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Live and Let Die (film)
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Live and Let Die
Live and Let Die- UK cinema poster.jpg
British cinema poster for Live and Let Die, illustrated by Robert McGinnis

Directed by
Guy Hamilton
Produced by
Harry Saltzman
Albert R. Broccoli
Screenplay by
Tom Mankiewicz
Based on
Live and Let Die
 by Ian Fleming
Starring
Roger Moore
Yaphet Kotto
Jane Seymour
David Hedison
Bernard Lee

Music by
George Martin
Cinematography
Ted Moore
Edited by
Bert Bates
Raymond Poulton
John Shirley

Production
   company
Eon Productions
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
27 June 1973 (United States)
6 July 1973 (United Kingdom)

Running time
121 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
$7 million
Box office
$126.4 million
Live and Let Die (1973) is the eighth spy film in the James Bond series to be produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, it was the third of four Bond films to be directed by Guy Hamilton. Although the producers had wanted Sean Connery to return after his role in the previous Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, he declined, sparking a search for a new actor to play James Bond. Moore was signed for the lead role.
The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, a Harlem drugs lord known as Mr. Big plans to distribute two tons of heroin free to put rival drugs barons out of business. Mr. Big is revealed to be the disguised alter ego of Dr. Kananga, a corrupt Caribbean dictator, who rules San Monique, the fictional island where the heroin poppies are secretly farmed. Bond is investigating the death of three British agents, leading him to Kananga, and is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to the drugs baron's scheme.
Live and Let Die was released during the height of the blaxploitation era, and many blaxploitation archetypes and clichés are depicted in the film, including derogatory racial epithets ("honky"), black gangsters, and "pimpmobiles".[1] It departs from the former plots of the James Bond films about megalomaniac super-villains, and instead focuses on drug trafficking, depicted primarily in blaxploitation films. It is set in African American cultural centres such as Harlem and New Orleans, as well as the Caribbean Islands. It was also the first James Bond film featuring an African American Bond girl to be romantically involved with 007, Rosie Carver, who was played by Gloria Hendry. The film was a box office success and received generally positive reviews from critics. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Live and Let Die", written by Paul McCartney and performed by his band Wings.



Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Casting
3.2 Filming
3.3 Music
4 Release
5 Reception
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
Three MI6 agents, including one "on loan" to the American government, are killed within 24 hours, under mysterious circumstances, while monitoring the operations of Dr. Kananga, the dictator of a small Caribbean island, San Monique. James Bond, agent 007, is sent to New York to investigate the first murder. Kananga is also in New York, visiting the United Nations. Just after Bond arrives, his driver is shot dead by a passing motorist, while taking Bond to meet Felix Leiter of the CIA. Bond is nearly killed in the ensuing car crash.



Glastron speedboats in the Louisiana boat chase. The boat chase scene was filmed in the Bayou Des Allemands.
A trace on the killer's licence plate eventually leads Bond to Mr. Big, a ruthless gangster who runs a chain of Fillet of Soul restaurants throughout the United States. It is here that Bond first meets Solitaire, a beautiful virgin tarot expert who has the ability to see both the future and remote events in the present. Mr. Big, who is actually Kananga in disguise, demands that his henchmen kill Bond, but Bond overpowers them and escapes unscathed. Bond flies to San Monique, where he meets Rosie Carver, a CIA double agent. They meet up with a friend of Bond's, Quarrel Jr., who takes them by boat to Solitaire's home. Bond suspects Rosie of working for Kananga. She is shot dead, remotely, by Kananga, to stop her confessing the truth to Bond. Inside Solitaire's house, Bond uses a stacked tarot deck of cards, that show only "The Lovers", to trick her into thinking that seduction is in her future, and then seduces her. Solitaire loses her ability to foretell the future when she loses her virginity to Bond, and is forced into cooperating with Bond to bring down Kananga.
Bond and Solitaire escape by boat and fly to New Orleans. There, Bond is captured by Kananga. It transpires that Kananga is producing two tons of heroin and is protecting the poppy fields by exploiting locals' fear of voodoo and the occult. Through his alter ego, Mr. Big, Kananga plans to distribute the heroin free of charge at his Fillet of Soul restaurants, which will increase the number of addicts. Kananga also believes that other drug dealers, namely the Mafia, cannot compete with his giveaway, to which Kananga can later charge high prices for the heroin, after he has simultaneously cultivated huge drugs dependency and bankrupted his competitors.
When Kananga finds out that Bond slept with Solitaire, he turns her over to Baron Samedi to be sacrificed, as her ability to read tarot cards is gone. Meanwhile, Kananga's one-armed henchman, Tee Hee Johnson, leaves Bond to be eaten by crocodiles at a farm in the Louisiana backwoods. Bond escapes by running along the animals' backs to safety. He sets the farm on fire and steals a speedboat. He is then pursued by Kananga's men, as well as Sheriff J.W. Pepper and the Louisiana State Police.
Back in San Monique, Bond rescues Solitaire from the voodoo sacrifice and throws Samedi into a coffin of snakes. Bond and Solitaire escape below ground into Kananga's lair. Kananga captures them both and proceeds to lower them into a shark tank. Bond escapes and forces a shark gun pellet into Kananga's mouth, causing him to blow up like a balloon, float to the top of the cave, and explode.
After the job is done, Leiter puts Bond and Solitaire onto a train and out of the country. Tee Hee Johnson follows Bond and Solitaire onto the train and tries to kill Bond, but loses his prosthetic arm in a fight with him and is flung out of the window. As the film ends, a laughing Samedi is revealed to be perched on the front of the speeding train.
Cast[edit]



 Promotional image of the cast of Live and Let Die. From left: Julius Harris, Jane Seymour, Geoffrey Holder, Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto and Earl Jolly BrownRoger Moore as James Bond: A British agent who is sent on a mission to investigate the murder of three fellow agents.
Yaphet Kotto as Dr. Kananga and Mr. Big. A corrupt Caribbean Prime Minister who doubles as a drug lord.
Jane Seymour as Solitaire: Kananga's psychic and the love interest of Bond.
Julius Harris as Tee Hee Johnson: Kananga's henchman who has a pincer for a hand.
David Hedison as Felix Leiter: Bond's CIA colleague. Leiter is also investigating Mr. Big.
Gloria Hendry as Rosie Carver: A CIA agent in San Monique.
Clifton James as Sheriff J.W. Pepper: A local, uncouth Louisiana sheriff.
Geoffrey Holder as Baron Samedi: Kananga's henchman who has ties to the Voodoo occult.
Bernard Lee as M: The Head of the Secret Intelligence Service
Roy Stewart as Quarrel Jr.: Bond's ally in San Monique and son of Quarrel from Dr. No.
Earl Jolly Brown as Whisper: Kananga's henchman who only whispers.
Tommy Lane as Adam: One of Dr. Kananga's henchmen who pursues 007 through the Louisiana Bayou
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
Madeline Smith as Miss Caruso: An Italian agent whom Bond romances and strips off her clothing by way of his magnetic watch.
Production[edit]
While filming Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die was chosen as the next Ian Fleming novel to be adapted because screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz thought it would be daring to use black villains, as the Black Panthers and other racial movements were active at this time.[2] Guy Hamilton was again chosen to direct, and since he was a jazz fan, Mankiewicz suggested him to film in New Orleans. Hamilton didn't want to use Mardi Gras since Thunderball featured Junkanoo, a similar festivity, so after more discussions with the writer and location scouting with helicopters, he decided to use two well-known features of the city, the jazz funerals and the canals.[2][3]
While searching for locations in Jamaica, the crew discovered a crocodile farm owned by Ross Kananga, after passing a sign warning that "trespassers will be eaten." The farm was put into the script and also inspired Mankiewicz to name the film's villain after Kananga.[2]
Casting[edit]
Broccoli and Saltzman tried to convince Sean Connery to return as 007, but he declined.[2] The two producers then approached Clint Eastwood, who was fresh from his success as Dirty Harry, but although flattered he also turned down the offer, stating that 007 should be played by an Englishman. Among the actors to test for the part of Bond were Julian Glover, John Gavin, Jeremy Brett, Simon Oates, John Ronane, and William Gaunt. The main frontrunner for the role was Michael Billington. United Artists wanted an American to play Bond; Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman and Robert Redford were all considered. Producer Albert R. Broccoli, however, insisted that the part should be played by a British actor and put forward Roger Moore. After Moore was chosen, Billington remained on the top of the list in the event that Moore would decline to come back for the next film. Billington ultimately played a brief villainous role in the pre-credit sequence of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Moore, who had been considered by the producers before both Dr. No and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was ultimately cast.[3] He tried not to imitate either Sean Connery or his performance as Simon Templar in The Saint, and Mankiewicz fitted the screenplay into Moore's persona by giving more comedy scenes and a light-hearted approach to Bond.[2]
Mankiewicz had thought of turning Solitaire into a black woman, with Diana Ross as his primary choice.[1][4] However, Broccoli and Saltzman decided to stick to Fleming's description of a white woman, and after thinking of Catherine Deneuve, Jane Seymour, who was in the TV series The Onedin Line, was cast for the role.[2] Yaphet Kotto was cast while doing another movie for United Artists, Across 110th Street.[2] Kotto reported one of the things he liked in role was Kananga's interest in the occult, "feeling like he can control past, present and future".[3]
Mankiewicz created Sheriff J.W. Pepper to add a comic relief character. Portrayed by Clifton James, Pepper appeared again in The Man with the Golden Gun.[2] It is also the first of two films featuring David Hedison as Felix Leiter, who reprised the role in Licence to Kill. Hedison had said "I was sure that would be my first and last", before being cast again.[5]
Madeline Smith, who played Miss Caruso, sharing Bond's bed in the film's opening, was recommended for the part by Roger Moore after he had appeared with her on TV. Smith said that Moore was extremely polite to work with, but she felt very uncomfortable being clad in only blue bikini panties while Moore's wife was on set overseeing the scene.[6]
This was the only Bond film until 2006 not to feature 'Q', played at this stage by Desmond Llewelyn. He was then appearing in the TV series Follyfoot, but was written out of three episodes to appear in the film.[7] Saltzman and Broccoli decided not to include the character, feeling that "too much was being made of the films' gadgets", and decided to downplay this aspect of the series,[8] much to Llewelyn's annoyance.[7]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography began in October 1972, in Louisiana. For a while only the second unit was shot after Moore was diagnosed with kidney stones. In November production moved to Jamaica, which doubled for the fictional San Monique. In December, production was divided between interiors in Pinewood Studios and location shooting in Harlem.[2][9][10] The producers were reportedly required to pay protection money to a local Harlem gang to ensure the crew's safety. When the cash ran out, they were "encouraged" to leave.[6]
Ross Kananga suggested the stunt of Bond jumping on crocodiles, and was enlisted by the producers to perform it.[1] The scene took five takes to be completed, including one in which the last crocodile snapped at Kananga's heel, tearing his trousers.[2] The production also had trouble with snakes. The script supervisor was so afraid that she refused to be on set with them; an actor fainted while filming a scene where he is killed by a snake; Jane Seymour became terrified as a reptile got closer, and Geoffrey Holder only agreed to fall into the snake-filled casket because Princess Alexandra was visiting the set.[2]
The boat chase was filmed in Louisiana around the Irish Bayou area, with some interruption caused by flooding.[3] Twenty-six boats were built by the Glastron boat company for the film. Seventeen were destroyed during rehearsals.[11] The speedboat jump scene over the bayou, filmed with the assistance of a specially-constructed ramp, unintentionally set a Guinness World Record at the time with 110 feet (34 m) cleared. Unfortunately, the waves created by the impact caused the following boat to flip over.[2]
The chase involving the double-decker bus was filmed with a second-hand London bus adapted by having a top section removed, and then placed back in situ running on ball bearings to allow to slide off on impact. The stunts involving the bus were performed by Maurice Patchett, a London Transport bus driving instructor.[1]
Music[edit]



Dejan's Olympia Brass Band
Main article: Live and Let Die (soundtrack)
John Barry, who had worked on the previous five themes and orchestrated the "James Bond Theme", was unavailable during production. Broccoli and Saltzman instead asked Paul McCartney to write the theme song. Since McCartney's salary was high and another composer could not be hired with the remainder of the music budget, George Martin, who had been McCartney's producer while with The Beatles, was chosen to write the score for the film.[12] "Live and Let Die", written by McCartney along with his wife Linda and performed by their group Wings, was the first true rock and roll song used to open a Bond film, and became a major success in the UK (where it reached number nine in the charts) and the US (where it reached number 2, for three weeks).
The Olympia Brass Band has a notable part in "Live and Let Die", where they lead a funeral march for a (soon to be) assassination victim. Trumpeter Alvin Alcorn plays the killer. The piece of music the band plays at the beginning of the funeral march is "Just a Closer Walk with Thee". After the agent is stabbed, the band starts playing the more lively "Joe Avery's Piece".
Release[edit]
The film was released in the United States on 27 June 1973. The world premiere was at Odeon Leicester Square in London on 6 July 1973, with general release in the United Kingdom on the same day.[13] From a budget of around $7 million,[14] ($37 million in 2014 dollars[15]) the film grossed $161.8 million ($860 million in 2014 dollars[15]) worldwide.[14]
The film holds the record for the most viewed broadcast film on television in the United Kingdom by attracting 23.5 million viewers when premiered on ITV on 20 January 1980.[16]
Reception[edit]
Despite poor reaction to the racial overtones, reviews were mostly positive, with praise for the action scenes,[17][18] and Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 66% "fresh" rating.[19]
Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times stated that Moore "has the superficial attributes for the job: The urbanity, the quizzically raised eyebrow, the calm under fire and in bed". However, he felt that Moore wasn't satisfactory in living up to the legacy left by Sean Connery in the preceding films. He rated the villains "a little banal", adding that the film "doesn't have a Bond villain worthy of the Goldfingers, Dr. Nos and Oddjobs of the past."[20] Chris Nashawaty similarly argues that Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big is the worst villain of the Roger Moore James Bond films.[21] BBC Films reviewer William Mager praised the use of locations, but said that the plot was "convoluted". He stated that "Connery and Lazenby had an air of concealed thuggishness, clenched fists at the ready, but in Moore's case a sardonic quip and a raised eyebrow are his deadliest weapons".[22] Reviewer Leonard Maltin rated the film two and a half stars out of four, describing it as a "barely memorable, overlong James Bond movie" that "seems merely an excuse to film wild chase sequences".[23] Danny Peary noted that Jane Seymour portrays "one of the Bond series's most beautiful heroines" but had little praise for Moore, whom he described as making "an unimpressive debut as James Bond in Tom Mankiewicz's unimaginative adaptation of Ian Fleming's second novel…The movie stumbles along most of the way. It's hard to remember Moore is playing Bond at times – in fact, if he and Seymour were black, the picture could pass as one of the black exploitation films of the day. There are few interesting action sequences – a motorboat chase is trite enough to begin with, but the filmmakers make it worse by throwing in some stupid Louisiana cops, including pot-bellied Sheriff Pepper."[24]
IGN ranked Solitaire as 10th in a Top 10 Bond Babes list.[25] In November 2006, Entertainment Weekly listed Live and Let Die as the third best Bond film.[26] MSN chose it as the thirteenth best Bond film[18] and IGN listed it as twelfth best.[17]

Year
Result
Award
Recipients
1974 Nominated Academy Award for Best Original Song Paul & Linda McCartney
Nominated Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture
Won Evening Standard Best Film Guy Hamilton
See also[edit]

Portal icon James Bond portal
List of drug films
Outline of James Bond
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d Live and Let Die Ultimate Edition DVD (Media notes). 2006.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l Inside Live and Let Die: Live and Let Die Ultimate Edition, Disc 2 (NTSC, Widescreen, Closed-captioned) (DVD). MGM/UA Home Video. 2000. ASIN: B000LY209E.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c d Bond 1973: The Lost Documentary – Live and Let Die Ultimate Edition, Disc 2 (NTSC, Widescreen, Closed-captioned) (DVD). MGM/UA Home Video. 1973. ASIN: B000LY209E.
4.Jump up ^ Tom Mankiewicz and Robert Crane, My Life as a Mankiewicz, University Press of Kentucky 2012 p 155
5.Jump up ^ David Hedison Interview, Mi6-HQ.com
6.^ Jump up to: a b Roger Moore. Live and Let Die Audio commentary 1. Live and Let Die, Ultimate Edition, disk 1.
7.^ Jump up to: a b "Llewelyn's last interview (with reference to ''Follyfoot'' and ''Live and Let Die'')". Follyfoot-tv.co.uk. 19 December 1999. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
8.Jump up ^ "Memories of "Q"". Archived from the original on 24 February 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
9.Jump up ^ Exotic Locations. Live and Let Die, Ultimate Edition, disk 2.
10.Jump up ^ "Live and Let Die – Location Guide". Mi6-HQ.com. Retrieved 6 November 2008.
11.Jump up ^ Sorensen, Eric (25 January 2007). "Big, gaudy and Bond-like, Seattle Boat Show exhibit cuts to the chase". The Seattle Times.
12.Jump up ^ Lindner, Christoph (2003). The James Bond Phenomenon: a Critical Reader. Manchester University Press. pp. 130–1. ISBN 978-0-7190-6541-5.
13.Jump up ^ "Live And Let Die (1973)". Mi6-HQ.com. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
14.^ Jump up to: a b "Live and Let Die". The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
15.^ Jump up to: a b Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–2014. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
16.Jump up ^ "TV's jewels fail to shine in list of all-time winners". Electronic Telegraph. 7 February 1998. Retrieved 13 October 2008.
17.^ Jump up to: a b "James Bond's Top 20". IGN. 17 November 2006. Retrieved 4 March 2008.
18.^ Jump up to: a b Norman Wilner. "Rating the Spy Game". MSN. Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved 1 June 2009.
19.Jump up ^ "Live and Let Die (1973)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 14 March 2008.
20.Jump up ^ "Live and Let Die". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
21.Jump up ^ Chris Nashawaty, "Moore...And Sometimes Less: A look at the most—and least—memorable bad guys, babes, and Bonds in Roger Moore's 007 oeuvre," Entertainment Weekly 1025 (12 December 2008): 37.
22.Jump up ^ "Live and Let Die (1973)". BBC. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
23.Jump up ^ Maltin, Leonard (2005). Leonard Maltin's 2006 Movie Guide. New American Library.
24.Jump up ^ Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic (Simon & Schuster, 1986) p.244
25.Jump up ^ IGN: Top 10 Bond Babes
26.Jump up ^ Benjamin Svetkey and Joshua Rich (15 November 2006). "Ranking the Bond Films". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 20 September 2008.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Live and Let Die (film)
Live and Let Die at the Internet Movie Database
Live and Let Die at AllMovie
Live and Let Die at Rotten Tomatoes
Live and Let Die at Box Office Mojo
MGM Official Site: Live and Let Die



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On Her Majesty's Secret Service (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search



On Her Majesty's Secret Service
A man in a dinner jacket on skis, holding a gun. Next to him is a red-headed woman, also on skis and with a gun. They are being pursued by men on skis and a bobsleigh, all with guns. In the top left of the picture are the words FAR UP! FAR OUT! FAR MORE! James Bond 007 is back!
British cinema poster for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, designed and illustrated by Robert McGinnis and Frank McCarthy

Directed by
Peter R. Hunt
Produced by
Harry Saltzman
Albert R. Broccoli
Screenplay by
Richard Maibaum
Additional Dialogue:
Simon Raven
Based on
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
 by Ian Fleming
Starring
George Lazenby
Diana Rigg
Telly Savalas
Bernard Lee
Gabriele Ferzetti
Music by
John Barry
Cinematography
Michael Reed
Edited by
John Glen
Production
   company
Eon Productions
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
18 December 1969 (London, Premiere)

Running time
140 minutes[1]
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
$7 million
Box office
$64.6 million
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) is the sixth spy film in the James Bond series, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. Following the decision of Sean Connery to retire from the role after You Only Live Twice, Eon Productions selected an unknown actor and model, George Lazenby, to play the part of James Bond. During the making of the film, Lazenby decided that he would play the role of Bond only once.
In the film, Bond faces Blofeld (Telly Savalas), who is planning to sterilise the world's food supply through a group of brainwashed "angels of death" (which included early appearances by Joanna Lumley and Catherina von Schell) unless his demands are met for an international amnesty, for recognition of his title as the Count De Bleuchamp (the French form of Blofeld) and to be allowed to retire into private life. Along the way, Bond meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg).
This is the only Bond film to be directed by Peter R. Hunt, who had served as a film editor and second unit director on previous films in the series. Hunt, along with producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, decided to produce a more realistic film that would follow the novel closely. It was shot in Switzerland, England and Portugal from October 1968 to May 1969. Although its cinema release was not as lucrative as its predecessor You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was still one of the top performing films of the year. Critical reviews upon release were mixed, but the film's reputation has improved over time, though reviews of Lazenby's performance continue to vary.



Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast 2.1 Blofeld's Angels of Death
3 Production 3.1 Writing
3.2 Casting
3.3 Filming
3.4 Music
4 Release and reception 4.1 Contemporary reviews
4.2 Reflective reviews
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links

Plot[edit]
In Portugal, James Bond – agent 007, sometimes referred to simply as '007' – saves a woman on the beach from committing suicide by drowning, and later meets her again in a casino. The woman, Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo, invites Bond to her hotel room to thank him. The next morning, Bond is kidnapped by several men while leaving the hotel, who take him to meet Marc-Ange Draco, the head of the European crime syndicate Unione Corse. Draco reveals that Tracy is his only daughter and tells Bond of her troubled past, offering Bond a personal dowry of one million pounds if he will marry her. Bond refuses, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy under the agreement that Draco reveals the whereabouts of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.
Bond returns to London, and after a brief argument with M at MI6 headquarters, heads for Draco's birthday party in Portugal. There, Bond and Tracy begin a whirlwind romance, and Draco directs the agent to a law firm in Bern, Switzerland. In Bern, Bond investigates the office of Swiss lawyer Gumbold, and learns that Blofeld is corresponding with London College of Arms' genealogist Sir Hilary Bray, attempting to claim the title 'Comte Balthazar de Bleuchamp'.
Posing as Bray, Bond goes to meet Blofeld, who has established a clinical allergy-research institute atop Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps. There Bond meets twelve young women, the "Angels of Death", who are patients at the institute's clinic, apparently cured of their allergies. At night Bond goes to the room of one patient, Ruby, for a romantic encounter. At midnight Bond sees that Ruby, apparently along with each of the other ladies, goes into a sleep-induced trance while Blofeld gives them audio instructions for when they are discharged and return home. In fact, the women are being brainwashed to distribute bacteriological warfare agents throughout various parts of the world.
Bond tries to trick Blofeld into leaving Switzerland, so the British Secret Service can arrest him without violating Swiss sovereignty; Blofeld refuses, and Bond is eventually caught by henchwoman Irma Bunt. Blofeld reveals that he identified Bond after his attempt to lure him out of Switzerland, and tells his henchmen to take the agent away. Bond eventually makes his escape by skiing down Piz Gloria while Blofeld and many of his men give chase. Arriving at the village of Lauterbrunnen, Bond finds Tracy and they escape Bunt and her men after a car chase. A blizzard forces them to a remote barn, where Bond professes his love to Tracy and proposes marriage to her, which she accepts. The next morning, as the flight resumes, Blofeld sets off an avalanche; Tracy is captured, while Bond is buried but manages to escape.
Back in London at M's office, Bond is informed that Blofeld intends to hold the world at ransom by threatening to destroy its agriculture using his brainwashed women, demanding amnesty for all past crimes, and that he be recognised as the current Count de Bleuchamp. M tells 007 that the ransom will be paid and forbids him to mount a rescue mission. Bond then enlists Draco and his forces to attack Blofeld's headquarters, while also rescuing Tracy from Blofeld's captivity. The facility is destroyed, and Blofeld escapes the destruction alone in a bobsled, with Bond pursuing him. The chase ends when Blofeld becomes snared in a tree branch and injures his neck. Bond and Tracy marry in Portugal, then drive away in Bond's Aston Martin. When Bond pulls over to the roadside to remove flowers from the car, Blofeld (wearing a neck brace) and Bunt commit a drive-by shooting of the couple's car that kills Tracy.
Cast[edit]
George Lazenby as James Bond – MI6 agent, codename 007.
Diana Rigg as Countess Tracy di Vicenzo – A vulnerable countess and Marc-Ange Draco's daughter, who captures Bond's heart. Like Honor Blackman in Goldfinger before her, Rigg had come to the notice of Eon Productions through her work on The Avengers,[2] where she played Emma Peel from 1965–68.[3]
Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld aka Comte Balthazar de Bleuchamp – Bond's nemesis, leader of SPECTRE and in hiding. Savalas had appeared in The Dirty Dozen in 1967, leading to Broccoli suggesting him to director Peter Hunt, for the role, in place of Donald Pleasence, who had appeared in You Only Live Twice. Both Broccoli and Hunt felt Pleasence was unsuited to the more physical side of the Blofeld role in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.[4]
Gabriele Ferzetti as Marc-Ange Draco – Head of the Union Corse, a major crime syndicate and Tracy's father (uncredited voice by David de Keyser).[1] A year before he appeared as Draco, Ferzetti played the railroad baron Morton in Sergio Leone's celebrated Once Upon a Time in the West.
Ilse Steppat as Irma Bunt – Blofeld's henchwoman who assists in the attempts to eliminate Bond, and although they fail to finish him off Bunt eventually manages to kill Tracy. Said to be the most successful piece of casting in the film, the Bunt character did not appear in the film You Only Live Twice, although she did appear in the novel.[5] On Her Majesty's Secret Service was Steppat's last role: she died on 22 December 1969, four days after the film premiered.[6]
Bernard Lee as M – Head of the British Secret Service. This was the sixth of eleven Eon-produced Bond films in which Lee played the role of Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, from Dr. No in 1962 to Moonraker in 1979.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny – M's secretary. Maxwell played Moneypenny in fourteen Eon-produced Bond films from Dr. No in 1962 to A View to a Kill in 1985; On Her Majesty's Secret Service was her sixth appearance.
George Baker as Sir Hilary Bray – Herald in the London College of Arms, whom Bond impersonates in Piz Gloria. Baker also provided the voice of Bray while Bond was imitating him.[7]
Yuri Borienko as Grunther – Blofeld's brutish chief of security at Piz Gloria. In his role as a stuntman, Borienko was one of the people assisting with Lazenby's audition: Lazenby accidentally broke his nose, which helped him get the part of Bond.[8]
Bernard Horsfall as Shaun Campbell – 007's colleague who tries to aid Bond in Switzerland as part of Operation Bedlam. Campbell has been called the film's "Official Sacrificial Lamb".[5]
Desmond Llewelyn as Q – This was the fifth of seventeen Eon-produced Bond films in which Llewelyn played the role of Q, starting with From Russia with Love in 1963 until The World Is Not Enough in 1999.
Virginia North as Olympe – Draco's female assistant. Nikki van der Zyl provided the uncredited voice for Olympe,[1] making On Her Majesty's Secret Service her sixth Bond film in succession.[9]
Blofeld's Angels of Death[edit]
The Angels of Death are twelve beautiful women from all over the world being brainwashed by Blofeld under the guise of allergy or phobia treatment in order to spread the Virus Omega.[10] A number appeared in the representative styles of dress of their particular nation. Their mission is to help Blofeld contaminate and ultimately sterilise the world's food supply.
Ingrit Back as a German girl.
Mona Chong as a Chinese girl.
Julie Ege as Helen, a Scandinavian girl. Ege was a former Miss Norway who also starred in a number of Hammer Film Productions.[11]
Jenny Hanley as an Irish girl.
Anouska Hempel as an Australian girl.
Sylvana Henriques as a Jamaican girl.
Joanna Lumley as an English girl. Like Diana Rigg (and Honor Blackman in Goldfinger) Lumley would appear alongside Patrick Macnee, although her role was in a spin-off from The Avengers, as Purdey in The New Avengers.[12]
Helena Ronee as an Israeli girl.
Catherina von Schell as Nancy, a Hungarian girl at the clinic whom Bond seduces.
Angela Scoular as Ruby Bartlett – an English girl at the clinic suffering from an allergy to chickens,[13] whom Bond also beds. Scoular also played Buttercup in the 1967 comedy Casino Royale.
Dani Sheridan as an American girl.
Zara as an Indian girl.
Production[edit]
The novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the first published after the film series started and contains "a gentle dig at the cinematic Bond's gadgets, as well as having Bond mention that he comes from Scotland."[14] Broccoli and Saltzman had originally intended to make On Her Majesty's Secret Service after Goldfinger and Richard Maibaum worked on a script at that time.[15] However, Thunderball was filmed instead after the ongoing rights dispute over the novel were settled between Fleming and Kevin McClory.[16] On Her Majesty's Secret Service was due to follow that,[15] but problems with a warm Swiss winter and inadequate snow cover led to Saltzman and Broccoli postponing the film again, favouring production of You Only Live Twice.[17]
Between the resignation of Sean Connery at the beginning of filming You Only Live Twice and its release, Saltzman had planned to adapt The Man with the Golden Gun in Cambodia and use Roger Moore as the next Bond, but political instability meant the location was ruled out and Moore signed up for another series of The Saint.[18] After You Only Live Twice was released in 1967, the producers once again picked up with On Her Majesty's Secret Service.[15]
Peter Hunt, who had worked on the five preceding films had impressed Broccoli and Saltzman enough to earn his directorial debut as they believed his quick cutting had set the style for the series;[19] it was also the result of a long-standing promise from Broccoli and Saltzman for a directorial position.[20] Hunt also asked for the position during the production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and he brought along with him many crew members, including cinematographer Michael Reed.[7] Hunt was focused on putting his mark – "I wanted it to be different than any other Bond film would be. It was my film, not anyone else's."[21] On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the last film on which Hunt worked in the series.[22]
Writing[edit]
Screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who worked on all the Bond films bar You Only Live Twice, was responsible for On Her Majesty's Secret Service's script.[23] Saltzman and Broccoli decided to drop the science fiction gadgets from the earlier films and focus more on plot as in From Russia With Love.[24] Peter Hunt asked Simon Raven to write some of the dialogue between Tracy and Blofeld in Piz Gloria, which was to be "sharper, better and more intellectual";[25] one of Raven's additions was having Tracy quoting James Elroy Flecker.[7] When writing the script, the producers decided to make the closest adaptation of the book possible: virtually everything in the novel occurs in the film[7] and Hunt was reported to always enter the set carrying an annotated copy of the novel.[21]
With the script following the novel more closely than the other film adaptations of the eponymous source novels, there are several continuity errors due to the film taking place in a different order, such as Blofeld not recognising Bond, despite having met him face-to-face in the previous film You Only Live Twice.[26] In the original script, Bond undergoes plastic surgery to disguise him from his enemies; the intention was to allow an unrecognisable Bond to infiltrate Blofeld's hideout and help the audience accept the new actor in the role. However, this was dropped in favour of ignoring the change in actor.[20] To make audiences not forget it was the same James Bond, just played by another actor, the producers inserted many references to the previous films, some as in-jokes. These include Bond breaking the fourth wall by stating "This never happened to the other fellow", the credits sequence with images from the previous instalments, Bond visiting his office and finding objects from Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Thunderball, and a caretaker whistling the theme from Goldfinger.[27]
Casting[edit]
In 1967, after five James Bond films, Sean Connery retired from the role of James Bond and—during the filming of You Only Live Twice—was not on speaking terms with Albert Broccoli.[28] The confirmed front runners were Englishman John Richardson, Dutchman Hans De Vries, American Robert Campbell, Englishman Anthony Rogers and Australian George Lazenby.[18]
Broccoli and Hunt eventually chose Lazenby after seeing him in a Fry's Chocolate Cream advertisement.[7] Lazenby dressed the part by sporting several sartorial Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row suit (ordered, but uncollected, by Connery), and going to Connery's barber at the Dorchester Hotel.[21] Broccoli noticed Lazenby as a Bond-type man based on his physique and character elements, and offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression.[18] Lazenby was offered a contract for seven films; however, he was convinced by his agent Ronan O'Rahilly that the secret agent would be archaic in the liberated 1970s, and as a result he left the series after the release of On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969.[7]
For Tracy Draco, the producers wanted an established actress opposite neophyte Lazenby.[5] Brigitte Bardot was invited, but after she signed to appear in Shalako opposite Sean Connery the deal fell through,[20] and Diana Rigg—who had already been the popular heroine Emma Peel in The Avengers—was cast instead.[11] Rigg said one of the reasons for accepting the role was that she always wanted to be in an epic film.[7] Telly Savalas was cast following a suggestion from Broccoli, and Hunt's neighbour George Baker was offered the part of Sir Hilary Bray. Baker's voice was also used when Lazenby was impersonating Bray,[7] as Hunt considered Lazenby's imitation not convincing enough.[29] Gabriele Ferzetti was cast as Draco after the producers saw him in an Italian mafia film, but Ferzetti's heavy accent also led to his voice being dubbed over.[27]
Filming[edit]

A restaurant in a snowy environment. Mountains can be seen in the background.

Piz Gloria, Switzerland.
Principal photography began in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, on 21 October 1968, with the first scene shot being an aerial view of Bond climbing the stairs of Blofeld's mountain retreat to meet the girls.[7] The scenes were shot atop the now famous revolving restaurant Piz Gloria, located atop the Schilthorn near the village of Mürren. The location was found by production manager Hubert Fröhlich after three weeks of location scouting in France and Switzerland.[21] The restaurant was still under construction, but the producers found the location interesting,[27] and had to finance providing electricity and the aerial lift to make filming there possible.[7] Various chase scenes in the Alps were shot at Lauterbrunnen and Saas-Fee, while the Christmas celebrations were filmed in Grindelwald, and some scenes were shot on location in Bern.[30] Production was hampered by weak snowfall which was unfavourable to the skiing action scenes. The producers even considered moving to another location in Switzerland, but it was taken by the production of Downhill Racer.[27] The Swiss filming ended up running 56 days over schedule.[21] In March 1969, production moved to England, with London's Pinewood Studios being used for interior shooting, and M's house being shot in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. In April, the filmmakers went to Portugal, where principal photography wrapped in May.[7][27] The pre-credit coastal and hotel scenes were filmed at Hotel Estoril Palacio in Estoril and Guincho Beach, Cascais,[31] while Lisbon was used for the reunion of Bond and Tracy, and the ending employed a mountain road in the Arrábida National Park near Setúbal.[30] Harry Saltzman wanted the Portuguese scenes to be in France, but after searching there, Peter Hunt considered that not only were the locations not photogenic, but were already "overexposed".[32]

A view of mountain slopes, heavily laden with snow.

 The slopes in the Saas Fee area in which the ski sequences were shot.
While the first unit shot at Piz Gloria, the second unit, led by John Glen, started filming the ski chases.[33] The downhill skiing involved professional skiers, and various camera tricks. Some cameras were handheld, with the operators holding them as they were going downhill with the stuntmen, and others were aerial, with cameramen Johnny Jordan – who had previously worked in the helicopter battle of You Only Live Twice — developing a system where he was dangled by an 18 feet (5.5 m) long parachute harness rig below a helicopter, allowing scenes to be shot on the move from any angle.[7] The bobsledding chase was also filmed with the help of Swiss Olympic athletes,[27] and was rewritten to incorporate the accidents the stuntmen suffered during shooting, such as the scene where Bond falls from the sled. Blofeld getting snared with a tree was performed at the studio by Savalas himself, after the attempt to do this by the stuntman on location came out wrong.[7] Glen was also the editor of the film, employing a style similar to the one used by Hunt in the previous Bond films, with fast motion in the action scenes and exaggerated sound effects.[27]
The avalanche scenes were due to be filmed in co-operation with the Swiss army who annually used explosions to prevent snow build-up by causing avalanches, but the area chosen naturally avalanched just before filming.[32] The final result was a combination of a man-made avalanche at an isolated Swiss location shot by the second unit,[7] stock footage, and images created by the special effects crew with salt.[32] The stuntmen were filmed later, added by optical effects.[34] For the scene where Bond and Tracy crash into a car race while being pursued, an ice rink was constructed over an unused aeroplane track,[27] with water and snow sprayed on it constantly. Lazenby and Rigg did most of the driving due to the high number of close-ups.[7]




