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this is david naylor. welcome to thecommentary for diamonds are forever. we'll be joined by director guy hamiltonand members of the cast and crew. the stories reflect the opinionsof those who provided the interviews. some comments have been edited. they are not meant to providethe definitive history. diamonds are forever,the seventh james bond film, marked the return of sean conneryto the role of 007. the previous film, on her majesty'ssecret service, starred george lazenby. cowriter tom mankiewiczrecalls writing this teaser
which reintroduces connery as bond. the teaser, which was partof every bond movie, which is here, this really had to do with the fact that hehimself, sean connery, was coming back. so we thought in this teaserwe would do a series of things where you didn't see007's face until the end. in fact, stunt man bob simmons doubiesfor connery in these precredits shots. now guy hamilton recallsthe next sequence, which was filmedat eden roc beach in cap d'antibes. that was shot in the south of france.
the thing that l enjoy about that is how you can remove a lady's brassierewithout getting any censor problems. because that was one of theabsolute basic things about bond, that you had to have a u certificatefor absolutely everybody and so we were forever worryingabout how to keep it sexy but at the same time, the kids can go. charles gray had appearedin connery's previous bond film, you only live twice,as dikko henderson. coscreenwriter tom mankiewiczremembers the actor.
then, of all the people who playedblofeld, and there have been several, he was a much more kind of fussy blofeldthan the others butjust as evil. a wonderful shakespearean actor. blofeld's plastic surgeonis played by david de keyser, who was heard but not seenin on her majesty's secret service. de keyser provided the voiceof union corse leader marc ange draco. the patient in the mud bath is playedby two different stunt men. for the insert shot of mud being appliedto his face, it is george leech. ln the upcoming shots, when the patientrises out of the mud, it is bill morgan.
director guy hamiltonrecalls shooting the scene. this is all at pinewood studios. the stunt man was never keen on comingout from all that muck but it's lovely goo. the art department did a lovelyjob. tom mankiewicz recalls the difficultiesin filming the mud-cavern scene. the stunt men hada terrible time with this mud. lt really hurt their eyesand gave them skin rashes. we probably had more injuriesout of this benign little stunt. well, what we were trying to set up here
is that there are going to be two blofelds. he is going to make a clone of himself. so we started this, to lay this infor later on in the picture. as tom mankiewicz explains,plastic surgery was a topical subject. everybody was into plastic surgery.lt was starting to become a huge deal. most of what's here is not in the book. by this point, cubby and harryhad already started the tradition of taking the title and maybethe spine of the story or the setting but then, as writers, it was up to you to goahead and do what it was you wanted.
terry mountain and george cooperportray the guards overcome by bond. doubling for charles grayin this sequence is chris webb. with diamonds are forever, the producers decided to go backto a goldfinger style james bond film. this included not only bringing backgoldfinger's director guy hamilton but also bringing backshirley bassey to sing the title song. now tom mankiewicz recallsthe film's opening titles. and, of course, there's blofeld's cat. traditional cat, and we go intowhat was then the classic opening,
which was shirley basseysinging a john barry song. everybody was back. mankiewicz was hired after richardmaibaum completed a first-draft script. director guy hamilton remembersworking with the writer. tom mankiewicz came out to universal. we sat down and we startedto write the script. we had a lot of fun writing it. here's tom mankiewicz's memoriesof writing the script. when l was hired to rewrite diamondsare forever, they wanted a young writer.
l was only 27 years old. and i had written the bookfor a broadway musical of georgy girl and they wanted someonewho was american, who could write in a british idiom. l was signed on a two-week guarantee. and it worked out. so, i was thriiied. as l say, being only 27 and l was writinga james bond movie with sean connery. composer john barry remembersthe first time he played the title song
for producers cubby broccoliand harry saltzman. cubby was very good about music.he had a good ear. he knew when he hearda song or a melody... he always hadvery good instincts about that. harry was absolutely tone-deaf. after we played "diamonds are forever",and everybody loved it who heard it, and harry was going, "what...?" l said, "harry..." lt was in my apartmentin london and don was there. there was a pianistand cubby and myself.
l said, "harry, will you do me one thing?" "will you sing me the first two bars of the national anthem,'god save the queen', ok?" he couldn't. he said, "what the...?" he had a very colourful vocabulary. he just steamed out of the room in myapartment, slammed the door and left. there was the pianist, there was cubbyand don, and there was this silence. cubby said, "do you haveany jack daniels?" and l said, "yeah, yeah."so we all hit the jack daniels.
l never heard anything else from harry.cubby said, "lt's terrific. go ahead." guy hamilton talks about the importance of establishing the context of the film'splot at the beginning of the movie. this is the standard scenethat l believe in a great deal. diamonds. the picture's about diamonds.goldfinger used to be about gold. this is to tell the audience,what fleming's always very keen on, explaining something about diamonds, where they come from,how they're priced, why they're valuable, how many there are, etcetera.
once you've explained that,you then never have to refer to it again. you can get on with the storyand move fast. this is the only serious scenein the picture, so to speak,where you're talking about diamonds. when tom mankiewiczfirst wrote this scene, he had bond remarkingabout the vintage of the sherry. lt was a mistake that led to a classic line,as mankiewicz recalls. l wrote this. cubby's lawyer wason wine-tasting committees and said, "please tell mankiewiczthat there is no year on a sherry bottle."
so l quickly changed it to "'53, l believe," and m says, "there is no yearon a sherry bottle, 007." sean says, "l was referring to the originalvintage on which the sherry was based." "1853." "unmistakable." lots of people in bond trivia bookshave pointed this scene out and given me tremendous credit for oneof the great sophisticated bond touches which came about because i was unawarethat there wasn't a year on sherry. lf it hadn't been for cubby's lawyer,i never would have known.
laurence naismith portrayssir donald munger. naismith had appearedin two other films by broccoli, the black knightand the trials of oscar wilde. he is best rememberedfor his portrayals of merlin in the 1967 film versionof the hit musical camelot and as captain smithin a night to remember about the sinking of the titanic. careful listeners will noticea repeated voiceover. sir donald's line which begins,"the whole process from start to finish
operates underan airtight security system," is used twice, first when we seethe workers drilling in the mine and again when the first patientleaves the dentist's office. though they take place in south africa,these scenes and the scene in the desert were among the first filmedon location in nevada. finding the proper villainsto oppose bond is always a challenge, as director guy hamilton remembers. lt always seemed to methat bond was as good as his villains. you couldn't repeat oddjob.we had to find something new.
i had seen... being a jazz fan, l had goneto a thelonious monk recital in la and had seen the bass player,who fascinated me because he seemed to be a real bondian character,putter smith. and who could i match him with?putter had never acted in his life before. we found another very good actor and itseemed to me that they were interesting because they didn't look like villains, you didn't knowwhat they were going to do next. bond, first time round,wouldn't take them very seriously.
but we would make them bea great danger to bond. lt was an effort to get interesting villains because bond is as good as his villains. coscreenwriter tom mankiewicz recallsbeing on location with putter smith. putter brought his bass fiddlewith him everywhere. a couple of times,i was in the room next to him and you'd hear, l mean,starting at 6.30 in the morning... never stopped practising. diamonds are foreverwas putter smith's debut as an actor.
as a musician, he performedwith sonny and cher and burt bacharach and appears on the righteous brothers'hit "you've lost that loving feeling". smith had more challenges than justremembering his lines, as he recalls. l would duck from lights.even up to the last day of shooting, they would say, "now, putter,don't duck the lights." guy hamilton saying.there were these huge lights right there. the first day with the helicopter,i had to bend over. l could not possibly stand up straight. they were reassuring me that they wereten feet in the air and there was no harm.
l couldn't stop it. l've never beenthat close to a helicopter since. diamonds are forever marked seanconnery's final appearance in a bond film produced by eon productions. after his previous adventure,you only live twice, connery appeared in the western shalakowith brigitte bardot and his former goldfinger co-starhonor blackman, and co-starred with richard harrisin the molly maguires. he won critical praiseforthe anderson tapes, which also featured future bond villainchristopher walken.
ln the upcoming scene, we will seemargaret lacey as mrs whistler. lacey's most recognisable roles werein 1967's far from the madding crowd and in 1971's adaptation of black beauty. guy hamilton remembersmargaret lacey. i like nice old ladieswho look absolutely innocent, and butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, and they turn out to beaccomplished villainesses. creating homosexual villainswas controversial in 1971 , as tom mankiewicz explains.
lt was a very risky kind of deal, the relationship betweenmr wint and mr kidd. l wanted to... and perhaps... certainly, today one would notbe able to get away with that. they were clearly two gentlemenwho kept company with each other. even though they're vicious,l think they're funny-vicious. bernard lee appeared in every bond filmfrom 1962's dr no until moonraker. a very busy character actor, lee appearedin the classic 1949 film the third man opposite joseph cotten and orson welles.
