At Ballymena Today we don’t get out to the cinema as much as we would like to but the new James Bond film is one that we won’t want to miss. Spectre is out next week and in celebration this week’s throwback Thursday features our favourite Bond trivia.
1. It is actually stuntman Bob Simmons who appears in the opening gun barrel sequence for the first three James Bond movies.
2. SPECTRE stands for SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion.
3. Dr. No‘s budget was only $1 million, and when costs overran by $100,000 United Artists wanted to pull the plug, scared that it would never recoup its costs.
4. Bond author Ian Fleming wanted his cousin Christopher Lee to play Dr. No. Christopher Lee later starred as Scaramanga in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun.
5. Bond doesn’t appear until 17 minutes and 15 seconds into From Russia With Love.
6. From Russia With Love‘s six-minute fight scene with Red Grant on the Orient Express took two days to film.
7. Many actors have appeared in more than one role in the Bond series – Maud Adams (as Andrea Anders and Octopussy), Joe Don Baker (as Brad Whitaker and Jack Wade) – but the first was in fact Sean Connery, playing a SPECTRE agent wearing a James Bond mask in From Russia With Love‘s pre-credit sequence.
8. Q is only referred to by his real name, Major Boothroyd, in Dr. No, From Russia With Love and The Spy Who Loved Me.
9. The body count in Goldfinger is 62.
10. The five pilots flying the planes in Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus in Goldfingerwere actually men wearing blonde wigs.
11. Honor Blackman, Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, is the oldest ever Bond Girl, at 37 years of age at the time of filming.
12. The Bond producers originally wanted Orson Welles to play Auric Goldfinger, but he was too expensive.
13. The dialogue of both Claudine Auger (Domino) in Thunderball and Ursula Andress (Honey) in Dr. No was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl.
14. Thunderball stuntman Bill Cumming was paid a $450 bonus to jump into Largo’s shark infested pool.
15. Sean Connery wears a toupee in all the Bond movies that he starred in. (Source)
Who can resist a good theme tune? Here are is our favourite by Shirley Bassey:
It just makes us even more excited to see Spectre. Click here to see Ballymena Cinema times.