"One time, we were on location at an ice rink and Diana and Peter were drinking champagne inside. Of course I wasn't invited as Peter was there. I could see them through the window, but the crew were all outside stomping around on the ice trying to keep warm. So, when she got in the car, I went for her. She couldn't drive the car properly and I got in to her about her drinking and things like that. Then she jumped out and started shouting 'he's attacking me in the car!' I called her a so-and-so for not considering the crew who were freezing their butts off outside. And it wasn't that at all in the end, as she was sick that night, and I was at fault for getting in to her about it. I think everyone gets upset at one time."
George Lazenby[21]
For the cinematography, Hunt aimed for a "simple, but glamorous like the 1950s Hollywood films I grew up with",[32] as well as something realistic, "where the sets don't look like sets".[32] Cinematographer Michael Reed added he had difficulties with lighting, as every set built for the film had a ceiling, preventing spotlights from being hung from above.[35] While shooting, Hunt wanted "the most interesting framings possible", which would also look good after being cropped for television.[32]
Lazenby said he experienced difficulties during shooting, not receiving any coaching despite his lack of acting experience, and with director Hunt never addressing him directly, only through his assistant. Lazenby also declared that Hunt also asked the rest of the crew to keep a distance from him, as "Peter thought the more I was alone, the better I would be as James Bond."[21] Allegedly, there also were personality conflicts with Rigg, who was already an established star. However, according to director Hunt, these rumours are untrue and there were no such difficulties—or else they were minor—and may have started with Rigg joking to Lazenby before filming a love scene "Hey George, I'm having garlic for lunch. I hope you are!"[11] Hunt also declared that he usually had long talks with Lazenby before and during shooting. For instance, to shoot Tracy's death scene, Hunt brought Lazenby to the set at 8 o'clock in the morning and made him rehearse all day long, "and I broke him down until he was absolutely exhausted, and by the time we shot it at five o'clock, he was exhausted, and that's how I got the performance."[36] Hunt said that if Lazenby had remained in the role, he would also have directed the successor film, Diamonds Are Forever and that his original intentions were concluding the film with Bond and Tracy driving off following their wedding, saving Tracy's murder for the pre-credit sequence of Diamonds Are Forever. The idea was discarded after Lazenby quit the role.[7]
On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the longest Bond film until Casino Royale was released in 2006.[37] Despite that, two scenes were deleted from the final print: Irma Bunt spying on Bond as he buys a wedding ring for Tracy,[38] and a chase over London rooftops and into the Royal Mail underground rail system[39] after Bond's conversation with Sir Hilary Bray was overheard.[37]
Music[edit]
Main article: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (soundtrack)
The soundtrack for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" has been called "perhaps the best score of the series."[33] It was composed, arranged and conducted by John Barry;[40] it was his fifth successive Bond film. Barry opted to use more electrical instruments and a more aggressive sound in the music – "I have to stick my oar in the musical area double strong to make the audience try and forget they don't have Sean ... to be Bondian beyond Bondian."[41]
Barry felt it would be difficult to compose a theme song containing the title "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" unless it were written operatically, in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan.[42] Leslie Bricusse had considered lyrics for the title song[43] but director Peter R. Hunt allowed an instrumental title theme in the tradition of the first two Bond films. The theme was described as "one of the best title cuts, a wordless Moog-driven monster, suitable for skiing at breakneck speed or dancing with equal abandon."[44]
Barry also composed the love song "We Have All the Time in the World", with lyrics by Burt Bacharach's regular lyricist Hal David, sung by Louis Armstrong.[40] It is heard during the Bond–Tracy courtship montage, bridging Draco's birthday party in Portugal and Bond's burglary of the Gebrüder Gumbold law office in Bern, Switzerland. It was Louis Armstrong's last recorded song as he died of a heart attack two years later.[45] Barry recalled Armstrong was very ill, but recorded the song in one take.[46] The song was re-released in 1994, achieving the number three position during a 13-week spell in the UK charts.[47] A Hal David song entitled "Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?" performed by Danish singer Nina also featured in the film in several scenes.[48]
The theme, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", is used in the film as an action theme alternative to Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme", as with Barry's previous "007" themes. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was covered in 1997 by the British big beat group, the Propellerheads for the Shaken and Stirred album.[49] Barry-orchestrator Nic Raine recorded an arrangement of the escape from Piz Gloria sequence and it was featured as a theme in the trailers for the 2004 Pixar animated film The Incredibles.[50]
Release and reception[edit]
On Her Majesty's Secret Service was released on 18 December 1969[51] with its premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London.[52] Lazenby appeared at the premiere with a beard, looking "very un-Bond-like",[53] according to the Daily Mirror. Lazenby claimed the producers had tried to persuade him to shave it off to appear like Bond, but at that stage he had already decided not to make another Bond film and rejected the idea.[54] The beard and accompanying shoulder-length hair "strained his already fragile relationship with Saltzman and Broccoli".[55] As On Her Majesty's Secret Service had been filmed in stereo, the first Bond film to use the technology, the Odeon had a new speaker system installed to benefit the new sounds.[56] It topped the North American box office when it opened with a gross of $1.2 million.[57] The film closed its box office run with £750,000 in the United Kingdom (the highest-grossing film of the year),[58] $64.6 million worldwide,[59] half of You Only Live Twice's total gross,[58] but still one of the highest-grossing films of 1969.[60] After re-releases, the total box office was $82,000,000 worldwide.[61]
Because Lazenby had informed the producers that On Her Majesty's Secret Service was to be his only outing as Bond and because of the lack of 'gadgets' used by Bond in the film, few items of merchandise were produced for the film, apart from the obvious soundtrack album and a film edition of the book. Those that were produced included a number from Corgi Toys, including Tracey's Cougar, Campbell's Volkswagen and two versions of the bobsleigh—one with the 007 logo and one with the Piz Gloria logo.[62] On Her Majesty's Secret Service was nominated for only one award: George Lazenby was nominated in the New Star of the Year – Actor category at the 1970 Golden Globe Award ceremony, losing out to Jon Voight.[63]
Contemporary reviews[edit]
The majority of reviews were critical of either the film, Lazenby, or both, while most of the contemporary reviews in the British press referred to George Lazenby at some point as "The Big Fry", a reference to his previous acting in Fry's Chocolate advertisements.[6] Derek Malcolm of The Guardian was dismissive of Lazenby's performance, saying that he "is not a good actor and though I never thought Sean Connery was all that stylish either, there are moments when one yearns for a little of his louche panache."[64] For all the criticism of Lazenby, however, Malcolm says that the film was "quite a jolly frolic in the familiar money-spinning fashion".[64] Tom Milne, writing in The Guardian's sister paper, The Observer was even more scathing, saying that "I ... fervently trust (OHMSS) will be the last of the James Bond films. All the pleasing oddities and eccentricities and gadgets of the earlier films have somehow been lost, leaving a routine trail through which the new James Bond strides without noticeable signs of animation."[65]
Donald Zec in the Daily Mirror was equally damning of Lazenby's acting abilities, comparing him unfavourably to Connery: "He looks uncomfortably in the part like a size four foot in a size ten gumboot."[66] Zec was kinder to Lazenby's co-star, saying that "there is style to Diana Rigg's performance and I suspect that the last scene which draws something of a performance out of Lazenby owes much to her silken expertise."[66] The New York Times critic AH Weiler also weighed in against Lazenby, saying that "Lazenby, if not a spurious Bond, is merely a casual, pleasant, satisfactory replacement."[67]
One of the few supporters of Lazenby amongst the critics was Alexander Walker in the London Evening Standard who said that "The truth is that George Lazenby is almost as good a James Bond as the man referred to in his film as 'the other fellow'. Lazenby's voice is more suave than sexy-sinister and he could pass for the other fellow's twin on the shady side of the casino. Bond is now definitely all set for the Seventies."[68] Judith Crist of New York Magazine also found the actor a strong point of the movie, stating that "This time around there's less suavity and a no-nonsense muscularity and maleness to the role via the handsome Mr. Lazenby".[69]
Feminist film critic Molly Haskell also wrote an approving review of the film in the Village Voice: "In a world, an industry, and particularly a genre which values the new and improved product above all, it is nothing short of miraculous to see a movie which dares to go backward, a technological artefact which has nobly deteriorated into a human being. I speak of the new and obsolete James Bond, played by a man named George Lazenby, who seems more comfortable in a wet tuxedo than a dry martini, more at ease as a donnish genealogist than reading (or playing) Playboy, and who actually dares to think that one woman who is his equal is better than a thousand part-time playmates."[70] Haskell was also affected by the film's emotional ending: "The love between Bond and his Tracy begins as a payment and ends as a sacrament. After ostensibly getting rid of the bad guys, they are married. They drive off to a shocking, stunning ending. Their love, being too real, is killed by the conventions it defied. But they win the final victory by calling, unexpectedly, upon feeling. Some of the audience hissed, I was shattered. If you like your Bonds with happy endings, don't go."[70]
Reflective reviews[edit]
Critical response to On Her Majesty's Secret Service remains sharply divided. Film critic James Berardinelli summed this up in his review of the movie: "with the exception of one production aspect, [it] is by far the best entry of the long-running James Bond series. The film contains some of the most exhilarating action sequences ever to reach the screen, a touching love story, and a nice subplot that has agent 007 crossing (and even threatening to resign from) Her Majesty's Secret Service. The problem is with Bond himself ... George Lazenby is boring, and his ineffectualness lowers the picture's quality. Lazenby can handle the action sequences, but that's about all he masters."[71]
American film reviewer Leonard Maltin has suggested that if it had been Connery in the leading role instead of Lazenby, On Her Majesty's Secret Service would have epitomised the series.[72] On the other hand, Danny Peary wrote, "I'm not sure I agree with those who insist that if Connery had played Bond it would definitely be the best of the entire Bond series ... Connery's Bond, with his boundless humor and sense of fun and self-confidence, would be out of place in this picture. It actually works better with Lazenby because he is incapable of playing Bond as a bigger-than-life hero; for one thing he hasn't the looks ... Lazenby's Bond also hasn't the assurance of Connery's Bond and that is appropriate in the crumbling, depressing world he finds himself. He seems vulnerable and jittery at times. At the skating rink, he is actually scared. We worry about him ... On Her Majesty's Secret Service doesn't have Connery and it's impossible to ever fully adjust to Lazenby, but I think that it still might be the best Bond film, as many Bond cultists claim."[73] Peary also described On Her Majesty's Secret Service as "the most serious", "the most cynical" and "the most tragic" of the Bond films.[73]
Brian Fairbanks differed in his opinion of Lazenby, saying that "OHMSS gives us a James Bond capable of vulnerability, a man who can show fear and is not immune to heartbreak. Lazenby is that man, and his performance is superb."[74] Fairbanks also thought On Her Majesty's Secret Service to be "not only the best Bond, it is also the last truly great film in the series. In fact, had the decision been made to end the series, this would have been the perfect final chapter."[74]
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 81% rating based on 43 reviews.[75] IGN ranked On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the eighth best Bond film,[76] Entertainment Weekly as the sixth,[77] and Norman Wilner of MSN, as the fifth best.[78] The film also became a fan favourite, seeing "ultimate success in the home video market".[79] In September 2012 it was announced that On Her Majesty's Secret Service had topped a poll of Bond fans run by 007 Magazine to determine the greatest ever Bond film. Goldfinger came second in the poll and From Russia With Love was third.[80]
See also[edit]

Portal icon James Bond portal
Outline of James Bond
References[edit]
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47.Jump up ^ "Louis Armstrong, Top 75 Releases". Official UK Charts Archive. The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
48.Jump up ^ MI6-HQ Copyright 2011 (1997-11-18). "MI6 :: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) :: James Bond 007". Mi6-hq.com. Retrieved 2013-07-06.
49.Jump up ^ Flick, Larry (21 March 1998). "Propellerheads plot altitude gain via DreamWorks bow". Billboard 110 (12): 37. ISSN 0006-2510.
50.Jump up ^ "Music – On Her Majesty's Secret Service". MI6.co.uk. Retrieved 3 August 2011.
51.Jump up ^ "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". MGM Official site. Retrieved 2 August 2011.
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56.Jump up ^ Barnes & Hearn 2001, p. 88.
57.Jump up ^ "50 Top-Grossing Films [Week Ending December 24]". Variety. 31 December 1969.
58.^ Jump up to: a b Barnes & Hearn 1997, p. 93.
59.Jump up ^ Block & Autrey Wilson 2010, pp. 428-429.
60.Jump up ^ "George Lazenby Biography". Yahoo! Movies. Yahoo!. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
61.Jump up ^ "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
62.Jump up ^ Pfeiffer & Worrall 1998, p. 69-70.
63.Jump up ^ "The 27th Annual Golden Globe Awards (1970)". Golden Globe Award Search. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
64.^ Jump up to: a b Malcolm, Derek (16 December 1969). "Off the peg Bond". The Guardian.
65.Jump up ^ Milne, Tom (21 December 1969). "One day of delights". The Observer.
66.^ Jump up to: a b Zec, Donald (16 December 1969). "Big film ... small fry". Daily Mirror.
67.Jump up ^ Weiler, AH (19 December 1969). "Screen: New James Bond". The New York Times.
68.Jump up ^ Walker, Alexander (16 December 1969). "Review". Evening Standard.
69.Jump up ^ Crist, Judith (12 January 1970). "Movies – Hello, Barbra -After a Fashion". New York.
70.^ Jump up to: a b Haskell, Molly (25 December 1969). Village Voice.
71.Jump up ^ Berardinelli 2003, p. 27 (online copy at Google Books, and original version available at Reelviews).
72.Jump up ^ Maltin 1999, p. 1664.
73.^ Jump up to: a b Peary 1988, p. 175.
74.^ Jump up to: a b Fairbanks 2005, p. 258.
75.Jump up ^ "On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
76.Jump up ^ "James Bond's Top 20". IGN. 17 November 2006. Retrieved 7 November 2008.
77.Jump up ^ Svetkey, Benjamin; Rich, Joshua (1 December 2006). "Ranking the Bond Films". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
78.Jump up ^ Wilner, Norman. "Rating the Spy Game". MSN. Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved 1 June 2009.
79.Jump up ^ Pfeiffer & Worrall 1998, p. 75.
80.Jump up ^ Rye, Graham. "007 Magazine readers vote On Her Majesty's Secret Service as greatest ever Bond film!". 007 Magazine. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
Bibliography[edit]
Barnes, Alan; Hearn, Marcus (1997). Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: the Unofficial James Bond Film Companion. Batsford Books. ISBN 978-0-7134-8182-2.
Barnes, Alan; Hearn, Marcus (2001). Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: the Unofficial James Bond Film Companion. Batsford Books. ISBN 978-0-7134-8182-2.
Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 1-85283-234-7.
Berardinelli, James (2003). ReelViews: the Ultimate Guide to the Best 1,000 Modern Movies on DVD and Video. Justin, Charles & Co. ISBN 978-1-932112-06-1.
Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: from Fleming's Novel to the Big Screen. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9.
Block, Alex Ben; Autrey Wilson, Lucy (2010). George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-177889-6.
Bray, Christopher (2010). Sean Connery; The Measure of a Man. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-23807-1.
Broccoli, Albert R (1998). When the Snow Melts. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7522-1162-6.
Chapman, James (1999). Licence to Thrill. London/New York City: Cinema and Society. ISBN 1-86064-387-6.
Cork, John; Stutz, Collin (2007). James Bond Encyclopedia. London: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 978-1-4053-3427-3.
Dimare, Philip C. (2011). Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-296-8.
Fairbanks, Brian W. (2005). Brian W. Fairbanks – Writings. Raleigh: Lulu. ISBN 978-1-4116-2432-0.
Fiegel, Eddi (2001). John Barry: A Sixties Theme: From James Bond to Midnight Cowboy. Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7522-2033-8.
Gresh, Lois H. (2006). The Science of James Bond: From Bullets to Bowler Hats to Boat Jumps, the Real Technology Behind 007's Fabulous Films. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-66195-3.
Knight, Gladys L. (2010). Female Action Heroes: A Guide to Women in Comics, Video Games, Film, and Television. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-37612-2.
Macintyre, Ben (2008). For Yours Eyes Only. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7475-9527-4.
Maltin, Leonard (1999). Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 2000. New York: New American Library. ISBN 978-0-452-28123-3.
Peary, Danny (1988). Cult Movies Three. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-671-64810-7.
Pfeiffer, Lee; Worrall, Dave (1998). The Essential Bond. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7522-2477-0.
Smith, Jim (2002). Bond Films. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-7535-0709-4.
White, Rosie R (2007). Violent Femmes: Women as Spies in Popular Culture. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-37078-3.
External links[edit]
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Diamonds Are Forever (film)
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Diamonds Are Forever
Diamonds Are Forever - UK cinema poster.jpg
British cinema poster for Diamonds Are Forever, designed by Robert McGinnis

Directed by
Guy Hamilton
Produced by
Harry Saltzman
Albert R. Broccoli
Screenplay by
Richard Maibaum
Tom Mankiewicz
Based on
Diamonds Are Forever
 by Ian Fleming
Starring
Sean Connery
Jill St. John
Charles Gray
Lana Wood
Bernard Lee
Music by
John Barry
Cinematography
Ted Moore
Edited by
Bert Bates
John Holmes
Production
   company
Eon Productions
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
14 December 1971 (West Germany)
30 December 1971 (UK, premiere)

Running time
120 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
$7.2 million
Box office
$116 million
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) is the seventh spy film in the James Bond series by Eon Productions, and the sixth and final Eon film to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond.
The film is based on Ian Fleming's 1956 novel of the same name, and is the second of four James Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton. The story has Bond impersonating a diamond smuggler to infiltrate a smuggling ring, and soon uncovering a plot by his old nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld to use the diamonds to build a giant laser. Bond has to battle his nemesis for one last time, in order to stop the smuggling and stall Blofeld's plan of destroying Washington DC, and extorting the world with nuclear supremacy.
After George Lazenby left the series, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli tested other actors, but studio United Artists wanted Sean Connery back, paying a then-record $1.25 million salary for him to return. The producers were inspired by Goldfinger, eventually hiring that film's director, Guy Hamilton. Locations included Las Vegas, California, Amsterdam and Lufthansa's hangar in Germany. Diamonds Are Forever was a commercial success, but received criticism for its humorous camp tone.



Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Writing
3.2 Casting
3.3 Filming
3.4 Music
4 Release and reception
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links

Plot[edit]
James Bond—agent 007—pursues Ernst Stavro Blofeld and eventually finds him at a facility where Blofeld look-alikes are being created through surgery. Bond kills a test subject, and later the "real" Blofeld, by drowning him in a pool of superheated mud.
While assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd systematically kill several diamond smugglers, M suspects that South African diamonds are being stockpiled to depress prices by dumping, and orders Bond to uncover the smuggling ring. Disguised as professional smuggler and assassin Peter Franks, Bond travels to Amsterdam to meet contact Tiffany Case. The real Franks shows up on the way, but Bond intercepts and kills him, then switches IDs to make it seem like Franks is Bond. Case and Bond then go to Los Angeles, smuggling the diamonds inside Franks' corpse.
At the airport Bond meets his CIA ally Felix Leiter, then travels to Las Vegas. At a funeral home, Franks' body is cremated and the diamonds are passed on to another smuggler, Shady Tree. Bond is nearly killed by Wint and Kidd when they put him in a cremation oven, but Tree stops the process when he discovers that the diamonds in Franks' body were fakes, planted by Bond and the CIA.
Bond tells Leiter to ship the real diamonds. Bond then goes to the Whyte House, a casino-hotel owned by the reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte in Las Vegas, where Tree works as a stand-up comedian. Bond discovers there that Tree has been killed by Wint and Kidd, who did not know that the diamonds were fake.
At the craps table Bond meets the opportunistic Plenty O'Toole, and after gambling, brings her to his room. Gang members ambush them, throwing O'Toole out the window and into the pool. Bond spends the rest of the night with Tiffany Case, instructing her to retrieve the diamonds at the Circus Circus casino.
Tiffany reneges on her deal and flees, passing off the diamonds to the next smuggler. However, seeing that O'Toole was killed after being mistaken for her, Tiffany changes her mind. She drives Bond to the airport, where the diamonds are given to Bert Saxby, who is followed to a remote facility. Bond enters the apparent destination of the diamonds: a research laboratory owned by Whyte, where a satellite is being built by Professor Metz, a laser refraction specialist. When Bond's cover is blown, he escapes by stealing a moon buggy and reunites with Tiffany.
Bond scales the walls to the Whyte House's top floor to confront Whyte. He is instead met by two identical Blofelds, who use an electronic device to sound like Whyte. Bond kills one of the Blofelds, which turns out to be a look-alike. He is then knocked out by gas, picked up by Wint and Kidd and taken out to Las Vegas Valley, where he is placed in a pipeline and left to die.
Bond escapes, then calls Blofeld posing as Saxby. He finds out Whyte's location and rescues him. In the meantime, Blofeld abducts Case. With the help of Whyte, Bond raids the lab and uncovers Blofeld's plot to create a laser satellite using the diamonds, which by now is already in orbit. With the satellite, Blofeld destroys nuclear weapons in China, the Soviet Union and the United States, then proposes an international auction for global nuclear supremacy.
Whyte identifies an oil platform off the coast of Baja California as Blofeld's base of operations. After Bond's attempt to change the cassette containing the satellite control codes fails due to a mistake by Tiffany, who had the tape hidden inside her bikini, Leiter and the CIA begin a helicopter attack on the rig.
Blofeld tries to escape on a mini-sub. Bond gains control of the sub's launch crane and crashes the sub into the control room, causing both the satellite control and the base to be destroyed. Bond and Tiffany then head for Britain on a cruise ship, where Wint and Kidd pose as room-service stewards and attempt to kill them with a hidden bomb. Bond kills them instead.
Cast[edit]
Sean Connery as James Bond: MI6 agent 007.
Jill St. John as Tiffany Case: A diamond smuggler.
Charles Gray as Ernst Stavro Blofeld: The megalomaniac head of SPECTRE. (Gray had previously appeared in the Bond film series when he played Dikko Henderson in 1967's You Only Live Twice).
Jimmy Dean as Willard Whyte: An entrepreneur, based on Howard Hughes.
Bruce Glover as Mr. Wint and Putter Smith as Mr. Kidd: Blofeld's henchmen.
Norman Burton as Felix Leiter: CIA agent and Bond's ally in tracking Blofeld.
Joseph Furst as Professor Doctor Metz: A brilliant scientist and world's leading expert on laser refraction.
Lana Wood as Plenty O'Toole: A beauty Bond meets who comes to an unhappy ending.
Bruce Cabot as Bert Saxby: Whyte's casino manager in cahoots with Blofeld.
Bernard Lee as M: The head of MI6.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
Desmond Llewelyn as Q: Head of MI6's technical department.
Joe Robinson as Peter Franks: Diamond smuggler whose identity is taken by Bond.
Marc Lawrence as Rodney
Sid Haig as Slumber Inc. attendant
Leonard Barr as Shady Tree: A stand-up comedian and smuggler.
Laurence Naismith as Sir Donald Munger: Diamond expert who brings the case to MI6.
David Bauer as Morton Slumber: President of Slumber Incorporated, a funeral home.
Ed Bishop as Klaus Hergerscheimer: Health physicist for WW Techtronics.
David de Keyser as Doctor
Lola Larson and Trina Parks as Bambi and Thumper
Production[edit]
The producers originally intended to have Diamonds Are Forever re-create commercially successful aspects of Goldfinger, including hiring its director, Guy Hamilton.[1] Peter R. Hunt, who had directed On Her Majesty's Secret Service and worked in all previous Bond films as editor, was invited before Hamilton, but due to involvement with another project could only work in the film if the production date was postponed, which the producers declined to do.[2]
Writing[edit]
This was the last Bond movie by Eon to use SPECTRE, which is not mentioned by name in the film, or Blofeld – elements that had not been featured in Ian Fleming's book, the content of which was largely eschewed in the adaptation. After this, writer Kevin McClory's legal claim against the Fleming estate that he, and not Ian Fleming, had created the organisation for the novel Thunderball was upheld by the courts. Blofeld is seen but not identified later in For Your Eyes Only (1981), as Eon's arrangements with the Fleming estate did not permit them to use McClory's works.
The original plot had as a villain Auric Goldfinger's twin, seeking revenge for the death of his brother. The plot was later changed after Albert R. Broccoli had a dream, where his close friend Howard Hughes was replaced by an imposter. So the character of Willard Whyte was created, and Tom Mankiewicz was chosen to rework the script.[3] Mankiewicz says he was hired because Cubby Broccoli wanted an American writer to work on the script since so much of it was set in Las Vegas "and the Brits write really lousy American gangsters" - but it had to be someone who also understood the British idiom since it had British characters.[4] David Picker from United Artists had seen the stage musical Georgy! written by Mankiewicz, and recommended him; he who was hired on a two week trial and kept on for the rest of the movie. Mankiewicz later estimated the novel provided around 45 minutes of the film's final running time.[5]
The adaptation eliminated the main villains from the source Ian Fleming novel, mobsters called Jack and Seraffimo Spang, but used the henchmen Shady Tree, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd.[3]
Richard Maibaum's original idea for the ending was a giant boat chase across Lake Mead with Blofeld being pursued by Bond and all the Las Vegas casino owners who would be sailing in their private yachts. Bond would rouse the allies into action with a spoof of Lord Nelson's famous cry, "Las Vegas expects every man to do his duty." Maibaum was misinformed; there were no Roman galleys or Chinese junks in Las Vegas, and the idea was too expensive to replicate, so it was dropped.[6]
Maibaum may have thought the eventual oil rig finale a poor substitute, but it was originally intended to be much more spectacular. Armed frogmen would jump from the helicopters into the sea and attach limpet mines to the rig's legs (this explains why frogmen appear on the movie's poster). Blofeld would have escaped in his BathoSub and Bond would have pursued him hanging from a weather balloon.[7] The chase would have then continued across a salt mine with the two mortal enemies scrambling over the pure white hills of salt before Blofeld would fall to his death in a salt granulator. Permission was not granted by the owners of the salt mine. It also made the sequence too long. Further problems followed when the explosives set up for the finale were set off too early; fortunately, a handful of cameras were ready and able to capture the footage.[6]
Casting[edit]
George Lazenby originally was offered a contract for seven Bond films, but declined and left after just one, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, on the advice of his agent.[8] Producers contemplated replacing him with John Gavin (though Batman star Adam West was also considered),[1] as well as Michael Gambon, who rejected the offer telling Broccoli that he was "in terrible shape."[9] United Artists' chief David Picker was unhappy with this decision and made it clear that Connery was to be enticed back to the role and that money was no object. When approached about resuming the role of Bond, Connery demanded the fee of £1.25 million (£23 million in 2014 pounds[10]) and to entice the actor to play Bond one more time United Artists offered to back two films of his choice.[11] After both sides agreed to the deal, Connery used the fee to establish the Scottish International Education Trust, where Scottish artists could apply for funding without having to leave their country to pursue their careers. Since John Gavin was no longer in the running for the role, his contract was paid in full by United Artists. The first film made under Connery's deal was The Offence directed by his friend Sidney Lumet.[1] The second was to be an adaptation of Macbeth by William Shakespeare using only Scottish actors and in which Connery himself would play the title role. This project was abandoned because another production of Macbeth (the Roman Polanski version) was already in production.
Charles Gray was cast as villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, after playing a Bond ally named Dikko Henderson in You Only Live Twice (1967).[1] David Bauer, who plays Morton Slumber, previously appeared uncredited as an American diplomat also in You Only Live Twice.
Jazz musician Putter Smith was invited by Harry Saltzman to play Mr. Kidd after a Thelonious Monk Band show. Musician Paul Williams was originally cast as Mr. Wint. But when he couldn't agree with the producers on compensation, Bruce Glover replaced him. Glover said he was surprised at being chosen, because at first producers said he was too normal and that they wanted a deformed, Peter Lorre-like actor.[1]
Film star Bruce Cabot, who played the part of Bert Saxby, died the following year and this turned out to be his final film role. Jimmy Dean was cast as Willard Whyte after Saltzman saw a presentation of him. Dean was very worried about playing a Howard Hughes pastiche, because he was an employee of Hughes at the Desert Inn.[1]
Actresses considered for the role of Tiffany Case included: Raquel Welch, Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway. Jill St. John had originally been offered the part of Plenty O'Toole but landed the female lead after Sidney Korshak who assisted the producers in filming in Las Vegas locations recommented his client St. John[12] who became the first American Bond girl.[13] Lana Wood was cast as Plenty O'Toole following a suggestion of screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz.[1] The woman in the bikini named "Marie", who in the beginning of the film is convinced by Bond to give up the location of Blofeld, was Denise Perrier, Miss World 1953.[3]
Filming[edit]



