DIRECTOR: Guy Hamilton
MR. WINT and MR. KIDD
In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Mr. Wint (Bruce Glover, father of Crispin) and Mr. Kidd (noted American Jazz bassist Putter Smith) are the American hitmen quietly cleaning up Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s (Charles Gray) diamond-smuggling pipeline—though, tellingly, they are never once shown in his presence. Their assignment is simple and brutal: erase every link in the chain that has helped funnel diamonds to Blofeld for nearly two years. Those stones are now being used to construct a laser-equipped satellite, and with both the CIA and MI6 sniffing too close to the truth, the entire operation must be wiped off the map. As Mr. Wint dryly observes, “Curious how everyone who touches those diamonds seems to die.”
Wint and Kidd carry out this mandate with a mixture of sadism and vaudeville timing. They share a morbid, almost courtly sense of humor, finishing each other’s sentences as if performing a private parlor game. Their puns are deliberately labored, their delight in them unmistakable. Attempting to cremate James Bond alive becomes “a glowing tribute” and “heart‑warming.” After blowing a helicopter out of the sky, Mr. Kidd begins, “If God had wanted man to fly…,” only for Mr. Wint to complete the proverb with a smirk: “…He would have given him wings, Mr. Kidd.” Even failure becomes an opportunity for wordplay: “If at first you don’t succeed, Mr. Kidd”—“Try, try again, Mr. Wint.”
The pair’s blend of menace, deadpan wit, and eerie intimacy makes them one of the most distinctive duos in the Bond canon—professional killers who behave like a long‑married couple sharing a private joke. They could be Fante and Mingo, from Joseph Lewis’ The Big Combo, transported to a different time.
They are, in truth, the chief pleasure to be savored in Diamonds Are Forever, a film that otherwise ranks among the most disposable entries in the Bond canon. Sean Connery returned for a seventh and final outing as 007, having declined to reprise the role in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), and his presence here feels less like a triumphant homecoming than a contractual encore—professional, wry, but unmistakably detached.
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