Serbian authorities announced today that they had arrested war criminal Ratko Mladic, who was responsible for the siege of Sarajevo which killed 10,000 in 1995 and for massacre of 8000 Muslim men and boys at Srebenica the same year.
Mladic will most likely be tried at the International Criminal Tribune in The Hague.
I was wondering whom he reminded me of, and it hit me: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the archvillain who played such a prominent role in From Russia with Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds are Forever. He is portrayed by actor Charles Gray below:
Mladic is certainly an evil man, but he is a mere piker compared to Blofeld. In Thunderball, Blofeld stole some atomic bombs from NATO and threatened to incinerate a major American or British city (later revealed to be Miami) unless he was paid one hundred million pounds. In You Only Live Twice Blofeld kidnapped Soviet and American spacecraft in an effort to start a war between the two nations. And in Diamonds are Forever, Blofeld smuggled diamonds in order to build a giant laser satellite with which he could destroy nuclear weapons in the US and Soviet Union, then auction off nuclear supremacy to the highest bidder. Luckily for us, James Bond thwarted him at each turn.
Still, hard to be impressed by Mladic when Blofeld dreamt on such a grander scale.
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4 comments:
Yes, there is a Charles Gray resemblance. Oddly, Charles Gray did not play Blofeld in You Only Live Twice, in which the part was played by Donald Pleasance, but played a British agent, Henderson, who was Bond's contact in Japan. Maybe that's why he got to play Blofeld twice (himself and his double) in Diamonds. I think he was the best Blofeld - perhaps the subject of another post?
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Yes, I remember that, Dikki (or Nikki?) Henderson. He got stabbed in the back through one of those paper doors. I agree, he was the best Blofeld. Pleasance needed that obviously fake scar in order to seem bad, Gray could do it with his weirdly obscene face alone. Though he was one of the first to overdo his British accent in order to emphasize his evilness.
PS Brits are intrinsically villainous, as all Hollywood and America's President know all too well. ;)
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PPS Minor exceptions allowed for the likes of Mr. Darcy
PPPS -- And James Bond.
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