 Sean Connery during the filming in Amsterdam, 31 July 1971.
Filming began on 5 April 1971, with the South African scenes actually shot in the desert near Las Vegas, and finished on 13 August 1971.[1] The film was shot primarily in the US, with locations including the Los Angeles International Airport,[14] Universal City Studios and eight hotels of Las Vegas.[15] Besides the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, other places in England were Dover and Southampton. The climactic oil rig sequence was shot off the shore of Oceanside, California. Other filming locations included Cap D'Antibes in France for the opening scenes, Amsterdam and Lufthansa's hangar at Frankfurt Airport, Germany.[16]
Filming in Las Vegas took place mostly in hotels owned by Howard Hughes, since he was a friend of Cubby Broccoli.[13] Getting the streets empty in order to shoot was achieved through the collaboration of Hughes, the Las Vegas police and shopkeepers association.[6] The Las Vegas Hilton doubled for the Whyte House, and since the owner of the Circus Circus was a Bond fan, he allowed the Circus to be used on film and even made a cameo.[3][6] The cinematographers said filming in Las Vegas at night had an advantage: no additional illumination was required due to the high number of neon lights.[17] Sean Connery made the most of his time on location in Las Vegas. "I didn't get any sleep at all. We shot every night, I caught all the shows and played golf all day. On the weekend I collapsed – boy, did I collapse. Like a skull with legs." He also played the slot machines, and once delayed a scene because he was collecting his winnings.[18]
The site used for the Willard Whyte Space Labs (where Bond gets away in the Moon Buggy) was actually, at that time, a Johns-Manville gypsum plant located just outside of Las Vegas. The home of Kirk Douglas was used for the scene in Tiffany's house, while the Elrod House in Palm Springs, designed by John Lautner, became Willard Whyte's house.[19] The exterior shots of the Slumber mortuary were of a real crematorium on the outskirts of Las Vegas. The interiors were a set constructed at Pinewood Studios, where Ken Adam imitated the real building's lozenge-shaped stained glass window in its nave. During location filming, Adam visited several funeral homes in the Las Vegas area, the inspiration behind the gaudy design of the Slumber mortuary (the use of tasteless Art Deco furniture and Tiffany lamps) came from these experiences.[16] Production wrapped with the crematorium sequence, on 13 August 1971.[3]
Since the car chase in Las Vegas would have many car crashes, the filmmakers had an arrangement with Ford to use their vehicles. Ford's only demand was that Sean Connery had to drive the 1971 Mustang Mach 1 which serves as Tiffany Case's car.[6] The Moon Buggy was inspired by the actual NASA vehicle, but with additions such as flailing arms since the producers didn't find the design "outrageous" enough. Built by custom car fabricator Dean Jeffries on a rear-engined Corvair chassis, it was capable of road speeds. The fibreglass tires had to be replaced during the chase sequence because the heat and irregular desert soil ruined them.[20]
Hamilton had the idea of making a fight scene inside a lift, which was choreographed and done by Sean Connery and stuntman Joe Robinson.[21] The car chase where the red Mustang comes outside of the narrow street on the opposite side in which it was rolled, was filmed over three nights on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. The alleyway car roll sequence is actually filmed in two locations. The entrance was at the car park at Universal Studios and the exit was at Fremont Street, Las Vegas. It eventually inspired a continuity mistake, as the car enters the alley on the right side tires and exits the street driving on the left side.[1][22] While filming the scene of finding Plenty O'Toole drowned in Tiffany's swimming pool, Lana Wood actually had her feet loosely tied to a cement block on the bottom. Film crew members held a rope across the pool for her, with which she could lift her face out of the water to breathe between takes. The pool's sloping bottom made the block slip into deeper water with each take. Eventually, Wood was submerged but was noticed by on-lookers and rescued before actually drowning. Wood, being a certified diver, took some water but remained calm during the ordeal, although she later admitted to a few "very uncomfortable moments and quite some struggling until they pulled me out."[23]
Music[edit]
Main article: Diamonds Are Forever (soundtrack)
"Diamonds Are Forever", the title song, was the second James Bond theme to be performed by Shirley Bassey, after "Goldfinger" in 1964. Producer Harry Saltzman reportedly hated the song, and only the insistence of co-producer Cubby Broccoli kept it in the film. Saltzman's major objection was to the sexual innuendo of the lyrics. Indeed, in an interview for the television programme James Bond's Greatest Hits composer John Barry revealed that he told Bassey to imagine she was singing about a penis. Bassey would later return for a third performance for 1979's Moonraker.
The original soundtrack was once again composed by John Barry, his sixth time composing for a Bond film.
With Connery back in the lead role, the "James Bond Theme" was played by an electric guitar in the somewhat unusual, blued gunbarrel sequence accompanied with prismatic ripples of light, and pre-credits sequence, and in a full orchestral version during a hovercraft sequence in Amsterdam.
Release and reception[edit]
Diamonds are Forever was released on 14 December 1971. It grossed $116 million worldwide,[24] of which $43 million was from the United States.[25]
Reviews were mixed, and the camp tone had a mostly negative reaction. The film currently has a 65% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.[26] Connery was applauded by Kevin A. Ranson of MovieCrypt and Michael A. Smith of Nolan's Pop Culture. Critic Roger Ebert criticised the complexity of the plot and "moments of silliness" such as Bond finding himself driving a moon buggy with antennae revolving and robot arms flapping. He praised the Las Vegas car chase scene, particularly the segment when Bond drives the Mustang on two wheels.[27] Twenty-five years after its release, James Berardinelli criticised the concept of a laser-shooting satellite and the performances of Jill St. John, Norman Burton and Jimmy Dean.[28] Christopher Null called St. John "one of the least effective Bond girls – beautiful, but shrill and helpless".[29] Steve Rhodes said, "looking and acting like a couple of pseudo-country bumpkins, they (Putter Smith and Bruce Glover) seem to have wandered by accident from the adjoining sound stage into the filming of this movie." But he also extolled the car chase as "classic".[30] According to Danny Peary, Diamonds are Forever is "one of the most forgettable movies of the entire Bond series" and that "until Blofeld's reappearance we must watch what is no better than a mundane diamond-smuggling melodrama, without the spectacle we associate with James Bond: the Las Vegas setting isn't exotic enough, there's little humour, assassins Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint are similar to characters you'd find on The Avengers, but not nearly as amusing – and the trouble Bond gets into, even Maxwell Smart could escape."[31] IGN chose it as the third worst James Bond film, behind only The Man with the Golden Gun and Die Another Day.[32] Total Film listed Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, and Bambie and Thumper, as the first and second worst villains in the Bond series (respectively).[33]
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound (Gordon McCallum, John W. Mitchell and Al Overton)[34] but lost to Fiddler on the Roof.[35]
See also[edit]

Portal icon James Bond portal
Outline of James Bond
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i Inside Diamonds Are Forever: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Disc 2 (NTSC, Widescreen, Closed-captioned) (DVD). MGM/UA Home Video. 2000. ASIN: B000LY2L1Q.
2.Jump up ^ Interview with Peter R. Hunt (2). Retrovision. 1997. Archived from the original on 14 February 2009.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c d e John Cork. Commentary track: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Region 4 (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
4.Jump up ^ Mankiewicz & Crane 2012, p. 133.
5.Jump up ^ Mankiewicz & Crane 2012, p. 138.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Guy Hamilton. Commentary track: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Region 4 (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
7.Jump up ^ Oil Rig Attack: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Disc 2 (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
8.Jump up ^ Inside On Her Majesty's Secret Service (DVD). OHMSS Ultimate Edition DVD: MGM Home Entertainment Inc. 2000.
9.Jump up ^ David Walliams takes some acting tips from Michael Gambon, The Sunday Times
10.Jump up ^ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2014), "What Were the British Earnings and Prices Then? (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
11.Jump up ^ Feeney Callan, Michael (2002). Sean Connery. Virgin Books. p. 217. ISBN 1-85227-992-3.
12.Jump up ^ pp. 400–401 Russo, Gus Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 12 December 2008
13.^ Jump up to: a b Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition DVD (Media notes). MGM/UA Home Video. ASIN: B000LY2L1Q.
14.Jump up ^ "Los Angeles". Postcard Destinations. 7 January 2008. 8 minutes in. Voyager Channel.
15.Jump up ^ Exotic Locations: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Disc 2 (PAL) (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment. ASIN: B00004VUHC.
16.^ Jump up to: a b Exotic Locations: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Disc 2 (NTSC, Widescreen, Closed-captioned). ASIN: B000LY2L1Q.
17.Jump up ^ Peter Lamont. Commentary track: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Region 4 (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
18.Jump up ^ "Rare interview with Sean Connery on the set of Diamonds Are Forever in Las Vegas". MI6-HQ.com. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
19.Jump up ^ "Decorating: Diamonds are Forever". HGTV. Archived from the original on 25 June 2010. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
20.Jump up ^ Ken Adam. Commentary track: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Region 4 (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
21.Jump up ^ Double-O Stuntmen. The Man with the Golden Gun Ultimate Edition, Disk 2: MGM Home Entertainment.
22.Jump up ^ "Diamonds Are Forever". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
23.Jump up ^ Lana Wood. Commentary track: Diamonds Are Forever Ultimate Edition, Region 4 (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
24.Jump up ^ "Diamonds Are Forever". TheNumbers. Retrieved 24 December 2007.
25.Jump up ^ "Diamonds Are Forever". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 9 December 2007.
26.Jump up ^ "Diamonds Are Forever". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 3 March 2010.
27.Jump up ^ Roger Ebert (1 December 1971). "Diamond Are Forever review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 24 December 2007.
28.Jump up ^ Berardinelli, James (1996). "Diamonds Are Forever: A film review". Reelviews.net. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
29.Jump up ^ Null, Christopher. "Diamonds are Forever". Filmcritic.com. Archived from the original on 11 February 2010. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
30.Jump up ^ Rhodes, Steve (1998). "Diamonds are Forever". IMDb Reviews. Retrieved 5 February 2008.
31.Jump up ^ Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic (Simon & Schuster, 1986) p.123
32.Jump up ^ "James Bond's Top 20". IGN. 17 November 2006. Retrieved 21 December 2007.
33.Jump up ^ Chris Hicks (13 October 2008). "Bond Month: The crappest Bond villians (sic) of all time". Total Film. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
34.Jump up ^ "The 44th Academy Awards (1972) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
35.Jump up ^ "Academy Awards Database". AMPAS. Retrieved 6 February 2011.
Bibliography[edit]
Mankiewicz, Tom; Crane, Robert (2012). My Life as a Mankiewicz. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-3605-9.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Diamonds Are Forever (film)
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Diamonds Are Forever (film).
Diamonds Are Forever at the Internet Movie Database
Diamonds Are Forever at AllMovie
Diamonds Are Forever at Rotten Tomatoes
Diamonds Are Forever at Box Office Mojo
MGM Official website



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You Only Live Twice (film)
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You Only Live Twice
Poster showing small, open-cockpit helicopters flying in the sky
British cinema poster for You Only Live Twice, designed by Robert McGinnis

Directed by
Lewis Gilbert
Produced by
Albert R. Broccoli
Harry Saltzman
Screenplay by
Roald Dahl
Based on
You Only Live Twice
 by Ian Fleming
Starring
Sean Connery
Mie Hama
Donald Pleasence
Akiko Wakabayashi
Music by
John Barry
Cinematography
Freddie Young
Edited by
Peter R. Hunt
Production
   company
Eon Productions
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
12 June 1967 (London, premiere)
13 June 1967 (United Kingdom)

Running time
117 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
$10.3 million
Box office
$101 million
You Only Live Twice (1967) is the fifth spy film in the James Bond series, and the fifth to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's screenplay was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name. It is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.
In the film, Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet manned spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit. With each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War, Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island in order to find the perpetrators and comes face to face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld who was previously a partially unseen character. SPECTRE is extorting the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be the People's Republic of China, in order to provoke war between the superpowers.[1][2]
During the filming in Japan, it was announced that Sean Connery would retire from the role of Bond. But after a hiatus, he returned in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever and later 1983's non-Eon Bond film Never Say Never Again. You Only Live Twice is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me and the 1979 film Moonraker, both starring Roger Moore.
You Only Live Twice was a great success, receiving positive reviews and grossing over $111 million in worldwide box office. You Only Live Twice has subsequently been parodied, most prominently by the Austin Powers series and its scar-faced, Nehru suit-wearing Dr. Evil.



Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Writing
3.2 Casting
3.3 Filming
3.4 Music
4 Promotion
5 Release and reception
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Plot[edit]
An American spacecraft is hijacked from orbit by another, unidentified spacecraft. The U.S. suspect it to be the Soviets, but the British suspect Japanese involvement since the spacecraft landed in the Sea of Japan. To investigate, MI6 operative James Bond—agent 007—is sent to Tokyo after faking his own death and being buried at sea off HMS Tenby (F65).
Upon his arrival, Bond is contacted by Aki, assistant to the Japanese secret service leader Tiger Tanaka. Aki introduces Bond to local MI6 operative Dikko Henderson. Henderson claims to have critical evidence about the rogue craft but is killed before he can elaborate. Bond chases and kills the assailant, disguises himself and escapes in the getaway car, which takes him to Osato Chemicals. Once there, Bond subdues the driver and breaks into the office safe of president Mr. Osato. After stealing documents, Bond is chased out by armed security, eventually being picked up by Aki, who flees to a secluded subway station. Bond chases her, but falls down a trap door leading to Tanaka's office. The stolen documents are examined and found to include a photograph of the cargo ship Ning-Po with a microdot message saying the tourist who took the photo was killed as a security precaution.
Bond goes to Osato Chemicals to meet Mr. Osato himself, masquerading as a potential new buyer. Osato humours Bond but, after their meeting, orders his secretary, Helga Brandt, to have him killed. Outside the building, assassins open fire on Bond before Aki rescues him. The assassins are disposed of via a helicopter with a magnetic grab. Bond and Aki continue driving to Kobe, where the Ning-Po is docked. Bond and Aki investigate the company's dock facilities and discover that the ship was delivering elements for rocket fuel. After being discovered by more henchmen, they give chase but Bond eludes them until Aki gets away; however, Bond is captured and knocked out. He wakes, tied up in Helga Brandt's cabin on the Ning-Po. She interrogates Bond, who bribes his way out of imprisonment. Brandt then flies Bond to Tokyo, but, en route, she sets off a flare in the plane and bails out. Bond manages to land the crashing plane and escapes.
After finding out where the Ning-Po unloaded, Bond investigates the area by a heavily armed autogyro, Little Nellie, delivered to him by Q. Near a volcano, Bond is attacked by helicopters, which he defeats, confirming his suspicions that the enemy's base is nearby. A Soviet spacecraft is then captured by the unidentified craft, heightening tensions between Russia and the US. After capturing the Soviet spacecraft the ship lands in an elaborate base on the inside of a volcano. It is revealed that the true mastermind behind this is Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE. Blofeld seems to forgive Brandt for her failure to kill Bond, but as she leaves, he activates a collapsing section of walkway under her, dropping her into a pool of piranha. Blofeld demands that Mr. Osato kill Bond.
Bond prepares to conduct a closer investigation of the island by training with Tanaka's ninjas, during which an attempted assassination on Bond kills Aki. Bond is disguised and stages a marriage to Tanaka's student, Kissy Suzuki. Acting on a lead from Suzuki, the pair sets out on reconnaissance to the cave, investigating the cave and the volcano above it. Establishing that the mouth of the volcano is a disguised hatch to a secret rocket base, Bond slips in through the crater door, while Kissy returns to alert Tanaka. Bond locates and frees the captured astronauts and, with their help, steals a spacesuit in attempt to infiltrate the SPECTRE spacecraft "Bird One". Before he can enter the craft, Blofeld notices Bond, and he is detained while Bird One is launched.
Bird One closes in on the American space capsule and US forces prepare to launch a nuclear attack on the USSR. Meanwhile, the Japanese Secret Service ninjas climb the mountain and attempt to enter through the upper hatch, but are spotted by the base's security and fired upon. Bond tricks Blofeld and manages to create a diversion that allows him to open the hatch, letting in the ninjas. During the battle, the control room is evacuated and Osato is killed by Blofeld. Bond escapes and fights his way to the control room via Blofeld's office, where he defeats Blofeld's bodyguard, Hans, dropping him into the pool of piranha. Bond activates the spacecraft's self-destruct before it reaches the American craft and the Americans stand down their weapons.
Blofeld activates the base's self-destruct system and escapes. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas escape through the cave tunnel before it explodes, and are rescued by submarine.
Cast[edit]

Large, underground missile silo with a missile pointing out the hole toward the sky next to a support structure. Five characters stand in the foreground.

