John Glen

A film editor since the early 1960s, Briton John Glen wielded the scissors on his first James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in 1969. He went on to edit such subsequent Bonds as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), also functioning from time to time as second-unit director. Glen was finally promoted to full director for the 1981 007opus For Your Eyes Only, startling longtime followers of the series by eschewing the gags and gimmickry indigenous to the Roger Moore Bond films and harking back to the minimalism of the Dr. No and From Russia With Love days. Evidently the experiment was not warmly received; in his later Bond films Octopussy (1983) A View to a Kill (1985) The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989), Glen returned to the popular larger-than-life elements that the fans demanded. John Glen hasn't been heard from much since drawing the unfortunate assignment of directing the 1992 megaturkey Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide