For me, For Your Eyes Only got the Bond franchise back on track for a short while, after the ludicrous, played for laughs, Moonraker – which shot Bond into space!

This is a deliberately much more grounded and sober affair, and despite Roger Moore showing his age, I consider it the best of his later Bond efforts (albeit in a pretty poor field, to be honest). There are some decent action sequences on the ski slopes and underwater, and the plot for once is not of the ’super-baddie wants to destroy the world’ variety. It also has one of the better theme songs (sung by Sheena Easton, no less) from this era.

On the other hand, what this movie fatally lacks is a really decent villain. There are some token plot attempts to obscure who the real bad guy is (spoiler alert: its Julian Glover, not Topol!), but the baddies are all instantly forgettable, unfortunately.

This is the UK quad poster, with art by Brian Bysouth. The memorable image of the girl’s legs with the crossbow was used pretty much everywhere, although in some markets her bikini line got extended for censorship reasons.  I sold this at auction earlier this year, so hopefully it is now hanging on a Bond fan’s wall!

For good measure, here is also a French lobby card of Sir Roger on skis. This is part of a small set I am about to sell on Catawiki auction.