On Her Majesty's secret Service (1969)

The only James Bond film to feature Australian actor George Lazenby

Summary

-James Bond has managed to woo the daughter of a mob boss while also investigating the true reason for allergy research being conducted by Blofeld in the Swiss Alps

Cast

-George Lazenby: James Bond

-Diana Rigg: Tracy

-Telly Savalas: Blofeld

-Gabriele Ferzetti: Draco

-Ilse Steppat: Irma Bunt

-Lois Maxwell: Miss Moneypenny

-Bernard Lee: M

Did You Know?

-At age 29 during filming, George Lazenby was the youngest actor to play James Bond. The other actors were older. Sean Connery-31, Sir Roger Moore-45, Timothy Dalton-40, Pierce Brosnan-41 and Daniel Craig-38

-The building used as Blofeld's headquarters was a partially complete restaurant on top of Mt. Schilthorn. The owners allowed filming there on the conditions of the interior set being made permanent fixtures and EON Productions paying $125,000 and constructing a helicopter pad. When the restaurant opened, it was named Piz Gloria, which was used in the movie. The way the public could access the restaurant was by cable car from Murren or Stechelberg. It became the first established revolving restaurant in the mountains in the world

-There are several reasons why George Lazenby only played Bond once. 1.) His youthful arrogance annoyed producer Albert Broccoli. The incredibly brutal British tabloids kept writing negative stories and constantly comparing him to Sir Sean Connery. 3.) Lazenby believed the Bond movies had gone as far they could go in the 1970s, especially with more sophisticated films like The Graduate and Easy Rider coming out

-This was the only film where Ilse Steppat spoke English. She could not enjoy her new found fame because she died less than a week after the movie was released from a heart attack

-For the opening scene, there are railroad ties under the sand so Bond can drive his Aston Martin on the beach

-The title was inspired by a phrase commonly known to those who live in Britain. Any sort of correspondence arriving from a government office was usually addressed with not a stamp, but the words "On Her (on his when there was a king) Majesty's Service" printed on the envelope.

-Timothy Dalton was offered the part of James Bond. He was 22 at the time, but felt he was inexperienced and too young to take the role. He would play Bond later in The Living Daylights (1987) and License to Kill (1989)

-Adam West, a personal friend of producer Albert Broccoli, was offered the chance to play James Bond. He turned it down, saying that he felt the role should be played by an English actor

-The photograph of Teresa "Tracy" Draco's mother was an actual photo of Dame Diana Rigg's own mother

-Joanna Lumley and George Lazenby had different ways of relaxing when not filming. She picked flowers and knitted a blanket for her young son while he learned to play "Hey Jude" by The Beatles on his guitar

-George Lazenby is the only actor known for playing James Bond who didn't come from the UK. He's Australian. Pierce Brosnan was born in Ireland, but moved to the UK when he was young

-To help him get the role of James Bond, George Lazenby went to the same barber and tailor as Sean Connery so that when he showed up at the offices of Albert Broccoli Harry Saltzman, two of the producers, he'd look more like Sean Connery. Ironically, when Lazenby was getting his hair cut, Albert Broccoli was in the barber shop. This successfully led to Lazenby getting the role

-This was George Lazenby's theatrical debut

-There were various actresses considered for the role of Tracy Draco. They included Brigitte Bardot, Jacqueline Bisset and Catherine Deneuve. Bardot was the first choice for director Peter R. Hunt, but Bardot had chosen to appear with Sean Connery in Shalako (1968). Dame Diana Rigg was then chosen because of her performance as Emma Peel on the British spy television series The Avengers (1961)

-This is the second film in the Bond series, the first one being Goldfinger (1964) where the actress playing the Bond girl is older than the actor playing Bond

-Lois Maxwell, who plays Miss Moneypenny, is twelve years and six months older than George Lazenby

-When the final scene showing Tracy Bond's death was originally written, George Lazenby was brought to tears. Director Peter R. Hunt wanted to re-shoot the scene, stating "Bond does not cry". There were only two takes for this. George Lazenby convinced Hunt to use the first take, saying that the circumstances (his wife being killed), this should be the exception. This became the first time (until the 2012 release of Skyfall) that Bond can be seen openly crying

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Another installment in the James Bond series

Summary

-James Bond must work with the Japanese Secret Service to find the person responsible for a series of space hijackings and stop a war between Russia and the US

Cast

-Sean Connery: James Bond

-Akiko Wakabayashi: Aki

-Mie Hama: Kissy

-Tetsuro Tanba: Tiger Tanaka

-Teru Shimada: Mr. Osato

-Karin Dor: Helga Brandt

-Donald Pleasance: Blofeld

-Bernard Lee: M

-Lois Maxwell: Miss Moneypenny

-Desmond Llewelyn: Q

Did You Know?