coincidentally, guy hamilton also workedon the third man as an assistant director. for the climactic chase through thesewers, hamilton doubled orson welles. when the actor's shadow appearson the walls, it is really hamilton. now tom mankiewicz recalls this scene,which was shot on location in dover. this fellow here, mr franks,is a stunt man, a british stunt man with whomsean's gonna have a terrific fight. since we didn't have a scene in m's office, we stuck miss moneypenny in here
and lois maxwell, who is just an absolutesweetheart, who played in all the films... it was unthinkable not to havemiss moneypenny in the film, and itjust worked outthat there was not an office scene. she has a iittie wistfui,"bring me back a diamond in a ring." always had that crush on 007. lois maxwell's agent negotiateda perk forherin diamonds are forever. she would be able to keep her wardrobe. unfortunately, the only time she's seen,it's in a customs uniform. back to director guy hamilton.
they wanted to get moneypenny backinto the story, get her out of the office, so that i could see her in a uniform. tom mankiewicz recallsshooting the hovercraft on location. this is the english channel.the hovercraft was big news then. the chunnel wasn't even an idea yet. this was the fastest, most exciting wayto get across the channel. producer harry saltzman's son stevenhad a cameo in this scene as a passenger on a boat in amsterdam,sitting next to jill st john. however, the shots in which he appearswere cut from the finished film.
the shots of mrs whistler being pulledfrom the water involved six river police, 25 extras and, for the wide shots, stunt man malcolm weaverdoubling for margaret lacey. almost all of the exteriors in amsterdamwere completed over one weekend, as director guy hamilton recalls. we shot all morning, left in the afternoon,climbed on an aeroplane, and went to germany and then jetted on to amsterdam where we did those day scenes
and now we've goneto some night scenes. and l thought, "we will never finish." i said to the crewthat l'd got seven shots to do and if they got those shots done,the rest of the evening was theirs. and my goodness, l've never workedwith a crew at night so fast in my life. we caught the plane back the followingmorning, had sunday afternoon off and were back at the setat pinewood on monday morning. ln this scene, we are introducedto jill st john as tiffany case. four years oldwhen she began in show business,
st john appeared in morethan a thousand radio broadcasts. when she was ten, she featuredin the first tv movie ever, an adaptation ofa christmas carol. at the time of diamonds are forever,jill st john had a line of wigs bearing her name on sale in america. director guy hamiltoncomments on the scene. this was a fun scene to shootwith all the wigs and the changes. lnterviewed on a recent photo shoot,jill st john recalls working in england. guy hamilton was so nice.
and because you were in england filming,you were the out-of-towners, those of us who didn't live there, andso people would bring us to their homes, and we would have these great, wonderfuldinners that would be so much fun. then if you were travelling on location,you might en masse go out to dinner. so it became a family.it was a six-month shoot. you were going to all these wonderfulplaces, and you really got to know people. some of the peoplebecame lasting friends. among st john's earliest roleswas an appearance in 1961's the roman spring of mrs stone,
which featuredfrom russia with love's lotte lenya. ln 1965 st john appearedin the liquidator, a spy spoof based on the novelby john gardner, who later wrote several james bondnovels. director guy hamilton. l think it's fun to playwith the audience here. we're obviously going to exposebond as a phoney but he's got a way of havingmagic fingerprints. miss tiffany case looks very dishy. the production designer was ken adam.
his first film for cubby broccoliwas 1960's the trials of oscar wilde. now back to tom mankiewicz. i think ken was the firstproduction designer on dr no. he had been on most of the pictures,a tremendously artistic, finicky fellow. very charming. or still is.a german who had flown for the raf, during the war, in england.he was a brilliant production designer. between you only live twiceand diamonds are forever, adam was production designer on chittychitty bang bang, goodbye, mr chips and the owl and the pussycat.here's ken adam.
what l always tried to do is to doother films between bond films and then again, for therapyor whatever you call it, i loved to do a bondbecause l could let myself go. bond's fake fingerprints are the mostsubtle of q's gadgets. tom mankiewicz. bond has a fake set of fingerprints herethat q has designed for him. guy really loved the bickeringbetween q and bond. l think guy really helped to set that up,that irritated relationship. stunt man joe robinsonwho portrays peter franks made his film debut as sam
in 1955's a kid for two farthings which was directed by carol reedfrom a screenplay by wolf mankowitz. it was wolf mankowitz who introducedcubby broccoli to harry saltzman. ln 1960, joe robinson appearedin the ltalian production tarzan, roi de la force brutale,an unauthorised tarzan film. after action from the copyright holdersof the character, the film was seized. lt was released only when the leadcharacter's name was changed to thor. guy hamilton recalls filming the elevatorfight scene with robinson and connery. l picked joe robinson because he wasabout the same size as sean, if not bigger,
and just as athletic. to have the pair of themswinging away at each other is just like a barroom brawl to me. lt's got no... nothing of interest...there's nothing fresh you can add to it. but l had a good friend who livedin an old block of fiats in chelsea and it had a wonderful old elevatorwhich seemed to work by water pressure. you got into it, it rattled and it went up.lt was surrounded by glass panels. l suddenly thought that if you had a fightin there, it would be totally lunatic, because there's no roomto swing at each other.
you'd be breaking the glass,you'd be hitting the buttons. lt would be quite dangerousbut it would be interesting. so we discussed this with ken adam and we made the elevator smallerthan it really was in real life. and cubby agreed but harry was saying,"lt's too small, they can't fight in there", and l said, "that's the whole pointof the thing, to watch two large, very tough gentlemenhaving a go at each other but sort of failing miserablybecause of the space." lt becomes a more interesting fight,i think.
a rugby player as well as a former bronzemedallist in a mr universe competition, sean connery suited the physical rigoursof playing james bond, as tom mankiewicz remembers. the wonderful thingabout sean as an actor, when he's involvedin physical action of any kind, especially fights, he instinctively grins. he loves it. roger, who l wrote for and l love dearly,would fight on screen like a man fighting. sean fought like a man who reallyenjoyed it and enjoyed getting his licks in.
he has that wonderful grin when he'sfighting as if he knows he's gonna win. joe robinson, an actor and stunt man,was connery's judo instructor before being castas diamond smuggler peter franks. robinson recalls his reactionto filming the elevator fight. we knew each otherand could trust each other. but it was strange for me becausel'd worked in barabbas, in a huge arena, as a gladiator. l worked in a big market squarewith stanley baker in a big fight, in a ring with a kid for two farthings.
then suddenly to see this small lift withsean and i, both six foot two and 220ibs, it was quite somethingand l thought, "that's a brilliant idea." though the exteriorswere shot on location in amsterdam, the hallway and tiffany case's apartmentwere built at pinewood. production designer ken adam recallsconstructing the elevator for the scene. that was, l think, in a housein amsterdam, supposedly, and we built it as a set at pinewood. and, you know,l had an elevator expert come in, who worked out the mechanics.
it had to be small. lt was, if l remember, like an open cage, as so many of the old-fashioned frenchand german and dutch elevators were. the fight was quite brilliantly stagedand designed. lt was quite dangerous becauseyou had very little room to shoot it in. actor bruce giover,father of crispin glover, comments on the humourof diamonds are forever. l think that diamonds are foreveris the funniest of the bond films, partly because of me and putter and jillst john and connery, of course, and guy.
but guy, l feel very fortunateto have met and worked with this man and have been the beneficiaryof his fine direction. ln the novels of lan fleming, bond's clafriend felix leiter was a texan. tom mankiewicz recalls the approachto casting norman burton as leiter. now, here we meet felix leiter.there had been several felix leiters. guy, in the whole style of this movie -we had a fussier, less thuggish blofeld - he tried to find a felix leiter who wasmore a buttoned-down sort of fellow. now, here the diamondsare hidden in the corpse. that was my first fight with cubby.felix says, "l give up."
