If there is any renewed vitality in this, the thirteenth installment in the James Bond series, the credit must go to the sharpened animosity in real life between the Western allies and the Soviets. In the larger view, the perceptible benefit of this state of affairs to the Bond series cannot be taken as an argument in favor of brinkmanship and against detente. It can very well be taken, however, as an argument for having put Bond out to pasture, some time back, and recalling him to action only as genuine need arises. But here, when the need for a Bond might be said to have again arisen, or at least to have risen higher than it has in the preceding decade, the series formula can be seen to have deviated too far toward slapstick to be able to reverse direction and meet the need. Still: for a short and pleasurable time at the outset, with the introduction of a saber-rattling Russian general and his mad scheme to call the American nuclear bluff and take over Europe by infantry, it is possible to believe we are watching an authentic espionage film of Sixties vintage. Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan; directed by John Glen. (1983) — Duncan Shepherd