-The henchman in Mr. Osato's office that Bond fights is played by Peter Fanene Maivia, a Samoan professional wrestler under the name "The High Chief". He is the grandfather of professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

-The relationship between the producers and Sean Connery had gotten so bad at one point he refused to act if they were on set

-This is the first Bond film showing him wearing a Royal Navy uniform that clearly indicates his rank as Commander

-This film marks the final appearance of Sean Connery as James Bond and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny

-The Toyota 2000GTs are not convertible cars. They had roofs attached. But because Sean Connery is 6'2'' and the cars were too small for anyone over 5'8'', the roofs had to be removed

-This is the only Bond film where he refers to Miss Moneypenny by her nickname of "Penny"

-The character Donald Pleasance plays, Blofeld, is the inspiration for Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers series. The inspiration came from the bald head, scar, Nehru jacket and pet cat. But Pleasance has less than 10 minutes screen time. However, Mike Myers playing Dr. Evil has more screen time than Pleasance did playing Blofeld

-Tanaka's ninja training grounds were located near the famed Himeji Castle in western Japan

-During the helicopter magnet car scene, the famed red and white Tokyo Tower is seen in the background. Built in 1958, it was the tallest structure in Japan until the 2010 construction of the Tokyo Skytree surpassed it

-The book Miss Moneypenny tosses to James Bond was Instant Japanese: A Pocketful of Useful Phrases published by Masahiro Watanabe and Kei Nagashima

-Iam Fleming, author of the Bond novels, took inspiration for the name Dikko Henderson from his friend, Sir John Nicholas Henderson, who was also known as Nicko Henderson

-Various experts in martial arts were hired to play ninjas

-During WWII, author Roald Dahl worked in the British Intelligence service along with Bond author Ian Fleming

Five Reasons Judas Priest Should Be in the Rock Hall of Fame

There are tons of Judas Priest fans lobbying for the Metal Gods to be inducted here. But this famed "rock" hall seems more determined to induct non-rock and metal acts into their halls. Here are five reasons why the good people at Ultimate Classic Rock believe that Judas Priest should be inducted

1. The rock hall needs more metal

-The rock hall and heavy metal have been at odds since 1986. The first actual metal act was Black Sabbath and they didn't get inducted until 2006. Metallica got in in 2009 and Deep Purple came close behind in 2016. It's been said it's long overdue that the Metal Gods are the next band that should be inducted

2. They are the true Metal Gods

-Some may ask "What does metal look like?" The people at Ultimate Classic Rock will tell you "Any picture of Judas Priest". Their studded leather, the hairstyles, the sometimes raw, aggressive sound- it's all the definition of metal. Starting with twin lead guitarists KK Downing and Glenn Tipton, they established the "twin lead guitar" or "double axe attack" pattern for bands to follow in years coming. And the fact that their 2018 album Firepower is as aggressive as its name suggests, this tells all that Judas Priest still have the fire within them to create great music

3. Their singer is the Metal God

-While Rob Halford is not the band's original vocalist, and he did leave the band for a point sometime in the 1990s, he has been the vocalist who had been with the band for years. He's still the voice and face of heavy metal as well as the band he fronts. He's considered to be as iconic as Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, Bruce Dickinson and more. Rock 'n' Roll had leather before Halford joined Priest in 1973, but he took it to new extremes with his entirely studded leather clothing and drove out onto the stages on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He's also tough enough to show that he can perform a show with an injury. While performing in Toronto one year, he crashed his bike into a drum riser and broke his nose. But he didn't let that stop him; he went out and rocked hard on stage. He's said to be the Pavarotti of metal because his voice, even in his 60s, can hit every octave

4. Resilience looks good on them

-Judas Priest have gone through numerous changes in lineup, numerous changes in appearance and even sound. They've gone through three vocalists and nine drummers, almost making them Spinal Tap-worthy. Nothing has stopped them - not former guitarist KK Downing's departure in 2011, not former guitarist Glenn Tipton's debilitating Parkinson's Disease diagnosis, not even Halford coming out as gay in 1998. Even Rob Halford coming out with his battle against cancer recently seemed to go easy, as if cancer can't touch him.

