Lewis Gilbert

A has-been Broadway performer gives tap lessons to a group of misfits who, through their dance classes, bond and realize what they can achieve. This is a musical-comedy movie produced and directed by Lewis Gilbert, starring Liza Minnelli, written by Richard Harris, and based on a play also written by Harris. Minnelli plays the role of a has-been Broadway performer who gives tap lesson to a group of misfits who, through their dance classes, bond and realize what they can achieve.

A Drax Industries Moonraker on loan to the United Kingdom is hijacked in midair while on a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The carrier is destroyed but no wreckage of the Shuttle is found. M (Bernard Lee) (This was Bernard Lee's final appearance as M), head of MI6, assigns James Bond (Roger Moore), Agent 007, to investigate. En route to England, Bond is attacked and pushed out of an airplane by the mercenary assassin Jaws (Richard Kiel) (whom he previously met in The Spy Who Loved Me). Bond survives by stealing a parachute from Jaws, whilst Jaws lands on a trapeze net within a circus tent. The Shuttle was built by Drax Corp & that's where Bond is asked to start investigating. At the Drax Industries space-plane-manufacturing complex in California, Bond meets the owner of the company, Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale), and his henchman Chang (Toshiro Suga). Bond also meets Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), an astronaut, and survives an assassination attempt while inside a centrifuge chamber. Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour (Corinne Cléry), sleeps with Bond and then helps Bond find blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice; Drax discovers her involvement (via Chang) and has her killed by his pet dogs. Bond again encounters Goodhead in Venice and observes her snooping around a door near the glass factory. Then he is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen. He returns to the factory at night to investigate, and discovers a secret biological laboratory, and learns that the glass vials are to hold a nerve gas deadly to humans, but harmless to plants and animals. Chang attacks Bond, but Bond hurls him through the stained glass clock-face of the Saint Mark's clock-tower, killing him; during the fight, Bond finds evidence that Drax is moving his operation to Rio De Janeiro. Rejoining Goodhead, he deduces that she is a CIA agent spying on Drax and sleeps with her. The next day Bond takes M to the lab & finds Drax alone & no sign of any lab. M is humiliated. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, as the only evidence of the now-empty laboratory; he gives it to M for analysis, who permits him to go to Rio De Janeiro under the pretense of being on leave. Q (Desmond Llewelyn) & Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), M's secretary. Bond survives attacks by Jaws, whom Drax previously hired as Chang's replacement, during Rio Carnival and on the Sugarloaf Cable Car. After Jaws' cable car crashes, he is rescued from the rubble by Dolly (Blanche Ravalec), a young woman, and the two fall in love. Bond finds Holly tracking the local airfield with planes from Drax corp arriving & departing very frequently. Drax's forces capture Goodhead, but Bond escapes. Q finds that the fluid in the vial is a modified poison fatal only to humans, it is found in the Amazons. Bond travels the Amazon River and comes under attack from Drax's forces, before eventually locating his base. Captured by Jaws, Bond is taken to Drax and witnesses four Moonrakers lifting off. Drax explains that he stole back the loaned Shuttle because another in his fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond and Goodhead are caged by Jaws in a meeting room under the launch platform, and narrowly escape being burned alive by the exhausts of Moonraker 5, which is carrying Drax, and pose as pilots on Moonraker 6. The shuttles dock with a huge, city-like space station, hidden from radar by a cloaking device. Bond and Goodhead disable the radar jamming cloaking device; the United States sends a platoon of Marines aboard another shuttle to intercept the now-visible space station. Jaws captures Bond and Goodhead, to whom Drax reveals his plan to destroy human life by launching 50 globes that would dispense the nerve gas into Earth's atmosphere. Drax had transported several dozen genetically perfect young men and women of varying races to the space station in the shuttles. They would live there until Earth was safe again for human life; their descendants would be the seed for a "new master race". Bond sends a message to M & UK sends over a strike team to destroy the station. Bond persuades Jaws to switch his allegiance by getting Drax to admit that anyone not measuring up to his physical standards, including him and Dolly, would be exterminated. Jaws attacks Drax's guards, and a laser battle ensues between Drax's forces and Bond, Jaws, and the Marines (attacking on MMUs). The strike team arrives but Drax manages to launch 2 vial pods. Drax's forces are defeated as the station is destroyed, while Bond shoots and ejects Drax into space. Bond and Goodhead use Drax's laser-armed Moonraker 5 to destroy the three launched globes and return to Earth. It is revealed that Jaws and Dolly, who ejected themselves in one of Drax's escape pods, after toasting with a bottle of champagne, are being recovered by the Marines. Bond's superiors get a video feed of Moonraker 5 and are bemused to see Bond and Goodhead making love in zero gravity.

