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SPECTRE, the International Crime Syndicate, plans to hijack two atomic bombs from NATO, promising Whitehall not to wipe out two cities so long as a ransom of £100 million is paid. The signal for Whitehall's acceptance is that Big Ben should strike seven at six o'clock. The operations are begun at a health clinic near the NATO airfield, when Count Lippe tries to kill Agent 007, James Bond, on an exercising machine. Bond is rescued by therapist, Patricia, and retaliates by stepping up the heat in Lippe's steam bath. Meanwhile Fiona, of SPECTRE, suborns Major Derval, of NATO, and has him murdered by a bandaged man at the clinic. The bandages cover the results of plastic surgery: SPECTRE man Palazzi has become his victim's double. Palazzi now flies off with the bombs in a plane which sinks to the ocean floor. He is in turn murdered by SPECTRE executive Largo, who takes the bombs in a submarine to a secret underwater cave. Despatched to Nassau, Bond meets Derval's sister, Domino, who is living with Largo. After losing to Bond at chemin de fer, Largo invites him to Palmyra, his secluded palatial estate. Bond falls into Largo's steel-lidded, shark-infested swimming pool, but escapes. He returns to his hotel to find Fiona in his bath-tub. They make love, after which Fiona betrays him to Largo's men. Though shot in the leg, Bond makes a getaway under cover of a local carnival. Fiona follows the trail of blood to a crowded dance floor, where Bond dances with her before manoeuvring her into the path of a bullet meant for him. With the help of Domino, who is shocked to learn that Largo killed her brother, Bond manages to locate the bombs and eliminate Largo and his army of frogmen.

Of course one would rather have Dr. Mabuse. Of course Thunderball is a blatant parody of the genre, all gargantuan sets, paintbox blood, sexless blondes and gadgetry. There is absolutely nothing memorable about it. It is simply there for the moment, to be superficially enjoyed if one likes that kind of thing, and if one can condone the vast cost of such a toyshop trifle. What does it offer? More polish than usual, for one thing. Terence Young's direction is nothing if not taut, whisking the narrative along with the speed and precision of a jet plane, defying one to express boredom. To achieve this, he has wisely thrown away most of Bond's character detail, the drinks-and-cars expertise, and stripped Bond down to a kinky-looking Superman in red rubber, an outline Sean Connery fills for once admirably and with ease. The gadgets are splendid - hydrofoil, radio-active pill, underwater jet-harness, a health-clinic rack which threatens to rattle Bond's bones to pulp, a black-leather motor-cyclist whose machine fires rockets and who turns out under her crash-helmet to be the delectably treacherous Luciana Paluzzi. John Hopkins has been brought in on the screenplay to provide some insolent, amatory wit; the post-Strangelove sets are by Ken Adam; Ivan Tors has provided some eerily effective underwater sequences, including a long climactic battle which looks like Agincourt fought with submarines instead of horses. In other words the film is all of a piece, cunning, heartless, extravagant, shamelessly mid-Sixties. Agreed that Adolfo Celi's villain, though perfectly adequate, is no Dr. Mabuse. But then a film like this would be enough to shock the good Doctor back to sanity.

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