 The sets of Blofeld's hideout at Pinewood Studios. From left, Lois Maxwell, Akiko Wakabayashi, Sean Connery, Karin Dor and Mie Hama examine the set during a break in filming.Sean Connery as James Bond: An MI6 agent.
Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki: An agent with the Japanese SIS who assists Bond.
Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki: An Ama diving girl who replaces Aki after her death.
Donald Pleasence as Ernst Stavro Blofeld: Main antagonist. A megalomaniac and the head of SPECTRE. He plans to ignite a global nuclear war.
Tetsurō Tamba as Tiger Tanaka: Head of Japanese secret service.
Tsai Chin as Ling: Undercover MI6 agent in Hong Kong.[3]
Teru Shimada as Mr. Osato: A Japanese industrialist secretly affiliated to SPECTRE.
Karin Dor as Helga Brandt: Osato's secretary and a SPECTRE assassin.
Bernard Lee as M: The head of MI6.
Charles Gray as Dikko Henderson: British contact living in Japan.
Burt Kwouk as Spectre 3: one of Blofeld's henchmen.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
Desmond Llewelyn as Q: Head of MI6 technical department.
Ronald Rich as Hans: Blofeld's personal bodyguard.
Production[edit]

A roadster with headlights retracted and a smooth, moulded design.

Aki's Toyota 2000GT Open-Top was ranked as the seventh best car in the James Bond series by Complex in 2011.[4]
On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the intended next film, but the producers decided to adapt You Only Live Twice instead because OHMSS would require searching for high and snowy locations.[5] Lewis Gilbert originally declined the offer to direct, but accepted after producer Albert R. Broccoli called him saying: "You can't give up this job. It's the largest audience in the world." Peter R. Hunt, who edited the first five Bond films, believed that Gilbert had been contracted by the producers for other work but they found they had to use him.[6]
Gilbert, producers Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, production designer Ken Adam and director of photography Freddie Young then went to Japan, spending three weeks searching for locations. SPECTRE’s shore fortress headquarters was changed to an extinct volcano after the team learned that the Japanese do not build castles by the sea. The group was due to return to the UK on a BOAC Boeing 707 flight (BOAC Flight 911) on 5 March 1966, but cancelled after being told they had a chance to watch a ninja demonstration.[5] That flight crashed 25 minutes after takeoff, killing all on board.[7] In Tokyo, the crew also found Hunt, who decided to go on holiday after having his request to direct declined. Hunt was invited to direct the second unit for You Only Live Twice and accepted the job.[8]
Unlike most James Bond films featuring various locations around the world, almost the entire film is set in one country and several minutes are devoted to an elaborate Japanese wedding. This is in keeping with Fleming's original novel, which also devoted a number of pages to the discussion of Japanese culture. Toho Studios provided soundstages, personnel, and the female Japanese stars to the producers.[9]
Writing[edit]
The producers had Harold Jack Bloom come to Japan with them to write a screenplay. Bloom's work was ultimately rejected, but since several of his ideas were used in the final script, Bloom was given the credit of "Additional Story Material".[10] Among the elements were the opening with Bond's fake death and burial at sea, and the ninja attack.[11] As the screenwriter of the previous Bond films Richard Maibaum was unavailable, Roald Dahl, close friend of Ian Fleming, was chosen to write the adaptation despite having no prior experience writing a screenplay except for the uncompleted The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling.[5]
Dahl said the original novel was "Ian Fleming’s worst book, with no plot in it which would even make a movie",[11] and compared it to a travelogue,[12] and said he had to create a new plot "[though] I could retain only four or five of the original story's ideas."[13] On creating the plot, Dahl said he "didn't know what the hell Bond was going to do" despite having to deliver the first draft in six weeks, and decided to do a basic plot similar to Dr. No.[11] Dahl was given a free rein on his script, except for the character of Bond and "the girl formula", involving three women for Bond to seduce: an ally and a henchwoman who both get killed, and the main Bond girl. While the third involved a character from the book, Kissy Suzuki, Dahl had to create Aki and Helga Brandt to fulfil the rest.[14]
Gilbert was mostly collaborative with Dahl's work, as the writer declared: "He not only helped in script conferences, but had some good ideas and then left you alone, and when you produced the finished thing, he shot it. Other directors have such an ego that they want to rewrite it and put their own dialogue in, and it's usually disastrous. What I admired so much about Lewis Gilbert was that he just took the screenplay and shot it. That's the way to direct: You either trust your writer or you don't."[11]
Casting[edit]

Upper body shot of a middle aged man with short, greying hair, moustache and goatee, holding a cat in his arms.

Jan Werich's screentest as Blofeld.
When the time came to begin You Only Live Twice, the producers were faced with the problem of a disenchanted star. Sean Connery had stated that he was tired of playing James Bond and all of the associated commitment (time spent filming and publicising each movie), together with finding it difficult to do other work, which would potentially lead to typecasting.[10][15] Saltzman and Broccoli were able to persuade Connery by increasing his fee for the film, but geared up to look for a replacement.
Jan Werich was originally cast by producer Harry Saltzman to play Blofeld. Upon his arrival at the Pinewood set, both producer Albert R. Broccoli and director Lewis Gilbert felt that he was a poor choice, resembling a "poor, benevolent Santa Claus". Nonetheless, in an attempt to make the casting work, Gilbert continued filming. After several days, both Gilbert and Broccoli determined that Werich was not menacing enough, and recast Blofeld with Donald Pleasence in the role.[5] Pleasence's ideas for Blofeld's appearance included a hump, a limp, a beard, and a lame hand, before he settled on the scar.[16] He found it uncomfortable, though, because of the glue that attached it to his eye.[17]
Many European models were tested for Helga Brandt, with German actress Karin Dor being cast. Dor performed the stunt of diving into a pool to depict Helga's demise herself, without the use of a double.[18] Strangely, for the German version Dor was dubbed by somebody else.[19]
Gilbert had chosen Tetsurō Tamba after working with him in The 7th Dawn. A number of actual martial arts experts were hired as the ninjas. The two Japanese female parts proved difficult to cast, due to most of the actresses tested having limited English. Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama were eventually chosen and started taking English classes in the UK. Hama, initially cast in the role of Tanaka's assistant, had difficulty with the language, so the producers switched her role with Wakabayashi, who had been cast as Kissy, a part with significantly less dialogue. Wakabayashi only requested that her character name, "Suki", be changed to "Aki".[5]
Filming[edit]

Small, one man, open-cockpit helicopter on a lawn about the size of a car next to it, with a man sitting in it.

 The Little Nellie WA-116 autogyro with its creator and pilot, Ken Wallis.


 The scene of the Japanese fishing village.
Filming of You Only Live Twice lasted from July 1966 to March 1967.[20] The film was shot primarily in Japan. Himeji Castle in Hyōgo was depicted as Tanaka's ninja training camp. His private transportation hub was filmed at the Tokyo Metro's Nakano-shimbashi Station. As of 2011, many of the fixtures in the station are unchanged from the time of filming.[21]
The Hotel New Otani Tokyo served as the outside for Osato Chemicals and the hotel's gardens were used for scenes of the ninja training. Bōnotsu in Kagoshima served as the fishing village, the Kobe harbour was used for the dock fight and Mount Shinmoe-dake in Kyūshū was used for the exteriors of SPECTRE's headquarters.[5][22][23] Large crowds were present in Japan to see the shooting. A Japanese fan began following Sean Connery with a camera, and the police were called several times to prevent invasions during shooting.[5][17]
The heavily armed WA-116 autogyro "Little Nellie" was included after Ken Adam heard a radio interview with its inventor, RAF Wing Commander Ken Wallis. Little Nellie was named after music hall star Nellie Wallace, who has a similar surname to its inventor. Wallis piloted his invention, which was equipped with various mock-up armaments by John Stears' special effects team, during production.[20]
"Nellie's" battle with helicopters proved to be difficult to film. The scenes were initially shot in Miyazaki, first with takes of the gyrocopter, with more than 85 take-offs, 5 hours of flight and Wallis nearly crashing onto the camera several times. A scene filming the helicopters from above created a major downdraft and cameraman John Jordan's foot was severed by the craft's rotor. The concluding shots involved explosions, which the Japanese government did not allow in a national park. So, the crew moved to Torremolinos, Spain, which was found to resemble the Japanese landscape.[5]
The sets of SPECTRE's volcano base were constructed at a lot inside Pinewood Studios, with a cost of $1 million and including operative heliport and monorail.[5][22] The 45 m (148 ft) tall set could be seen from 5 kilometres (3 miles) away, and attracted many people from the region.[24] Other locations outside Japan included the ship HMS Tenby in Gibraltar for the sea burial,[25] Hong Kong for the scene where Bond fakes his death, and Norway for the Soviet radar station.[5][23][24]
Sean Connery's then wife Diane Cilento did the swimming scenes for at least five Japanese actresses, including Mie Hama.[5] Martial arts expert Donn F. Draeger provided martial arts training, and also doubled for Connery.[26] Lewis Gilbert's regular editor, Thelma Connell, was originally hired to edit the film. However, after her initial, almost three-hour cut received a terrible response from test audiences, Peter R. Hunt was asked to re-edit the film. Hunt's cut proved a much greater success, and he was awarded the director's chair on the next film as a result.[10]
Music[edit]
Main article: You Only Live Twice (soundtrack)
The soundtrack was the fourth of the series to be composed by John Barry. He tried to incorporate the "elegance of the Oriental sound" with Japanese music-inspired tracks.[27] The theme song, "You Only Live Twice", was composed by Barry and lyricist Leslie Bricusse and sung by Nancy Sinatra. Sinatra was reported to be very nervous while recording – first she wanted to leave the studio; then she claimed to sometimes "sound like Minnie Mouse".[28] Barry declared that the final song uses 25 different takes.[27]
There are two versions of the song "You Only Live Twice", sung by Nancy Sinatra, one directly from the movie soundtrack, and a second one for record release arranged by Billy Strange. The movie soundtrack song is widely recognised for its striking opening bars and oriental flavour, and was far more popular on radio. The record release made No. 44 on the Billboard charts in the USA, No. 11 in UK. Both versions of the title song are available on CD.
In 1992, Acen sampled the title song "You Only Live Twice" for his song "Trip II the Moon Part 2". In 1997, Icelandic singer Björk recorded a cover version. In 1998, Robbie Williams used the distinctive string figure for his song "Millennium", (although it was re-recorded, rather than sampled from the movie for cost reasons).[29] Coldplay covered it when they toured in 2001, and it was covered by Natacha Atlas for her 2005 compilation album The Best of Natacha Atlas. Shirley Bassey, who has three original Bond themes to her credit, has also covered the song.
A different title song was originally recorded by Julie Rogers, but eventually discarded. Only two lines from that version were kept in the final lyrics, and the orchestral part was changed to fit Nancy Sinatra's vocal range. Rogers' version only appeared in a James Bond 30th Anniversary CD, with no singer credit.[30][31][32] In the 1990s, an alternative example of a possible theme song (also called "You Only Live Twice" and sung by Lorraine Chandler) was discovered in the vaults of RCA Records. It became a very popular track with followers of the Northern soul scene (Chandler was well known for her high-quality soul output on RCA) and can be found on several RCA soul compilations.[33]
Promotion[edit]
To promote the film, Eon Productions produced a one hour colour television programme entitled Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond first aired on 2 June 1967 in the United States on NBC.[34] Bond regulars Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn appeared playing respectively "Miss Moneypenny" and "Q". Kate O'Mara appears as Miss Moneypenny's assistant.[35] The programme shows clips from You Only Live Twice and the then four extant Bond films. and contained a storyline of Moneypenny trying to establish the identity of Bond's bride.[36]
Release and reception[edit]
You Only Live Twice premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. It was the first premiere of a James Bond film that Queen Elizabeth II had attended.[37] The film grossed $43 million in the United States and over $111 million worldwide.[38]
Critical response today is mostly positive, with Rotten Tomatoes giving a 72% rating.[39] But most reviews pointed out various flaws in the film. James Berardinelli said that the first half was good, but "during the second half, as the plot escalates beyond the bounds of preposterousness, that the film starts to fragment", criticising Blofeld's appearance and stating "rockets that swallow up spacecraft are a bit too extravagant."[40]
Roger Ebert criticised the focus on gadgets, declaring that the James Bond formula "fails to work its magic".[41] John Brosnan in his book James Bond in the Cinema compared the film to an episode of Thunderbirds with a reliance on gadgetry but admitted it had pace and spectacle. Christopher Null considered the film one of James Bond's most memorable adventures, but the plot "protracting and quite confusing".[42]
Ali Barclay of BBC Films panned Dahl's script displaying "a whole new world of villainy and technology."[43] Leo Goldsmith lauded the volcano base as "the most impressive of Ken Adam's sets for the franchise."[44] Danny Peary wrote that You Only Live Twice "should have been about twenty minutes shorter” and described it as “not a bad Bond film, but it doesn’t compare to its predecessors – the formula had become a little stale.”[45]
IGN ranked You Only Live Twice as the fourth best Bond movie,[46] and Entertainment Weekly as the second best, considering that it "pushes the series to the outer edge of coolness".[47] But Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the fifth worst, criticising the plot, action scenes and little screentime for Blofeld.[48] Literary critic Paul Simpson called the film one of the most colourful of the series and credited the prefecture of Kagoshima for adding "a good flavour" of Japanese influence on the film,[49] but he panned the depiction of Blofeld as a "let-down", "small, bald and a whooping scar."[50] Simon Winder said that the film is "perfect" for parodies of the series.[51]
You Only Live Twice has subsequently been parodied, most prominently by the Austin Powers series and its scar-faced, Nehru suit-wearing Dr. Evil.[10]
See also[edit]

Portal icon James Bond portal
Outline of James Bond
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels to the Big Screen. University of Nebraska Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9.
2.Jump up ^ You Only Live Twice | Britmovie | Home of British Films. Britmovie. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
3.Jump up ^ Black, Jeremy (2005). "The Brosnan films". The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels to the Big Screen. Bison Books. p. 167.
4.Jump up ^ 7. The "Modern" Car — The Complete Guide To James Bond's Cars (Video) | Complex
5.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k Production Staff (2000). Inside You Only Live Twice: An Original Documentary (Television). MGM Home Entertainment Inc.
6.Jump up ^ "Peter Hunt Interview". Commanderbond.net. Archived from the original on 15 April 2012. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
7.Jump up ^ "1966: Passenger jet crashes into Mount Fuji". BBC News. 5 March 1966. Retrieved 17 November 2007.
8.Jump up ^ Peter R. Hunt. On Her Majesty's Secret Service audio commentary. On Her Majesty's Secret Service Ultimate Edition, Disc 1: MGM Home Entertainment.
9.Jump up ^ p.89 Kalat, David A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series 2007 McFarland
10.^ Jump up to: a b c d "You Only Live Twice". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
11.^ Jump up to: a b c d Soter, Tom. Roald Dahl. Starlog, August 1991. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
12.Jump up ^ Cork, John; Scivally, Bruce (2006). James Bond: The Legacy 007. Harry N. Abrams. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-8109-8252-9.
13.Jump up ^ Rubin, Steven Jay (2003). The complete James Bond movie encyclopedia. Contemporary Books. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-07-141246-9.
14.Jump up ^ Dahl, Roald. "007's Oriental Playfuls". Playboy (June 1967): 86–7.
15.Jump up ^ In Praise of George Lazenby – Alternative 007
16.Jump up ^ Ian Nathan (October 2008). "Unseen Bond". Empire. p. 100.
17.^ Jump up to: a b You Only Live Twice Commentary track (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment Inc. 2000.
18.Jump up ^ Karin Dor (2000). You Only Live Twice Commentary track. MGM Home Entertainment Inc.
19.Jump up ^ Deutsche Synchronkartei
20.^ Jump up to: a b You Only Live Twice Ultimate Edition DVD (Media notes). 2006.
21.Jump up ^ "You Only Live Twice Movie Review". A Life at the Movies. 17 January 2011.
22.^ Jump up to: a b On Location With Ken Adam. You Only Live Twice: Ultimate Edition DVD (Disc 2): MGM Home Entertainment.
23.^ Jump up to: a b Exotic Locations. You Only Live Twice: Ultimate Edition DVD (Disc 2): MGM Home Entertainment.
24.^ Jump up to: a b John Cork (2000). You Only Live Twice Commentary track. MGM Home Entertainment Inc.
25.Jump up ^ HMS Tenby Association. Jeffmays.talktalk.net. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
26.Jump up ^ Corcoran, John (1988). Martial Arts: Traditions, History, People. W.H. Smith Publishers Inc.,. p. 320. ISBN 0-8317-5805-8.
27.^ Jump up to: a b John Barry (2000). You Only Live Twice Commentary track (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment Inc.
28.Jump up ^ Nancy Sinatra (2000). You Only Live Twice Commentary track (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment Inc.
29.Jump up ^ "GUY CHAMBERS & STEVE POWER: Recording Robbie Williams' 'Millennium'". Soundonsound.com. Retrieved 2013-04-22.
30.Jump up ^ "You Only Sing Twice". MI6.co.uk. 17 July 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
31.Jump up ^ "Julie Rogers Interview". MI6.co.uk. 27 June 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
32.Jump up ^ "You Only Live Twice soundtrack". The James Bond Dossier. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
33.Jump up ^ "Biography – Lorraine Chandler". Allmusic. Retrieved 2 February 2008.
34.Jump up ^ Saturday Review 50 (14–26): 49. 1967.
35.Jump up ^ "From Kent, With Love". 007 Magazine.
36.Jump up ^ anonymous (2 June 1967). "Sean Connery Stars in 'Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond'". The Milwaukee Sentinel. p. 8.
37.Jump up ^ "Daniel Craig makes his 007 debut at premiere of Casino Royale". Daily Mail. 18 November 2006. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
38.Jump up ^ "You Only Live Twice". The Numbers. Nash Information Service. Retrieved 31 January 2008.
39.Jump up ^ "You Only Live Twice (1967)". rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 17 November 2007.
40.Jump up ^ Berardinelli, James (1996). "You Only Live Twice". Reelviews.net. Retrieved 4 March 2008.
41.Jump up ^ Roger Ebert (19 June 1967). "You Only Live Twice review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 4 March 2008.
42.Jump up ^ Null, Christopher. "You Only Live Twice". Filmcritic.com. Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved 3 March 2008.
43.Jump up ^ "You Only Live Twice (1967)". BBC. Retrieved 7 March 2008.
44.Jump up ^ Goldsmith, Leo. "You Only Live Twice". NotComming.com. Retrieved 7 March 2008.
45.Jump up ^ Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic (Simon & Schuster, 1986) p.482
46.Jump up ^ "James Bond's Top 20". IGN. 17 November 2006. Retrieved 4 March 2008.
47.Jump up ^ Benjamin Svetkey, Joshua Rich (15 November 2006). "Ranking the Bond Films". Retrieved 4 March 2008.
48.Jump up ^ Norman Wilner. "Rating the Spy Game". MSN. Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved 4 March 2008.
49.Jump up ^ Simpson, Paul (2003). The Rough Guide to James Bond. Rough Guides. p. 266. ISBN 1-84353-142-9.
50.Jump up ^ Simpson 71
51.Jump up ^ Winder, Simon (2007). Reprint edition, ed. The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond. Picador. p. 226. ISBN 0-312-42666-6.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: You Only Live Twice (film)
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to You Only Live Twice (film).
You Only Live Twice at the Internet Movie Database
You Only Live Twice at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
You Only Live Twice at AllMovie
You Only Live Twice (film) at the TCM Movie Database
You Only Live Twice at the American Film Institute Catalog
You Only Live Twice at Rotten Tomatoes
You Only Live Twice at Box Office Mojo
MGM's site on the movie
Graham Thomas's definitive list of locations including the journey that Ian Fleming took to research the book



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Thunderball (film)
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Thunderball
Thunderball - UK cinema poster.jpg
British cinema poster for Thunderball, artwork by Robert McGinnis

Directed by
Terence Young
Produced by
Kevin McClory
Screenplay by
Richard Maibaum
John Hopkins
Story by
Kevin McClory
Jack Whittingham
Ian Fleming
(Thunderball)
Based on
an original screenplay
 by Kevin McClory
 Jack Whittingham
 Ian Fleming
Starring
Sean Connery
Claudine Auger
Adolfo Celi
Luciana Paluzzi
Rik Van Nutter
Desmond Llewelyn
Bernard Lee
Music by
John Barry
Cinematography
Ted Moore
Edited by
Peter R. Hunt (supr ed)
 Ernest Hosler
Production
   company
Eon Productions
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
9 December 1965 (Tokyo, premiere)
29 December 1965 (United Kingdom)

Running time
130 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
$9 million
Box office
$141.2 million
Thunderball (1965) is the fourth spy film in the James Bond series starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham. It was directed by Terence Young with screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.
The film follows Bond's mission to find two NATO atomic bombs stolen by SPECTRE, which holds the world ransom for £100 million in diamonds, in exchange for not destroying an unspecified major city in either England or the United States (later revealed to be Miami). The search leads Bond to the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo, the card-playing, eye-patch-wearing SPECTRE Number Two. Backed by CIA agent Felix Leiter and Largo's mistress, Domino Derval, Bond's search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo's henchmen. The film had a complex production, with four different units and about a quarter of the film consisting of underwater scenes.[1]Thunderball was the first Bond film shot in widescreen Panavision and the first to have over a two-hour running time.
Thunderball was associated with a legal dispute in 1961 when former Ian Fleming collaborators Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham sued him shortly after the 1961 publication of the novel, claiming he based it upon the screenplay the trio had earlier written in a failed cinematic translation of James Bond. The lawsuit was settled out of court and Bond film series producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, fearing a rival McClory film, allowed him to retain certain screen rights to the novel's story, plot and characters,[2] and for McClory to receive sole producer credit on this film.
The film was a success, earning a total of $141.2 million worldwide, exceeding the earnings of the three previous Bond films. In 1966, John Stears won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects[3] and production designer Ken Adam was also nominated for a BAFTA award.[4] Thunderball was the most financially successful film of the series after adjusting for inflation. Some critics and viewers showered praise on the film and branded it a welcome addition to the series, while others complained of the repetitively monotonous aquatic action and prolonged length. In 1983, Warner Bros. released a second film adaptation of the novel under the title Never Say Never Again, with McClory as executive producer.



Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Legal disputes
3.2 Casting
3.3 Filming
3.4 Effects
3.5 Music
4 Release and reception 4.1 Contemporary reviews
4.2 Reflective reviews
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links

Plot[edit]
James Bond—MI6 agent 007 and sometimes simply "007"—attends the funeral of Colonel Jacques Bouvar, a SPECTRE operative (Number 6).[5] Bouvar is alive and disguised as his own widow, but Bond identifies him. Following him to a château, Bond fights and kills him, escaping using a jetpack and his Aston Martin DB5.
Bond is sent by M to a clinic to improve his health. While massaged by physiotherapist Patricia Fearing, he notices Count Lippe, a suspicious man with a criminal tattoo (from a Tong). He searches Lippe's room, but is seen leaving by Lippe's clinic neighbour who is bandaged after plastic surgery. Lippe tries to murder Bond with a spinal traction machine, but is foiled by Fearing, whom Bond then seduces. Bond finds a dead bandaged man, François Derval. Derval was a French NATO pilot deployed to fly aboard an Avro Vulcan loaded with two atomic bombs for a training mission. He had been murdered by Angelo, a SPECTRE henchman surgically altered to match his appearance.
Angelo takes Derval's place on the flight, sabotaging the plane and sinking it near the Bahamas. He is then killed by Emilio Largo (SPECTRE No. 2) for trying to extort more money than offered to him. Largo and his henchmen retrieve the stolen atomic bombs from the seabed. All double-0 agents are called to Whitehall and en route, Lippe chases Bond. Lippe is killed by SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe for failing to foresee Angelo's greed. SPECTRE demands £100 million in white flawless uncut diamonds from NATO in exchange for returning the bombs. If their demands are not met, SPECTRE will destroy a major city in the United States or the United Kingdom. At the meeting, Bond recognises Derval from a photograph. Since Derval's sister, Domino, is in Nassau, Bond asks M to send him there, where he discovers Domino is Largo's mistress.
Bond takes a boat to where Domino is snorkelling. After Bond saves her life, the two have lunch together. Later, Bond goes to a party, where he sees Largo and Domino gambling. Bond enters the game against Largo and wins, and subsequently takes Domino to a dance. Recognising each other as adversaries, Bond and Largo begin a tense cat-and-mouse game of attempting to get the drop on each other while still pretending ignorance of their adversary's true nature.
Bond meets Felix Leiter and Q, and is issued with a collection of gadgets, including an underwater infrared camera, a distress beacon, underwater breathing apparatus, a flare gun and a Geiger counter. Bond attempts to swim underwater beneath Largo's boat, but is nearly killed. Bond's assistant Paula is later abducted by Largo for questioning and kills herself before Bond can rescue her.
Bond is kidnapped by Fiona, but escapes. He is chased through a Junkanoo celebration and enters the Kiss Kiss club. Fiona finds and attempts to kill him, but is shot by her own bodyguard. Bond and Felix search for the Vulcan, finding it underwater. Bond meets Domino scuba-diving and tells her that Largo killed her brother, asking for help finding the bombs. She tells him where to go to replace a henchman on Largo's mission to retrieve them from an underwater bunker. Bond gives her his Geiger counter, asking her to look for them on Largo's ship. She is discovered and captured. Disguised as Largo's henchman, Bond uncovers Largo's plan to destroy Miami Beach.
Bond is discovered, and rescued by Leiter, who orders US Coast Guard sailors to parachute to the area. After an underwater battle, the henchmen surrender. Largo escapes to his ship, the Disco Volante, which has one of the bombs on board. Largo attempts to escape by jettisoning the rear of the ship. The front section, a hydrofoil, escapes. Bond, also aboard, and Largo fight; Largo is about to shoot him when Domino, freed by Largo's nuclear physicist Ladislav Kutze, kills Largo with a harpoon. Bond and Domino jump overboard, the boat runs aground and explodes. A sky hook-equipped U.S. Navy aeroplane rescues them.
Cast[edit]
Sean Connery as James Bond (007): An MI6 agent assigned to retrieve two stolen nuclear weapons.
Adolfo Celi as Emilio Largo (voice dubbed by Robert Rietty):[6] Main antagonist. SPECTRE's Number Two, he creates a scheme to steal two atomic bombs.
Claudine Auger as Dominique "Domino" Derval (voice dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl):[7] Largo's mistress. In early drafts of the screenplay Domino's name was Dominetta Palazzi. When Claudine Auger was cast as Domino the name was changed to Derval to reflect her nationality.[8] The character's wardrobe reflects her name, as she is usually dressed in black and/or white.
Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe: SPECTRE agent, who becomes François Derval's mistress and kills him before being sent to Nassau.
Rik Van Nutter as Felix Leiter: CIA agent who helps Bond.
Bernard Lee as M: The head of MI6.
Guy Doleman as Count Lippe: SPECTRE agent who tries to kill Bond in the health clinic.
Martine Beswick as Paula Caplan: Bond's ally in Nassau who is kidnapped by Vargas and Janni.
Molly Peters as Patricia Fearing: a physiotherapist at the health clinic.[9]
Earl Cameron as Pinder, Bond and Felix Leiter's assistant in The Bahamas.
Paul Stassino as François Derval and Angelo Palazzi: Derval is a NATO pilot, who is also Domino's brother. He is killed by SPECTRE agent Angelo Palazzi, who impersonates him. Palazzi is later killed by Largo.
Desmond Llewelyn as Q: MI6's "quartermaster" who supplies Bond with multi-purpose vehicles and gadgets useful for the latter's missions.
Roland Culver as the Foreign Secretary: British Minister who briefs the "00" agents for Operation Thunderball and has doubts about Bond's efficiency.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary.
Philip Locke as Vargas: Largo's personal assistant and henchman who according to Largo abstains from alcohol, smoking and sexual intercourse emphasising his devotion as a killer. He is killed by Bond with a spear gun on the beach.
George Pravda as Ladislav Kutze: Emilio Largo's chief nuclear physicist who aids his boss with the captured bombs.
Michael Brennan as Janni: One of Largo's thugs who is usually paired with Vargas.
Anthony Dawson as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, voiced by Eric Pohlmann (both un-credited): The head of SPECTRE
Bill Cummings as Quist: Another of Largo's inefficient thugs who, after failing to assassinate 007, is thrown into a shark pool under orders from his boss.
André Maranne, best known for portraying Sergeant François Chevalier in the Pink Panther films, cameos as SPECTRE #10.
Production[edit]
Legal disputes[edit]
Further information: Rights controversy of Thunderball
Originally meant as the first James Bond film, Thunderball was the centre of legal disputes that began in 1961 and ran until 2006.[10] Former Ian Fleming collaborators Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham sued Fleming shortly after the 1961 publication of the Thunderball novel, claiming he based it upon the screenplay the trio had earlier written in a failed cinematic translation of James Bond.[2] The lawsuit was settled out of court; McClory retained certain screen rights to the novel's story, plot, and characters. By then, James Bond was a box office success, and series producers Broccoli and Saltzman feared a rival McClory film beyond their control; they agreed to McClory's producer's credit of a cinematic Thunderball, with them as executive producers.[11]
The sources for Thunderball are controversial among film aficionados. In 1961, Ian Fleming published his novel based upon a television screenplay that he, and others developed into the film screenplay; the efforts were unproductive, and Fleming expanded the script into his ninth James Bond novel. Consequently, one of his collaborators, Kevin McClory, sued him for plagiarism; they settled out of court in 1963.[12]
Later, in 1964, Eon producers Broccoli and Saltzman agreed with McClory to cinematically adapt the novel; it was promoted as "Ian Fleming's Thunderball". Yet, along with the official credits to screenwriters Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, the screenplay is also identified as based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham and as based on the original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming.[11] To date, the novel has twice been adapted cinematically; the 1983 Jack Schwartzman-produced Never Say Never Again, features Sean Connery as James Bond, but is not an Eon production.
Casting[edit]
Broccoli's original choice for the role of Domino Derval was Julie Christie following her performance in Billy Liar in 1963. Upon meeting her personally, however, he was disappointed and turned his attentions towards Raquel Welch after seeing her on the cover of the October 1964 issue of Life magazine. Welch, however, was hired by Richard Zanuck of 20th Century Fox to appear in the film Fantastic Voyage the same year instead. Faye Dunaway was also considered for the role and came close to signing for the part.[13] Saltzman and Broccoli auditioned an extensive list of relatively unknown European actresses and models including former Miss Italy Maria Grazia Buccella, Yvonne Monlaur of the Hammer horror films and Gloria Paul. Eventually former Miss France Claudine Auger was cast, and the script was rewritten to make her character French rather than Italian, although her voice was dubbed. Nevertheless, director Young would cast her once again in his next film, Triple Cross (1966). One of the actresses that tried for Domino, Luciana Paluzzi, later accepted the role as the redheaded femme fatale assassin Fiona Kelly who originally was intended by Maibaum to be Irish. The surname was changed to Volpe in coordination with Paluzzi's nationality.[13]
Filming[edit]
Guy Hamilton was invited to direct, but considered himself worn out and "creatively drained" after the production of Goldfinger.[1] Terence Young, director of the first two Bond films, returned to the series. Coincidentally, when Saltzman invited him to direct Dr. No, Young expressed interest in directing adaptations of Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball. Years later, Young said Thunderball was filmed "at the right time",[14] considering that if it was the first film in the series, the low budget (Dr. No cost only $1 million) would not have yielded good results.[14] Thunderball was the final James Bond film directed by Young.
Filming commenced on 16 February 1965, with principal photography of the opening scene in Paris. Filming then moved to the Château d'Anet, near Dreux, France for the fight in pre-credit sequence. Much of the film was shot in the Bahamas; Thunderball is widely known for its extensive underwater action scenes which are played out through much of the latter half of the film. The rest of the film was shot at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, Silverstone racing circuit for the chase involving Count Lippe, Fiona Volpe and James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 before moving to Nassau, and Paradise Island in The Bahamas (where most of the footage was shot), and Miami.[15] Huntington Hartford gave permission to shoot footage on his Paradise Island and is thanked at the end of the film.



 The home used as Largo's estate in the film
On arriving in Nassau McClory searched for possible locations to shoot many of the key sequences of the film and used the home of a local millionaire couple, the Sullivans, for Largo's estate.[16] Part of the SPECTRE underwater assault was also shot on the coastal grounds of another millionaire's home on the island. The most difficult sequences to film were the underwater action scenes; the first to be shot underwater was at a depth of 50 feet to shoot the scene where SPECTRE divers remove the atomic bombs from the sunken Vulcan bomber. Peter Lamont had previously visited a Royal Air Force bomber station carrying a concealed camera which he used to get close-up shots of secret missiles (those appearing in the film were not actually present).[1] Most of the underwater scenes had to be done at lower tides due to the sharks in the Bahamian sea.[17]
Connery's life was in danger in the sequence with the sharks in Largo's pool, which he had been in fear of when he read the script. He insisted that Ken Adam build a special Plexiglas partition inside the pool, but, despite this, it was not a fixed structure and one of the sharks managed to pass through it. Connery had to abandon the pool immediately, seconds away from attack.[15] Another dangerous situation occurred when special effects coordinator John Stears brought in a supposed dead shark carcass to be towed around the pool. The shark, however, was not dead and revived at one point. Due to the dangers on the set, stuntman Bill Cummings demanded an extra fee £250 to double for Largo's sidekick Quist as he was dropped into the pool of sharks.[13]
The climactic underwater battle was shot at Clifton Pier and was choreographed by Hollywood expert Ricou Browning, who had worked on many films previously such as Creature From the Black Lagoon in 1954. He was responsible for the staging of the cave sequence and the battle scenes beneath the Disco Volante and called in his specialist team of divers who posed as those engaged in the onslaught. Voit provided much of the underwater gear in exchange for product placement and film tie-in merchandise. Lamar Boren, an underwater photographer, was brought in to shoot all of the sequences. United States Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Russhon, who had already helped alliance Eon productions with the local authorities in Turkey for From Russia With Love (1963) and at Fort Knox for Goldfinger (1964), stood by and was able to supply the experimental rocket fuel used to destroy the Disco Volante. Russhon, using his position, was also able to gain access to the United States Navy's Fulton surface-to-air recovery system, used to lift Bond and Domino from the water at the end of the film.[13] Filming ceased in May 1965 and the final scene shot was the physical fight on the bridge of the Disco Volante.[1]
While in Nassau, during the final shooting days, special effects supervisor John Stears was supplied experimental rocket fuel to use in exploding Largo's yacht, the Disco Volante. Ignoring the true power of the volatile liquid, Stears doused the entire yacht with it, took cover, and then detonated the boat. The resultant massive explosion shattered windows along Bay Street in Nassau roughly 30 miles away.[1] Stears went on to win an Academy Award for his work on Thunderball.
As the filming neared its conclusion, Connery had become increasingly agitated with press intrusion and was distracted with difficulties in his marriage of 32 months to actress Diane Cilento. Connery refused to speak to journalists and photographers who followed him in Nassau stating his frustration with the harassment that came with the role; "I find that fame tends to turn one from an actor and a human being into a piece of merchandise, a public institution. Well, I don't intend to undergo that metamorphosis."[18] In the end he gave only a single interview, to Playboy, as filming was wrapped up, and even turned down a substantial fee to appear in a promotional TV special made by Wolper Productions for NBC The Incredible World of James Bond.[13] According to editor Peter R. Hunt, Thunderball's release was delayed for three months, from September until December 1965, after he met Arnold Picker of United Artists, and convinced him it would be impossible to edit the film to a high enough standard without the extra time.[19]
Effects[edit]
Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles and List of James Bond gadgets
Thanks to special-effects man John Stears Thunderball's pre-title teaser, the Aston Martin DB5 (introduced in Goldfinger), reappears armed with rear-firing water cannon, seeming noticeably weathered – just dust and dirt, raised moments earlier by Bond's landing with the Bell Rocket Belt (developed by Bell Aircraft Corporation). The rocket belt Bond uses to escape the château actually worked, and was used many times, before and after, for entertainment, most notably at Super Bowl I and at scheduled performances at the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair.[20]
Bond receives a spear gun-armed underwater jet pack scuba (allowing the frogman to manoeuvre faster than other frogmen). Designed by Jordan Klein, green dye was meant to be used by Bond as a smoke screen to escape pursuers.[21] Instead Ricou Browning, the film's underwater director, used it to make Bond's arrival more dramatic.[22]
The sky hook, used to rescue Bond at the end of the film, was a rescue system used by the United States military at the time. At Thunderball's release, there was confusion as to whether a rebreather such as the one that appears in the film existed; most Bond gadgets, while implausible, often are based upon real technology. In the real world, a rebreather could not be so small, as it has no room for the breathing bag, while the alternative open-circuit scuba releases exhalation bubbles, which the film device does not. It was made with two CO2 bottles glued together and painted, with a small mouthpiece attached.[22] For this reason, when the Royal Corps of Engineers asked Peter Lamont how long a man could use the device underwater, the answer was "As long as you can hold your breath."[23]
Maurice Binder was hired to design the title sequence, and was involved in a dispute with Eon Production to have his name credited in the film. As Thunderball was the first James Bond film shot in Panavision, Binder had to reshoot the iconic gun barrel scene which permitted him to not only incorporate pinhole photographic techniques to shoot inside a genuine gun barrel, but also made Connery appearing in the sequence for the first time a reality, as stunt man Bob Simmons had doubled for him in the three previous films. Binder gained access to the tank at Pinewood which he used to film the silhouetted title girls who appeared naked in the opening sequence, which was the first time actual nudity (although concealed) had ever been seen in a Bond film.[13]
On 26 June 2013 Christies auction house sold the Breitling SA Top Time watch worn in the film by Sean Connery for over £100,000; given to Bond by Q, it was also a Geiger counter in the plot.[24]
Music[edit]
See also: Thunderball (soundtrack)
Thunderball was the third James Bond score composed by Barry, after From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. The original title song was entitled "Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", taken from an Italian journalist who in 1962 dubbed agent 007 as Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.[25] The title theme was written by John Barry and Leslie Bricusse; the song was originally recorded by Shirley Bassey, and later rerecorded by Dionne Warwick, whose version was not released until the 1990s. The song was removed from the title credits after producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman were worried that a theme song to a James Bond film would not work well if the song did not have the title of the film in its lyrics.[1] Barry then teamed up with lyricist Don Black and wrote "Thunderball", which was sung by Tom Jones who, according to Bond production legend, fainted in the recording booth when singing the song's final note. Jones said of it, "I closed my eyes and I held the note for so long when I opened my eyes the room was spinning."[26] The song, Maurice Binder's titles, and the lengthy holding of the final note were parodied by Weird Al Yankovic's title sequence for Spy Hard with instrumental backing by Jimmie Haskell.
Country musician Johnny Cash also submitted a song to Eon productions titled "Thunderball", but it went unused.[27]
Release and reception[edit]
The film premiered on 9 December 1965 in Tokyo and opened on 29 December 1965 in the UK. It was a major success at the box office with record-breaking earnings. Variety reported that Thunderball was the No. 1 money maker of 1966 at the North American box office by a large margin, with a net profit of $26,500,000.[28] The second highest money maker of 1966 was Doctor Zhivago at $15,000,000; in third place was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at $10,300,000.[28] It eventually grossed $63.6 million in the United States, equating to roughly 58.1 million admissions.[29] In total, the film has earned $141.2 million worldwide, surpassing the earnings of the three preceding films in the series—easily recouping its $9 million budget—and remained the highest-grossing Bond film until Live and Let Die (1973) assumed the record.[30] After adjusting its earnings to 2011 prices, it has made approximately $1 billion, making it the second most financially successful Bond film after Skyfall.[31]
Thunderball won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects awarded to John Stears in 1966.[3] Ken Adam the production director was also nominated for a Best Production Design BAFTA award.[4] The film won the Golden Screen Award in Germany and the Golden Laurel Action Drama award at the 1966 Laurel Awards. The film was also nominated for an Edgar Best Foreign Film award at the Edgar Allan Poe Awards.[32]
Contemporary reviews[edit]
Upon its release the film received generally positive reviews. Dilys Powell of The Sunday Times remarked after seeing the film that "The cinema was a duller place before 007."[33] David Robinson of The Financial Times criticised the appearance of Connery and his effectiveness to play Bond in the film remarking: "It's not just that Sean Connery looks a lot more haggard and less heroic than he did two or three years ago; but there is much less effort to establish him as connoisseur playboy. Apart from the off-handed order for Beluga, there is little of that comic display of bon viveur-manship that was one of the charms of Connery's almost-a-gentleman 007."[34]
Reflective reviews[edit]
According to Danny Peary, Thunderball "takes forever to get started and has too many long underwater sequences during which it's impossible to tell what's going on. Nevertheless, it's an enjoyable entry in the Bond series. Sean Connery is particularly appealing as Bond – I think he projects more confidence than in other films in the series. Film has no great scene, but it's entertaining as long as the actors stay above water."[35]
Critics such as James Berardinelli praised Connery's performance, the femme fatale character of Fiona Volpe and the underwater action sequences, remarking that they were well choreographed and clearly shot. He criticised the length of the scenes, however, and believed they were too long and in need of editing, particularly during the film's climax.[36] At Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an 85% "fresh" rating.[37]
See also[edit]

