Where to watch The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Trivia & production notes

• Anthony Burgess's draft for the script featured Bond thwarting a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II through a bombing of Sydney Opera Hall, incorporating characters and themes from his spy novel Tremor of Intent.
• Richard Maibaum's original script included an alliance of real-world terrorist organizations—the Red Brigades, Baader-Meinhof Gang, Black September Organization, and Japanese Red Army—attacking SPECTRE, but producer Broccoli shelved it because he felt it was too political.
• Catherine Deneuve was willing to accept $250,000 to play the female lead instead of her normal $400,000 rate, but Broccoli refused to pay above $80,000.
• The 007 Stage built at Pinewood Studios for filming the supertanker interior cost $1.8 million and was so massive that cinematographer Claude Renoir struggled to light it effectively due to his deteriorating eyesight, prompting Stanley Kubrick to visit in secret and advise on lighting techniques.
• The motorized sidecar used in a chase sequence was custom-built with a 10-inch scooter wheel base and Suzuki 185 engine, with a stuntman lying flat inside to steer the detached projectile through a small rubber wheel while hidden by a smoked perspex nose.
• Seven different Lotus Esprit models were created to portray the car's transformation into a submarine, including a fully functional version called Wet Nellie equipped with an engine built by Perry Submarines.
• Stuntman Rick Sylvester earned $30,000 to ski off Mount Asgard on Baffin Island for the pre-credits sequence, which was inspired by a Canadian Club Whisky advertisement featuring Sylvester performing the same stunt in Playboy magazine.
• The ski-jump stunt cost $500,000 to execute, making it the most expensive single movie stunt ever filmed at that time.
• Producer Broccoli decided to include the KGB as Bond's allies after showing a James Bond film to Russian colleagues during production of The Blue Bird in the Soviet Union, and they noted the films could not be shown domestically because they were too anti-Russian.
• In June 1976, Kevin McClory was awarded sole rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld, forcing producer Broccoli to request that Christopher Wood remove all references to these elements from the script to avoid further legal delays.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Spy Who Loved Me (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.