"i know the diamonds are in therebut where are they?" bond says, "alimentary, my dear leiter." cubby said to me,"what the hell does that mean?" l said, "the alimentary canal."cubby said, "no one will get that." l said, "cubby, please, let him."he said, "no one's gonna get that." guy interceded and said, "please let himsay 'alimentary."' cubby said ok. when it opened, cubby and l werestanding in grauman's chinese, now mann's chinese, and sean said,"alimentary, my dear leiter", and a couple of people in front,it was a packed house, laughed like crazy.
cubby looked at me and said, "big deal.two doctors." l never forgot that. these scenes at los angeles were filmedafter shooting completed in las vegas. the film unit then shot the climaxon an oil rig off the coast of california before returning to pinewood wherethe scene of bond confronting blofeld was first on the schedule. the attendants are played by marclawrence, about whom we'll hear later, sid haig and mike valente. the scenes were shot on a single day,monday, may 24, 1971 . part of the bond formula is that 007 mustalways be seen to be impeccably dressed.
guy hamilton commentson sean connery's attire in this scene. l always think sean looks so elegantin black with a white shirt. that's why he looks goodin a dinnerjacket. ken adam was born in beriin in 1921 . he fled germany prior to world war lland became a pilot for the raf. adam began as a junior draughtsmanat riverside studios in the late 1940s. ten years later, he was one of the mostsought-after designers in british cinema. tom mankiewicz recallsken adam's set for slumber mortuary. this is a wonderful setthat ken adam designed.
again, it is so tacky and just perfectfor a vegas kind of mortuary. morton slumber. lt's just a wonderfulperformance this guy gives. morton slumber is played by david bauer, an american actor who appeared inmany british films and television series. he had an uncredited role in you onlylive twice as an american diplomat. for this time in bond, everythingalways had to have lots of buttons on it. lt wasn't enough just to press a buttonand the thing opened, you always had to have a console. every element in a bond filmrequired a special look.
designer ken adam commentson the infiuences that inspired his designfor slumber mortuary. l had passed my location scoutsthrough las vegas and saw these incredible mortuaries,you know... l couldn't believe places like that existed,like people getting married rather than... so l decided to go one step better... i remember the sort ofsecular window at the back was almost diamond-shapedbut with a cross in the centre. the furniture in the officel kept liberty, as art nouveau.
to give it a certain panache. you wouldn't find art-nouveau stylein an actual mortuary. l had the tiffany lampsand a particular form of palm trees and art-nouveau chairsand art-nouveau settee, and that, and l thought that was my tongue-in-the-cheek approach to the mortuary. ln creating the story line for a james bondfilm, certain formula elements are used. director guy hamiltoncomments on one of them. this is what l call the snake-pit situation. tom and l would spend hourstrying to think of snake-pit situations.
ln other words, put bond in mortal peril and give the audience 20 seconds to figure out how he's goingto get out of the snake-pit situation. come on, audience,how's he going to get out of this? they... by a marvellous bondian trick, bond gets out of the snake pitand everybody cheers, the point being we give the audience 20seconds to figure out how it will happen, and we have probably spent three monthsbeating our brains out trying to think of the answer.
tom and i used to haveterrific snake-pit situations but would never find a satisfactory wayof... the night watchman passing. no, not good enough.lt's got to be really ingenious. we liked this one because here is bondin a coffin, being incinerated. come on, children, who's got the answer?how's he going to get out of this one? the flames are burning,you've got another five seconds, come on, who can think of the answer? bang, we deliver it and we hopethat it's satisfactory. lt satisfied us. these shots inside the coffinwere completed
on sean connery's last day of filmingdiamonds are forever in august 1971. appropriately, the date was friday the 13. soon, we will see shady tree,played by comedian leonard barr. born leonard barri in 1903,barr was the uncie of dino crocetti, who gained fame as dean martin. after diamonds are forever, barrplayeda similar role in 1973'sthe sting. guy hamilton remembers the comedian. his was a wonderful face.he was a warm-up comedian in one of the casinos.
we had tremendous cooperationfrom las vegas, because cubby hadvery good connections and knowledge of... and friends in vegas and they said,"right, you've got to convince us that if we have a film unit there it's good for vegas." that wasn't too difficult to doand once they'd been convinced, then the town absolutelyopened up for us. with help from the special-effects crew,
the hilton was transformed intothe hotel headquarters of willard whyte, as coscreenwritertom mankiewicz recalls. now, this is a matte shot of the hiltonturned into the whyte house. howard hughes was a famous recluseat the time. cubby had worked for him. diamonds are forever, lan fleming'sfourth bond novel, was published in 1956. many of the novel's characters werein the film, including tiffany case, peter franks, wint and kidd,and shady tree. but the principal villains,brothers jack and seraffimo spang, who ran an american syndicatecalled the spangled mob, were left out.
ln the maibaum script, the primary villainwas goldfinger's twin, back for revenge. when tom mankiewicz cameon board, that changed, influenced by a dream of broccoli's. broccoli dreamt he visitedhis friend howard hughes. when he called hughes's name, the manwho turned around was a stranger. using that idea, the producers decidedto bring back bond's archnemesis, ernst stavro biofeid, who isimpersonating a hughes-type industrialist. look carefully at shady tree's acorns and you'll see the one on the leftis actress valerie perrine
in one of her very first film appearances. perrine went on to staropposite dustin hoffman in lenny for which she was nominatedfor an academy award and made a memorable impressionin superman: the movie. jill st john recalls shooting in las vegas. cos wherever we went, it was comped.those were the days in las vegas where everything was freeif you were a celebrity. we were making the film and everyonewas staying at the riviera hotel but if we went to see elvis presley,or we went to see diana ross,
or whatever entertainer, they would handme the check and ask for me to sign. l'd be with all my friends.tom was one. he said, "you oughta have that handinsured by lloyd's of london." shady tree's demise at the handsof wint and kidd was filmed but left on the cutting-room floor. coscreenwriter tom mankiewiczrecalls shooting in las vegas. we shot at several vegas hotels. we lived at the riviera. we shot there.
to shoot in the casino in the riviera, you had to shoot between threeand six in the morning. lt was the only way they wouldlet us shoot. on a weekday morning. because, of course, in vegas it goes24 hours a day, seven days a week. shooting there provided temptations too enticing to overcomefor some of the crew members. tom mankiewicz recalls spending timeat the casino tables where an actual casino employeewas used in the film. his name was tiny. l rememberdistinctly his name was tiny.
l played at his table a lot and l lost. l was probably behind four weeks' salaryat the end of a week. it was a wonderful lessonto learn about gambling. but l would go to milton feldman and say,"can l have next week's salary, please?" he would say, "you meanfour weeks from today." l would go, "oh, my god, is it that bad?" cubby loved backgammon. cubby didn'tfind it fun unless you played for money. milton feldman said, "l gotta sit downand play you some backgammon." cubby said, "milton, it wouldn't look right,
the producer taking moneyfrom the production manager, but l'll back my daughter barbaraagainst you, you just name the price." and barbara played milton and beat him. tom mankiewicz recallsactor bruce cabot. now, there's bruce cabotwho was an old friend of cubby's, an old friend of john wayne,in a lot of westerns. bruce cabot was the fellawho found king kong. that's how far back bruce cabot goes. he had been in 150 movies.
actress lana wood,who plays plenty o'toole, made her film debut in the 1956john wayne western the searchers, when she was just nine years old. she got the role after her sisternatalie wood was cast in the film. the filmmakers needed an actress whocould play the character at a younger age. lana wood remembersshooting in las vegas. 1971, las vegas. probably notquite as wild and crazy as it is now. people didn't really bother youwhile you were filming. we were in the casino.there were people mulling about.
but they all seemed to berather well-behaved. l did a lot of shoppingwhile l was filming there. lf l wasn't on the set shooting, l wasin the stores and the shopping was great. lana wood was no strangerto james bond. she had been a lifelong fan of the lanfleming novels, as she recalls here. l always adored all ofthe lan fleming james bond books. the genre was absolutely perfect formy personality and what l enjoy reading. i'm an avid readerand l do read everything. but the spy novel, l've always hada particular fondness for the spy novel.
marc lawrence,a veteran of over 1 50 movies, appears in this scene as a gangster,a role of which he has made a career. lawrence talks aboutworking with guy hamilton. guy and carima, his wife... carima and i were under contractto dino de laurentiis in rome in the '50s. so that's l got to meet guy.guy's very english. very english. very reserved.very sweet man. born in 1910, marc lawrence madehis first film appearance in 1932, but left america after being blacklistedduring the communist witch-hunt.
here, lawrence recalls his early career when he worked with a young writernamed richard maibaum. another friend was richard maibaum. l did his first play on broadway,thetree, oh, a thousand years ago. dick and i were old friends. originally, the producers planned to shootthe film in america at universal studios. john gavin was signedto play james bond. jill st john was signedto a supporting role. those plans later changed,as tom mankiewicz recalls.
jill st john, who plays the leadin the movie, tiffany case, she was supposed to play plenty o'toole, a smaller part whichis played by lana wood. the minute sean came backand jill had met with guy, guy said that jill would bea wonderful tiffany case. director guy hamilton also recallsthe switching of roles. l was very, very happywith jill st john in the part. l thought that she'd makean absolutely marvellous tiffany case. i think that was the case.she looked great, tough enough,
and a very, very professional actress. jill st john recalls playing tiffany case. here l was playing a characterthat was larger than life. real women don't exist like that but what fun to try to play one,and working with sean, going to great locations, havingsome pretty snappy lines to say - not too much wrong with that. l loved it. now let's hear her reminisceabout sean connery. he's a very good palto have as your leading man.
to be his co-staris to feel almost protected. he's a real stand-up guy.he was definitely james bond. don black, who had writtenthe lyrics for "thunderball", wrote the lyrics to the song"diamonds are forever". although he won an academy awardfor his title song for born free, his bond work remains memorable,as he explains here. l was with andrew lloyd webberat his home in the trump towerin new york a few years ago. steven spielberg was there.andrew introduced me to him.