5. Songs, songs, songs!

-The list of successful songs they've written over the years is mind blowing. While they've done cover songs, like "The Green Manalishi" from Fleetwood Mac, "Diamonds and Rust" from Joan Baez and even "Johnny B. Goode" from Chuck Berry, the other songs they've written are popular with both Priest fans and non-Priest fans.

Bruce Dickinson leaks unreleased 2003 Dance of Death album on air traffic control

We all know mistakes happen. But when mistakes involve one of the world's bigger metal bands, their singer and their yet-to-be released album getting released on air traffic control, this mistake just gets bigger.

Bruce Dickinson thinks back on a time when, in 2003, he found trouble with the air traffic control as he unintentionally played a yet-to-be released Iron Maiden album while flying. Around the time that Iron Maiden had completed their 2003 Dance of Death album, Bruce was working as a commercial airline pilot. When he was doing a spoken-word show in Austin, he recalled this mistake. He explained no passengers were on board, the crew was relaxing as he flew to their next European location. "We were coming back empty from somewhere down in Egypt or somewhere, and we're flying over Italy...autopilot's on, thumb in bum, mind in neutral, you know. And my first officer was a big rock fan, a big AC/DC and Airbourne fan, right?...He'd brought his boombox with him, and he said 'Hey boss, listen. Do you mind...if I listen to music?' I went 'Of course, it's not strictly company procedure. F--- it, yeah. Come on!'"

They listened to some AC/DC and Airbourne, and then Dickinson told his colleague that he had the upcoming Iron Maiden album with him, "which nobody in the world has heard apart from the band and management." Asking if the co-pilot wanted to hear it, the response was not surprising. "Yeah, yeah, cool!" "[We] put it in the CD player, as it was then, and put the boombox on the pedestal and we start playing it, I shout back to the boys and girls 'Anyone wanna hear the new Maiden album?'" They all agreed, so Dickinson took his hand microphone and placed it near the boombox. "Probably "Rainmaker" or something is blasting out all through the cabin. And it's been about four minutes or so, and I'm thinking 'I haven't said much on the radio recently'"

That's when he realized a mistake had been made. He realized that his broadcasting of the music went beyond the plane and its occupants. "I finally get on to Rome and all I can hear is this bloke going 'Who is transmitting? Who is transmitting the music? What airline are you? Who are you? Own up!'" Thinking about how he might have been identified, he responded "The great thing was, he wouldn't have a f---ing clue who it was because the album wasn't released yet!"

Thunderball (1965)

Another installment into the famed James Bond series. This is one of the many with Sean Connery

Summary

-James Bond heads down to the tropics to retrieve nuclear warheads stolen by S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agent Emilio Largo to be used in an international extortion plot

Cast

-Sean Connery: James Bond

-Claudine Auger: Domino

-Adolfo Celi: Largo

-Luciana Paluzzi: Fiona

-Rik Van Nutter: Felix Leitner

-Guy Doleman: Count Lippe

-Molly Peters: Patricia

-Martin Beswick: Paula

-Bernard Lee: M

-Lois Maxwell: Miss Moneypenny

-Desmond Llewlyn: Q

Did You Know?

-Originally, Bouvoir was to be strangled with his own bra and not the fireplace poker that was actually used

-In the book, Domino was Italian. Her full name was Dominetta "Domino" Vitali

-The reason for the many underwater scenes is from producer Kevin McClory's interest in diving

-In early versions of the script, the film opened at a Hong Kong fan-tan parlor strip joint. The element of a man in drag was still the same. There was a man in a peacock costume sitting in a gold cage

-Claudette Auger claimed she related to her character since she and Domino were involved with older men

-The large cargo plane deploying the frogmen is a Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter

-This is the first film in the James Bond series to involve a shark-infested swimming pool. This became the inspiration for Dr. Evil's request for sharks with laser beams attached to their heads in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

-The underwater scenes were done in the Bahamian Sea at low tide due to sharks in the area

-The camera Bond uses is a Nikonos Calypso I. It's an updated version of the Calypso-Phot, an underwater camera built for deep sea diver Jacques-Yves Cousteau. In close ups of the camera, the Nikonos logo is covered with black gaffer's tape

-Molly Peters, who plays Patricia, is the first Bond girl to be seen stripping her clothes off on screen

-Claudine Auger did all her own underwater scenes as she was an excellent swimmer

March Birthdays

Since it's March, it's time to say Happy Birthday!