The Pre-title teaser shows three different events: first, a British nuclear submarine experiences a serious disruption of power. The captain (Bryan Marshall) looks through the periscope and sees something foreboding, however we do not see what he does. In Moscow, Colonel Gogol (Walter Gotell) hears from M (Bernard Lee) that the British sub has disappeared. Gogol becomes concerned, especially since his own government has lost contact with one of its own subs. He promises the aid of his government and calls his best agent, Anya "XXX" Amasova (Barbara Bach) to investigate. In Austria, James Bond is enjoying a romantic encounter in a remote cabin in the Alps when he's called back to duty by M. He dons his ski gear and leaves, his lover says she needs him to which James replies, "So does England!" As James skis away from the cabin, he's pursued by a group of Russian agents. James is able to evade his attackers and, using a ski pole that doubles as a type of rocket gun, kills one of them, a man who happens to be XXX's lover. Bond approaches a sheer cliff and skis over it, free falling several thousand feet until he opens a parachute decorated with the British Union Jack, escaping his attackers. XXX reports to Gogol in Moscow where she's given her new assignment - the search for missing submarines. Gogol also informs her that her lover was killed in an operation. Amasova is visibly shaken but says she'll dedicate herself to the mission at hand. Bond meets with M at a British naval yard where the mission path for the lost submarine is studied: Bond shows M, the Minister of Defense Frederick Gray (Geoffrey Keen) and others a transparency that shows the route had somehow been stolen. M orders Bond to Cairo on his first lead. In the Mediterranean Sea, two scientists who have developed a sophisticated submarine tracking device, meet with Carl Stromberg (Curt Jürgens), a rich and powerful businessman who lives in a specially designed city, Atlantis, that can submerge beneath the ocean surface. He thanks the two scientists for their invention, but before he allows them to leave, he deals with his secretary, who has stolen information from him; she enters his elevator & Stromberg opens the floor dropping her into a large water tank where a tiger shark eats her alive. As the two men leave by helicopter, Stromberg activates a bomb that destroys it and kills them. Stromberg also meets with two hired assassins, the fat Shandor and the tall Jaws (Richard Kiel), so named because he has steel teeth. Bond arrives in Egypt, meeting with a old contact Sheikh Hosein (Edward De Souza), an Arab sheikh and old friend of Bond; they were schoolmates at Cambridge, who tells him to find a man named Fekkesh (Nadim Sawalha). Bond goes to the man's house where a woman tells him Fekkesh isn't home and refuses to reveal his location. As Bond kisses her, Shandor tries to shoot him. Bond uses the woman to take the bullet and chases after Shandor, fighting with him & dangling him over the edge of the house's roof. He forces the assassin to reveal Fekkesh's location and then lets him fall off the building, killing him. Bond goes to Giza to meet Fekkesh at the pyramids where he sees XXX has already found the man. While the pyramid light show goes on, Fekkesh notices Jaws standing to the side. He quickly leaves, Jaws in pursuit. Jaws corners the man and kills him with a bite to his neck. Jaws also escapes Bond. In order to continue the investigation, Bond must meet with a man named Max Kalba (Vernon Dobtcheff) at his club in Cairo. Amasova also meets him there and the two meet with Kalba to obtain a valuable microfilm containing designs for the submarine tracking system that may have been used to abduct the missing boats. Kalba prepares to negotiate a price with the two government's agents when he's called away to the phone. Jaws kills him in the phone booth after obtaining the microfilm. Bond and XXX stow away in Jaws' van and he drives out to a site of ruins in the desert. The two agents chase Jaws through the ruins, finally cornering him and obtaining the microfilm. Bond and XXX escape in Jaws' vehicle and make it to a boat on the Nile. Bond examines the microfilm on board without Amasova's knowing and the two settle down for the journey. XXX renders Bond unconscious and takes the microfilm. Bond recovers and reports to another site of ruins where he finds Amasova, Gogol and M waiting. With the assistance of Q (Desmond Llewelyn), they examine the microfilm, which is worthless, a conclusion that Bond came to when examining it on the boat. However, they do find evidence of a symbol hidden in it that identifies Carl Stromberg. Their superiors order Bond and Amasova to investigate on the island of Sardinia, where Stromberg lives. The two travel there by train in a scene that recalls the train ride in From Russia With Love. They are attacked by Jaws, however, Bond is able to fight him off and expel him from the train. Upon arriving in Sardinia, Bond and XXX meet Q who has brought Bond's car, a Lotus Esprit. The two meet with Stromberg's assistant, Naomi (Caroline Munro), who takes them out to Atlantis. Bond poses as a marine biologist and meets with Stromberg, who tells him of his love of the sea and how an underwater city (like the model he has in his private chamber) may