Portal icon James Bond portal
Outline of James Bond
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f The Making of Thunderball: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2, Disc 2 (DVD). MGM/UA Home Entertainment. 1995.
2.^ Jump up to: a b "McClory, Sony and Bond: A History Lesson". Universal Exports.net. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "The 1966 Oscar Awards". RopeofSilicon. Retrieved 7 December 2007.
4.^ Jump up to: a b "BAFTA Awards 1965". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Retrieved 16 January 2008.
5.Jump up ^ The name is often mis-spelled: it is spelled Bouvar on Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD Region 2. See Disc One, English subtitles for the film, and Disc Two under "007 Mission Control / Villains / Jacques Bouvar"
6.Jump up ^ Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD (Media notes). 2006.
7.Jump up ^ George A. Rooker. "Film Industry Tricks OR How to fool most of the people most of the time!". Official Nikki van der Zyl website. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
8.Jump up ^ Cork, John. Commentary 1: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2.
9.Jump up ^ Peters, Molly. Commentary 1: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2.
10.Jump up ^ "The Lost Bond". Total Film. 27 February 2008. Retrieved 17 November 2012.
11.^ Jump up to: a b Cork, John. "Inside "Thunderball"". Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Archived from the original on 20 November 2005. Retrieved 15 January 2008.
12.Jump up ^ "The Battle for Bond: Sony vs. MGM". 20 February 1997. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 15 January 2008.
13.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f "Production notes for Thunderball". MI6.co.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2007.
14.^ Jump up to: a b Young, Terence. Commentary 1: Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD Region 4 (DVD). MGM/UA Home Entertainment.
15.^ Jump up to: a b The Thunderball Phenomenon (DVD). Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD, Region 2, Disc 2: MGM/UA Home Entertainment. 1995.
16.Jump up ^ 007 Mission Control: Exotic Locations (DVD). Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD, Region 2,Disc 2: MGM/UA Home Entertainment. 2006.
17.Jump up ^ Commentary 1: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2.
18.Jump up ^ "Interview with Sean Connery". Playboy (HMH Publishing) (November 1965). ISSN 0032-1478. Retrieved 15 January 2008.
19.Jump up ^ Hunt, Peter R.. Commentary 2: Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD Region 2 (DVD). MGM/UA Home Entertainment.
20.Jump up ^ Malow, Brian. "Where the hell is my Jetpack?". Butseriously.com. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
21.Jump up ^ John Cork. Commentary 2: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2 (DVD).
22.^ Jump up to: a b Browning, Ricou. Commentary 1: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2 (DVD).
23.Jump up ^ Lamont, Peter (1995). The Thunderball Phenomenon: Thunderball Ultimate Edition, Region 2, Disc 2 (DVD). MGM/UA Home Entertainment.
24.Jump up ^ "James Bond Watch with Geiger Counter Sells for $160,000". Reuters. 26 June 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
25.Jump up ^ Barnes & Hearn 2003, p. 52.
26.Jump up ^ "Tom Jones's comments on the Thunderball song". Interview with Singer Tom Jones. Retrieved 10 September 2005.
27.Jump up ^ "Bitter Cinema piece on Johnny Cash's Thunderball". Retrieved 6 December 2007.
28.^ Jump up to: a b Steinberg, Cobbett (1980). Film Facts. New York: Facts on File, Inc. p. 23. ISBN 0-87196-313-2. When a film is released late in a calendar year (October to December), its income is reported in the following year's compendium, unless the film made a particularly fast impact. Figures are domestic earnings (United States and Canada) as reported each year in Variety (p. 17).
29.Jump up ^ "Release Information – Thunderball —". Mi6-HQ.com. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
30.Jump up ^ "Box Office History for James Bond Movies". The Numbers. Nash Information Service. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
31.Jump up ^ Guinness World Records 2013, p. 203.
32.Jump up ^ "Awards for Thunderball(1965)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
33.Jump up ^ Powell, Dilys (2 January 1966). "Blood and Thunderball". The Sunday Times. p. 33.
34.Jump up ^ David, Robinson. "Thunderball film review". The Financial Times.
35.Jump up ^ Peary, Danny (1986). Guide for the Film Fanatic (Simon & Schuster) p.435
36.Jump up ^ Berardinelli, James. "Thunderball". ReelViews. Retrieved 6 December 2007.
37.Jump up ^ "Thunderball". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 6 December 2007.
Bibliography[edit]
Casino Royale history for further information on the James Bond legal disputes between Sony and MGM.
Barnes, Alan; Hearn, Marcus (2003). Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: the Unofficial James Bond Film Companion. London: Batsford Books. ISBN 978-0-7134-8645-2.
Chapman, James (1999). Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-387-6.
Guinness World Records 2014. Guinness World Records Ltd. 2013. ISBN 978-1-908843-15-9.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Thunderball (film)
Thunderball at the Internet Movie Database
Thunderball at AllMovie
Thunderball at the TCM Movie Database
Thunderball at Rotten Tomatoes
Thunderball at Box Office Mojo
MGM's official page for Thunderball
Official James Bond website
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/jamesbond/9864054/James-Bond-film-Thunderball-nearly-given-X-rating-by-censors.html



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Goldfinger (film)
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Goldfinger
On a black background, a woman in underwear painted gold stands on the left. An image of Bond and a woman is projected on the right side of the woman's body. On the left is a phrase of the tagline: "James Bond Back in Action". Below is the title and credits.
British cinema poster for Goldfinger, designed by Robert Brownjohn

Directed by
Guy Hamilton
Produced by
Harry Saltzman
Albert R. Broccoli
Screenplay by
Richard Maibaum
Paul Dehn
Based on
Goldfinger
 by Ian Fleming
Starring
Sean Connery
Gert Fröbe
Honor Blackman
Harold Sakata
Bernard Lee

Music by
John Barry
Cinematography
Ted Moore, BSC
Edited by
Peter R. Hunt
Production
   company
Eon Productions
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
17 September 1964 (London, premiere)
18 September 1964 (United Kingdom)

Running time
110 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Budget
$3 million
Box office
$124.9 million
Goldfinger (1964) is the third film in the James Bond series and the third to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The film also stars Honor Blackman as Bond girl Pussy Galore and Gert Fröbe as the title character Auric Goldfinger, along with Shirley Eaton as famous Bond girl Jill Masterson. Goldfinger was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and was the first of four Bond films directed by Guy Hamilton.
The film's plot has Bond investigating gold smuggling by gold magnate Auric Goldfinger and eventually uncovering Goldfinger's plans to attack the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. Goldfinger was the first Bond blockbuster, with a budget equal to that of the two preceding films combined. Principal photography took place from January to July 1964 in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the U.S. states of Kentucky and Florida.
The release of the film led to a number of promotional licensed tie-in items, including a toy Aston Martin DB5 car from Corgi Toys which became the biggest selling toy of 1964. The promotion also included an image of gold-painted Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson on the cover of Life.
Many of the elements introduced in the film appeared in many of the later James Bond films, such as the extensive use of technology and "gadgets" by Bond and an extensive pre-credits sequence that was not a major part of the main storyline. Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award and opened to largely favourable critical reception. The film was a financial success, recouping its budget in just two weeks and is hailed as the series' quintessential episode, still being acclaimed as one of the best films in the entire Bond canon.



Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Writing
3.2 Filming
3.3 Effects
4 Music
5 Release and reception 5.1 Promotion
5.2 Critical response
5.3 Box office
5.4 Awards and nominations
6 Impact and legacy 6.1 Accolades
7 See also
8 References
9 Bibliography
10 External links

Plot[edit]
After destroying a drug laboratory in Latin America, James Bond—agent 007—goes to Miami Beach. There he receives instructions from his superior, M, via CIA agent Felix Leiter to observe bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger, who is staying at the same hotel as Bond. The agent sees Goldfinger cheating at gin rummy and stops him by distracting his employee, Jill Masterson, and blackmailing Goldfinger into losing. Bond and Jill consummate their new relationship; however, Bond is subsequently knocked out by Goldfinger's Korean manservant Oddjob. When Bond regains consciousness, he finds Jill dead, covered in gold paint, having died from "epidermal suffocation".
In London, Bond learns that his objective is determining how Goldfinger smuggles gold internationally. Bond arranges to meet Goldfinger socially and wins a high-stakes golf game against him with a recovered Nazi gold bar at stake. Bond follows him to Switzerland, where Tilly, Jill Masterson's sister, makes an unsuccessful attempt at revenge by firing a sniper rifle at Goldfinger.
Bond sneaks into Goldfinger's plant and discovers that he smuggles the gold by melting it down and incorporating it into the bodywork of his car, which he takes with him whenever he travels. Bond also overhears him talking to a Red Chinese agent named Mr. Ling about "Operation Grand Slam". Leaving, Bond encounters Tilly as she tries to kill Goldfinger again, but trips an alarm in the process; Oddjob kills Tilly with his hat. Bond is captured and Goldfinger ties Bond to a cutting table underneath an industrial laser, which begins to slice a sheet of gold in half, with Bond lying over it. Bond lies to Goldfinger that MI6 knows about Grand Slam, causing Goldfinger to spare Bond's life to mislead MI6 into believing that Bond has things in hand.
Bond is transported by Goldfinger's private jet, flown by his personal pilot, Pussy Galore, to his stud farm near Fort Knox, Kentucky. Bond escapes and witnesses Goldfinger's meeting with U.S. mafiosi, who have brought the materials he needs for Operation Grand Slam. Whilst they are each promised $1 million, Goldfinger tempts them that they "could have the million today, or ten millions tomorrow". They listen to Goldfinger's plan to rob Fort Knox before Goldfinger kills them all using some of the "Delta 9" nerve gas he plans to release over Fort Knox.
Bond is recaptured while eavesdropping and tells Goldfinger the reasons why his stated plan to rob the gold repository won't work. Goldfinger hints he doesn't intend to steal the gold, and Bond deduces that Goldfinger will detonate an atomic device containing cobalt and iodine inside the vault, which would supposedly render the gold useless for 58 years. This will increase the value of Goldfinger's own gold and give the Chinese an advantage from the potential economic chaos. Should the authorities be alerted, he would simply detonate the bomb in a major city or target.
Operation Grand Slam begins with Pussy Galore's Flying Circus spraying the gas over Fort Knox. However, Bond had seduced Galore, convincing her to replace the nerve gas with a harmless sleep agent and alert the U.S. government about Goldfinger's plan. The military personnel of Fort Knox convincingly play dead until they are certain that they can prevent the criminals from escaping the base with the bomb.
Believing the military forces to be neutralised, Goldfinger's private army break into Fort Knox and access the vault itself as he arrives in a helicopter with the atomic device. In the vault, Oddjob handcuffs Bond to the device. The U.S. troops attack; Goldfinger takes off his coat, revealing a U.S. Army colonel's uniform, and kills Mr. Ling and the troops seeking to open the vault, before making good his escape.
Bond extricates himself from the handcuffs, but Oddjob attacks him before he can disarm the bomb. They fight and Bond manages to electrocute Oddjob. Bond forces the lock of the bomb, but is unable to disarm it. An atomic specialist who accompanied Leiter turns off the device with the clock stopped on "0:07".
With Fort Knox safe, Bond is invited to the White House for a meeting with the President. However, Goldfinger has hijacked the plane carrying Bond. In a struggle for Goldfinger's revolver, the gun discharges, shooting out a window, creating an explosive decompression. Goldfinger is blown out of the cabin through the ruptured window. With the plane out of control Bond rescues Galore and they parachute safely from the aircraft before it crashes into the ocean.
Cast[edit]
Sean Connery as James Bond (007): A British MI6 agent who is sent to investigate Auric Goldfinger. Connery reprised the role of Bond for the third time in a row. His salary rose, but a pay dispute later broke out during filming. After he suffered a back injury when filming the scene where Oddjob knocks Bond unconscious in Miami, the dispute was settled: Eon and Connery agreed to a deal where the actor would receive 5% of the gross of each Bond film he starred in. It was while filming Goldfinger that Connery also became a fan of golf.[1]
Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore: Goldfinger's personal pilot and leader of an all-female team of pilots known as Pussy Galore's Flying Circus. Blackman was selected for the role of Pussy Galore because of her role in The Avengers[2] and the script was rewritten to show Blackman's judo abilities.[3] The character's name follows in the tradition of other Bond girls names that are double entendres: concerned about censors, the producers thought about changing the character's name to "Kitty Galore",[4] but they and Hamilton decided "if you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy, you were a dirty little bitch. The American censor was concerned, but we got round that by inviting him and his wife out to dinner and [told him] we were big supporters of the Republican Party."[5] During promotion, Blackman took delight in embarrassing interviewers by repeatedly mentioning the character's name.[6] Whilst the American censors did not interfere with the name in the film, they refused to allow the name "Pussy Galore" to appear on promotional materials and for the U.S. market she was subsequently called "Miss Galore" or "Goldfinger's personal pilot".[7]
Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger: A wealthy, psychopathic[8] man obsessed with gold. Orson Welles was considered as Goldfinger, but his financial demands were too high;[9] Theodore Bikel auditioned for the role, but failed.[10] Fröbe was cast because the producers saw his performance as a child molester in the German film Es geschah am hellichten Tag.[2] Fröbe, who spoke little English, said his lines phonetically, but was too slow. In order to dub him, he had to double the speed of his performance to get the right tempo.[5] The only time his real voice is heard is during his meeting with members of the Mafia at Auric Stud. Bond is hidden below the model of Fort Knox whilst Fröbe's natural voice can be heard above. However, he was dubbed over for the rest of the film by Michael Collins.[2]
Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson: Bond Girl and Goldfinger's aide-de-camp, whom Bond catches helping the villain cheat at a game of cards. He seduces her, but for her betrayal, she is completely painted in gold paint and dies from "skin suffocation" (a fictional condition Ian Fleming created for the novel. The skin does not actually "breathe"). Eaton was sent by her agent to meet Harry Saltzman and agreed to take the part if the nudity was done tastefully. It took an hour-and-a-half to apply the paint to her body.[5] Although only a small part in the film, the image of her painted gold was renowned and Eaton graced the cover of Life magazine of 6 November 1964.[11]
Harold Sakata as Oddjob: Goldfinger's lethal Korean manservant. Director Guy Hamilton cast Sakata, an Olympic silver medallist weightlifter, as Oddjob after seeing him on a wrestling programme.[2] Hamilton called Sakata an "absolutely charming man", and found that "he had a very unique way of moving, [so] in creating Oddjob I used all of Harold's own characteristics".[12] Sakata was badly burned when filming his death scene, in which Oddjob was electrocuted by Bond. Sakata, however, determinedly kept holding onto the hat despite his pain until the director said "Cut!"[1] Oddjob has been described as "a wordless role, but one of cinema's great villains."[13]
Tania Mallet as Tilly Masterson: The sister of Jill Masterson, she is on a vendetta to avenge her sister, but is killed by Oddjob.
Bernard Lee as M: 007's boss and head of the British Secret Service. This was the third of eleven Eon-produced Bond films in which Lee played the role of Admiral Sir Miles Messervy.
Cec Linder as Felix Leiter: Bond's CIA liaison in the United States. Linder was the only actor actually on location in Miami.[14] Linder's interpretation of Leiter was that of a somewhat older man than the way the character was played by Jack Lord in Dr. No; in reality, Linder was a year younger than Lord. According to screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Lord demanded co-star billing, a bigger role and more money to reprise the Felix Leiter role[15] in Goldfinger that led the producers to recast the role. At the last minute, Cec Linder switched roles with Austin Willis who played cards with Goldfinger.[16]
Martin Benson as Mr. Solo: The lone gangster who refuses to take part in Operation Grand Slam and is later killed by Oddjob and crushed in the car which he is riding in.
Desmond Llewelyn as Q: The head of Q-Branch, he supplies 007 with a modified Aston Martin DB5. Hamilton told Llewelyn to inject humour into the character, thus beginning the friendly antagonism between Q and Bond that became a hallmark of the series.[14] Llewelyn played Q in 17 Bond films between 1963 and 1999.[17]
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny: M's secretary. Maxwell played Moneypenny in 14 Eon-produced Bond films from Dr. No in 1962 to A View to a Kill in 1985.
Austin Willis as Mr. Simmons: Goldfinger's gullible gin rummy opponent in Miami.
Michael Mellinger as Kisch: Goldfinger's secondary and quiet henchman and loyal lieutenant who leads his boss's false Army convoy to Fort Knox.
Burt Kwouk as Mr. Ling: A Communist Chinese nuclear fission specialist who provides Auric Goldfinger with the dirty bomb to irradiate the gold inside Fort Knox.
Richard Vernon as Colonel Smithers, the Bank of England official.
Margaret Nolan as Dink, Bond's masseuse from the Miami hotel sequence. Nolan also appeared as the gold-covered body in advertisements for the film[4] and in the opening title sequence as the golden silhouette, described as "Gorgeous, iconic, seminal."[18]
Gerry Duggan as Hawker, Bond's golf caddy.
Production[edit]
With the court case between Kevin McClory and Fleming surrounding Thunderball still in the High Courts, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman turned to Goldfinger as the third Bond film.[19] Goldfinger had what was then considered a large budget of $3 million (US$22,812,232 in 2014 dollars[20]), the equivalent of the budgets of Dr. No and From Russia with Love combined, and was the first James Bond film classified as a box-office blockbuster.[2] Goldfinger was chosen with the American cinema market in mind, as the previous films had concentrated on the Caribbean and Europe.[21]
Terence Young, who directed the previous two films, chose to film The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders instead, after a pay dispute[1] that saw him denied a percentage of the film's profits.[22] Broccoli and Saltzman turned instead to Guy Hamilton to direct; Hamilton, who had turned down directing Dr. No,[23] felt that he needed to make Bond less of a "superman" by making the villains seem more powerful.[24] Hamilton knew Fleming, as both were involved during intelligence matters in the Royal Navy during World War II.[25] Goldfinger saw the return of two crew members who were not involved with From Russia With Love: stunt coordinator Bob Simmons and production designer Ken Adam.[26] Both played crucial roles in the development of Goldfinger, with Simmons choreographing the fight sequence between Bond and Oddjob in the vault of Fort Knox, which was not just seen as one of the best Bond fights, but also "must stand as one of the great cinematic combats"[27] whilst Adam's efforts on Goldfinger were "luxuriantly baroque"[28] and have resulted in the film being called "one of his finest pieces of work."[11]
Writing[edit]
Richard Maibaum, who wrote the previous films, returned to adapt the seventh James Bond novel. Maibaum fixed the novel's heavily criticised plot hole, where Goldfinger actually attempts to empty Fort Knox. In the film, Bond notes it would take twelve days for Goldfinger to steal the gold, before the villain reveals he actually intends to irradiate it with the then topical concept of a Red Chinese atomic bomb.[24] However, Harry Saltzman disliked the first draft, and brought in Paul Dehn to revise it.[24] Hamilton said Dehn "brought out the British side of things".[29] Connery disliked his draft, so Maibaum returned.[24] Dehn also suggested the pre-credit sequence to be an action scene with no relevance to the actual plot.[2] Wolf Mankowitz, an un-credited screenwriter on Dr. No, suggested the scene where Oddjob puts his car into a car crusher to dispose of a dead body.[1] Because of the quality of work of Maibaum and Dehn, the script and outline for Goldfinger became the blueprint for future Bond films.[30]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography on Goldfinger commenced on 20 January 1964 in Miami, Florida, at the Fontainebleau Hotel; the crew was small, consisting only of Hamilton, Broccoli, Adam and cinematographer Ted Moore. Sean Connery never travelled to Florida to film Goldfinger because he was filming Marnie[3] elsewhere in the United States. Miami also served as location to the scenes involving Felix's pursuit of Oddjob.[31] After five days in Florida,[32] production moved to England. The primary location was Pinewood Studios, home to among other sets, a recreation of the Fontainebleau, the South American city of the pre-title sequence and both Goldfinger's estate and factory.[14][2][3] Three places near the studio were used, Black Park for the car chase involving Bond's Aston Martin and Goldfinger's henchmen inside the factory complex, RAF Northolt for the American airports[31] and Stoke Park Club for the golf club scene.[33] The end of the chase, when Bonds Aston Martin crashes into a wall because of the mirror and the chase immediately preceding it, were filmed on the road at the rear of Pinewood Studios Sound Stages A and E and the Prop Store. The road is now called Goldfinger Avenue.[34] Southend Airport was used for the scene where Goldfinger flies to Switzerland.[31] Ian Fleming visited the set of Goldfinger in April 1964; he died a few months later in August 1964, shortly before the film's release.[2] The second unit filmed in Kentucky, and these shots were edited into scenes filmed at Pinewood.[14] Principal photography then moved to Switzerland, with the car chase being filmed at the small curves roads near Realp, the exterior of the Pilatus Aircraft factory in Stans serving as Goldfinger's factory, and Tilly Masterson's attempt to snipe Goldfinger being shot in the Furka Pass.[31] Filming wrapped on 11 July at Andermatt, after nineteen weeks of shooting.[35] Just three weeks prior to the film's release, Hamilton and a small team, which included Broccoli's stepson and future producer Michael G. Wilson as assistant director, went for last minute shoots in Kentucky. Extra people were hired for post-production issues such as dubbing so the film could be finished in time.[3][36]
Broccoli earned permission to film in the Fort Knox area with the help of his friend, Lt. Colonel Charles Russhon.[3][36] To shoot Pussy Galore's Flying Circus gassing the soldiers, the pilots were only allowed to fly above 3000 feet. Hamilton recalled this was "hopeless", so they flew at about 500 feet, "and the military went absolutely ape".[5] The scenes of people fainting involved the same set of soldiers moving to different locations.[36] For security reasons, the filmmakers were not allowed to film inside the United States Bullion Depository, although exterior photography was permitted. All sets for the interiors of the building were designed and built from scratch at Pinewood Studios.[2] The filmmakers had no clue as to what the interior of the depository looked like, so Ken Adam's imagination provided the idea of gold stacked upon gold behind iron bars. Saltzman disliked the design's resemblance to a prison, but Hamilton liked it enough that it was built.[37] The comptroller of Fort Knox later sent a letter to Adam and the production team, complimenting them on their imaginative depiction of the vault.[2] United Artists even had irate letters from people wondering "how could a British film unit be allowed inside Fort Knox?"[37] Adam recalled, "In the end I was pleased that I wasn't allowed into Fort Knox, because it allowed me to do whatever I wanted."[5] Another element which was original was the atomic device, to which Hamilton requested the special effects crew to get inventive instead of realistic.[36] Technician Bert Luxford described the end result as looking like an "engineering work", with a spinning engine, a chronometer and other decorative pieces.[38]
Effects[edit]
See also: List of James Bond vehicles and List of James Bond gadgets

A silver-colour car; the plate reads "JBZ6007".

