Ray's behind-the-scenes production

According to the producer's original plan, The Queen's Secret Envoy should be the fifth 007 film after Thunder. However, as The Queen's Secret Envoy needs to be shot in a snowy mountain at high altitude, the producer who is hard to find an ideal location has to shoot Thunder first. Lewis Gilbert refused to direct the film at first, and then producer Albert R. Broccoli urged him: You can't give up this job because James Bond has the largest audience in the world. Gilbert felt the same way, so he changed his mind and decided to take the lead. In addition, it is worth mentioning that roald dahl, who is in charge of the adaptation of this movie script, is a close friend of ian fleming. As a world-renowned writer of children's books, Dahl has never written a play before.

Gilbert, Broccoli, producer Harry Saltzman, art director ken adam and photography director Freddie Young went to Japan and spent three weeks looking for location. They learned that the Japanese never built castles by the sea, so they had to change the seaside headquarters of the Devil's Party into an extinct volcano. The name of this movie actually comes from a poem written by Bond for Tanaka in ian fleming's original work: You only have two lives. When you were born. When you face death. The meaning of the title came true during the five-person trip to Japan. On March 5th, 1966, they are going to return to Britain on the British Overseas Airlines flight 9 1 1. Two hours before the plane took off, several people suddenly received an invitation to watch a ninja performance, so they gave up the trip. Surprisingly, the Boeing 707 disintegrated over Mount Fuji only 25 minutes after take-off, killing all the people on board.

The original editor of this film was Hilma Cornell, Gilbert's old partner. The first abridged version she finished lasted for three hours, and the preview response was extremely poor. Peter R. Hunt immediately edited the film again, which played an important role in the success of the film, and Hunter was successfully promoted to the director of The Queen's Secret Messenger.

"Ray" is different from the James Bond movies that have traveled all over the world before. Almost all the movies are locked in one country, and the exquisite Japanese wedding is described in a few minutes, which is consistent with the fact that the original novel devoted a lot of space to Japanese culture.

As for actors, the producers who urgently need to start shooting are facing serious problems, because sean connery is tired of Bond's role, shooting experience and subsequent publicity activities, and it is difficult for him to transform into other films after playing James Bond for a long time. Salcman and broccoli could have increased Connery's pay in this film, but they began to look for a replacement.

Jan Werich was originally chosen to play Brofield, but when he came to Pine Tree Studio, both producer Broquerie and director Gilbert thought that his image was far from his role, just like a poor and kind Santa Claus. Because Welch was the actor chosen by producer Salcman, Gilbert had to bite the bullet and shoot. A few days later, Broccoli and Gilbert thought that Willich could not show the evil villain image at all, so they replaced him with donald pleasence.

1964, Danba Zhelang starred in The Seventh Dawn directed by Gilbert, and he got the role of Tanaka. The ninja led by Tanaka is played by many martial arts masters, and the Japanese ninja master Chumei Masaaki is the technical consultant of this film. Finding Japanese actresses is a headache for producers because most of them don't understand English. Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama were elected not only because of their beauty, but also because of their English training in Britain.

The film was mainly shot in Japan. Himeji City in hygo Prefecture was used as Tanaka's ninja training camp. His private transportation hub was shot at Nakano Xinqiao Station of Tokyo Metro. The location of Dali Company came from Shingu Hotel in Tokyo, and the hotel park was also used to shoot ninja training scenes. In addition, the crew also filmed fighting scenes in Kagoshima and Kobe ports. A large number of Japanese fans watched the shooting scene. In order to prevent the shooting from being affected, the crew has repeatedly called the police for help. At that time, Connery and his wife were also besieged by the local media, and the producers hired 30 extra security guards to maintain order at the scene. Unexpectedly, these security guards are also taking candid photos, and even a photo of Connery going to the toilet was published in a Tokyo newspaper. Later, a reporter asked if Connery would be attracted to Japanese women, and Connery replied firmly: No!

In the film, Bond's little Nell ultralight helicopter can be described as one of the most classic means of transportation in 007 movies. At first, ken adam, the artistic director, heard about this small plane in a radio interview, and then contacted Ken Wallis, the aircraft manufacturer and commander of the Royal Air Force, and asked him to fly the plane in the film and complete most of the stunts. After modification by the stunt team, the plane was equipped with a flame thrower, a pair of smoke generators, an air-dropped mine, a pair of machine guns with a range of 100 meters and a pair of heat-guided air-to-air missile launchers. Little Nell weighs 1 13kg, has a top speed of 208km/h, can fly continuously for two and a half hours, has a maximum ceiling of 4000m, and can be disassembled and put into four large suitcases. After the film was released, the plane appeared at several air shows. The air combat between Nell Jr. and several helicopter gunships was difficult to film. Wallis flew 8 1 sorties for this purpose, with a total flight time of five hours. Wallis almost collided with the camera several times. When shooting from above the helicopter, photographer John Jordan's leg was cut off by the propeller, and the shooting stopped immediately. Because the Japanese government did not allow filming of the plane explosion over the national park, the crew had to go to Torre Molinos, Spain, where the terrain was similar to that of Japan.

The Toyota 2000GT sports cars appearing in the film are produced from 1967 to 1970, and the number is very limited, only about 35 1. The open version of the film is specially made for this film, with three cars. Toyota made the 2000GT participate in many domestic competitions, 1966 became the third place in the Japanese Grand Prix, and 1967 won the Fuji 24 Hours Endurance Race. In addition, this sports car also set a number of speed and endurance records in the 72-hour test. The remaining 2000GT is very expensive.

The devil's party launch base was set up in the pine forest studio, with a total cost of $6.5438+0 million, including the helicopter airport and monorail. The whole scenery is as high as 45 meters, and the locals can see it 5 kilometers away.

1967 June 12, the ancient premiere was held in Leicester Square Theatre, and Queen Elizabeth II attended the premiere of 007 film for the first time. The American box office of the film reached 43 million dollars, and the global box office exceeded 654.38+000,654.38+065,438+000,000. In the list of 007 movies selected by Entertainment Weekly, this movie ranked second and became a recognized success in 007 movies.