be the only hope for the future of humanity. As they leave, Naomi is telling Anya about Stromberg's largest ship, a supertanker named the Liparus. Bond remarks that the design of her bow is unusual. As they speed away in Bond's Lotus, they are attacked by Stromberg's men, led by Jaws. Bond is able to throw off their pursuit using the car's defenses. They are also attacked by Naomi in a helicopter. As the chase continues, Bond drives off the end of a pier and converts his car to a small submarine. He uses a small missile to destroy Naomi's helicopter, killing her. He proceeds to Atlantis, now submerged. Unable to find anything conclusive from outside, they prepare to leave and are attacked by several frogmen and mini-subs. Bond destroys them all with the Lotus' defenses, however, they are forced to surface on a beach when the Lotus is damaged by an underwater mine. Back at their hotel, the two plan their next moves. When Bond lights one of Anya's cigarettes, she notices that the lighter he uses is from the city near where her lover was killed. She confronts Bond on the issue, to which Bond replies that he acted in self-defense when he killed the man. Anya vows revenge as soon as their current mission is over. The two spies next find themselves on an American submarine monitoring the Liparus. While surveying it, the sub is rendered inoperable and is swallowed by the Liparus; the bow of the Liparus opens, revealing a large submarine dock inside. The crew are forced out of the sub and taken prisoner. Bond and XXX are identified almost immediately and are also taken prisoner. Stromberg plans to use the nuclear missiles aboard both the American and Russian subs to ignite a nuclear war between the superpowers. The resulting nuclear holocaust will destroy the surface world, leaving Stromberg the opportunity to rule an underwater kingdom. Stromberg departs for Atlantis with XXX, leaving his crew to begin the assault. Bond escapes before he can be imprisoned and frees the British, Russian and American sailors. They lead an assault on the Liparus' bridge, successfully transferring the coordinates of each submarine to the other, causing them to destroy each other. The remainder of the crews board the British sub and escape the Liparus before it explodes and sinks. They set course for Atlantis, which has been ordered to be destroyed. Bond argues that Anya is still on Atlantis and should be rescued first. He is given a wet-bike (an early Jet-Ski) and arrives at Atlantis ahead of the sub. Searching for Anya, he encounters Jaws and outwits him, using an electromagnetic crane to seize his metal teeth and drop him into the shark tank. The shark is no match for it's namesake; Jaws quickly bites and kills it. Bond next finds Stromberg in his massive dining room. Stromberg attempts to kill Bond with a harpoon gun located under the dining table but misses. Bond returns fire, hitting the villain in the chest, killing him. Bond finds Anya in a torture room slowly filling with water. The two escape from Atlantis in a pod that surfaces. Jaws himself is also seen escaping the stricken Atlantis and swims off. The escape pod is found by a British vessel which captures it. M, Minister of Defense Gray and Moneypenny find the two agents in the midst of a romantic encounter inside.

American NASA spacecraft Jupiter 16 is hijacked from orbit by an unidentified spaceship. The United States suspects it to be the work of the Soviets, but the British suspect Japanese involvement since the spacecraft, after having "swallowed" Jupiter 16, landed in the Sea of Japan. To investigate, MI6 operative James Bond (Sir Sean Connery) is sent to Tokyo, after faking his own death in Hong Kong and being buried at sea from HMS Tenby. M (Bernard Lee), the head of MI6. Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), M's secretary Upon his arrival, Bond attends a sumo match where he is approached by Japanese secret service agent Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), who takes him to meet local MI6 operative Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray). Henderson claims to have critical evidence about the rogue craft, but is killed before he can elaborate (he is stabbed through the paper wall of his room before he can reveal the secret to Bond). Bond chases and kills the assailant, taking the assailant's clothing as a disguise, and is driven in the getaway car to Osato Chemicals. Once there, Bond subdues the driver (who attacks him viciously upon realizing that Bond is not the assassin he was supposed to bring back) and breaks into the office safe of the company's president, Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada) (a Japanese industrialist secretly affiliated to SPECTRE). After obtaining secret documents, Bond is pursued by armed security, but is rescued by Aki, who flees to a secluded subway station. Bond chases her, but falls down a trap door leading to the office of the head of the Japanese secret service, Tiger Tanaka (Tetsurô Tanba). The stolen documents are examined, and found to include a photograph of the cargo ship Ning-Po, with a microdot message saying the tourist who took the photo was killed as a security precaution. While at Tanaka's spa, Bond meets with Aki again. Having developed feelings for each other, the