 Two Aston Martin DB5s were built for production, one of which had no gadgets.
Hamilton remarked, "Before [Goldfinger], gadgets were not really a part of Bond's world." Production designer Ken Adam chose the DB5 because it was the latest version of the Aston Martin (in the novel Bond drove an DB Mk.III),[39] which he considered England's most sophisticated car.[40] The company was initially reluctant, but was finally convinced to make a product placement deal. In the script, the car was armed only with a smoke screen, but every crew member began suggesting gadgets to install in it: Hamilton conceived the revolving license plate because he had been getting lots of parking tickets, while his stepson suggested the ejector seat (which he saw on television).[39] A gadget near the lights that would drop sharp nails was replaced with an oil dispenser because the producers thought the original could be easily copied by viewers.[38] Adam and engineer John Stears overhauled the prototype of the Aston Martin DB5 coupe, installing these and other features into a car over six weeks.[2] The scene where the DB5 crashes was filmed twice, with the second take being used in the film. The first take, in which the car drives through the fake wall,[41] can be seen in the trailer.[3] Two of the gadgets were not installed in the car: the wheel-destroying spikes, inspired by Ben-Hur's scythed chariots, were entirely made in-studio; and the ejector seat used a seat thrown by compressed air, with a dummy sitting atop it.[42] Another car without the gadgets was created, which was eventually furnished for publicity purposes. It was reused for Thunderball.[43]
Lasers did not exist in 1959 when the book was written, nor did high-power industrial lasers at the time the film was made, making them a novelty. In the novel, Goldfinger uses a circular saw to try to kill Bond, but the filmmakers changed it to a laser to make the film feel more fresh.[24] Hamilton immediately thought of giving the laser a place in the film's story as Goldfinger's weapon of choice. Ken Adam was advised on the laser's design by two Harvard scientists who helped design the water reactor in Dr No.[37] The laser beam itself was an optical effect added in post-production. For close-ups where the flame cuts through metal, technician Bert Luxford heated the metal with a blowtorch from underneath the table to which Bond was strapped.[44]
The opening credit sequence was designed by graphic artist Robert Brownjohn, featuring clips of all James Bond films thus far projected on Margaret Nolan's body. Its design was inspired by seeing light projecting on people's bodies as they got up and left a cinema.[45]

A nude woman painted gold lies on a bed. A cushion in the forefront obscures her buttocks.

 Shirley Eaton as the murdered Jill Masterson—"one of the most enduring images in cinematic history."[46]
Visually, the film uses many golden motifs to parallel the gold's symbolic treatment in the novel. All of Goldfinger's female henchwomen in the film except his private jet's co-pilot (black hair) and stewardess (who is Korean) are red-blonde, or blonde, including Pussy Galore and her Flying Circus crew (both the characters Tilly Masterson and Pussy specifically have black hair in the novel). Goldfinger has a yellow-painted Rolls-Royce with number plate "AU 1" ("Au" being the chemical symbol for gold), and also sports yellow or golden items or clothing in every film scene, including a golden pistol, when disguised as a colonel. Bond is bound to a solid gold table (as Goldfinger points out to him) before nearly being lasered. Goldfinger's factory henchmen in the film wear yellow sashes, Pussy Galore at one point wears a metallic gold vest, and Pussy's pilots all wear yellow sunburst insignia on their uniforms.[47] The concept of the recurring gold theme running through the film was a design aspect conceived and executed by Ken Adam and Art Director Peter Murton.[11]
The model jet used for wide shots of Goldfinger's Lockheed JetStar was refurbished to be used as the presidential plane that crashes at the film's end.[48] Several cars were provided by the Ford Motor Company including a Mustang that Tilly Masterson drives,[3] a Ford Country Squire station wagon used to transport Bond from the airport to the stud ranch, a Ford Thunderbird driven by Felix Leiter, and a Lincoln Continental in which Oddjob kills Solo. The Continental had its engine removed before being placed in a car crusher, and the destroyed car had to be partially cut so that the Ford Falcon Ranchero pick-up truck on which it was deposited could support the weight.[49]
Music[edit]
Main article: Goldfinger (soundtrack)
Since the release date for the film had been pre-determined and filming had finished close to that date, John Barry received some edits directly from the cutting room floor, rather than as a finished edit, and scored some sequences from the rough, initial prints.[50] Barry described his work in Goldfinger as a favourite of his, saying it was "the first time I had complete control, writing the score and the song".[51] The musical tracks, in keeping with the film's theme of gold and metal, make heavy use of brass, and also metallic chimes. The film's score is described as "brassy and raunchy" with "a sassy sexiness to it".[27]
Goldfinger is said to have started the tradition of Bond theme songs being from the pop genre or using popular artists,[48] although this had already been done with Matt Monro singing the title song of From Russia with Love. Shirley Bassey sang the theme song "Goldfinger", and she would go on to sing the theme songs for two other Bond films, Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker. The song was composed by John Barry, with lyrics by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse that were described in one contemporary newspaper as "puerile".[52] Newley recorded the early versions, which were even considered for inclusion in the film. The soundtrack album topped the Billboard 200 chart,[53] and reached the 14th place in the UK Albums Chart.[54] The single for "Goldfinger" was also successful, reaching 8th in the Billboard Hot 100[55] and 21st in the UK charts.[56]
Release and reception[edit]
Goldfinger was premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 17 September 1964, with general release in the United Kingdom the following day. Leicester Square was packed with sightseers and fans and police were unable to control the crowd due to the number of people. A set of glass doors to the cinema was accidentally broken and the premiere was shown ten minutes late because of the confusion.[57] The United States premiere occurred on 21 December 1964, at the DeMille Theater in New York City. The film opened in 64 cinemas across 41 cities[4] and eventually peaked at 485 screens.[58] Goldfinger was temporarily banned in Israel because of Gert Fröbe's connections with the Nazi Party. The ban, however, was lifted many years later when a Jewish family publicly thanked Fröbe for protecting them from persecution during World War II.[3]
Promotion[edit]

a silver-coloured toy car showing a plastic man being ejected through the roof.

 1964 Aston Martin DB5, produced by Corgi Toys, as a tie-in to the film
The film's marketing campaign began as soon as filming started in Florida, with Eon allowing photographers to enter the set to take pictures of Shirley Eaton painted in gold. Robert Brownjohn, who designed the opening credits, was responsible for the posters for the advertising campaign, which also used actress Margaret Nolan.[2] To promote the film, the two Aston Martin DB5s were showcased at the 1964 New York World's Fair and it was dubbed "the most famous car in the world";[59] consequently, sales of the car rose.[39] Corgi Toys began its decades-long relationship with the Bond franchise, producing a toy of the car, which became the biggest selling toy of 1964.[6] The film's success also led to licensed tie-in clothing, dress shoes, action figures, board games, jigsaw puzzles, lunch boxes, toys, record albums, trading cards and slot cars.[4]
Critical response[edit]
Goldfinger was generally a critical success. Derek Prouse of The Sunday Times said of Goldfinger that it was "superbly engineered. It is fast, it is most entertainingly preposterous and it is exciting"[60] The reviewer from The Times said "All the devices are infinitely sophisticated, and so is the film: the tradition of self-mockery continues, though at times it over-reaches itself", also saying that "It is the mixture as before, only more so: it is superb hokum."[61] Connery's acting efforts were overlooked by this reviewer, who did say: "There is some excellent bit-part playing by Mr. Bernard Lee and Mr. Harold Sakata: Mr. Gert Fröbe is astonishingly well cast in the difficult part of Goldfinger."[61] Donald Zec, writing for the Daily Mirror said of the film that "Ken Adam's set designs are brilliant; the direction of Guy Hamilton tautly exciting; Connery is better than ever, and the titles superimposed on the gleaming body of the girl in gold are inspired."[62]
Penelope Gilliatt, writing in The Observer said that the film had "a spoofing callousness" and that it was "absurd, funny and vile."[63] The Guardian said that Goldfinger was "two hours of unmissable fantasy", also saying that the film was "the most exciting, the most extravagant of the Bond films: garbage from the gods", adding that Connery was "better than ever as Bond."[64] Writing in The Illustrated London News, Alan Dent thought Goldfinger "...even tenser, louder, wittier, more ingenious and more impossible than 'From Russia with Love'... [a] brilliant farrago", adding that Connery "is ineffable".[65]
Philip Oakes of The Sunday Telegraph said that the film was "dazzling in its technical ingenuity",[66] while Time said that "this picture is a thriller exuberantly travestied."[67] Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Times was less enthusiastic about the film, saying that it was "tediously apparent" that Bond was becoming increasingly reliant on gadgets with less emphasis on "the lush temptations of voluptuous females", although he did admit that "Connery plays the hero with an insultingly cool, commanding air."[68] He saved his praises for other actors in the film, saying that "Gert Fröbe is aptly fat and feral as the villainous financier, and Honor Blackman is forbiddingly frigid and flashy as the latter's aeronautical accomplice."[68]
In Guide for the Film Fanatic, Danny Peary wrote that Goldfinger is "the best of the James Bond films starring Sean Connery...There's lots of humor, gimmicks, excitement, an amusing yet tense golf contest between Bond and Goldfinger, thrilling fights to the death between Bond and Oddjob and Bond and Goldfinger, and a fascinating central crime... Most enjoyable, but too bad Eaton's part isn't longer and that Fröbe's Goldfinger, a heavy but nimble intellectual in the Sydney Greenstreet tradition, never appeared in another Bond film."[69]
Rotten Tomatoes sampled 55 reviews which were mostly published after the film's release and judged 96% of the reviews to be positive,[70] being the third highest score for a James Bond film, behind From Russia with Love (also 96%) and Dr. No (98%).[71]
Box office[edit]
Goldfinger's $3 million budget was recouped in two weeks, and it broke box office records in multiple countries around the world.[4] The Guinness Book of World Records went on to list Goldfinger as the fastest grossing film of all time.[4] Demand for the film was so high that the DeMille cinema in New York City had to stay open twenty-four hours a day.[72] The film closed its original box office run having grossed $23 million in the United States[58] and $46 million worldwide.[73] After reissues, the first being as a double feature with Dr. No in 1966,[74] Goldfinger grossed a total of $51,081,062 in the United States[75] and $73,800,000 elsewhere, for a total worldwide gross of $124,900,000.[76]
The film distributor Park Circus re-released Goldfinger in the UK on 27 July 2007 at 150 multiplex cinemas, on digital prints.[77][78] The re-release put the film twelfth at the weekly box office.[79]
Awards and nominations[edit]
At the 1965 Academy Awards, Norman Wanstall won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing for his work,[80] making Goldfinger the first Bond film to receive an Academy Award.[81] John Barry was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture, and Ken Adam was nominated for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for Best British Art Direction (Colour), where he also won the award for Best British Art Direction (Black and White) for Dr. Strangelove.[82] The American Film Institute has honoured the film four times: ranking it No. 90 for best movie quote ("A martini. Shaken, not stirred"),[83] No. 53 for best song ("Goldfinger"),[84] No. 49 for best villain (Auric Goldfinger),[85] and No. 71 for most thrilling film.[86] In 2006, Entertainment Weekly and IGN both named Goldfinger as the best Bond film,[87][88] while MSN named it as the second best, behind its predecessor.[89] IGN and EW also named Pussy Galore as the second best Bond girl.[90][91] In 2008, Total Film named Goldfinger as the best film in the series.[92] The Times placed Goldfinger and Oddjob second and third on their list of the best Bond villains in 2008.[93] They also named the Aston Martin DB5 as the best car in the films.[94]
Impact and legacy[edit]
Goldfinger had a large impact on the rest of the Bond series as its script came to be seen as a template for all other Bond films to follow.[30] It was the first of the series showing Bond relying heavily on technology,[59] as well as the first to show a pre-credits sequence with only a tangential link to the main story[18]—in this case allowing Bond to get to Miami after a mission. Also introduced for the first of many appearances is the briefing in Q-branch, allowing the viewer to see the gadgets in development.[95] The subsequent films in the Bond series follow most of Goldfinger's basic structure, featuring a henchman with a particular characteristic, a Bond girl who is killed by the villain, big emphasis on the gadgets and a more tongue-in-cheek approach, though trying to balance action and comedy.[96][97][98][99]
“ Goldfinger represents the peak of the series. It is the most perfectly realised of all the films with hardly a wrong step made throughout its length. It moves at a fast and furious pace, but the plot holds together logically enough (more logically than the book) and is a perfect blend of the real and the fantastic. ”
— John Brosnan in James Bond in the Cinema, cited in [100]

Goldfinger has been described as perhaps "the most highly and consistently praised Bond picture of them all"[101] and after Goldfinger, Bond "became a true phenomenon."[6] The success of the film led to the emergence of many other works in the espionage genre and parodies of James Bond, such as The Beatles film Help! in 1965[102] and a spoof of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1967.[103] Indeed it has been said that Goldfinger was the cause of the boom in espionage films in the 1960s,[100] so much so that in "1966, moviegoers were offered no less than 22 examples of secret agent entertainment, including several blatant attempts to begin competing series, with James Coburn starring as Derek Flint in the film Our Man Flint and Dean Martin miscast as Matt Helm".[104]
Even within the Bond canon, Goldfinger is acknowledged; the 22nd Bond film, Quantum of Solace, includes an homage to the gold body paint death scene by having a female character dead on a bed nude, covered in crude oil.[105] Outside the Bond films, elements of Goldfinger, such as Oddjob and his use of his hat as a weapon, Bond removing his drysuit to reveal a tuxedo underneath and the laser scene have been homaged or spoofed in works such as True Lies,[106] The Simpsons,[107] and the Austin Powers series.[108] The U.S. television programme MythBusters explored many scenarios seen in the film, such as the explosive depressurisation in a plane at high altitudes,[109] the death by full body painting,[110] an ejector seat in a car[111] and using a tuxedo under a drysuit.[112]
The success of the film led to Ian Fleming's Bond novels receiving an increase of popularity[4] and nearly 6 million books were sold in the United Kingdom in 1964, including 964,000 copies of Goldfinger alone.[53] Between the years 1962 to 1967 a total of 22,792,000 Bond novels were sold.[113]
Accolades[edit]
American Film Institute lists
AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills — #71
AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains: Auric Goldfinger — #49 Villain
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: "A Martini. Shaken, not stirred." — #90
AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: "Goldfinger" — #53

See also[edit]

Portal icon James Bond portal
Outline of James Bond
References[edit]
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Bibliography[edit]
Balio, Tino (1987). United Artists: the Company that Changed the Film Industry. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-11440-4.
Balio, Tino (2009). United Artists, Volume 2, 1951–1978: the Company that Changed the Film Industry. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-23014-2.
Barnes, Alan; Hearn, Marcus (1997). Kiss Kiss Bang! Bang!: the Unofficial James Bond Film Companion. Batsford Books. ISBN 978-0-7134-8182-2.
Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85283-234-6.
Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: from Fleming's Novel to the Big Screen. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9.
Bouzerau, Laurent (2006). The Art of Bond. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7522-1551-8.
Bray, Christopher (2010). Sean Connery; The Measure of a Man. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-23807-1.
Britton, Wesley Alan (2004). Spy Television. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-98163-1.
Broccoli, Albert R (1998). When the Snow Melts. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7522-1162-6.
Chapman, James (1999). Licence to Thrill. London/New York City: Cinema and Society. ISBN 978-1-86064-387-3.
Cork, John; Scivally, Bruce (2006). James Bond: The Legacy 007. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0-8109-8252-9.
Dunbar, Brian (2001). Goldfinger. Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-45249-7.
Frayling, Christopher (2005). Ken Adam and the Art of Production Design. London/New York City: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-0-571-22057-1.
Hall, Sheldon; Neale, Stephen (2010). Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: a Hollywood History. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-3008-1.
Lehman, Peter; Luhr, William (2003). Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-23358-9.
Lindner, Christoph (2003). The James Bond Phenomenon: a Critical Reader. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6541-5.
Macintyre, Ben (2008). For Yours Eyes Only. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7475-9527-4.
Neaverson, Bob (1997). The Beatles Movies. Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-33796-5.
Peary, Danny (1986). Guide for the Film Fanatic. Simon & Schuster.
Pfeiffer, Lee; Lisa, Philip (1997). The Films of Sean Connery. Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8065-1837-4.
Pfeiffer, Lee; Worrall, Dave (1998). The Essential Bond. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7522-2477-0.
Rubin, Steven Jay (1981). The James Bond Films: a Behind the Scenes History. Arlington House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-87000-523-7.
Smith, Jim (2002). Bond Films. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-7535-0709-4.
Starkey, Lycurgus Monroe (1966). James Bond's World of Values. Abingdon Press. OCLC 1043794.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: Goldfinger (film)
MGM's site on Goldfinger
Goldfinger at the Internet Movie Database
Goldfinger (film) at the TCM Movie Database
Goldfinger at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
Goldfinger at AllMovie
Goldfinger at Rotten Tomatoes
Goldfinger at Box Office Mojo
Honor Blackman Presents Guy Hamilton with the Cinema Retro Award at the Pinewood Studios Goldfinger Reunion



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Categories: 1964 films
English-language films
1960s action films
1960s thriller films
British films
Films about nuclear war and weapons
Films directed by Guy Hamilton
Films set in Miami, Florida
Films set in Kentucky
Films set in Switzerland
Films shot in Kentucky
Goldfinger (film)
James Bond films
Pinewood Studios films
Sequel films
United Artists films
Film scores by John Barry
Films that won the Best Sound Editing Academy Award










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