Did You Know?

The title song is the first in the Bond series in which we see the person who is singing, in this case Sheena Easton. The song was a Top 10 hit in both the UK charts (#8) and US charts (#4, 25 July 1981). It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, and was featured in a song and dance number at the Oscars on 29 March 1982. It featured dancers dressed as villains and henchman such as Dr. No and Ernst Stavro Blofeld as well as the real Harold Sakata and real Richard Kiel reprising their roles as Oddjob and Jaws respectively. A dancer played James Bond and at the end of the sequence he took off in a rocket with Sheena Easton who had been singing the title song live. This was just one of a medley of five song and dance numbers for each Best Song nominee on the night and it also acted as a preamble to the presentation by Roger Moore of the Irving Thalberg Honorary Award to 'Albert R Broccoli' in honour of the James Bond movie series. Starting with this film and the rise of the MTV Generation, all Bond films have had music video tie-ins.

Carole Bouquet had previously visited the set of Moonraker as the actress is French and interiors and some exteriors of that movie were filmed in Paris, France. She was remembered when it came to casting this movie. Two actors in the movie had previously appeared in the James Bond spoof Casino Royale. John Hollis (Bald Man in wheelchair aka unofficially Ernst Stavro Blofeld) played a monk whilst John Wells (Dennis Thatcher) was Q's assistant Fordise.

"For Your Eyes Only" was the first collection of Ian Fleming James Bond short stories and was first published on 11 April 1960. The collection was subtitled "Five Secret Occasions in the life of James Bond" and was the eighth James Bond book. It included the short stories "The Hildebrand Rarity", "Quantum of Solace", "From A View To A Kill", "Risico" and "For Your Eyes Only". These stories were originally conceived in the 1950s as scripts for a never-produced James Bond TV series. The last two of these provided material for the film along with some story elements from the novels "Goldfinger" and "Live And Let Die". Fleming's working title for the "For Your Eyes Only" story was "Man's Work" whilst its title when it was written as a TV episode for CBS was "Rough Justice" then as "Death Leaves an Echo".

It was during this production that Cassandra Harris introduced then husband Pierce Brosnan to producer Albert R. Broccoli.

The character of the father of Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), Sir Timothy Havelock played by Jack Hedley, was inspired by oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. He was once personally acquainted with James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

The company Autosafe provided the car alarms stickers for James Bond's Lotus Esprit which read "BURGLAR PROTECTED".

Wide public interest in the 1980 Lake Placid USA Winter Olympics was the inspiration for the production to use a Winter Olympics location and to include story action within its associated sports. The film used the Italian Alps location of Cortina D'Ampezzo which had hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics. As such, there are sequences set at Cortina D'Ampezzo's Winter Olympic venues. Winter sports featured in the film include the biathlon, ski jump, ice hockey, downhill skiing, ice skating, cross-country skiing and bobsled toboggan run. Cast member Lynn-Holly Johnson (now Givens) was a professional ice skater, noticed by Albert R. Broccoli for her turn at acting in Ice Castles. Her character in the film was an aspiring Winter Olympic medalist funded by Aristotle Kristatos.

This was the first James Bond script to be written by regular James Bond writing duo team Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson. This writing partnership would continue until Licence to Kill. It was also the first James Bond movie directed by John Glen whose first Bond movie he worked on was On Her Majesty's Secret Service as second unit director.

The name of the Jamaican Bond girl Judy Havelock in the "For Your Eyes Only" short story was changed to Greek Bond girl Melina Havelock in the film. The Cuban Major Hector Gonzales also comes from this short story. The Lisl Baum character from the "Risico" short story also had a name change to Contessa (Countess) Lisl Von Schlaf for the movie. The Aristotle Kristatos and Columbo ("The Dove") character names also come from "Risico," but Henrico Colombo was an Italian in the book - the movie changed him to Milos Columbo, a Greek.