l'd never met spielberg. just as l was gonna say, "my god,"he said, "are you the don black?" lt really threw me, this. l said,"what do you mean, the don black?" he said, "you wrote my favouritetitle song, 'diamonds are forever'." and then he went on andexplained to me how the words, lustre, hit that translucent diamond,the shape of it, he knew every frameof that opening title sequence. lt was quite amazing. lt really threw me. so l guess l am the don black, yeah.
coscreenwriter tom mankiewiczrecalls filming at this location. this is circus circus,which is a casino in vegas, then was the first of its kind,a casino that had circus acts, while all the gambling'sgoing on underneath. l remember the trapeze artists in thescript, l called them the flying broccolis. cubby said, "not on your life.we're not even fighting about this one." so i said, "ok, it's out." l thought we were gonnaslip it through but we didn't. director guy hamilton also remembersshooting these scenes.
circus circus was one of the casinoswe had decided to use for this sequence, which is, very simply,passing some diamonds from a to b. don't do it on a street corner. use circuscircus. how do we use circus circus? which is great fun becauseeverybody's gambling down below and nobody's paying the slightestattention to these first-rate acts overhead. the cinematographer was ted moore. moore shot seven of the first ninejames bond films. his association with cubby beganwith the warwick film a prize of gold. moore shot several other warwickpictures before beginning dr no.
tom mankiewicz recallsworking with ted moore. he had shota man for all seasonswith fred zinnemann. he was a wonderful cameraman.he did several bonds. guy liked him very much. he was lovely. l remember in vegas he used to winat slot machines wherever we would go. ted would stick a nickel in or a quarterin and he would win. just amazing. moore's luck extendedto more than slot machines. ln 1967, he won an academy award forhis work on a man for all seasons.
tom mankiewicz remembers hisaccommodations while filming in vegas. cubby and l were sitting with miltonfeldman, the production manager, and cubby said to me,"how do you like your suite?" and l was being paid $1 500 a week, and l said, "well, l don't have a suite, butthat's all right, l have a very nice room." cubby turned to milton and said,"why doesn't he have a suite?" milton said, "come on, cubby, a suite'sgonna cost more than we're paying him." "lt's gonna cost more to give him a suite." cubby said, "l didn'task you how much it cost."
"he's the writer of the movie.get him a suite." cubby would just never stop doingfavours for everybody on the picture. he always had a little bit in his budgetfor what he used to call "morale". a native of new brunswick, canada, harry saltzman, coproducer,travelled to paris at a young age and became manager of a circus.during world war ll, by some accounts, he wasan interpreter for allied commanders. at war's end, he remained in europeand became a theatrical booker. guy hamilton recallsharry saltzman's reaction
to filming on location at circus circus. l think harry was very happy withcircus circus, using it as a background, because before the warhe'd worked for an agent in france who, amongst other things, handledcircuses when they were out on the road. and harry was for everbeing sent to bail them out because the circus had run out of cash. the police were doingthis, that and the other. lf ever the elephants were seized because they couldn't pay the feed bill,that was the absolute end of the circus.
when harry came to make pictures,that was largely his attitude. lt was circus. let's have it big, large. larger than life. elephants are good. lf there was something biggerthan an elephant, bond's got to have it. circus circus was openedto the public on october 18 1968. at that time, it consistedof a casino, circus arena, carnival midway and restaurants undera permanent big top, but no hotel rooms. the hotel, a 15-storey towerwith 400 guest rooms, was added in 1972, after the completion of filmingdiamonds are forever.
director guy hamilton remembers howone of the roles in this scene was cast. surprisingly enough, the manwho owns circus circus was a bond fan and said, "you can use circus circus,but l've gotta be in the picture." "what do you want to do?" "i'll do the mad scientistat the gorilla-into-woman thing." "fine, you do that." that's howwe had the freedom of circus circus. tom mankiewicz, whose father josephdirectedall about eve and cleopatra, was starting in the film industry when hewas hired to write diamonds are forever. the assignment put him under a certainamount of pressure, as he recalls here.
the casting of the film was interesting in that people were not sure, cubbyand harry, that sean was coming back. he had, in fact, rejectedthe first script that was written. john gavin had been hired to play bondin case we couldn't get sean. he had a deal where if he played bondhe would get so-and-so and if sean came backhe would be paid a certain fee. l went on the scripton a two-week guarantee. l was supposed to do 40 pages in twoweeks and send them to sean connery. l worked with guy and l did themand sean said he would come back
based on those 40 pages. since, tom has served as a creativeconsultant on superman: the movie, directed episodes of hart to hart, produced 1976's mother, jugs and speed and was executive producerof 1987's hot pursuit. now let's return to lana woodwho talks about the next scene. they put a rope acrossthis mid section of a pool and they had two guyshanging onto the rope. they really did have my ankles tiedloosely with a scarf
to a block of cement. i could hear the underwater camera.l had myself submerged. before l heard the underwater camera go,l would grab the rope, pull my face free, take a breath of air,and then go back underwater. this worked for quite some time. l would just grab the rope,clear my nose and mouth and breathe, but what didn't dawn on anybody is pools are slanted at the bottomso that you have a deep end. and slowly as we're filming, the blockkept moving a little deeper and deeper
to the point where, at a certain time, l could no longer clear my noseand mouth to take a breath. lt was slipping, so they had some guysjump in and quickly untie me. and l was fine. l was a scuba diver,l was a certified scuba diver, and i'm comfortable in the waterso l didn't panic but it wasn't the most comfortable feelingin the worid where all of a sudden you discoveryou really can't take a breath of air. these scenes were filmedat the palm springs home of kirk douglas. the next was shot at las vegas'smccarran lnternational airport,
this is vegas airport. as you step off the plane,there are already slot machines whilst waiting for your luggage. ln lan fleming's novel, bond arrives at theairport, plays a few of the slot machines, takes a hit of oxygenfrom a vending machine, and then enters a cabdriven by ernest cureo. the name is derived from ernst cuneo, an american fleming met during worldwar ll, who became a lifelong friend. ln november 1954,fleming travelled with cuneo
from manhattan to los angelesand then on to las vegas, where fleming did researchfor the novel diamonds are forever. coscreenwriter tom mankiewicz talksabout the mustang driven by tiffany case. now, the famous red mustang here,this was one of the... of course, that's a matte shot.you see the whyte house there. that's really based on the hilton. they matted out all the other buildingsso it stands alone. the ford motor companywas introducing that mustang. that model of mustang.
and we had the damnedest car chase where about 40 or 50 carswere going to be destroyed, at least, with all the different takesand cars running into each other. and ford said if james bond, seanconnery, would drive that red mustang, they would give us all the cars. as many cars as we wanted tofor the demolition derby, so ford supplied all the police cars, all the smashed cars,all the villains' cars, every car, and there must be 80 cars that get itin this movie between all the chases.
they're all ford.lt was just a huge budget item. in return for that, we said sean wouiddrive the red mustang in the car chase. filming of this scene at the gas stationopposite the lnternational hotel was not entirely without incident,as director guy hamilton recalls. whilst we were shooting this scene,in the highway opposite, cars were slowing down to look, and,"my god, there's sean connery. look." and suddenly we had to cutthe scene because, bang, bang, and there was a womanin an open cadillac coupã© who'd been rammedup the bottom by the car behind.
they were both driving past, looking atthe filming, not where they were going. one early draft of diamonds are foreverfeatured bond encouraging yachts on lake mead to jointhe chase for the villain. a later draft had an endingin which bond ties a weather balloon to blofeld's bathosub as the villainis about to make his getaway. blofeld arrives in mexico onlyto see bond suspended above his sub. a chase ensues with bondpursuing blofeld into a salt mine. director guy hamiltonrecalls these early ideas. none of these things were ever shot.
one of the hoteis, i can't remember which,had a chinese junk. some of these were luxurious yachts.they were all shapes and sizes. tom and l did fly around the concept of all these boats chasing somebody, this sort of vegas navy ofjunksof this, that and the other, cos obviously we could get them all. and we could never quite work outwhat they would do... we didn't pursue it. and that'sprobably how that thing started. l was, around that time, intrigued,because i had seen a few stills
of a huge salt thing in baja california,or the mexican end. miles and miles of white mountains and i rather fancied sean in biack, running around on these white mountains. and presumably, there'd be big machinerythat would suck the stuff in. we couldn't get permission to go there, so that more or less killed that. soon we will see ed bishopas klaus hergersheimer. bishop made an appearancein the opening shots
ofyou only live twice,as a radio operator. the name hergersheimer is an insidejoke, as tom mankiewicz explains. guy hamilton's name for"whachamacallit" was "hergersheimer". so he would say, "so, whenthe clerk comes in, hergersheimer." so l thought l'd callsomebody hergersheimer. ln 1971, the pass card lockwas an exotic device which most ordinary people hadnever seen, as guy hamilton recalls. obviously, that is a code lockwhich was fairly new in those days. you put an american express card in,of some sort. how does the door close?