pair kiss and Bond carries Aki to his bed. Bond goes back to Osato Chemicals to meet Mr. Osato himself, masquerading as a potential new buyer. Osato humors Bond, but after their meeting, he orders his secretary, Helga Brandt (Karin Dor) (#11), to have him killed; both are revealed to be SPECTRE agents. Outside the building, assassins open fire on Bond before Aki rescues him again. Bond and Aki drive to Kobe, where the Ning-Po is docked. They investigate the company's dock facilities, and discover that the ship was delivering elements for rocket fuel. They are discovered, but Bond eludes the henchmen until Aki gets away; however, Bond is captured. He wakes, tied up in Brandt's cabin on the Ning-Po. Brandt interrogates Bond, before seducing him. Bond thinks he has convinced Brandt to defect to the UK. Brandt flies Bond to Tokyo the next day, but en route, she sets off a flare in the plane, seals Bond in his seat and bails out, assuming Bond will die in the crash. Bond manages to evade the trap, lands the plane and flees before it explodes. After finding out where the Ning-Po unloaded, Bond flies over the area in a heavily armed Autogyro (mini helicopter) created by Q (Desmond Llewelyn), called 'Little Nellie.' Near a volcano, Bond is attacked by and defeats four helicopters, confirming his suspicions that the enemy's base is nearby. A Soviet spacecraft is then captured in orbit by another unidentified craft, heightening tensions with the United States. The mysterious spaceship lands in an extensive base hidden inside the volcano. It soon turns out that the true mastermind behind this is Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), the mysterious leader of SPECTRE who has been hired by a great power (strongly implied to be the People's Republic of China) to start a Soviet-American war, in order for them to destroy each other so that China can replace them as the world's new superpower. Blofeld demands a payment of $100 MM for the capture of the two spacecrafts which the Chinese object to as the agreement was to pay the money only once war broke out. Blofeld dismisses them. Blofeld summons Osato and Brandt to his office to answer for not having killed Bond; Osato immediately blames his assistant, Brandt. Blofeld gives them a last chance, but as Brandt leaves, he activates a mechanism that drops her to her death into a pool filled with piranhas. Blofeld then orders Osato to kill Bond. Bond then meets Tanaka and Aki in Kyoto where they plan to infiltrate the island by disguising Bond as a Japanese fisherman, alongside a wife among Tiger himself and 100 of his ninjas. Bond assumes his Japanese disguise however while still in Kyoto a SPECTRE assassin tries to poison him while he and Aki are sleeping together. Bond narrowly survives when the pair move in their sleep and Aki is killed instead. Following a second attempt on his life by another assassin, Bond is introduced to Tanaka's student, Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama), who is to act as his wife. Acting on her lead, a funeral for a girl who died recently after venturing into a cave near a volcano, the pair reconnoiter a cave booby-trapped with phosgene gas poison, and the volcano above it. Meanwhile the US has planned another launch in 12 hrs and warned the Soviets against interference. Bond has very little time and no solid leads of any sort of activity on the Island. Establishing that the mouth of the volcano is a disguised hatch to the secret rocket base (They see a helicopter fly right into the volcano carter), Bond slips in using suction cups to climb down, while Kissy goes to alert Tanaka to bring his ninja soldiers. Bond locates and frees the captured American and Soviet astronauts and, with their help, steals a space suit in an attempt to infiltrate the SPECTRE spacecraft, "Bird One." However, Blofeld spots Bond disguised in the space suit, mishandling his equipment, and he is detained while Bird One is launched with a backup astronaut. Bond is taken into the control room where he meets Blofeld face-to-face for the first time. Blofeld kills Osato to demonstrate the price of failure to kill Bond. In orbit, Bird One closes in on an American space capsule, and U.S. forces prepare to launch a nuclear attack on the USSR. Meanwhile, a team of Japanese ninjas trained by Tanaka approach the base's entrance, but are detected and fired upon by remote-controlled guns. Bond manages to open the hatch, letting in the ninjas. During the ensuing battle using pistols, machine guns, shuriken (throwing stars), grenades and Katana swords, Bond fights his way back to the control room, kills Blofeld's bodyguard Hans by tossing him into the piranha pool, and activates Bird One's self-destruct before it reaches the American craft. The Americans promptly stand down their forces. Blofeld activates the base's self-destruct system, a bomb that triggers a volcanic eruption, and escapes. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas escape via a tunnel, swimming to the sea before the eruption destroys the base, where rubber inflated life-rafts have been deployed for their rescue by the Japanese Maritime Forces and the British Secret Service. A British submarine emerges underneath Commander Bond's life-raft as he is passionately kissing his Japanese wife, Kissy.

