So James Bond literally flushes Blofeld into a deep puddle of shit. A Persian cat angerly screams at him and then we cut to the main title sequence.

Now close your eyes. When you think about the James Bond iconography what comes to mind? Is it the opening gun barrel sequence? Is it the silhouettes of naked women waving guns around? If that’s the case then you have Maurice Binder to thank for that.

While Binder provided the title work for Bond’s inaugural film Dr. No, Robert Brownjohn really set the template for subsequent title sequences by projecting images onto half naked women in From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Binder took it up a notch by being more suggestive and daring with Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While these title sequences were always a bit trippy, Binder seems to have been experimenting in Diamonds Are Forever. Perhaps it’s the result of the MPAA giving up the Hays Code in 1968 in favor of the rating system that allowed Binder to be more daring, for in DAF the use of silhouetting is much less prevalent. In our high definition transfers, nudity is very present. It’s obvious that Binder was changing up the formula by outright displaying nude models, although much of the nudity is obscured by use of lighting. It’s not as egregious as it would later become in The Man With The Golden Gun (where it appears that that full on 70s pubic hair is shown) but it’s pretty close. The 70s were a different time. But with that said, this is one of the clunkier title sequences yet Binder would perfect this method in subsequent films.

Now what about the song?

Let me get this out of the way: Shirley Bassey is a legend. With Goldfinger she set the bar for what a Bond song should sound like. Few have lived up to that expectation. But I got to be real with you: this is probably my least favorite of the three she sang, and definitely one of my least favorites as a whole. Sure, it sounds like a Bond song, which isn’t always an easy task. But Don Black isn’t the most subtle of lyricists. Which is fine. James Bond is sometimes not so subtle. But there isn’t much here. Bond songs usually contribute to the narrative or themes of the movie. To be fair, I don’t know what themes there are in DAF, but the lyrics are sang from the perspective of a woman who prefers diamonds to men or love. Who is this for? Tiffany Case? It’s never made clear. Apparently, the use of “diamonds” in the lyrics is supposed to be a metaphor for penis. But except for one verse (“touch it, stroke it…”), that point is not hammered home. So lyrically it comes across as a straightforward song about a woman’s preference for diamonds. It’s just not very much fun and the lyrics hardly make sense if “diamonds” are supposed to mean “penis”. This is a controversial opinion considering Diamonds Are Forever is one of the most popular songs in the franchise, but on close inspection it’s quite middling.

Musically, I find little fault in John Barry. We’ll explore his contributions to the soundtrack as we move forward. But as for the song, at times it’s moody then otherworldly but it meshes well with Binder’s images. This is the first Bond film of the 1970s and there’s a nice evolution to the sound that Barry doesn’t make too egregious and dated.

So with the title sequence over we are thrusted into the plot. Now allow me to introduce you to a man called Tom Mankiewicz…