lt's restricted. lt's obviously difficult forbond to get in. how's he going to get in? i like to watch bond do itwith a certain amount of intelligence. those are the sort of little snippetsof a scene that sean does so well. he thinks it out and plays it very well. peter lamont, who was a set decorator, and helped coordinate art departmentsin las vegas and at pinewood studios, remembers the challenge of findingmaterials for ken adam's laboratory set. we built it on e stage at pinewood. we actually got... a lot of the windowsaround, as we wanted glass,
we bought kind of patio windows. they came from a big manufacturerbefore they really got into vogue. we bought all these unitswhich was built into the set. the interior of the set was well-litbut we wanted this kind of rostrum where the actual diamond satellitewas being erected in the centre. l can remember that we wanted, like,a scaffold that was something different. we went to a company in uxbridgewho used to do a lot of specialist work. lt was called valley tools. they were precision engineers.so i went and saw biii and said,
"do you reckon you could cut these greatslabs of aluminum out and polish them?" he said, "l'll cut them out. l can't polishthem, but somebody across the road can." we took all this scaffolding downwhich was all... lt was, in effect, just zinc-plated. they polished it all up for us. lt didn't looklike just normal industrial scaffolding. we needed somethingto look a bit different. ln these scenes, joseph furst portraysdr metz. furst had appeared as lago in a 1953 television production ofshakespeare's othello
that starred lorne greene in the title roleand patrick macnee as cassio. he later went on to appear in 55 daysat peking and brides of fu manchu. ken adam talks aboutconstructing the moon buggy. what l used, and thatreally ended in disaster, i used the wheels or the wheel designof the nasa moon buggy and then loosely based iton the actual moon buggy and then guy, who was the director,said it wasn't grotesque enough. and he kept telling me l've got to be moregrotesque, and those mechanical arms,
they have to flail around more. so that's how it became what it was. what happened, when we shotin the desert near las vegas, the actual moon-buggy wheels,which were sort of conical, fibreglass, collapsed. and we couldn't shoot the scene. and though l had replacements,they were never strong enough to carry the weight of that vehicle. so, finally, we had to use balloon tyresfrom honda, which honda supplied,
and after losingquite a lot of shooting time. that nearly was my waterloo. the exterior shots of whyte tectronicswere filmed at the beginning of may 1971 at the johns manville gypsum plant. the chase was filmed a week laterin the desert surrounding and second-unit pick-up shotsof the car chases were filmed in mid-may. according to mankiewicz, hamilton hada prejudice against american automobiles and delighted in showing themcrash and break down. mankiewicz remembersfilming the chase scene.
those little atvs were new. they were a year old,those little three-wheelers. l guess they're still very popular. much more difficult to drive than theylook. you turn over on them very easily. the desert car chase and the upcomingcar chase on the streets of las vegas were among the biggest chasesseen on the screen up to that time. they provided work for many stunt men, some of whom let their enthusiasm getthe better of them, as hamilton recalls. one of the dune buggieswas meant to jump
and the stunt man lined upthe boxes endlessly. "right, it's safe for the stunt man to do it." and we heard the buggy coming alongand it was going much too fast. it sailed over the boxesand landed about 40 feet further on. a very surprised stunt man got up.nobody was hurt, thank goodness. guy hamilton had anticipated filminglots of action in and around las vegas. despite broccoli'sconnections with hughes, he was wary of the ability of localauthorities to secure the cooperation necessary to pull it off,as he remembers here.
when we had permissionto shoot in vegas, cubby sent me down to vegasto see the chief of police. he said, "what do you want?" and i had no idea at that timeof what to use. l knew vegas quite well. and l thought, let's say we want to shootin downtown vegas for four nights, or five nights, because there'sall that free lighting, which is terrific. we'll do a car chase.you couldn't do it in piccadilly circus. let's do what you can't doin piccadilly circus. let's do it in vegas. and they had to closedowntown vegas for five nights,
which was very tough because we weregoing to run cars up on the pavements. shops had to be closed. l had to go to a meeting, with the mayor, of the downtownshopkeepers' association. and they were as good as their word and we were able to shoota sequence in downtown vegas, which l don't think you could do now. ln the las vegas chase scene,the sheriff is played by leroy hollis the production's teamster captain.
hollis again worked for bond when theyfilmed live and let die in new orleans. the chase along the las vegas stripwas a hit with audiences, as coscreenwritertom mankiewicz remembers. we thought the destruction of the oil rig at the end was going to bethe biggest action sequence. this turned out to be the biggestand the most celebrated. unfortunately,it's in the middle of the picture. you're breaking a writer's rule. you're supposed to build or start offthe movie, the way bond starts today,
with something fantasticand then get into the story. but this turned out to bein the middle of the picture, not the way it's supposed to be. as ted moore discovered,one advantage of shooting at night along the strip is thatno additional lighting was needed. this confused harry saltzman,as peter lamont recalls. harry said to ted moore,"you haven't got any lights down here." he got his meter out.he said, "l've eight." this was with account of the ambientlighting. he said, "we don't need any."
of course, when you look at that place, when they were doing the car chase,there are still crowds watching. there's nothing you couldreally do about it. the part of the chase scenein the parking lot was filmed at universal studiosin hollywood. director guy hamilton remembers theinspiration for the parking-lot sequence. once again, if you're goingto do a car chase, it's got to have, sort of,some unique proposition, and i had been in california
when there was chaoson a car park at may company. then l imagined doinga car chase in a car park and the amount of damagethat you would cause to all the cars. l began to think about, rather than just racing up streets,which is so ordinary... the only way is to dosomething fresh and new. so let's try one in a car park and we had little models,little dinky toy cars, and laid out what the chasewould look like.
off we went from there,and knowing what the climax would be. one particular stunt requiredspecial driving talent. producers brought instunt driver joie chitwood. chitwood would contributeto the boat chase in live and let die. tom mankiewicz remembersfilming this stunt. joie chitwood goes in the wrong way. the car goes out the other wayand there is no way for a car to do that. joie chitwood flew in, did it first shot.went straight in, everybody cheered. here we go. and so l designed a thingwhere sean says to her, "lean this way",
and the whole car tilts, a physicalimpossibility, if you watch this. l mean, when cubby found out about it,guy found out about it, we were back in englandand the editor said: "there's something wrongand l cannot flop the film." "lt's not gonna work that way. there'sstuff that's gonna read the wrong way." so l decided that was the only thing."quick, lean this way." here's director guy hamilton to commenton this exotic piece of set dressing. lt was somewhere around this period... we were in california andthere was a passion for water beds,
and l thought, "how boring." "let's have a transparent one and put fishin it. yes, that's how you use a water bed." l'm surprised no one has evertried to commercialise it. the cast and crew were kept very busyduring the seven weeks in las vegas but still found some time for recreation,as tom mankiewicz recalls. during filming, tom jones, who was the equivalent on stageof what sean was to the movie world, the biggest star there was, he gave a party- it was the time of the oscars. he gave a party for the british nominees.there were lots that year.
he had them all flown up. sean and jill and iwere gonna go together and l, as a gag... there was this little hokeygift store at the riviera. you could buy diamond ringsthat were huge for four dollars. they were just shameless pieces of glass.so l thought, "diamonds are forever". l was going to take jilland meet sean there. l bought this enormous piece of glass for four dollars,and l gave it to her and she put it on.
she was looking like a million bucks. everybody thought it was realbecause it was on her finger. nobody looked that close.she would flash this thing. they went, "my god". people werelooking at it. ltjust goes to show you, it's not the ring itself, it's who's wearing it. when bond steps onto the ledge of thewhyte house, we're at pinewood studios, but the shots of the elevator ascendingwere filmed at the landmark hotel, with stunt man dick butlerdoubling for connery. one of the passengers inside is the film'sassociate producer stanley sopel.
director guy hamiltonrecalls filming the scene. it was the first timethat we'd seen these exterior elevators. got to use it, so off we go. sean wasn'ttoo keen on this and l don't blame him, because when you get to the top there,it then suddenly became rather windy. sean was very, very good. l'd never ask him to do anythingthat l wouldn't do myself. but he would always be very cooperative. because for some actors... what l consider not really a stunt,but you might be uncomfortable doing it
but he's got no fear of heights,which is a great thing. thank god, he is not one of those starsthat says, "l did all my own stunts", which is such a load of cobblers. because it stands to perfect reason,even if he justjumps off a chair and sprains his ankle,you now have an actor limping around and then you can't use himfor a week, or a month. so, of course you don't ask himto jump off a table because you could twist your ankle. tom mankiewicz recallsthe reaction to the piton gun.
two things are interesting.lt fires pitons but the way they're fired, when he swings out, they would've comeout and he would've dropped 40 floors. we did the best we could. we got letters from mountain-climbingsocieties all over the worid. "where is this piton gun? ls this real?" l guess from lazy mountain climberstired of hammering them in as they went. this, you got big gasps in the movietheatre when he's hanging on there. the skyline is a backing createdby peter and michael lamont. guy hamilton recalls the scene.
