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For Your Eyes Only
In memory of Roger Moore
Plot (Spoiler Alert)A British spy ship has been sunken and 007 is called in to find a device that was on the ship before the Russians do. Along the way James meets Melina Havelock, the daughter of marine archaeologists. Melina’s parents were murdered and she is seeking revenge against the people responsible. Bond and Melina work together to find the device. 
Blaine: Producer Albert Broccoli had hired his step son Michael Wilson to be apart of the creative team to help shape Bond's entrance into the 1980s. One of the things they wanted to do was have Bond step away from the previous film “Moonraker” even though it was a success, but too much of a science fiction movie. John Glen was the second unit director for three previous James Bond movies (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me & Moonraker) and then he was promoted to direct the next Bond film. There was a lot of talk of how they were going to get the character back on the ground again after being in space and so they called in Richard Maibaum who had done screenplays for eight of the Bond films. Michael Wilson joined Richard into writing the script for the next James Bond. They decided to look through two of Bond creator Ian Fleming’s short stories, “For Your Eyes Only” and “Risico” and devised a plot coming from Ian’s work. They even used a key sequence from the “Live and Let Die” novel that hadn’t been done in the film which was the being dragged by a boat sequence. Production designer Peter Lamont was a veteran of nine Bond films and they needed new designs that were detailed and realistic because they were shaping a new vision of Bond for the 80s. After assembling a team of people to work behind the camera, the next thing to do was to put a cast together. Roger Moore was already on board before casting began and John Glen was very pleased that about Roger returning because if would have been difficult for him if it was someone new. Carole Bouquet had done some French films and they really liked her hair and the way it would move. It was easy for John Glen to see the boat sequence because of that hair. She’s one of my favorite Bond girls because she is not like the damsel in distress, but at the same time she’s not an agent. She’s just a fighter wanting to bring an end to the people who killed her parents. There was a time where Julian Glover was considered to play James Bond, but he was too young at the time to play the character. Then when they got around to using him he got old, so they had him play the villain, Aristotle Kristatos, in “For Your Eyes Only”. John Glen described Julian as very sinister on the screen. Producer Albert Broccoli and his wife Dana were at party in London and she saw Topol, best known for the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”, and thought he would be a good choice to play Milos Columbo, the former smuggling partner of Kristatos, now assisting Bond in catching him. It’s amazing because Topol looks big and tall in “Fiddler on the Roof” where as in “For Your Eyes Only” he looks a little shorter and a bit thiner especially without that beard. John Glen had an idea of adding a link to James Bond’s past in the script and that was the marriage from the 1969 Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, one of the worst James Bond films ever made. At the very beginning of “For Your Eyes Only” it shows James Bond visiting his late wife’s grave. John wanted to show that James is still the same character, he has a history and he is still going on. Shooting began on September 2,1980 in the North Sea and then continued on the 15th in Greece where they shot the scene of Melina putting an arrow through the assassin who killed her parents. Three months after production wrapped they found out that one of the pool girls in the background of that scene used to be a man. They couldn’t believe it because she was one of the beauties of that scene. The filmmakers wanted to show that Bond is more relying on his own with the car blowing up after two guys try to break into it. John Glen said back then in New York everyone’s car was being stolen and when the film showed in New York the audience roared and clapped when they saw that scene. They wished that would happen to the people stealing their car. They still wanted to have humor in the film like the car chase scene and James Bond is saying “I love to drive in the country don’t you” while going down hills. They love to throw people and John said there is nothing better than after a thrill then to have a laugh. Humor is one of the important things to have in a Bond film because it helps make it fun to watch next to the action. Topol got an injury during one of the action sequences. They were shooting guns with blanks in them and one of them might have been a real bullet because Topol got hit close to the eye and blood was coming down. He was rushed to the doctor. Colombo’s mistress was played by the late Cassandra Harris and she became a connection, as they say, to James Bond because her husband was Pierce Brosnan who became James Bond fifteen years later. Pierce was very young at that time and would visit the set to see his wife. People would look at him thinking he would make a great Bond, but it wasn’t the right time for him yet, but they kept him in mind for the future. Production moved on to Meteora, a rock formation that have six monasteries on top of them. You can’t get up there by road because there aren’t any. Everything there has been carried up by rope basket. The problem was when they arrived the money to pay the monks for using the location hadn’t arrived and the monks wouldn’t let them film there. To solve the problem a monastery was built somewhere on the rocks where it hadn’t been built before. 
Roger Moore was afraid of heights and he had to do a bit of rock climbing. Roger would calm his fear by drinking in the morning. Roger had a double doing the stuff he couldn’t do like falling off the rock. The stuntman was worried of what would happen when he was falling, but the rope that was tied to him held on and he was really happy that he was still alive. John Glen wanted to add something as his trademark to the rock climbing sequence. It would be like Alfred Hitchcock making appearances is in his movies. John’s trademark was a pigeon and after “For Your Eyes Only” he would add a pigeon to the other Bond films he directed whenever Bond was 400 ft off the ground. Years ago John Glen was at Pinewood Studios and saw one of the technicians. His boy was with him playing with a remote control car. John thought that would be a great idea for the opening sequence where Bond is trapped in a helicopter being controlled by Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Carole Bouquet couldn’t do the underwater sequences because she had a sinus problem. So the question was how they would make her look like she was underwater. They shot the scene of Roger and Carole underwater in a dry soundstage and added some fake coral reefs on it to help make it look like they’re underwater. They also did lighting effects and slow motion photography when they shot it and the bubbles were added during post-production to make it look like the actors were breathing underwater. I am very impressed with that underwater effect because it actually looks like they are underwater. The 2nd unit director believes it fooled a lot of people. It did with me. Other shots were actually shot underwater of Roger and Carloe’s stunt doubles. After the cast and crew celebrated New Years in England production continued in Dolomites, Italy. Lynn-Holy Johnson was cast to play Bibi Dahl and she was a real life skating star. Roger Moore thought she was sweet, but she scared him because he felt a little uncomfortable being seen on screen with a girl who was under 20 at the time just like how James Bond is uncomfortable with Bibi having a crush on him. There are close up shots of Robert skiing next to Lynn-Holy, but he wasn’t really skiing on his own. I don’t know if he knew how to ski, but Roger had to hold onto some kind of sled with someone in front of it who was in charge of controlling it. The ski unit director was Willy Bogner Jr., a German ski champion and filmmaker. Willy Bogner help create the snow sequences for “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and “The Spy Who Loved Me”. Willy would shoot the sequence holding a camera while skiing. The motorbikes had spikes on the wheels to help drive in the snow. Willy had an idea having part of the ski chase sequence going though a bob sled run with a bob in the front, Bond in the middle and the motorcycle in the back. The thing was if Willy was to shoot the bob sled in the scene he would have to keep up the same speed as it because the more weight it has the faster it is. John Glen had an idea of tying Willy to the bob sled and that helped. Next to the boat chase scene in “Live and Let Die”, the ski chase scene is cool to watch. It starts off with Bond doing Ski jumping and once he lands he doesn’t stop, he just keeps on going and going while doing everything he can to avoid the gun shots. It’s also amazing to see a skier and a motorcyclist go through a bob sled run. It takes a professional to do that. Production wrapped shortly after that and “For Your Eyes Only” was released months later becoming another hit to the James Bond franchise. My rating on “For Your Eyes Only” is five out five stars. Song: For Your Eyes Only Artist: Sheena Easton |