**YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SPOILERTOWN**
Plot: Steal two nuclear bombs from NATO with a body double switcheroo and ransom the West for $100M pounds.
Foiled by: Bond finds the missing plane, proves to Domino that Largo killed her brother, gets some intel on where the bombs are and calls in the cavalry for an epic scuba fight.
Intriguing Setting(s): The Bahamas | No. 2’s house complete with shark pool!
Bond: Sean Connery
Villain(s):
- No. 1 (Blofeld, though again, you never see his face)
- No 2. – Emilio Largo
Bond Girl(s):
- Domino Derval – Largo’s mistress and sister of the murdered, impersonated NATO pilot; played by former Miss France Claudine Auger
- Fiona Volpe – Hands down my all time favorite baddie Bond Girl
- Patricia Fearing – the very handsy masseuse at the health spa
HL’s Hot Take: Some of the most beautiful Bond Girls of all time, great villainy and a decent plot.
Head Librarian Rank: 7/24
Critical Rank: 6/24
TRIVIA SECTION!
Odds & Ends:
- Thunderball is the name of the rescue operation.
- This was meant to be the first Bond filmed (and then the second, then the third…) but a court case was tied up for years over authorship of the source material.
- First time multiple 00 agents are assembled for a briefing, for some reason in a room with a GIGANTIC window to the street outside
6 Degrees Cameos: Anthony Dawson (uncredited as No. 1) is in Dial M for Murder with Grace Kelly
Gadgets: Jet pack getaway!
Cars: Aston Martin DB5
Awards: Oscar Winner! – Best Visual Effects making for back to back Bond wins
Release Order: 4/25 (1965)
Concise write-up on the legal battle of the film from jamesbond.fandom.com/wiki:
Originally meant as the first James Bond film, Thunderball was the centre of legal disputes that began in 1961 and did not conclude until 2013. Former Ian Fleming collaborators Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham sued Fleming shortly after the 1961 publication of the Thunderball novel, claiming he based it upon the screenplay the trio had earlier written in a failed cinematic translation of James Bond. The lawsuit was settled out of court; McClory retained certain screen rights to the novel’s story, plot, and characters. By then, James Bond was a box office success, and series producers Broccoli and Saltzman feared a rival McClory film beyond their control; they agreed to McClory’s producer’s credit of a cinematic Thunderball, with them as executive producers.
It was promoted as “Ian Fleming’s Thunderball“. Yet, along with the official credits to screenwriters Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, the screenplay is also identified as based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham and as based on the original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming. To date, the novel has twice been adapted cinematically; the 1983, McClory-produced Never Say Never Again, features Sean Connery as James Bond, but is not an EON production.
In November 2013 the McClory estate finally reached a settlement with MGM and EON productions, transferring all rights to Thunderball, S.P.E.C.T.R.E., and the character of Blofeld back to EON.