Thunderball
Short description
Thunderball centres on a nuclear blackmail plot. The criminal organisation SPECTRE seizes a NATO bomber carrying two atomic weapons and demands a ransom of one hundred million pounds in diamonds, threatening to detonate the bombs if the British government refuses. James Bond is sent to the Bahamas to track down the aircraft and the men behind the scheme, where he encounters the wealthy Emilio Largo and Domino Derval, whose brother commanded the stolen plane.
Terence Young directed the film, his fourth James Bond entry following Dr. No and From Russia with Love. Sean Connery returns as Bond, with Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi, Rik Van Nutter and Guy Doleman among the cast. Richard Maibaum, Jack Whittingham and John Hopkins wrote the screenplay, and Kevin McClory produced. Made on a budget of nine million dollars, it took about 141 million dollars worldwide, a large return for its time.
Audience response has been solid rather than enthusiastic: on IMDb it holds 6.9 from nearly 125,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.7 from roughly 2,700 votes. A critics' rating of 6.6 from 54 reviews places it close to the audience scores, suggesting broad agreement about its standing within the series.
What's left behind the scenes
- Special effects expert John Stears (1934-1999) arranged such a powerful explosion of Largo's yacht, the Disco Volante, that windows were blown out of houses on a street in Nassau, some distance from the blast site, where a festival procession was being filmed. It is believed that Stears used experimental rocket fuel for the explosion and did not know how powerful it would be.
- To prevent the bomber mockup on the seabed from being used in other films, it was blown up on the seabed. Since then, its remains have turned into a reef.
- Largo tears Domino’s dress on the shoulder. When she is freed, the dress is still torn. But, when she kills Largo a few scenes later, the dress is as good as new. And remains so until the end of the film.
- The character Count Lippe is a reference to Prince Bernard (1911-2004), Prince Bernard of the Netherlands from 1948, a friend of Ian Fleming (1908-1964) from their time serving in naval intelligence.
- In the pool scene, when James Bond comes face to face with sharks, it is clearly visible several times that a stunt double is playing James.
- In this film, the role of Paula was played by actress Martine Beswick. She is shown tanned in the film, although before the start of filming, her skin was very pale due to years on stage in England. So, before filming in Nassau, she was ordered to sunbathe for a couple of weeks.
- After filming the initial scenes with Claudine Auger (1941-2019), the filmmakers decided that she pronounced English words too Frenchly. Her lines were redubbed by Nikki Van Der Zyl (1935-2021), who also voiced Ursula Andress in the first Bond film, “Dr. No” (Terence Young, 1962). For the same reasons, Adolfo Celi (1922-1986), the actor who played Largo, speaks with the voice of Robert Rietty (1923-2015). This was due to his pronounced Sicilian accent.
- During the underwater filming of scenes where Sean Connery's character encounters sharks, the actor was supposed to be filmed in close-up behind transparent plastic panels. Unfortunately, the panels were only about a meter high, so they couldn't offer much of an obstacle to the sharks. As a result, during some scenes (such as in the pool at Largo's villa), the actor had to be in close proximity to the sharks, closer than he would have liked. According to director Terence Young (1915-1994), the film includes shots where Bond flinches as a shark approaches because he wasn't protected by a panel at that moment.
- The jetpack shown in the film was originally created for the military. In the 1950s, it was believed that this piece of equipment would improve the combat capabilities of soldiers, allowing them to fly over natural and man-made obstacles. The film features the Rocketbelt jetpack model from Bell Aerosystems. It could lift the operator into the air for 21 seconds and had 1,000 horsepower of braking power. The jetpack was actually operated by an engineer named Bill Suiter, one of only two people in the world capable of operating this device.
- As Bond and Domino emerge from the sea, Domino steps on a sea urchin with her right foot. The next shot shows Bond pulling a thorn from his left foot.
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