Unrepentant ladies' man Alfie Elkins gradually begins to understand the consequences of his lifestyle in 1960s London. For Alfie, the only real life is sex life. Only then, can he kid himself he is living. Sex is not used as the working-class boy's way to "the top". Executive status has no appeal for Alfie. Nor has class mobility. He is quite content to stay where he is, as long as the "birds" are in "beautiful condition", as he assures us they are in one of the candid, over-the-shoulder asides to the camera which this movie carries over from Tom Jones (1963). This movie shows how much of the "swinging 60s" quality of London life was a male creation, and through the dominance of the fashion photographers, a male prerogative. —alfiehitchie Alfie is a young man from the working classes of London. He is confident, charming, totally self-centered and very successful with the ladies; using them for his immediate pleasure without emotional involvement and leaving a trail of emotional devastation. His callousness toward these women contrasts with the delusion that he causes no harm; he is just teaching life's lessons. —Joe Jurca Showing total disregard for the consequences of his actions, stylish chauffeur Alfie Elkins, a handsome Cockney Lothario and incorrigible skirt-chaser, thinks he is God's gift to women. And in his endless pursuit of happiness, Alfie is used to charming his way out of trouble in hedonistic 1960s London, carving a path of sexual promiscuity and heartbreak along the way. However, as women of all shapes and sizes fall prey to his casual cheekiness, sooner or later, egotistic Alfie will have to face the music and pay the price for his insatiable sexual appetite. But has it ever occurred to Alfie that women have feelings too? —Nick Riganas

In 1797, the humane Captain Crawford is in command of the frigate HMS Defiant during the French Revolutionary Wars. He soon finds himself in a battle of wills with his first officer, the sadistic and supercilious first lieutenant, Mr. Scott-Padget. The lieutenant believes that Crawford is too soft on his crew, and also disagrees with the captain's decision to follow his orders to sail to Corsica despite word that Napoleon's army has overrun much of Italy. Scott-Padget has powerful family connections, which he has used in the past to "beach" two previous commanding officers with whom he disagreed. Knowing that Crawford is helpless to intervene, Scott-Padget subjects the Captain's son, Midshipman Harvey Crawford, to excessive daily punishments so as to gain leverage over the captain. Meanwhile, some of the crew, led by seaman Vizard, are preparing a written petition for better conditions, in conjunction with similar efforts throughout the British fleet. They eventually pledge nearly the entire crew. In the Mediterranean, the Defiant encounters a French frigate escorting a merchant ship. After a sharp engagement, a boarding party from the Defiant captures the French frigate, and the merchantman surrenders. Crawford dispatches his son as part of the prize crew tasked to sail the captured merchantman to a British port, thereby placing him out of Scott-Padget's reach. Crawford tells Scott-Padget that bringing his son with him was a mistake, but now he's "put it right!" He further vows to take actions that will "astound" his second-in-command. Before long, Scott-Padget is confined to quarters as punishment for insubordination. His humiliation is compounded by the requirement that he appear on deck every two hours in full dress uniform, a punishment usually reserved for young midshipmen. Soon, Defiant fights and captures a Venetian frigate, taking on many prisoners. Crawford is severely wounded in the action and eventually loses his arm. Discovered among the prisoners is a key aide to Napoleon, from whom the British learn important information about a planned invasion of Britain. With Crawford incapacitated, Scott-Padget takes command, but his brutality goads the crew into a premature mutiny. Appealing to their patriotism, Crawford convinces Vizard and the other mutineers to sail for the main British fleet blockading Rochefort to warn them of the impending invasion. Crawford promises to intercede for the crew as best he can, on the condition that none of the officers are harmed. As the Defiant reaches the fleet at Rochefort, they receive word that the main British fleet has already mutinied, with the Admiralty agreeing to all of the sailors' demands and granting an amnesty to those who took part. The crew's jubilation at the news is cut short when a hot-headed seaman, Evans, murders Scott-Padget. Realising that they are now all doomed to punishment as mutineers, an enraged Vizard kills Evans. Their only course now is to try to escape with the ship. Just then, the French fleet sallies out from port, and a French fireship is sighted heading straight for the British flagship. As the only ship under sail, the Defiant has the unique opportunity to save the flagship. Once again, Crawford appeals to the crew's patriotism, making no promises but convincing them to intercept the fireship. Vizard is killed in the ensuing action, living just long enough to hear a message from the British admiral thanking Defiant for their honourable actions. The mutiny is over and HMS Defiant joins the fleet

A welfare worker becomes emotionally involved with her charges, a group of adorable, homeless orphans.