film, Irma Bunt changes the series with that one action. The majority of the
Moore era to follow reels from her actions.
#12 Dr Kaufman (Tomorrow Never Dies)
A one scene wonder, but what a scene. Played by the
great Vincent Schiavelli, a man who died far too young, Kaufman’s sardonic
clock in and out world class hitman is a joy for all 4 minutes of screen time he
gets. “I could shoot you from Stuttgart and still achieve the desired effect!”
he purrs, casually discussing the quirks of the job. Schiavelli nails playing
the mirror image of Bond in all its dichotomy with limited screen time. He is
Bond by a different creed, a man who sees death as merely the day job, and Bond
even recognises it himself. Its genuinely a loss to Tomorrow Never Dies that at
the end of this one scene Bond kills him. But then, Tomorrow Never Dies
misusing promising henchmen – haven’t we heard that one before? Kaufman failed
the one spot check of a Bond bad guy: don’t harm any women James Bond likes, it
makes him very angry…
Although perhaps a film of Dr Kaufman would have
diluted the desired effect…
#11 Necros (The Living Daylights)
The introduction to The Living Daylights of Necros,
in which he moonlights as a milkman to invade the MI6 safe house, before using
his Walkman to strangle some poor sod to death, is one of the great henchmen
entrances in the entire series. His battle through the house, including one in
the kitchen with a surprisingly effective redshirt secret agent, mark him out
as competent, intelligent, and dangerous. Unfortunately, bar one other famous
scene where he bumps off Saunders (a scene so abrupt and vicious it made Mandy
jump when she saw it for the first-time during lockdown), he never really lives
up to that impact again in the film, and reverts to being yet another of the
silent blonde henchmen. He also dies in the exact same manner as another
henchman from two films earlier who appears further down this list!
#10 New Orleans Assassin (Live and Let Die)
Now this guy is only in two scenes in Live and Let Die, but I implore you to
try and forget him. In fact, as he kills two of Bonds allies and seemingly gets
away with it scot free, you could chalk up this unnamed killer as one of the
most successful henchmen in the Bond series. Played by the acclaimed 20th
Century jazz trumpeter Alvin Alcorn (a frequent collaborator with the recently
departed Chris Barber), his middle-aged looks and friendly demeanour give his
victims false reassurance as he sidles up to them in the midst of a New Orleans
funeral procession. (The other funeral cortege members were from the Olympia
Brass Band.)
In the best moment of the pre-credit sequence, Hamilton asks Alcorn “whose funeral is it?” before the smaller man replies “yours” and stabs him with a hidden knife. The accomplices pick up the corpse, the assassin sneaks back into the crowd, and no one was any the wiser. Later when Harold Strutter is checking out Kananga’s club in New Orleans, he meets the same fate, and unlike one line only Hamilton, that was an ally we got to know to like.
This was the one acting spot in the lengthy career of Alvin Alcorn – he died in
2003 aged 90 – but while Live and Let Die is full of interesting characters, I
always wanted to know more about the shockingly effective assassin who bumps
off multiple Bond allies and then disappears into the night. There are big name
Bond villain henchmen with far fewer successes on their CV.
#9 Emile Locque (For Your Eyes Only)
A villain so nasty, he unleashes Bonds own berserk
button. I love his introduction in For Your Eyes Only, seemingly not even
paying attention to Bond himself as he pays the Havelock’s assassin, only, when
all shit breaks loose after Melina kills the assassin, Locque quietly walks
off, but not before grabbing the money back first. It marks out early that
Locque picks and chooses his own battles, and that one wasn’t his. When it is
his battle, he’s not beyond murdering women in cold blood. It was perhaps his
bad luck that he killed Lisl in front of James Bond in the same film Bond had
finally gone to see his wife’s grave. Bond may never have got revenge on Irma
Bunt for killing Tracy, but he damn well makes sure he’s going to get revenge
on Locque. People often talk about Roger Moore having out of character moments,
and cite this film and his treatment of Sandor. However, to me, they all have a
linking character moment: Moore’s Bond goes bloody nuts if he sees a villain
hurt a woman, doubly so if he cared about them. And so he only really gets
furious about Kananga when he sees how the dictator turned drugs lord treats
Solitaire, he wants revenge with Scaramanga for his treatment of Andrea (note
that Bond’s treatment wasn’t much better, a script point Roger Moore demanded was
sorted out in future films), Sandor is dispatched after killing a woman, and
now Locque the same. In his warped chivalrous world, men who could kill women set
off his rage reaction, continually after the murder of his wife. And when Bond
kicks that car, you can see the hatred in Roger Moore’s eyes. That’s what
Locque is – a villain Bond hates.