Steve Harris

-Birth name: Stephen Percy Harris

-DOB: 3/12/1956

-Where: Leytonstone, London, England

-Prior to discovering music, he wanted to be a professional footballer for West Ham United

Carrie Underwood

-Birth name: Carrie Marie Underwood

-DOB: 3/10/1983

-Where: Muskogee, Oklahoma

-Has two sisters named Shanna and Stephanie

Daniel Craig

-Birth name: Daniel Wroughton Craig

-DOB: 3/2/1968

-Where: Cheshire, England

-When cast as James Bond, he refused to dye his hair black to look like the other actors in the past

Sting (Wrestler)

-Birth name: Steve Borden

-DOB: 3/20/1959

-Where: Omaha, Nebraska

-His black and white face paint, paired with his black and leather clothing, were inspired by the film The Crow

Michael Caine

-Birth name: Maurice Joseph Micklewhite

-DOB: 3/14/1933

-Where: London, England

-He joined the British Army after leaving school at fifteen and served in Korea during the Korean War

Elton John

-Birth name: Reginald Kenneth Dwight

-DOB: 3/25/1947

-Where: Middlesex, England

-Got his stage name "Elton John" from a combination of saxophonist Elton Dean and musician Long John Baldry

Dee Snider

-Birth name: Daniel "Dee" Snider

-DOB: 3/15/1955

-Where: Astoria, New York

-He and his wife Suzette have been married since 1981

Eric Idle

-DOB: 3/29/1943

-Where: South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England

-His fellow Pythons had tasked him with composing a response to an angry piece of fan mail for one of their fellow Pythons. Graham Chapman was openly gay and a letter quoting Bible verses "condemning" him to a death by stoning for being homosexual was sent to the comedy troupe. Idle jokingly said they had stoned Chapman to death

Freema Agyeman

-DOB: 3/20/1979

-Where: London, England

-She is a self-confessed big fan of Star Trek. She watched all the Star Trek shows and even attended a convention once

Gary Oldman

-Birth name: Gary Leonard Oldman

-DOB: 3/21/1958

-Where: New Cross, London, England

-He is known for playing borderline psychotics

Angus Young

-Birth name: Angus McKinnon Young

-DOB: 03/31/1955

-Where: Glasgow, Scotland

-The schoolboy uniform was inspired by the fact that when Angus started in music, he would come straight from school without changing out of his school uniform

Michael Imperioli

-Birth name: James Michael Imperioli

-DOB: 3/26/1966

-Where: Mount Vernon, New York

-He took up taekwondo in 2003 to help him stop smoking

Mark Calaway aka "The Undertaker"

-Birth name: Mark William Calaway

-DOB: 3/24/1965

-Where: Houston, Texas

-WWE billed him as 6'10''. In real life, his actual height is only 6'8''

When Bruce Dickinson Heard About His Replacement in Iron Maiden

Everyone knows the story of how former Wolfsbane vocalist Blaze Bayley replaced iconic front man Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden.

The early to mid 1990s was a tough time for Iron Maiden. Vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith had left the band to pursue solo careers. Which left Maiden without a singer and guitarist. Luckily, they had covered the guitarist space with former Gillan/White Spirit guitarist Janick Gers. And also, luckily, they were able to find a replacement for Bruce. Maiden's former vocalist had quit the band in 1993, after completing the Raising Hell special on TV, with magician Simon Drake. The magician had shoved the singer into an iron maiden torture device before Eddie came up and removed Bruce's bloody head from his equally bloody body

The band's next move was to find a replacement. At that time, bassist Steve Harris was going through a divorce and suddenly found himself wondering how to care for his four kids Lauren, Kerry, Faye and George. Luckily, the singer stress was relieved when the band found a perfect singer in Wolfsbane front man Blaze Bayley. In the eyes of the press, it was a controversial decision because they couldn't imagine Iron Maiden without Bruce Dickinson. Still, Blaze Bayley had one person cheering for him: Bruce Dickinson himself.

