Thunderball

Terence Young sets about a quarter of this Bond picture underwater. Ricou Browning, who wore the creature suit in Creature from the Black Lagoon, laid out that material. Underwater radio did not exist yet, so the whole battle was run on hand signals, and the Bahamas unit shot 83 scenes across 18 underwater sequences. The rebreather Bond carries is a prop: 2 carbon dioxide bottles glued together and painted, with a mouthpiece added. The performers held their breath. The opening rocket belt was real hardware, but a full tank gave only 20 seconds of flight, and when stuntman Bill Suitor refused to fly bareheaded, shots of a helmeted Connery were cut in. Two billed leads are not the voices you hear: Nikki van der Zyl dubbed Claudine Auger, Robert Rietty dubbed Adolfo Celi. The film won the Academy Award for Special Visual Effects, taken by John Stears, and appears in no other category that night. Ownership of the story had gone to court; the case settled and Kevin McClory took sole producer credit. A good fit if you will take dive sequences paced by choreography rather than by cutting, and a seabed battle where telling one side from the other is part of the problem. Not for anyone who wants the action on land and quick.