#8 Baron Samedi (Live and Let Die)
Is he actually a human henchman using the legends of
a country to scare dissidents away from their corrupt leader, or is he a
supernatural immortal being? While it gives us a pretty big hint at the end,
Live and Let Die never fully states what Baron Samedi is, and your
interpretation of pretty much the entire film can flip depending on which you
believe.
Samedi might be the only ghost on this list. He certainly returns from the dead
enough times to suggest, at the very least, there’s a Time Lord lurking in there.
As spirit/protector of Kananga’s secrets, Holder (the real-life stunts
choreographer) possesses an ethereal quality to the screen. Samedi is a
real-life spirit linked with religion, and it is nice how the film never
outright states “this is a man/this a ghost”. If he is a man, he’s one of the
most unstoppable henchmen ever seen in the series. And his final spot, laughing
at the front of the train as Paul McCartney’s music crashes in, is justly
iconic.
Kabir Bedi is an underrated solid presence throughout
Octopussy, the somewhat stoic second to Louis Jourdan’s Kamal Khan. He works as
Khan’s chauffeur, he knows Bond’s one weakness (distract him with pretty women)
and he stoically says very little. I think its that stoic nature that really
adds to his final moments when Khan tells him to get out on the wing of the
moving plane to take out Bond, and Gobinda gives him a look as if to say “Are
you fucking shitting me, mate?” And yet, because he is a loyal henchman, he goes
out there and is promptly killed. Although its worth noting Bond gives a look
of horror seeing Gobinda go out to get him, as he knows in a fair fight he is
outmatched. Luckily, there are no disqualifications for hitting your opponent
in the face with a plane aerial. Poor Gobinda. One small step for loyalty among
villain, if not a great leap for common sense.
#6 Tee Hee (Live and Let Die)
With his missing arm, his laid-back amused demeanour,
and his ultra-violent tendencies, Tee Hee is one of the most memorable bad guys
Bond ever faces. He takes part in one of the best scenes in Live and Let Die,
as he cheerfully leads Bond to the middle of an island surrounded by crocodiles
only to leave him there and equally cheerfully tell him the only ways to
disable a croc! Surprisingly one of the most effective villains plans to
dispose of Bond, only a fine bit of stunt work saves the secret agent. (Evan
Kananga did the run across the crocodiles for the film and the main villain was
named in his honour. If you’ve seen the outtakes, where Kananga falls into the crocodiles several times and one bites at him, they should have granted him
rights to the series instead…) Tee Hee is also on hand to whack Bond unconscious with
his metal arm and gets involved in another classic train battle at the climax. They
bloody love fights on trains, the Bond films.
#5 Oddjob (Goldfinger)
The most popular character to play in the GoldenEye
game (because he was hard to shoot!) and one of the most popular characters in
the Bond archives. For such an iconic figure in the Bond cannon, there is a
feeling I might be underrated him here, because Goldfinger scheme would fall
apart without this man’s help. When Bond wins over Goldfinger’s assistant (Jill),
Oddjob takes out Bond and kills Jill. He rigs Goldfingers bet laden golf games.
He bumps off Tilly Masterton, not long after she shows up. When Mr Solo speaks
up about Goldfingers plans, Oddjob kills him. He then bumps off further
resistance to the plan, and seemingly is content to die for it. The last bit is
weird, to be fair. His one downfall is not foreseeing that Bond, whom he had
easily beaten in a fight, would find a severed electrical cable to chuck at the
metal bars the killer’s hat was stuck in, instantly killing him. Which is a
call back to the opening, when Bond kills the assassin the bath. Shocking.
