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The Spy Who Loved Me

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007TSWLMposter
The Spy Who Loved Me theatrical poster
Cast & Crew
James Bond: Roger Moore
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Producer(s): Albert R. Broccoli
Writer(s): Christopher Wood
Screenplay: Christopher Wood, Richard Maibaum
Cinematographer: {{{cinematographer}}}
Editor: John Glen
Music: Marvin Hamlisch
Theme song: "Nobody Does It Better"
Marvin Hamlisch (Composer),
Carole Bayer Sager (Composer)
Carly Simon (Performer)
Theme composer: {{{composer}}}
Theme performer: {{{performer}}}
Facts & Figures
Budget: $14 million
Gross: $185.4 million
Distributed By: United Artists
Released: 7 July 1977 (London, premiere)
Running Time: 125 minutes
Preceded By: The Man with the Golden Gun
Followed By: Moonraker

The Spy Who Loved Me in many ways was a make or break film for the Bond franchise and was plagued since its conception by many problems. The first was the departure of Bond producer Harry Saltzman, who was forced to sell his half of the Bond film franchise due to financial difficulties. A second problem was the issue of finding a director. The first director attached to the film was Guy Hamilton, who directed the previous three Bond films as well as Goldfinger, but left after being offered the opportunity to direct the 1978 film, Superman: The Movie. It has been reported that EON Productions, after Hamilton's departure, approached Steven Spielberg to direct the film, though after Jaws turned out to be such a huge success, the producers would not agree to Spielberg's demands for creative control and turned instead to Lewis Gilbert who had directed the similar Bond film, You Only Live Twice.

With a director finally secured, the next hurdle to be overcome was finishing the script, which had gone through several rewrites by numerous writers. Additionally, the initial villain of the film was Ernst Stavro Blofeld, however, Kevin McClory, who owns the film rights to Thunderball forced an injunction on EON Productions delaying the film further. The villain would later be changed from Blofeld to Karl Stromberg so that the injunction could be lifted. Christopher Wood was later brought in by Lewis Gilbert to complete the script. Although Fleming had requested no elements from his original book be used, the novel features a thug named Sol Horror who is described as having steel capped teeth. This character would be the basis for Jaws, although having steel capped teeth is where the similarity between Horror and Jaws ends.

Regardless of all the problems throughout production of the film, The Spy Who Loved Me was a financial and box office success, raking in $185,400,000 worldwide on a production budget of $14 million USD. At the time it was the highest grossing Bond film. The Spy Who Loved Me was also nominated for three Academy Awards for:

Contents

Plot summary

Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers! Plot and/or ending details follow.


A submarine from the Royal Navy, a submarine from the United States Navy, and a submarine from the Soviet fleet are stolen by the villain, Karl Stromberg, in an attempt to launch their nuclear weapons at targets around the globe.

James Bond teams up with Major Anya Amasova (a.k.a. Agent Triple X) from the Soviet Union to find out what happened and prevent a possible World War III. The film begins in Egypt near the pyramids. Later the duo travels together to Sardinia before finding Stromberg's base. He plans to launch nuclear weapons from the submarines he took, with the first targets being New York City and Moscow, to start World War III while he is safe in an underwater city. However, Bond is able to get the submarines to destroy each other and foils this plan.

The film is best known for the Bond's Lotus Esprit submarine/car and the introduction of Jaws, a giant and seemingly indestructible assassin with steel teeth. Jaws, played by Richard Kiel, is the only henchman of the James Bond villains privileged to appear in more than one film. He later appeared in Moonraker. Previously, Kiel played a similar character in the action comedy Silver Streak starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.

Cast & characters

Robert Brown also has a smaller role in The Spy Who Loved Me as Admiral Hargreaves. Brown would go on to replace Bernard Lee as M in Octopussy. It has never been established as to whether Brown was supposed to be still playing Lee's character, a promoted Hargreaves, or someone else, though the novelizations to later films state that Sir Miles Messervy (Bernarnd Lee's character) remaned M until the mid-90s when Judi Dench assumed the role.

