Why Jaws Was The Best Henchman in the Moore Era
There is no question that James Bond films have had many great henchmen. There’s also no question that Roger Moore got some memorable ones, like Teehee and Mayday. That being said, the best henchman of the Moore era was Jaws. Here are some reasons why:
1. Jaws is a great name.
What’s in a name? It turns out, a great deal, especially when naming enforcers. His name is three letters long, which makes it easy to remember. Jaws was introduced in 1977, and his name could not be more perfectly timed . Steven Spielberg’s Jaws had made $260,000,000 2 years earlier. It had made many people scared to get into the water.
Now here comes a James Bond villain with the same name as this blockbuster, and it’s very easy to see how the audience would have been associating him with a great white shark. A terrifying association, but perfect for a Bond henchman.
(The fact that he fights a shark and wins at the end of The Spy Who Loves Me helps a lot!)
2. His name referred to his signature method of murder.
Boosting this shark association is that we had a henchmen whose teeth were made of metal. His literally bit someone to death! That’s unsettling on many levels.
We’re instinctually afraid of any animal who tries to chomp down into our flesh. How much scary is the idea of a man who is so animalistic that he does it, and he does it to kill?
3. He was an imposing man.
Reinforcing the threat he posed is that Jaws was very tall. Richard Kiel was 7 feet and 1 and a half inches, meaning he was more than a foot taller than say, Sylvester Stallone. He wasn’t too gangly either, he had some heft to him. So, you have this giant who is strong enough to beat people into submission, and then finish you off with your teeth because…he liked biting into people.
It’s no wonder that when the child cartoon James Bond Jr. was made, he was one of the villain’s they imported. It didn’t matter if kids had seen The Spy Who Loved Me or Moonraker. You know he’s the bad guy just by looking at him.
4. Jaws had a good intro
Jaws has the best introduction scene of any henchman in the Moore era, and one of the best in the history of Bond villains.
It’s near the pyramids of Giza at night. When we first see him, the camera is looking up at him. The angle is a medium close-up. Most of his face and body is robed in shadow. We can see Max Kalba talking to Agent XXX, agreeing to give her a microfilm with an advanced submarine tracking system.
Then, the pyramid behind him gets lit up, and synths rise while strings frantically reveal themselves. We see the expression of fear on the informant’s face, and how quickly he excuses himself to try and get away from Jaws.
In just a few seconds, director Lewis Gilbert establishes that this is a dangerous man.
Later, we see Jaws chew right through a steel chain to be able to corner his target and kill him! His ability to successfully kill the informant establishes his threat level.
5. Jaws vs. Bond fight scenes: more than one was a great idea
Bond and Jaws face off four times during The Spy Who Loved Me. Three of them are hand to hand, one of them is when Jaws is in one of the vehicles pursuing Bond’s Lotus Espirit. They’re all enjoyable in their own right, but the best two are 1. their fight in Luxor temple, and 2.their fight on the train.
First, there is the setting. The real life ruins are spectacular, and very different from the trains and secret fortresses that Bond normally fights his opponents.
The second is the blocking and sequencing of events. If you haven’t watched this fight in a while, you’ll remember fhat this thing’s a doozy:
A few highlights: Jaws tries to drop a limestone block on Bond, and than rappels down to kick Bond’s gun away. Bond hurts himself punching Jaws in the… jaw! Agent XXX pulls a gun on him, but at the first opportunity, Jaws kicks it away from her. They have to drop scaffolding on him to get back to their van and get away. Then have to use the van to ram him backwards into a limestone wall to escape!
The crazy thing is that their second fight is even more brutal. Yes, it happens on a train (a recurring motif for Bond henchmen fights), but the energetic choreography and performances still render it memorable.
The multiple encounters between James Bond and Jaws help to build the antagonism between them that no other henchman of the Moore era was able to match. That’s before even factoring in the fact that Jaws also fought Bond in Moonraker.
All of these reasons helped to make Jaws the most popular (and best) henchman of the Moore era.