In a 2007 Classic Rock Magazine interview, Bruce said "When Blaze got the job, I was, like 'Wow, I hope this works out.' I thought it would probably be more difficult than he could imagine, even though he was having a great time. And look, if Iron Maiden offered you the job, you're not going to turn it down, are you?" Meanwhile, the press was having a field day with the tensions flying back and forth between Iron Maiden and their former vocalist. Bassist Steve Harris and tour manager Dickie Bell accused Bruce of being "f---ing awful" at some of their last shows together. There could have been awkwardness between Bruce and Blaze, but instead Bruce sent Blaze a most unusual gift. He had sent Blaze a pair of house bricks painted yellow

"I saw an interview with him, and there was a line at the end where he said 'I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz'", replied Bruce. "I thought 'That's really sweet - I know exactly how you feel.' So I painted up two bricks and sent them to him." Dickinson stated he admired Bayley for taking what was going to be a near impossible job. "Absolutely. Hats off. Full respect to him for that. His voice is very different to mine. And there was a point where he got the job where I thought 'How the hell is he going to manage to do those songs? Maybe they just won't do them. It's gonna be hard.' I said to someone at the time 'Why don't they really do something off the wall and really outrageous. Get a woman! There's some of these female Finnish vocalists kicking around, and they have the most outrageous voices! Do something to really, really knock people's socks off.' But I'd have been f---ed then. I'd have never come back.'"

He did come back, in 1999, along with Adrian Smith. Nowadays, the Blaze era of Maiden is said to be very divisive among the Maiden fans. Some love everything about the Blaze era. Some hate the fact that Bruce was replaced by this virtual unknown. A lot of critics are quick to judge the two albums made with Blaze - 1995's The X Factor and 1998's Virtual XI - as the band's weakest albums. Mostly because of the adult-oriented lyrics replacing the space travel, sci-fi, horror-type lyrics Maiden once wrote about. Those who have read the excellent book Run to the Hills: Iron Maiden, The Authorized Biography by Mick Wall will know that, at the time those albums were written, Steve Harris was going through a lot of personal problems at the time. Bruce Dickinson had just left the band. Steve Harris was going through a divorce and wondering how he would care for his four kids Lauren, Kerry, Faye and George. He was very down at the time and it was guitarist Dave Murray who gave him the strength to carry on. He simply said that the band should carry on with a new vocalist. And that they did. When Bruce was asked if he had heard those records, here is his response.

Bruce said "No. It was all a little bit fraught. The only time I've actually listened to the albums was when Steve said 'We need to go and record one of these songs.' I thought 'Oh, how does it go then? I'd better go and have a listen to it.'" 

Goldfinger (1964)

The third installment in the famed James Bond series

Summary

-During an investigation into smuggling from a gold magnate, a plot to contaminate Fort Knox's gold reserves is uncovered

Cast

-Sean Connery: James Bond

-Gert Frobe: Auric Goldfinger

-Honor Blackman: Pussy Galore

-Shirley Eaton: Jill Masterson

-Tania Mallet: Tilly Masterson

-Harold Sakata: Oddjob

-Bernard Lee: M

-Cec Linder: Felix Leitner

-Lois Maxwell: Miss Moneypenny

Did You Know?

-This movie is the first appearance of a laser beam in any 007 movie

-Every scene that appears to be the US was actually filmed at Pinewood Studios in London. One instance to explain this is when Connery flips the light switch down to find the gold-painted corpse of Jill. Light switches in England are designed to flip down to turn on lights instead of flipping them up as is done in the US

-Goldfinger is seen wearing something yellow or gold-colored in almost every scene. He even has a gold revolver. In the James Bond series, he is the first "man with a golden gun"

-Honor Blackman, who plays Pussy Galore, had been playing the character Cathy Gale on the 1961 TV program The Avengers. She had to quit that role for this one. An episode of The Avengers from 1965 makes a reference to this by having John Steed receive a Christmas card from Cathy Gale, sent from Fort Knox, Kentucky.

