Life is what happens when you are making other plans~ John Lennon
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind~Gandhi
The time is always right to do what is right~ Martin Luther King Jr.


Thursday, April 7, 2022

Moonraker (1979)

A James Bond film involving space

Summary

-James Bond goes on his next mission, involving global genocide and the theft of a space shuttle





Cast

-Roger Moore: James Bond

-Lois Chiles: Holly Goodhead

-Michael Lonsdale: Hugo Drax

-Richard Kiel: Jaws

-Corinne Clery: Corinne Dufour

-Bernard Lee: M

-Geoffrey Keen: Sir Frederick Gray

-Desmond Llewelyn: Q

-Lois Maxwell: Miss Moneypenny

-Toshiro Suga: Chang

Did You Know?

-The cable that Jaws bites was made of licorice

-In the fight scene between Bond and Chang, this movie used a record amount of break away sugar glass

-This was Bernard Lee's final film as M. He died in 1981, when For Your Eyes Only was just getting started

-For the shooting in Rio De Janeiro, Roger Moore arrived a few days late due to some issues with kidney stones in France. While shooting Live and Let Die, he suffered from renal colic. Once in Rio De Janeiro, he walked off the plane and into makeup, hair, got fitted out for filming and went back on the plane to start filming in Rio

-In the novel of the same name, Ian Fleming stated that once Bond reached 45 years of age, he would be taken off of the 00 list automatically and placed into a staff job at Headquarters. Roger Moore was 45 when he appeared in 1973's Live and Let Die

-Roger Moore hates bloodsports and is always hesitant to use guns. He had a genuine distaste for the shooting scenes

-While filming in Venice, the church bells rang so loud it made work impossible. The church bells rang because Pope John Paul I had passed away

-Any scenes at the space center were filmed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida

-While filming, Lois Chiles' brother Clay was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease. She would return to her native Houston to donate platelets to try and help him every ten days. He died from the disease.

-Lois Chiles was pregnant during the filming process

-Jake Lombard is a professional, veteran skydiver. He was used as James Bond's stunt double because he bore a strong resemblance to Sir Roger Moore, except for the long hair and beard. He had to cut his hair and shave. After this, close ups of Bond in free fall could be done successfully. The pilot was another veteran skydiver named B.J. Worth, along with Jean-Pierra Castaldi being used for studio scenes, because of his resemblance to Mr. Worth

-The boat chase in Venice was made difficult by the fact that the speed limit was five knots

-Three actors who appeared in the 1998 film Ronin made appearances as the main villain in three of the James Bond films. They are: Sean Bean from 1995's GoldenEye. Michael Lonsdale from this movie and Jonathan Pryce from 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies

-This is the final time to date that James Bond can be seen hang gliding, a new activity gaining rapid popularity in the 1970s. The other time is in 1973's Live and Let Die

-Claude Renoir was hired as the director of photography, but he had to back out due to his failing eye sight

-The family performing the high wire act was the famed Traber family, whose talents go back as far as 1512

-Prior to the order of Bond and Holly being executed, Drax tells them "your desire to become America's first woman in space will shortly be fulfilled". 1983 saw Sally Ride becoming the first female American astronaut in space while in 1963, Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut from the Soviet Union

-In the 1973 film The Day of the Jackal, Michael Lonsdale plays a secret agent trying to stop a British assassin with a high powered rifle. Here he plays an assassin with a high powered rifle trying to stop a British agent. Ironically, Roger Moore had wanted to play the role of The Jackal

-According to Roger Moore, the scene where he and Holly make love in zero gravity was the hardest scene to shoot. Roger stated he felt blood running up to his nose and eyes

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