James Bond’s most frequent adversary, ranked, from first to worst.
Nine actors have, to date, played Ernst Stavro Blofeld in one form or another across eight of the 25 existing Bond films (that’s counting “Never Say Never Again,” which really should count since it’s one of the better Bond movies and stars Sean Connery). Sometimes the role was tag-teamed by a separate vocal and physical performer. Let’s rank ’em all, from first to worst!
1. Donald Pleasence, “You Only Live Twice” (1967)
The iconic Blofeld performance, the only one that anybody remembers. Pleasence’s terrific turn as the definitive Fleming baddie was the entire basis of Mike Myers’ great Dr. Evil character in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (no need to discuss its sequels here). Pleasence established a blueprint that later Blofelds only somewhat adhered to. I’m not sure what happened to force him out of the franchise before follow-up “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (probably money) but he was sorely missed.
The Pleasence Blofeld had such a distinctive look and vocal tone (that soft, pithy German accent), and such a perfect Ken Adam lair, with such a perfect piranha pit. He represented the ultimate in what peak Blofeld could be.
2. Max Von Sydow, “Never Say Never Again” (1983)
The Blofeld that EON, the production company behind the 24 “official” James Bond movies, wants you to forget, but Sony Pictures doesn’t mind if you remember. That’s because Sony bought the rights to “Never Say Never Again,” the red-headed stepchild spinoff of the “official” James Bond movies. Von Sydow, that Ingmar Bergman mainstay and titular hero of “The Exorcist” (1973), imbues Blofeld with a deep gravitas and pathos heretofore unseen in Bond’s rogues gallery of baddies.
“Never Say Never Again” was significantly better than the Roger Moore Bond it was up against during the year of its release, 1983’s “Octopossy.”
3. Anthony Dawson (body) and Eric Pohlmann (voice), “From Russia With Love” (1963) and “Thunderball” (1965)
Viennese actor Eric Pohlmann dubbed over Blofeld’s lines in the final edits of both these early Connery Bond films, though his cat-stroking hands belonged to Anthony Dawson, who had previously played the body and voice of Professor Dent in “Dr. No” (1962). This first Blofeld, then, represents some of the hallmarks of the early EON Bond stable.
The Dawson/Pohlmann combo, remarkably, is the only time that a Blofeld performance has been reprised across multiple Bond movies. In this case, that performance comprised two Blofeld performers.
EON loved to recycle cast members through parts big and small. Maud Addams was perhaps the biggest beneficiary of this treatment, getting promoted for Scaramanga’s doomed girlfriend in “The Man With The Golden Gun” to the main course in “Octopussy.” EON also loved gratuitously dubbing as many actors as it could. Even, in this case, an actor whose face you never saw. It feels like it would have been cheaper to just hire Pohlmann to lend both body and voice to Blofeld, but hey, Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman worked in mysterious ways.
So why list a character we barely see ahead of a few of his later, less mysterious renditions? First off, this Blofeld, as seen in “FRWL” and “Thunderball,” is both way cooler than any of the Blofelds ranked beneath him. Positioned as a menacing puppet master with a tough-to-place foreign accent, this Blofeld vintage is the figures responsible for some of the most fun evil schemes in Bond movie history. The Pohlmann/Dawson Blofeld also conducts the action from some of the most bad ass evil SPECTRE board rooms (which, presumably as the heads of SPECTRE, he designed).
4. Charles Gray, “Diamonds Are Forever” (1971)
Gray is another recycled Bond supporting player, having previously depicted an MI6 informant living undercover in Japan during “YOLT.” He died quickly in that one. The main gimmick of his Blofeld is that he becomes a proto-Michael Jackson, developing a penchant for facial reconstructive surgery a la the King of Pop.
Blofeld gets so into it, he also commissions that a bunch of his bodyguards get surgically modified to have his same new face. James Bond winds up killing a handful of faux Blofelds (Faux-felds?), so I mean hey, I guess they were surgeries worth commissioning.
5. Christoph Waltz, “Spectre” (2015)
When Waltz’s casting was announced in “Spectre,” his actual role was kept under wraps until the
24th EON Bond (and 25th overall) came out. But that didn’t stop fans from rampant speculation that the German actor famous for playing eccentric movie villains would ultimately play Blofeld in Daniel Craig’s Bond reboot series, which annoyingly undid all the continuity of Bond movies prior to his 2006 “Casino Royale.”
6. Telly Savalas, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969)
Savalas abandons Pleasence’s scar and German accent — but keeps the white fluffy cat and cool suit — and attempts to mold his Blofeld Redux into more of a brawler than a brainiac. It’s an awkward fit, although it explains his singularly stupid scheme, one of the dumbest of all Bond villain plots.
The Savalas Blofeld wants to use a dozen gorgeous women with bizarre food allergies (chickens! bananas!), operating under hypnosis, to spread a toxin that will kill fertility in animals and crops the world over. This would compel countries to pay Blofeld a handsome sum to relieve them from international famine.
The Savalas Blofeld, also, doesn’t recognize James Bond in “OHMSS” when that Bond is “undercover” as Sir Hilary Bray, renowned genealogist, even though Bond destroyed Blofeld’s bad-ass volcano lab in “You Only Live Twice,” the previous Bond movie, and has been hunting him doggedly for two years. I put “undercover” in quotation marks because Bond-as-Bray also isn’t wearing any sort of facial disguise when Blofeld sees him again. True, this Bond is now played by George Lazenby, not Sean Connery as he was in “YOLT,” but in the world of this movie, he’s supposed to be the same, identical guy. As is the Savalas Blofeld, for that matter, despite the fact that he now speaks with a mild East Coast accent and can see out of both eyes.
7. John Hollis (body) and Robert Rietty (voice), “For Your Eyes Only” (1981)
In a haphazard effort to rid Bond of his most frequent antagonist, EON producers had the late great Roger Moore (RIP) square off against Blofeld and accompanying feline compadre in a chopper during a sloppy pre-credits sequence for an otherwise-pretty-good Moore Bond installment. Blofeld is never referred to by name, but his German accent (this time provided by Robert Rietty), his distinctive suit, his bald pate and of course that cat all collude to confirm that this character is, in fact, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Bond finally kills his longtime nemesis here. But this is the first time a Roger Moore Bond has dealt with a Blofeld, compounding the feeling that the whole Blofeld payoff moment strikes any longtime Bond connoisseur as being totally hokey and unnecessary. The rest of “For Your Eyes Only” is one of the most stripped-down, straight-laced Roger Moore Bond movies, and this awkward intro feels completely superfluous.