The Spy Who Loved Me
Short description
Two nuclear submarines, one British and one Soviet, vanish without explanation, and each side suspects the other. James Bond is sent to find out what happened, and the Soviet Union has meanwhile assigned its own agent, Major Anya Amasova, to the same problem. Their search draws them into the scheme of Karl Stromberg, a shipping magnate with plans that involve the missing submarines, and brings them up against his enforcer, the towering Jaws, whose steel teeth make him a dangerous opponent. The film is set largely at sea, with action ranging from the Egyptian desert to a supertanker and an underwater base.
Roger Moore plays Bond for the third time, opposite Barbara Bach as Amasova. Curd Jürgens appears as Stromberg, Richard Kiel as Jaws, and Caroline Munro as Naomi, with Walter Gotell as General Gogol. Lewis Gilbert directed, from a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Christopher Wood, with Albert R. Broccoli producing. It was Gilbert's second Bond film, following You Only Live Twice a decade earlier; he later directed Moonraker. The credited cast runs to 74 names.
Made for about 14 million dollars, the film took roughly 185 million dollars worldwide, a strong return for the period. On IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from about 124,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.8 from around 2,300 votes, and a critics' rating of 7.3 from 61 reviews puts it slightly ahead of the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The name of the enigmatic M (Miles) is mentioned in this film.
- The ski chase and subsequent jump from a height were filmed with Rick Sylvester (an American mountaineer and stuntman) on Mount Asgard in Canada. The summit could only be reached by helicopter. A small film crew with Sylvester went there in July 1976, a month before filming began, and spent ten days in the local village waiting for suitable weather conditions. The scene was filmed in one take, without any editing. Sylvester was promised $30,000 for it, but it is believed that he also received some kind of bonus.
- In 1976, Stanley Kubrick, at the request of designer Ken Adam, visited the set of the James Bond film 'The Spy Who Loved Me.' Upon arriving at Pinewood Studios, he gave Adam some advice, and Adam asked him to help with the filming. Kubrick agreed, but on the condition that his involvement remain undisclosed. After the director's death in 1999, a documentary about the making of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' was released in 2000.
- This is the only installment of the 'Bond' series where M allows himself to call Bond by his first name – James.
- Richard Kiel (1939-2014), who played the killer nicknamed "Jaws," could hold iron teeth in his mouth for no more than half a minute – they caused him that much pain and discomfort.
- During filming in Cairo and Giza, a representative of the Egyptian government was constantly present on set – he ensured that the country was portrayed in a positive light in the film. This is why, in the scene where scaffolding collapses on the hitman nicknamed 'Jaws,' and James Bond says, 'Oh, these Egyptian builders!', Roger Moore (1927-2017) only mouthed the words, and they were dubbed in later, when the Egyptian representative was not present. Ironically, this phrase consistently evoked laughter from Egyptian audiences.
- The famous billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Tesla Motors, purchased the legendary James Bond car-submarine, a Lotus Esprit S1, for $997,000 in 2013.
- The first James Bond film released in Dolby Stereo format.
- By the time this film was made, the "Bondiana" was already a well-known and very popular franchise, so many manufacturers were eager to see their products in it. A real war broke out for the right to provide James Bond's car. Don McLaughlin, PR manager for Lotus Cars, came to the conclusion that it would be easier to make the producers chase after him than to persuade them to pay attention to his company's cars. One day he drove to Pinewood Studios in a Lotus Esprit, not yet released on the market, with the brand and model names covered, and parked the car near the set of "The Spy Who Loved Me," knowing that a lunch break would soon begin and the car would definitely be seen and noticed. And indeed, a crowd gathered around the car immediately. McLaughlin did some of his business, then got into the car and drove off, without answering questions about the car. As he had calculated, the filmmakers soon came to him with questions, and the car was chosen for filming.
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