The Spy Who Loved Me

Ian Fleming let Eon use only the title of his novel, not its plot, so the series ran backwards and had a novel written from the screenplay. Lewis Gilbert wanted Bond written as in the books rather than as Sean Connery had played him. Making the KGB an ally was a decision too: Broccoli chose it after showing a Bond film to Russians in the Soviet Union and hearing it was too anti-Russian to screen there. No stage was large enough for the tanker interior, so a new one went up at Pinewood for $1.8 million. It was so big that cinematographer Claude Renoir, his eyesight failing, struggled to light it; by Ken Adam’s account Stanley Kubrick came in secretly to help. The opening ski jump came from a whisky advertisement. Rick Sylvester’s crew waited 10 days on Baffin Island for weather, got a window of 15 minutes, and of the 3 cameras rolling only one caught it. At the 50th Academy Awards it was up for art direction, original score and original song, losing all three; its 2 BAFTA nominations also went unrewarded. A good fit if you care that a whole stage was built for one set and that you can see it on screen. Not for you if you expect Fleming’s novel; Eon held only the title.