Product placements, brand integrations and promotional tie-ins for this movie include Olin Skis; Bogner Ski Suits; Seiko Time (U.K.) including the Seiko H357 Duo Display & Seiko 7549-7009 watches; Diner's Club; Philips Industries; Garmont Boots; Mitsui Yamaha UK Motorbikes; Tyrolia Ski Bindings; Visa Card; Lotus Cars, S.A.; Automobile Citroën; American Express; Kelloggs; Interflora Florists; Scubapro Diving Equipment; Jewel Water Buggies; Osel Mantis one-man submersibles; Perry Oceanographic submarines; and Normalair-Garrett (NGL) Deep Dive 55 sea diving helmets, wet-suits and breathing equipment including the Deep-Dive 500 lift support system.

Topol asked producer Albert R. Broccoli to invite former co-producer Harry Saltzman to the Premiere and he did.

Regular James Bond film production designer Ken Adam did not work on the movie because he had gone to work in Hollywood on Herbert Ross's musical, Pennies from Heaven.

A line of dialogue had to be cut from the opening helicopter sequence due to legal reasons involving Kevin McClory. The bald man could not be called Blofeld as Kevin McClory had won a court case some years previous and owned the rights to the use of SPECTRE and Blofeld. Disposing of Blofeld so early was producer Albert R. Broccoli's way of telling McClory that the success of 007 did not depend on him. McClory later released a rival Bond movie, Never Say Never Again, featuring the Blofeld character. Blofeld has not appeared in EON productions since this movie.

To enter the identigraph booth, Q enters a five digit code. Those five digits were the first five notes to the chorus of "Nobody Does It Better", the theme to a previous Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me. James Bond responds by entering the final two notes. See also Moonraker.

The character of Countess Lisl was played by Cassandra Harris who, at the time of filming, was married to future Bond actor Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan would be offered the part just five years later but be unable to appear as Bond in The Living Daylights due to Remington Steele commitments.

In earlier drafts of the script, the chase sequence in the snow had James Bond pursued by bad guys in snowmobiles rather than on motorcycles.

Director John Glen has indicated that for a time it was considered bringing back the Jaws character for a third time but eventually the idea was rejected as it was believed that he did not fit the tone of this film.

Julian Glover, who played Aristotle Kristatos, was a candidate to play James Bond in the sixties and was on the short-list as a possible replacement for Sean Connery and George Lazenby prior to the role going to Roger Moore.

The stunt double for Cassandra Harris (Lisl) was injured when hit by the dune buggy in the beach scene.

Emile Locque (Michael Gothard) does not have a single line in this film, although we do see him talk on a phone inside his car at one point.

First credited appearance of MI6 Chief of Staff Bill Tanner, played here by James Villiers. The character had previously appeared (played by an uncredited Michael Goodliffe) in The Man with the Golden Gun. The character would be resurrected as a regular in the Brosnan Bond films, played by Michael Kitchen in GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough, and in the Craig Bond films, played by Rory Kinnear in Quantum of Solace and Skyfall.

Deborah Harry (Blondie) recorded a theme song for this film, which was rejected by the producers. It appears on their 1982 album "The Hunter". Surprisingly, Sheena Easton and Deborah Harry both appeared together in Body Bags

Was originally planned for production and release in 1979 as the follow-up to The Spy Who Loved Me. It was even announced as such in the closing credits of the earlier film. However, it was decided to make Moonraker instead, which delayed production of For Your Eyes Only for several years. Following the release of Moonraker, some newspapers erroneously announced that the next James Bond film would be called "The Sea Wolves". Roger Moore did make a film entitled The Sea Wolves, but it was not a Bond movie.

The following actors are dubbed: John Hollis, John Moreno, and John Wyman.

Snow had to be trucked into the ski resort of Cortina.

Hockey jerseys in the rink brawl scenes are exact replicas of the "Montreal Canadiens" and "Toronto Maple Leafs" NHL jerseys at the time, minus the logos.

The exploding Lotus at the start of the film was a tacit acknowledgment that Bond would not be relying on fancy gadgets in this film as he had done in the last few entries in the series.

Greece is the major setting for this movie but it wasn't for any of the "For Your Eyes Only" short stories. It was however the key setting in the Kingsley Amis James Bond novel "Colonel Sun".

