Read Shooting 007: And Other Celluloid Adventures Online
Authors: Sir Roger Moore Alec Mills
My sincere thanks go to many who would not understand how they contributed much to my exciting life and occupation; I am forever indebted to them all.
Where else would I start but with the camera department, and the talented cinematographers who guided me on my path, including Harry Waxman, Michael Reed, Jack Cardiff and Alan Hume. And not forgetting the foot soldiers without whom no camera department can properly function; I would like to thank all of the camera crews who have worked with me over the years, in particular Frank Elliott, Michael Frift and Chunky Huse.
To name but a few, the directors who most influenced me include James Collier, Peter Hunt, Roman Polanski and José Quintero, while not forgetting Lewis Gilbert (a wonderful director if also a sadly misguided Arsenal supporter) and John Glen, who both did so much to keep me in the Bond family. Special thanks are also due to Cubby Broccoli, Barbara Broccoli, Michael Wilson and, last but certainly not least, Sir Roger Moore, who so willingly provided the foreword to this book. Perhaps it was to make up for all the evil jokes he pulled on me over the years we worked together?
On the publishing side, my particular thanks go to Stephanie Wenborn, Meg Simmonds and Rosie Moutrie at Eon Productions’ Piccadilly office for their kind assistance with MGM in obtaining the permissions for the Bond photographs contained within the book, and also to Christopher Holm and Sarah Garcia at Lucasfilm. Thanks are also due to Mark Beynon and Christine McMorris, my editors at The History Press, for helping to guide me through the publication process, and also to Gareth Owen and my son Simon for reading and correcting the original manuscript – so if it’s right then I will take the credit and if it’s wrong he can take the blame! I appreciate all their help in allowing my story to hang around a little longer.
Above all, my wife Suzy, who puts up with my silliness in old age, my offspring, Simon and Belinda, who I adore so much, and the many friends and colleagues whose names I easily forget these days, but who all played their part in my story.
My thanks to you all …
1 Located on the Brazilian–Argentine border, the famous Iguazu Falls provided an ideal location for the climax of the speedboat chase along the Iguazu River before Bond unexpectedly escapes with a cunningly concealed hang glider.
2 Filming from Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, before Bond and Holly Goodhead have their next encounter with Jaws. The exteriors were filmed in Rio, with the sequences inside the cable car filmed in the more controlled environment of the studio.
3 Sharing a joke with cinematographer Jean Tournier in the woods near Vaux-le-Vicomte, just before we set the dogs on Corinne Cléry.
4–6 Pre-production sequences for
Moonraker
were filmed over three days during the Rio Carnival in February 1978. The biggest carnival in the world provided a particularly colourful and noisy sequence for the film.
7 Yours truly in Rio with my long time friend and camera assistant Frank Elliott.
8–10 The impressive space station set built for
Moonraker
, this time not at Pinewood but on one of the stages at the Éclair Studios, Épinay-sur-Seine, to the north of Paris. At the time production designer Ken Adam’s sets were allegedly the largest ever built in France.