that is pinewood. because l would not like,on about 25 floors, to be suspending sean connery, however safe it isto say that he's wired up. no. creating credible gadgets for 007is always a challenge, as tom mankiewicz recalls. the gimmicks for bond,and some have gotten outrageous, and l wrote some that are outrageous,the closer they are to a kind of reality,
the better they are, where you say, "that could happen. that could exist." "just nobody ever thought of it." when bond drops down off the roof,he finds himself in whyte's bathroom, another exotically extravagant setcreated by ken adam. l thought again it was funny to have sean do this terrifying climb up the facade and the elevator shaftand then ending up on the roof, landing straight on the toilet.
so it was a tongue-in-the-cheek approach. you know, when we talkabout these things, that was half the secret of all those bonds, to come up with the tongue-in-the-cheekand at the same time believable approach to situations and designs. diamonds are foreverfeatures many striking sets. this is the highlight - willard whyte'spenthouse. here's tom mankiewicz again. this was a beautiful setthat ken designed, the penthouse. now, here, it's a long time in coming.
the payoff for the plastic surgeryin the beginning. guy hamilton remembersworking with charles gray. it was the first time i'd had a blofeld and there seemed to beso many blofelds beforehand that l just enjoyedworking with charles gray. writers will sometimes spendhalf a page conveying in words what an actor can convey with a gesture. tom mankiewicz remembersthis scene with charles gray. i had said to charles,cos l had an explanation
for when he talkedin willard whyte's voice. sean said, "that's a neat trick." then l had written,"a voice box, mr bond." then l went into, l don't know,half a page of describing... "the millibars go to the..." and charles being a very bright actor,and l being a very young writer, he said, "why do l have to do this?this is a bond movie." "why don't l say, 'a voice box, mr bond'?" "'science was never my strong suitbut the principle's simple enough."'
lt was a good lesson.you don't have to explain too much. just do it. people will accept it in a bond. since whyte was basedon howard hughes, ken adam let his imagination have fullrein in creating the penthouse set, as he remembers here. l wanted to give the feeling of a penthouse belonging to oneof the wealthiest men in the world, as well as a man who had beena brilliant designer and brilliant engineer. so, l thought the white wallswere appropriate
and then used a lot of stainless steel. l had all his operation in the floor,covered in perspex. some of the latest space technologyin model form, and so on... and came up with this futuristic design and l used the latest lighting fittings,which had just come on the market. l think they were swedish in design. these suspended balls,stainless-steel balls. locating appropriate furniture to fill upken adam's sets was always a challenge, as set dresser peter lamont remembers.
ken always liked to mixthe modern and antique. i remember ronnie queich, who wasthe buyer, looking for this refectory table. we found this huge refectory tabledown in broadway. a man called keel,he had all this wonderful furniture. it used to do wonderfuldecorator's pieces. they had this huge ironbound chest. lt was more of a semi-wardrobe, it wasso big, but it was tremendously heavy. we rented it. ronnie has got very goodliaison with this fellow in jermyn street. they had these great pieces.
we had it at the studios and had to getthe damn thing onto set with a crane. one of those thingsyou'd never, ever move. director guy hamilton remembersthis scene with mr wint and mr kidd. bond always ends uplike a cat with nine lives. lt's always, "take him away.l hate the sight of blood myself." so you've got to hand overthe job to somebody else. lt's during the handing overthat you have to be ingenious and try and find originalor interesting ways for mr bond to live to tell the tale.
the tunnel was inspired by a real location,as guy hamilton recalls. yes, hoover dam. lt was a tunnelat hoover dam, which l had a look at. obviously, that wasa possible bondian set. we never found anything to dowith hoover dam but we used that, then built a little bit of set herejust to release them back into the desert. putter smith's name is patrick, but when he was cast, there was alreadya patrick smith and a pat smith registered with the screen actors guiid, so he wasbilled by his nickname, as he remembers. i've been called putter since i was a child.
i used to be called put-put when i was six. then, when l was in the fifth grade,a friend of mine, jim o'suiiivan, started calling me putter, andhe was very proud of having done that, created that name for me. all my friends and family havecalled me putter since that early age. there's an occasional pat here. when someone calls and they say"hiya, pat, how are you doing?" l know it's somebody like a salesman. for these scenes of james bond's burial,filmed near lake mead boulevard,
director guy hamilton had to settlefor second best, as he recalls. the ones that i wantedwere absolutely enormous. they were the machines that carrythe rockets to cape canaveral. they're about five or six storeys highand move relentlessly. we couldn't get one of those at vegas so we had to make dowith some smaller machinery. the scenes of bond inside the pipewere completed at pinewood studios. after seven weeks of exteriorand location shots, the crew returned to pinewoodto film interiors on ken adam's sets.
these shots are reminiscent of the climaxof connery's first james bond film, dr no, in which 007 escapes from his cellby crawling through an air-vent shaft. hamilton recalls shooting this scene. lt's matching now back to vegas. we had seen... l'd seen at the howard hughesplant in the desert, l had seen them laying pipesand this enormous machinery. you always get interested in machinery. how can you use it in a bondian way?
talking to some of the men, i discovered about this machinethat goes down checking the welds. supposing we buried bond in the desert? and obviously the welding machine wouldbe the way that we would rescue him. cubby broccoli, who had mademany contacts in hollywood before going to englandto produce films in the 1950s, called on many peopleto facilitate production. his most famous connectionwas howard hughes. but he also contacted sidney korshak,the los angeles attorney.
korshak initially suggestedjill st john to the producers and later helped them secure locations inpalm springs, as ken adam remembers. the connections that cubby had that allowed us to dosome very interesting filming, that is not through howard hughesbut through the other connection, which was somebody called sidneykorshak. and i wanted to look at exotic-looking places in palm springs. so l had lunch with sidney at the bistro in beverly hills
and he rang somebody upin chicago, and he said: "this young designer from englandhas done several of the bond films and he wants to look at somevery interesting houses in palm springs." "he could look at sinatra's house..." and the next day, l flew to vegasand was met by a big black limo and was shown any housei wanted to look at. l arrived at this placeand it was absolutely right for the film. lt was a reinforced concrete structure,very modern. fabulous. l said, "you know,this is as though l designed it."
the gentleman who l talked towas not all that helpful. "who says l want to allow a bond pictureto be shot here?" and so on and so on. l said, "l'm very sorry but l understood that everything had been arranged." "no way", and so on. "very sorry. l think your house isvery beautiful and l would like to use it." "well, it's got to be negotiated." so, l immediately got on the phoneto cubby. cubby rang sidney. within half an hour, we had the house.
l mean, that can only happen in america,these sort of connections. bond's encounter with bambi andthumper was filmed in palm springs. jill st john recalls the location. there's an architect named ed lautner.very famous architect. done some incredible buildings.he built that house. l found it very impressiveand i don't like modern architecture at all. but that was a beautiful,very interesting house. for many years, books credited stuntwoman donna garrett with playing bambi. ln fact, gymnast lola larsonportrayed the athletic bodyguard.
guy hamilton remembers filmingthe fight scene with bambi and thumper. and once more, a fight. but you can't have it with a coupleof thugs, a couple of fellows. we'd done all that.how's about some lady athletes? l'd seen, again on television... seeing ideas and turning themround the wrong way, they were practising for the olympics, and l thought, one of those girlsspinning away... l wouldn't like to meet her on a dark night,let alone a brightly lit set like this.
let's get two of themand let's give bond a hard time. l'm sure we can devise a routine,choreograph it, that we can do somethingquite interesting. that was the only thing that we hadto add, a mobile that became a trapeze. bond's fight with bambi and thumper waschoreographed by veteran bob simmons, an innovative stunt man who, like many of the bond crew,had begun his association with cubby when cubby was involvedwith warwick pictures. trina parks recallsworking with bob simmons.
ok, when we first...when l first got on the set, l think it was bob,the choreographer-stunt person, said: "we're gonna start here, in the front area, and then we have to go over to the sideand do the flips behind the couch, and then we're gonna go overto this area here and then we're gonna end up in the pool." ok. so i said, "fine." he said, "show me something." he waswonderful, very open to different ideas. parks, a dancer and singer, whose fatherwas sax player with cab calloway's band,
remembers the reaction when she sawdiamonds are forever with an audience. lt was really strange to me. but l had such an exuberant feeling when l was in the theatre with people, because they really were rooting. l went to a theatre and people, of course,didn't know l was sitting there. people were saying,"go get him, thumper." l almost laughed out loudbut it was exhilarating. ln a way, l couldn't believe it. that's meup there doing that? l look terrible.