-This film was the first movie role for American-born Japanese wrestler/weightlifter Harold Sakata, who plays Oddjob

-Sean Connery was married at the time to Diane Cilento. He wore a flesh-colored bandage over his wedding ring

-The original car for this movie was not an Aston Martin DB5, but an E-Type Jaguar, which was a lot cheaper. The car model was driven by production designer Ken Adam. Aston Martin's David Brown supplied two production prototypes of the then newly released Aston Martin DB5. One was to be used for driving and the other to be used for adding gadgets. It was not until 2002's Die Another Day that a Jaguar-type spy car was used

-This was the first film that Pierce Brosnan, who would play James Bond in the future, saw in theatres

-After accepting his role as Goldfinger, actor Gert Frobe was asked if he had any private interests or hobbies. He replied he loved football (soccer). Resulting from this, a Rolls Royce would arrive later every Saturday at the London hotel where he stayed and would take him to the matches

-The most famous of the James Bond cars, seen in this movie and 1965's Thunderball, was a 1964 silver birch Aston Martin DB5. This car was never driven by Roger Moore as James Bond

-The original novel states that Bond drove an Aston Martin DB3 and the only upgrades he had to it were reinforced bumper guards and a secret compartment for his Colt .45 pistol

-When Sir Sean Connery died on October 31, 2020, Shirley Easton, who played Jill Masterson, is the last surviving cast member. Honor Blackman died on April 5, 2020 and Margaret Nolan, who played Dink, died on October 5, 2020. Nolan and Connery died within six weeks of each other

-In a 2007 interview, Margaret Nolan said she enjoyed working with Sean Connery. She said he was a gentleman and would give her a lift home in his Rolls Royce after filming

-In the novel, Goldfinger was only five feet tall while in real life, Gert Frobe, who played Goldfinger, was 6'1''

-This was the debut of the Aston Martin

-In 1965, Sears paired up with AC Gilbert to sell an exclusive James Bond-themed Road Race playset. It was a slot car track that came with two cars and scenes from the mountainside road chase

-Despite what everyone thinks, it was in the film Dr. No that Sean Connery had worn a hair piece, not Goldfinger. He had started losing his hair at 17 and had to wear a hair piece for a lot of his films

-Bond makes a joke about drinking room temperature champagne being like "listening to the Beatles without earmuffs". Richard Vernon, who plays Col. Smithers, was in A Hard Day's Night (1964). He played a businessman arguing with The Fab Four on a train

-The airport in the UK that Bond and Goldfinger fly to Switzerland from is the real Southend Airport in Essex. During the period of which this movie was filming, it was in a British Air Ferries period, making it the third busiest airport in London. The map tracker clearly shows where it's at. It was originally known as RAF Rochford. Since the mid 2010s, it's been known as London Southend Airport, whose airport code is SEN

-Despite the fact that Oddbjob is Korean, the actor who plays him is American-born Japanese

-Gert Frobe had incredibly strong reservations about Goldfinger using nerve gas to rid himself of witnesses. He felt that, with him being German, there would be strong Nazi concentration camp suggestions. This movie was banned in Israel for years after Gert Frobe revealed he was a member of the Nazi Party. The ban was lifted after, most surprisingly, a Jewish family came forward to praise Frobe for protecting them from persecution during WWII

From Russia with Love (1963)

The second installment to the James Bond series

Summary

-The famed British agent gets involved in an assassination plot involving a Russian beauty and retrieving a stolen Soviet encryption device stolen by S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

Cast

-Sean Connery: James Bond

-Daniela Bianchi: Tatiana Romanova

-Pedro Armendariz: Ali Kerim Bey

-Lotte Lenya: Rosa Klebb

-Robert Shaw: Donald 'Red' Grant

-Bernard Lee: M

-Eunice Gayson: Sylvia Trench

Did You Know?