Walter Gotell makes his first appearance as General Gogol of the KGB. Gogol would appear in all future Roger Moore Bond films and would make his final appearance in Timothy Dalton's The Living Daylights. While this was his first appearance as Gogol, this is Gotell's second appearance in a James Bond film. His first was in From Russia with Love where he played the villain Morzeny.

Crew

Soundtrack

Main Article: The Spy Who Loved Me (soundtrack)

Vehicles & gadgets

Main articles: List of James Bond vehicles and List of James Bond gadgets

  • Lotus Esprit — Including all of the usual Q refinements, this car was equipped with surface to air missiles. The main feature of the car however was the ability to transform into a submarine. Once transformed it could unleash depth charges and smoke screens. The car was nicknamed Wet Nellie, a reference to the autogyro provided by Q for Bond's use in You Only Live Twice.
  • Wetbike — a hydrofoil "water motorcycle" used by Bond to travel from the US Submarine to Stromberg's Atlantis to save Triple X. Built by a subsidiary of Minnesota-based Arctic Enterprises.
  • XXX's Cigarette — The cigarette used by Triple X contained knock-out powder.
  • Seiko Quartzwatch — Basically working like a pager, it had a built-in telex that allowed MI6 to send important messages to Bond, printing them out like a miniature teletype. (It actually looked more like a label-maker tape.)
  • Ski pole gun — Was used to fire a projectile at his pursuers. He uses it to kill Triple X's lover while escaping from him in the pre-credits sequence.

Locations

Film locations

Shooting locations

Trivia

  • At the end of the film, the credits announce that the next Bond film will be For Your Eyes Only. Ultimately, however, the producers chose instead to adapt Moonraker next in order to cash in on the sci-fi/fantasy craze sparked by the success of Star Wars and Superman.
  • This is the second film in the history of the Bond series (as of 2004) in which M refers to Bond by his first name, rather than simply 007 or Bond (the first time was at his wedding in On Her Majesty's Secret Service). We also hear M's real first name (Miles) for the first time on film. In addition, Q is referred to by his real name (Major Boothroyd) for the first time since From Russia with Love. But Miss Moneypenny is still left without a first name!
  • The 007 Soundstage at Pinewood Studios, for many years the largest in the world, was specially constructed for this film.
  • Prior to the film's release, Barbara Bach posed nude for the men's magazine Playboy.
  • Michael Billington, who plays Anya's ill-fated lover, Sergei, was considered a candidate for the role of Bond on several occasions in the 1970s and 1980s. He is best known for his role as Paul Foster in the science fiction series UFO.
  • Demand for Lotus Esprits surged after the film was released. Many new customers were put on a three-year waiting list.
  • Stanley Kubrick provided uncredited assistance in supervising the lighting of the tanker set due to cinematographer Claude Renoir's failing eyesight.
  • Although this isn't the first Bond film to relocate M's office to an exotic location as a branch office (You Only Live Twice was the first), it is the first to have Q-Branch likewise relocated with a full array of weapons and testing personnel catering to the particular region of the world. Future similar relocations would occur in Moonraker and Octopussy. (Q, on his own, first joined Bond in the field in Thunderball.)
  • Valerie Leon has a brief scene with Moore. She also appears in Never Say Never Again opposite Sean Connery's James Bond.

Videos

Trailer

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - Open-ended Trailer (e13554)(03:17)
81 views

Opening Title Sequence

The Spy Who Loved Me Opening Credits(03:24)
511 views

Clips

Bond Meets General Anatol Alexis Gogol (The Spy Who Loved Me)(01:24)
477 views
Bond 25 Wrong Connection (The Spy Who Loved Me)(01:36)
41 views
Bond meets General Gogol Bond fights and electrocutes Jaws on the train
Bond 27 Roads? We Doesnt Need Roads (The Spy Who Loved Me)(01:18)
44 views
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - Clip Ski Chase(02:28)
52 views
Bond drives his amphibious Lotus off the pier Opening ski chase and parachute cliff jump
Videoswiki For more James Bond videos check out Wikia's video library


Novelisation

Main article: James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me

See also

External links

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