l just hadn't realised it was gonna besuch a big scene as it did come out to be. l'm glad it did. lt stayed a long time andstill is lasting. people still remember it. playing the role of bert saxbyin diamonds are forever is bruce cabot, whose real namewas jacques etienne pã©lissier de bujac. cabot's grandfather had beenfrench ambassador to the us. after his screen debut in 1931 , cabotwas featured in many b-picture roles before landing a partin the 1933 classic king kong. he went on to appear in many westernswith john wayne. during world war ll, he served as an intelligence officerin africa, sicily and ltaly.
his final appearance was in diamonds areforever. mankiewicz remembers cabot. l remember cubbyintentionally making sure that bruce got a shotin every location that we were at, so that they could extendhis deal by six weeks, so that he'd get paid for six more weeks. he would say, "for what we pay him,what's the difference on this budget?" "it means a lot to him."unless you scheduled him, an old pro like bruce would knowyou were giving him charity and resent it. but cubby said, "we need youin that sequence there."
guy hamilton remembers riggingthe siot machines for this scene with q. of course, had to bring q to vegas.slot machines. he's got to have a little gizmothat comes up with the jackpot every time. which wasn't difficult because we gotone of the mechanics to fix the machine and, sure enough,the jackpot comes up every time. the mechanic is interestedbecause he works very hard. on weekends, he hasto tighten them all up and on mondays, which is a slack day, the ones outside by the door,loosen them up,
so that people pull it and say, "this ismy lucky place," and come inside. shane rimmer madehis first appearance in a bond film in you only live twiceas a radio operator. ln this, he appears as whyte's employee.he would gain a more substantial role in 1977's the spy who loved meas the submarine captain. shane rimmer recallsworking with jimmy dean. jimmy dean was a country-and-westernsinger in the states. a good one. he was very popular. nobody really had any ideathat he had this acting talent.
he was very good at this reclusive type. l mean, he comes on like that.l don't think he actually is. he's got this slightly fey quality and he looks as though he could've beenlocked up in an apartment for some time and didn't have much communicationwith the outside worid. but it worked again.good casting. very good casting. jimmy dean is a singer best rememberedfor his 1961 recording of "big bad john", which he wrote on a plane tripbetween dallas and new york. although he was a singer, the producersdid not expect dean to sing in the film,
l had no desire to add any music.l told them l didn't want to sing anything. when they approached me,l said, "l'm not gonna sing." they said, "you weren't supposed to", which proved that l was rightand they've got taste. ln the 1960s, jimmy dean hosteda variety hour on the abc network that featured a puppet dog named rolf,operated by jim henson. henson later created the muppets. jimmy dean recallsworking with sean connery. the truth is that james bondand sean connery,
two different people altogether. l happen to think that sean conneryis the consummate actor. he's a great actor. he has the abilityto turn it off and turn it on, and he does what he's supposed to dowhen he's supposed to do it, and he does it very, very well. ln february 1971, before diamondsare forever went into production, apollo 14 landed on the moon. by august that year, apollo 15 astronautshad driven a moon buggy on the surface.
tom mankiewicz. the whoie world, and the united statesespecially, was rocket crazy at this time. satellite crazy. moon-walking crazy. when l saw neil armstrong steponto the moon, and the whole world did, you thought you were in the middleof a science-fiction movie. rockets, and satellites,and anything like that, was the future, and every little american kidwanted to grow up to be an astronaut. now they want to own jamesbond.com. since the worid bondoperates in is special,
the filmmakers must put a lotof thought into where to take 007 and what situationshe'll become involved in. guy hamilton talks about the importanceof finding the right setting. one of the nicest things about bondwas going to the places. you had a rough ideaof what the plot was. and then going off, looking for locations. it couldn't be the caribbeanbecause dr no had been there. you can't go to marseillesbecause you don't meet the sort of girls that bond should have dealings with.
you've got to go to monte carlo, got to gowhere mr big would have a private island, or a yacht or something like that. so, having decided the geographical area, you then recce it, look for things that could be bondian, and then find some ideasand come to the writer and say, "l've seen this fantastic place.we've got to somehow incorporate it." and you sit down and figure out ways of getting these things into the picture.
working closely with the directoris the continuity supervisor. elaine schreyeck was in chargeof continuity on several bond films. her other credits include sleuth,the omen, superman: the movie, and ladyhawke, as well as live and letdie, the man with the golden gun, moonraker, for your eyes onlyand octopussy. elaine schreyeck remembersher visit to the american location. on diamonds... i was not allowed to work in the statesat that time. l have been since, of course. but guy hamilton wanted me to go outto observe certain things,
which were going to be connectedwith the interiors at pinewood. so, l went out to los angeles and they have a very funny wayof numbering with the clapperboards. have you come across it? they usethe scene numbers for slate numbers and then they add a, b, c, d, eand all the rest of it. lt takes you half an hour to putthe clapperboard in before you start. the first thing that sean saidto me when l arrived, "my goodness, are we going to use theenglish way of using the clapperboard?" l said, "not until we get back to england."
that's my first recollection of sean. the final scenes shotby the crew in america were filmed off the coast of californiaover ten days beginning may 27 1971 . dick butler doubled for conneryin the action scenes. donna garrett doubled for tiffany case. to get to the location, the crewhad to travel by boat or by helicopter, this was off oceanside, caiifornia.lt was a shell oil rig. we built this on it. lt was not occupied at the time. i remember we were fiown outevery day by the marines from...
l think it's camp pendleton that's nearby... in these vietnam gunshipswith no doors on them. l never liked helicopters but there weren'tany doors. you did have a seat belt. you fiew over the ocean. there was thislittle x where you landed on the oil rig. jill had flown a helicopter once, but thefirst day we flew she was next to the pilot, this marine, who was just thrilledto have her sitting next to him. she started talking to him aboutwhen she was flying a bell helicopter. of course, this was a gunship. he said,"so you know how to fly these things?" l said, "oh, my god." l was so scared.l could see what was coming up.
we were near the oil rig.you looked down. there are a few thousand people.there's that x. he said to her,"do you think you could land this thing?" she said, "i'm sure i can." he said, "maybe in somebodyelse's chopper, lady." l said, "thank you so much." the ending of the film variesfrom the climax of lan fleming's novel, in which james bond is capturedby seraffimo spang and taken to spectreville,a ghost town near las vegas,
which the spangled mob had purchased. he is brutally beaten by wint and kidd,but escapes with the help of tiffany case. after derailing spang's train, bond setssail with tiffany on the queen elizabeth, unaware that wint and kidd are on board. the killers kidnap tiffanybut bond rescues her. finally, bond encounters jack spangin french guinea and shoots the villain's helicopterout of the sky. here's guy hamilton. l'd seen, again on television,one of those silly things of a gentleman who hadan enormous infiatable balloon
and was inside it and was paddlingacross, l think, the serpentine. it was his latest invention. he intendedto, l think, try and cross the channel in it. lt stuck in my mindand when we came to the situation where bond has to arrive on the oil rig, yes, we could've sent an aeroplane andhe could've jumped out in a parachute and landed somewhere near the oil rig,but everybody's seen parachuting. l thought, "supposing he jumps out and there's this crazy, mad balloonand he rolls up?" that'd be more interestingthan jumping in a parachute.
the close-up of connery emergingfrom the balloon was shot at pinewood, yet it matches perfectlywith the location shots. getting permission to film on the oil rigwas not easy, as guy hamilton recalls. the thought of having a film crewaboard was an absolute no-no. not because they didn't like film crews but because of arcs and lightsand sparks and smoking. but the oil industrywas going down a little bit and oil rigs were quite cheap to hire. so we plonked our own oil rigoff san diego,
which was a convenient place, andthe unit ran out in little boats every day. or if you were lucky,you got a ride on the helicopter. the interiors, of course, were not shot onthe oil rig but back at pinewood studios. harkening back to goldfinger, a woman initially alliedwith the villain has sided with bond. for this confrontationbetween blofeld and bond, mankiewicz wrote a linethat became a controversy between himself and coproducercubby broccoli, as mankiewicz recalls.
now, here we getto the famous la rochefoucauld, which... bond says to blofeld, "well, it lookslike you've got us", or something. and l had charles gray say, "as la rochefoucauld once observed,humility is the worst form of conceit." "l do hold the winning hand."lt was the biggest fight in the movie. cubby said, "who the hell is la what?" l said, "la rochefoucauld was a frenchphilosopher, 17th century maxims." cubby said, "get it out.nobody's heard of him." l said, "please, it's just a wonderfullyprissy, elegant thing for blofeld to say."