The story involving the sinking of the ship the St.Georges off the Albanian coast was inspired by an international incident on 11 April 1968 when a Soviet submarine was blown-up and sank in the Pacific Ocean. Seventy personnel died and the US Navy located the wreck using the nautical Glomar Explorer, a mission funded by Howard Hughes, whom the Willard Whyte character in Diamonds Are Forever was based on.

Vehicles featured included two Lotus Esprit Turbo 2.2 sportscars, one white and one copper metallic to contrast against the white snow after the other is blown up; a yellow Citroën 2CV fitted out with a Citroën GS 4-cylinder boxer engine for a drive in the country to escape two black Peugeot 504 sedans; black Yamaha XJ 500 and Yamaha 500 XT motorcycles; Hector Gonzales's black, yellow & white Cessna U206G Stationair Amphibian seaplane; a remote-control Universal Exports red & white Mi6 Augusta / Bell 206B Jet Ranger helicopter; Aris Kristatos' black Everflex top white Rolls Royce Silver Shadow / Silver Wraith II car; a white two-person Neptune lock-out submersible exploratory mini-submarine; a PZL-3A / PZL Mi-2 / Polish Mil Mi-2 standard Soviet light helicopter; Colombo's yacht SS Colombina; the archaeological research vessel Triana; a black and yellow one-person atmospheric submersible Osel Mantis mini-submarine; the fishing trawler electronic surveillance spy ship HMS St. Georges containing one ATAC device; Emile Locque's black Mercedes Benz 280SE; a black GP Beach Buggy; and Aris Kristatos' motor yacht the Santa Mavra.

Third consecutive James Bond movie which excerpts famous theme music from another movie. The Spy Who Loved Me excerpted the theme from Lawrence of Arabia while Moonraker excerpted the theme from The Magnificent Seven whilst this movie excerpted the theme from Jaws.

When Bibi flirts with Bond (Roger Moore), she states that Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover) is much older than Bond. The Kristatos character is also a 1939-1945 War veteran. In fact, Julian Glover was born in 1935, 8 years younger than Roger Moore.

Peter R. Hunt, who directed On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was approached to direct this movie, but was occupied with making Death Hunt, a film with a similar setting.

The only film in which Bond drinks the traditional Greek apéritif ouzo.

The name Melina was something of an homage to Honey Ryder, the Bond Girl from Dr. No, the first movie in the series. Melina is the Greek word for Honey.

Although an accomplished cross-country skier, Moore wasn't insured to do any downhill skiing. Willy Bogner handled all the skiing for him. Any closeups with Moore were done with him strapped to a sled pulled downhill, while Bognor skied backwards while looking into the camera. Moore tried to learn downhill skiing in Gstaad. His children had school afternoons there and were embarrassed that he kept falling over. But he eventually became quite reasonable at it.

The camera was played at 72 to 84 frames per second, and then played back at 24 frames to simulate underwater inertia when Bond and Melina are dragged along by the boat. The bubbles were added in closeup by simply adding Alka-Seltzer, which were then imposed over the negatives when Bond and Melina opened their mouths.

This was the first Bond film not to feature Bernard Lee as M, who had played the role in the previous eleven films in the series. Lee died of stomach cancer on January 16, 1981, after the filming of "For Your Eyes Only" had started but before his scenes were shot.

Robbin Young:  The Winner of the "Be a James Bond Girl" Competition as Girl in Flowershop. Playboy Magazine, which had had a long association with James Bond, ran a competition in their magazine for a reader to become a Bond Girl in 1980. The prize was a cameo in this movie and a photo-spread in the magazine. Young appeared in the flower shop scene when motorbikes crash into the florist's front window. Playboy published some of the James Bond short stories by Ian Fleming including "The Hildebrand Rarity" in 1960 whilst the James Bond character was seen reading a copy of the magazine in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Bond has a Playboy Club membership card in Diamonds Are Forever.

Bob Simmons:  The stuntman as a henchman blown out by the Lotus car explosion.