Thunderball (1965) - Illustrated Reference

Thunderball was directed by Terence Young and premiered on 9th December 1965. Starring Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi and Luciana Paluzzi. Screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins. Music by John Barry. Theme sung by Tom Jones.

SPECTRE agents hijack a British Vulcan bomber with two atomic warheads on board, they demand $100m in uncut diamonds or they will blow up a major city. 007 is sent to the Bahamas where he meets the beautiful Domino Derval, mistress of SPECTRE agent Emilio Largo.

Sean Connery appears in the opening gunbarrel shot for the first time, in the three previous films it was stuntman Bob Simmons who walks across the screen and shoots at the camera. This was the first Bond film in Panavision widescreen and a new gunbarrel sequence was shot, this time with Connery.

Thunderball was Ian Fleming's ninth Bond book and was first published in 1961, the novel followed For Your Eyes Only which was an anthology of 5 Bond short stories. It was director Terence Young's third and last Bond movie.

Domino: What sharp little eyes you have.
Bond: Wait till you get to my teeth.

Gorgeous Claudine Auger plays ‘good’ Bond girl Domino Derval, her measurements for those who must know were 36-23-37. Her voice was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl. Julie Christie and Raquel Welch were both considered for the part of Domino but for various reasons it didn’t work out.

Sexy red-head Luciana Paluzzi is ‘bad’ Bond girl Fiona Volpe, a SPECTRE assassin who has 007 in her targets. CIA Agent Felix Leiter appears for the third time in the series, this time played by Rik Van Nutter

Italian actor Adolfo Celi plays Emilio Largo, SPECTRE No.2 in charge of the “NATO Project”. Celi’s voice was dubbed by Robert Rietty who would go on to dub the voice of “Tiger Tanaka” in You Only Live Twice (1967) and “Blofeld’s” voice in the pre-credit teaser to For Your Eyes Only (1981).

Blofeld makes his second appearance in the series but we still don’t see his face, he is addressing a villain’s convention and stroking a white cat, his voice was dubbed by Eric Pohlmann.

Producer Kevin McClory held the film and TV rights to Ian Fleming’s novel “Thunderball” after earlier collaborating on an unused script with Fleming involving SPECTRE and it’s plan to hijack a jet carrying atomic bombs. He was interested in producing his own Bond film based on the novel in the 1960’s but realised he could not compete with Saltzman and Broccoli, plus they had Sean Connery who was James Bond for millions of moviegoers.

McClory eventually met with the Bond producers and proposed a merger. He would sell them the screen rights to Thunderball for a percentage of the profits and a producer credit. They agreed. “We didn’t want anyone else to make Thunderball”, said Broccoli “if anyone else came in and made their own Bond film it would have been bad for our series.”

McClory would prove to be a thorn in the Bond producers side in years to come. Included in the Thunderball contract was a promise that McClory would wait 10 years before producing another film based on Flemings novel.

After years and years of legal wranglings with the Bond producers McClory produced Never Say Never Again in 1983. it was directed by Irvin Kershner and starred Sean Connery as James Bond. Kim Basinger played Domino Petachi and Klaus Maria Brandauer played Maximilian Largo. Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his white cat made his last Bond movie appearance to date, here played by Max Von Sydow.

Never Say Never Again was successful and McClory announced yet another Thunderball remake, titled Warhead 2000, in the 1990's which failed to materialise. McClory died in 2006 aged 80.

One third of Thunderball takes place underwater which tends to slow down the pace, the film suffered from many continuity problems. For instance during the undersea battle at the climax Bond loses his light blue face mask, he grabs the black mask from a dead diver and in the next shot he is still wearing his blue mask.

Bonds Aston Martin DB5 makes another appearance, this time water jets at the rear of the car help wash away some pursuing bad guys. Bond also uses a rocket powered jetpack strapped to his back to escape some thugs. SPECTRE agents show off their gadgets too in this film, Fiona Volpe rides a motorcycle that fires missiles and Largo’s yacht the Disco Volante converts into a hydrofoil at the climax.

John Stears won an Oscar for Special Visual Effects and Ken Adams set design was nominated for a British Academy Award.

James Bond is known as Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in Italy and a song was written for the film titled “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” it was to have been sung by Dionne Warwick but the producers later felt that the main song should reflect the films title. A new song was written “Thunderball”, which was belted out by Welsh warbler Tom Jones, who reportedly fainted after singing the final high note. The original song can be heard over the opening credits on a commentary track on the DVD.

Thunderball was released at the height of Bondmania, a worldwide success, it became the biggest hit in the series in terms of tickets sold. James Bond would return in You Only Live Twice.

The film was known by various titles around the world –

Operation Thunderball (Italy, Japan, Spain & Poland)
The Ball of Thunder (Israel)
Atomic Ball (Portugal)
Fireball (Germany and Finland)
Operation Thundersky (Norway)
007 Averted The Spectre (Japan)
Calm Down, Mr. Bond (Netherlands)

The Critics Wrote –

"It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a Super-Bond!" (Hollywood Reporter)

"Stripped of all the gimmicks, the girls and the geiger counters, Thunderball is a skilfully photographed, expertly designed, well produced underwater Wester. DIVE IN." (Daily Mirror)

"The screenplay stands on tiptoe at the outermost edge of the suggestive and gazes yearningly down into the obscene." (John Simon)

"Ravages of time and past excursions into international espionage seems to have enhanced the lure of the imperturbable undercoverman, who approaches hazardous assignments with the same aplomb he displays in hopping into the hay with a covey of peeled sex kittens. Thunderball packs a wallop in it's tongue-in-cheek treatment of agent-at-work." (Variety)

"Mr. Fleming's superhero, still performed by Sean Connery and guided through this adventure by the director of his first two, Terence Young, has not only power over women, miraculous physical reserves, skill in perilous maneuvers and knowledge of all things great and small, but he also has a much better sense of humor than he has shown in his previous films. And this is the secret ingredient that makes "Thunderball" the best of the lot." (New York Times)