-The knife shoe weapon Rosa Klebb uses is an actual weapon used by the KGB

-Sir Sean Connery had eight specially made Saville Row suits for this film. Each one cost $2,000

-Pedro Armendariz was terminally ill with cancer during filming. It's possible he contracted cancer from filming near a US nuclear test site during The Conqueror (1956). He accepted the role in this film to provide financial security for his wife. The schedule for shooting was modified to film his scenes while he was able to. Towards the end, director Terence Young had to have a stand in film the longer shots. One month after all his scenes were completed, it was discovered Armendariz had shot himself inside a Los Angeles hospital

-Vladek Sheybal, a highly respected Polish actor and good friend of Sean Connery, was hesitant to take his role in this movie because he thought it wouldn't be a good career move. His good friend Sean Connery convinced him to take it and the risk paid off. It helped his career big time

-When filming scenes with Sean Connery, Robert Shaw revealed on The Tonight Show that he had to stand on wooden crates because he was four inches shorter than Connery

-Daniela Bianchi, at 21, was the youngest actress to play a leading Bond girl

-Sean Connery was introduced to the game of golf during this movie by Robert Shaw

-Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig, two actors who would play James Bond themselves later on, cited this as their favorite Bond movie

-In the novels, Bond often drives his favorite car, a Bentley. The car appears in this movie for only time in the series

-Col. Rosa Klebb was based on a real-life Russian Colonel that Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond stories, once wrote about in The Sunday Times

Bruce Dickinson on Iron Maiden

The Iron Maiden front man reflects on the band he has sung with, off and on, since 1982.

The legendary British metal band had recently released Senjutsu, a seemingly Japanese-themed album. This was the most recent album to be released, a large gap between now and 2015's The Book of Souls. He describes the music as "real music played by a bunch of old geezers."

"Every now ang again we come up with an album that really seizes the day and, Senjutsu is one of them. The last album where I think we had a similar sort of sensation was probably [Bruce's return to Maiden 2000 album] Brave New World, because there were lots of cynics going 'It's just going to be retreads and a lot of old crap.

It wasn't and people went "Oh my God, it's really good." After that, people went "oh well, it's another Maiden album, it's another Maiden tour." But quietly we were getting a lot bigger than we ever were back in the day.

But this time you had covid, and people were locked in and they missed going to see this big, monstrous band with Eddies and everything. They were thinking "Where the hell is that in my life?" and then you come with an album like Senjutsu - which was recorded before covid was even dreamt of - and it fills that hole.

It's very heartening that people really got it. Musically it's a stunning album - it's complex, it's emotional, it's got multiple layers. People go [disgruntled voice] "It doesn't sound a bit like 1983". No, of course it doesn't, we've all moved on a little bit. As we get older, we get more contrarian and cantakerous. It's a bit like Neil Young - he's been at it for years, but he still manages to come up with things that rub the establishment the wrong way.

We did have our little animated secret weapon, which was the video for [first single] "Writing on the Wall". I knew we weren't going to be going anywhere for a while, and Maiden certainly weren't going to be setting up our gear in some rehearsal studio and pretending we're playing some huge live gigs, cos we'd just look like a proper bunch of Charlies. So I said "We should put our resources into doing an incredible video." My template for it was the Rammstein video [for Deutschland], which was a piece of art. Rammstein and Maiden are different styles, but what I was after was the emotional impact that video had. And I think we captured the emotional impact.

Then there was the teaser stuff we did. I can't take any credit for that - it was all assembled by Sarah, who does all the social media and internet magic. When she and her team came up with it, I said 'Is this really going to work? Are people really going to be fascinated by this or is it just a bunch of Maiden geeks?' Which shows how much I knew. We went head to head with Drake the week the album was released [the rapper narrowly beat Maiden to the No.1 spot]. I don't really get what he does, though a lot of people do, but going head to head with him felt like 'No, this is real music played by a bunch of old geezers who make no concessions to the times in which we live.' People say 'You're dinosaurs.' And we go 'Yeah, and there aren't too many of those left.'

This is who we are, it's what we do. But by and large our audience has moved on with us. Maiden's audience is like a table made of plywood: every year you add a new layer and the table just gets bigger and bigger. We've grown organically - not through social media or any of that stuff. We've grown by going out and doing it in front of people. I can't wait to get back out there and play these songs. We're still fired up, and to get back together in a room with the guys to just play music is something I'm looking forward to more than you can ever imagine. I did this gig in Hungary recently with me and [Deep Purple bassist] Roger Glover doing [Purple's] Concerto for Group and Orchestra, and that was the first time I've played music in front of an audience for a few years. It was unbelievable. Roger was in tears. And the Maiden thing will be that to the power of ten."