"no, l don't want it." look at jill.doesn't she look beautiful? then guy said, "cubby,please let it be in." cubby said, "no, out." all these differentversions of the script keep coming in. cubby couldn't remember the nameand started calling him michaelmas. he said, "michaelmas is still in the script.""l'm telling you, l want michaelmas out." we got to shooting the sceneand guy shot it. we were watching the rushes.cubby was furious. he said, "l don't want michaelmasin this movie. we're gonna cut him out." guy shot it intentionallywith no coverage.
so you had to keep it in the movie. so, cubby was just steaming. and after the movie came outand it was a huge hit, guy said to cubby one day,we were about to start live and let die, "l saw diamonds are forever in parisand la rochefoucauld got a big laugh." cubby said, "paris is the only placewe didn't make any money." he always had a comeback for you. he said, "you go ahead and do live andlet die, but no michaelmas this time." l said, "no michaelmas, cubby."he was a great guy.
the scenes inside blofeld's officewere among the first shot when the crew returned to englandafter shooting wrapped in california. keeping continuity proveda challenge for elaine schreyeck, as she remembers here. we used to go out each day, eitherby helicopter, or l had been out by sea and then got lifted up on that crane thingand dumped on the oil rig. lt was fascinating.l had to keep out of the way. on the rig it was there, but every time theywent through a door, it was pinewood. so, of course,l was making notes like mad.
l would see the film when l got back toengland, but it was a great experience. l thought, "goodness,fancy being out here all the time." but l did enjoy it. during the filming of goldfinger,connery learned how to play golf. golf soon became a passion for the actor,as it was for director guy hamilton, this was our last dayin california on the oil rig. sean and i and the cameraman, we asked cubby if we couldtake a chopper to la costa, which is a great championshipgolf course.
"yeah, when you're finished shooting." my god, sean and l, we did about12 setups in an hour and a half and we were away on our chopperand we arrived with our golf clubs and ianded at la costa,which was a very pleasing exercise. though the close-upsof the helicopter were filmed while the aircraft was on the ground, jimmy dean was invited to flyto the oil rig by one of the pilots. lt was an experiencehe remembers very well. there were two things that would cover it.
one of them was "extremely exhilarating" and the other would have to be"frightening as hell". cos they came close to that tower. but there was no doubt about themknowing what they were doing. they were the best stunt pilotsthat they had in california. with diamondsa largely american production, the special effects were by americansleslie hillman and whitney mcmahon with visual effects courtesy of thelegendary al whitlock and wally veevers. veevers had worked on lawrence ofarabia and 2001 : a space odyssey.
whitlock, who began in the 1940s, worked on the hitchcock filmsthe birds and marnie as well as catch-22and the andromeda strain. the americans werecarrying on a 007 tradition pioneered by such britisheffects artists as john stears, one of the many talentedspecial effects men director guy hamilton has worked with. hamilton recalls the strengthsof the british effects wizards. bond had been lucky to use
the best of the special-effects menin britain. because there's beena tendency in the past to have a chief of special effectswho does everything and he has a talent for one thingbut is no good for another. and so you get johnny stears who wastremendous for mechanical things. cliff richardsonis the king of explosive work. they used the best of their ability and notjust one person doing everything. when fleming's bond novelswere published in the 1950s,
many reviewers picked upon the sardonic humour in the stories. when the films were produced,this was made more explicit. tom mankiewicz explains. l always thought that bond was as much as anything,or should be, a humorous movie. because the early ones,terence young especially, dr no, when bond just kills that guyin cold blood when he says: "that's a smith & wesson andyou've had your six", it's a funny line. lt may be cold-blooded. we couldn't havedone it at the time l was doing bond.
we had to make sure bond stoppedsmoking, wasn't too much of a thug. we got into allthe political correctness with bond, but they were very humorous, the villainswere very humorous in the early ones. even when the tarantula wascrawling on him and he pounded it, the score went with the pounding, l mean,it was done with a tongue in cheek. and l found that they gotvery serious after a while, and sean, in diamonds are forever, there was a lot of humour in thatand he was so thankful for it. he said that this should bea humorous film.
george leech, a stunt coordinatorfor on her majesty's secret service, was one of the many stunt menwho participated in the oil rig attack. leech recalls working with explosions. the important thing is that theseexplosions don't hurt anybody. they are governed so much that youknowjust how close you can get to them. but, of course,you've got to react to the explosions. lt's rather like reacting to a punch. lt's no good throwing a punchand the chap doesn't react to it, with no reaction or no sound effect.
but with the explosions, you have to react and as soon as the explosion goes,you knowjust how near you can get to it. you cooperate with the special effectsjust where you can be, so that you throw yourselfin the right direction so that it makes the explosionlook genuine without killing anybody. blofeld's bathosub was designedby ken adam and buiit at a cost of $30,000. the non-working vehicle was fibreglass. lts controls are mere mouldings.
oscar-winning special-effects manbob short, a long-time bond fan, bought the sub from dean jeffriesauto styling shop in los angeles in 1972. lt was put on display at the hollywoodcar museum until the museum closed. ln 1980, short put the sub up for auction,where it was bought by ed mundy. ln 1991, mundy donated the subto the lan fleming foundation. ken adam recalls the bathosuband shooting on the oil rig. the oil rig, we found an actual oil rig off the coast of caiifornia,and we were very lucky, it was not in use, but to be able to stage explosionsand god knows what on that.
l then reproduced, or rather, l designed the interior of blofeld's control room and office setup in the studio at pinewood. the one thing that had to work on theactual oil rig was my little mini submarine. they gave me one of the submarineswhich we then used as a battering ram. a second bathosub filled with concretewas used to ram the control room. this second sub was destroyed bydean jeffries some time in the late 1980s. working near the explosions was riskyfor the actors, as jiii st john remembers.
they didn't want anybody that didn't needto be there. l was there for explosions where l was actually on screenand there would be explosions behind me. and you just have to have faiththat they know what they're doing. you know when you're on a bond filmthey do know what they're doing. performing on a bond film requiresa talent for physical action and acting. ln diamonds are forever, jill st johnbecame a participant in the mayhem of the film's climax, as she recalls. the only stunt l had to dowas with the machine guns on the oil rig. but it's nice when the leading ladydoesn't have to do any stunts.
i fell onto a mattress.l only fell about five feet. a group of mattresses, actually. but it's interesting in your bikini andyour high heels and your machine gun. except the precreditsof for your eyes only, diamonds are forever marked the finalappearance of blofeld in the series. although blofeld and spectre figurein six of the first seven bond films, they only appear in threeof fleming's novels. thunderball, on her majesty's secretservice and you only live twice. now director guy hamilton remembersbond's dive off the oil rig.
sean is a good swimmer but he wasn'tprepared to dive off the rig about 80 feet. we got a very impressive diverwho, in one take, off he went. when the shots of bond and tiffanyaboard ship were filmed on july 15 1971, 150 extras were required. though the scenetakes place in los angeles, it was actually filmed in england,as guy hamilton remembers. this was the canberra, on which we went downto southampton on a turnaround, and they let us play there.
i think we had two hours becauseit was sailing about a few hours later. and they had to clean up all this stuffthat we'd thrown around. l'll tell you the canberrahas no suite as elegant as that. here's ken adam to tell us about the suitehe designed for bond and tiffany case. lt was an elegant sort of suite and with a deck en suite. so it was all the same set.l think we had to build it on a platform to accommodate himbeing shoved overboard. l think, for the background, l put a lotof crinkly material on the backings
to give it the sea effect. we didn't use plates, or anything like that. lt's a very funny scene.very, very funny scene. as a much-in-demandbass player in los angeles, putter smith often playsfor touring performers. he recalls one particularlymemorable evening. l did, later, work with shirley bassey. i did some concerts with herat the greek theater. that was funny to be playing that music.of course, she didn't know who i was.
l guess the type of person l am, thatyou've got a secret, l've got a secret. the fact that l never let anybody knowthat i was the actor in that movie and didn't let her know, or anybody, so she would begin to sing it, and it wassort of a humorous inside joke to me. what a great entertainer she is. ln this scene, mr kidd ends up being set ablaze by james bond with some mouton rothschild. ln reality, setting smith ablaze safelyrequired a bit of special effects magic,
as he remembers. l didn't know they weregonna put me on fire. and actually, when jill st johnfound out about it, she said: "he deserves hazard pay." they put these electrodes in my arms, put airplane dope all over my arms,explained to me what to do. they were very careful about it.they said, "when we say cut, don't put your hands straight out, don'tput them up in the air. don't do this." then they rehearsed it through one timeand then they ignited it and did that.
lt was fine. l had a lot of faith through thewhole thing that everything was all right. i'd like to thank all the actors and crewwho are heard on this audio commentary. guy hamilton, tom mankiewicz,jill st john, jimmy dean, bruce giover, putter smith, lana wood, marc lawrence, trina parks,shane rimmer, joe robinson, john barry, don black, ken adam, peter lamont, and elaine schreyeck. l'd also like to pay tribute to those whogathered material for this commentary, especially mark cowan, lee pfeiffer,
mark ceruiii, paui scrabo,george ann muller, steve wacks, ned hards, john whatton, doug smith,antonia watson, dave worrall, derek miller, and the archivesof the lan fleming foundation. this audio commentarywas compiled by bruce scivally and produced by john cork,bruce scivally and david naylor. this is david naylor and thank youfor listening to the audio commentary. james bond will returnin the special edition of live and let die. english - us - commentary