Of all the henchmen and hired killers buried by suave super-spy James Bond, few are more gleefully sadistic and psychotic than Mister Wint and Mister Kidd. Enigmatic terrorist Ernst Stavro Blofeld enlists these prancing, effeminate assassins to cover up his diamond smuggling operation–and they execute his orders with precision, finesse, and perverse pleasure. In one early scene, Wint drops a deadly scorpion down a former accomplice’s shirt, smirking as the poor fellow writhes in agony. “He got bitten by the bug,” he later quips when an unsuspecting helicopter pilot questions the dead man’s absence–moments before blowing the departing whirlybird to smithereens.
“If God had wanted man to fly…” muses Kidd.
“He would have given him wings, Mister Kidd,” Wint finishes as they skip away hand-in-hand. These two love their grisly, bloody work almost as much as they love each other–making them the best part of an otherwise campy, forgettable 007 adventure.
[Originally written July 20, 2012.]