#4 Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye)
The standout villain from Goldeneye, a trained female
killer who could seemingly defeat most of the other characters in the film in
one on one combat. As a film, GoldenEye is far more interesting when Xenia and
Ouromov appear to be the main villains of the piece. Yes, her using her
sexuality as a weapon does involve some having cake and eating it moralising from the production,
and yes, her motivation is never really touched upon. (But then what is Necros’s
motivation? Or Professor Dents? This is a regular issue.) However Famke Janssen
controls the screen whenever shes on it, and makes you forget plot holes like –
why is one of the most notorious terrorists in the world able to waltz in and
out of France? We rarely see a Bond henchman who so enjoys killing people, and
who is so effective at it.
#3 Mr Wint and Mr Kidd (Diamonds are Forever)
Wint and Kidd are apparently quite controversial
nowadays, as, well, camp bad guys. Which is a shame because, when you look beyond
their status as a gay couple,
they remain two of the most effective assassin henchmen in the series, chalking
up half a dozen on screen murders between them, and only being foiled by Bond
himself via some fortuitous luck on the secret agents part.
I am particularly fond of how they finish each others
sentences. “If God wanted man to fly” “he would have given him wings, Mr Kidd.”
It really adds to the sense that these two are genuinely fond of each other,
cracking each other up with their gags. You’d get on with them if it wasn’t for
the fact they were going to kill you.
Also I quite like the fact we have a loving gay couple whose prime role is not "being the gay guys" but more "being world class assassins". By the standards of the early 70s it feels positively ahead of it time in many ways, even if the writers can't resist the odd gag.
Putter Smith (who played Mr Kidd) was a jazz musician too. That's two full time jazz musicians in our top ten. Norah Jones would clearly make a top Bond villain on this limited evidence.
#2 Red Grant (From Russia With Love)
The archetypal Bond henchman? Certainly the fight on
the Orient Express has been rarely bettered, and they’ve tried many Bond
villain fights on trains since. The moment when Grant slowly and silently
stalks Bond, who is walking down the train platform, from the carriages, is a
brilliant bit of show don’t tell. His main intro after the credits is of a
tanned blonde man getting a rub down by a young female attendant in a garden
before Rosa Klebb ends his fun – he is clearly set up as the Spectre mirror
image of James Bond. He also helps save Bonds life several times, including
killing Bespectacled Spy (a favourite, a bit part character who doesn’t realise
he’s a bit part character) in the Hagia Sophia. And once he has killed Kerim
Bey – off screen – he plays the English gentlemen spy with great charm, even
though a minor slip in dinner etiquette reveals his true nature. Apparently.
This does lead to a really well directed fight in a train cabin, as both men
fight to the death in a darkened small room, and Grant is undone by Q’s teargas
trap and then his own garotte. One of the first henchmen to overshadow the main
villains, and he wouldn’t be the last.
Although, I’m confused – how the hell did Spectre get anyone to pretend
to play Bond in that opening given what happens to them? He’s also the first of
the four main villains in From Russia with Love to get bumped off!
#1 Jaws (The Spy Who Loved Me/Moonraker)
Who else? How many Bond villains do you know who are
so popular with the kids watching they bring them back and turn them babyface
in the sequel? Jaws was such a strong henchman he completely overshadowed the
main villain in The Spy Who Loved Me – not that Stromberg needed much to
overshadow him.
Jaws is the standard bearer. What else to make of a
creature whose death scene was rewritten due to test audience reactions? A man
who should be an inhumane murderous brute, yet given a charm of his own by
Richard Kiel, showing more character with a single smile than others can with
pages of dialogue. Jaws could be many different things, in the scenes in which
he hunts Fekkesh to his death among the eerie lights shows in the Egyptian
ruins, he is the relentless monster of nightmares.
Also, one of the best character introductions from
Bond ever, no? “Do you know him?” “Not socially. His name’s Jaws. He kills
people.” Does exactly what it says on the tin!
He's a screen icon, he survives two Bond adventures and turns to the good side. Jaws is the ultimate Bond henchman.
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